The Century of Columbus Part 4

When the execution of the tomb was put off Michelangelo was summoned to paint the vault of the Sistine Chapel. It is said that he owed this commission to the jealousy of rivals who hoped to discredit him. The Sistine Chapel is a most difficult room for effective decoration, since it is simply an oblong box with a low-vaulted ceiling. It was this ceiling that Michelangelo was supposed to decorate in fresco. He {38} refused at first to accept the commission, saying that he was no fresco painter, but the Pope insisted. For over three years, except when eating and sleeping, he was hidden behind the scaffolding, lying on his back most of the time painting above him, so that he could not read without placing his book above his head after a while. When the scaffold was taken down, the triumphant manifestation of his genius revealed one of the most superb monuments of art that the world possesses.

As Grimm says, "If a man wants to get an idea of the art of Giotto and his pupils, architecture and painting together, he must go to the Campo Santo at Pisa; if he wants the masterpiece of the following art period, the extensive development that lies between Masaccio and Michelangelo, he must go to the Sistine Chapel."

Fortunately for the after-time it is one of the few great decorative works of this time that can be studied as the artist left it, or at least without having to make allowance for the well-meant additions of restorers. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel has been sadly injured by smoke and by water percolation from the roof and it has faded somewhat with time under the conditions of use of the chapel, but it has been spared from the misguided efforts of men by its position. A great Pope is said to have said, "There are two ways of ruining a work of art, by destruction and by restoration." He might well have added, especially in the light of what has happened even in the Vatican to Raphael and others, "and of the two the latter is the worse." From this Michelangelo's great work has happily been saved, and as a result it remains even in its damaged condition one of the acknowledged triumphs of human art, undoubtedly the greatest decorative work that has ever been done since the time of the Greeks.

Some of Michelangelo's greatest work was done for the Julian tomb, and the triumph of his genius at this time is the "Moses," which was to have been one of four prophets that were to have found a place on the monument. It would not be difficult to collect some of the most effusive expressions of artistic enthusiasm over the "Moses." Men who are themselves great sculptors have declared that it is the triumph of man's power over marble. It is extremely difficult, artists have {39} declared, to give a work in marble a decided facial expression, yet Michelangelo succeeded in doing it in the "Moses," but, as has also been said, every portion of the statue partakes of this wonderful power that he had of making it profoundly expressive. Men whose opinions are valuable because of their own significant work have been unstinted in their praise of the now famous knee of the statue and the wonderful way in which the foot of the right leg rests upon the ground. All these are but details, however. One must have seen the statue many times and have had its meaning in every part grow by repet.i.tion of impression, and then something of the wonderful genius of its sculptor comes home to the beholder. We cannot but regret that Michelangelo was not permitted in peace to finish the great tomb as he had planned it, for with the "Moses" as an example we would surely have had in it the greatest triumph of modern genius in sculpture, if not indeed of all time.

This is probably one of the most striking figures ever made. It has made the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli, in which it is, a place of pilgrimage for artists from all over the world, and for all those interested in art ever since. Michelangelo has taken the moment when Moses, descending from the Mount with the tables of the law in his hands, sees before him the procession of the Golden Calf. In Exodus it is said, "he waxed hot with wrath." Moses has just come from communion with the Most High, and his wrath is tempered and sublimated by religious enthusiasm and by the majesty which the consciousness of his high mission imparts to him. Every portion of the statue breathes with the wrath of justice, yet with the sublime feeling of the awfulness of the crime that has just been committed against the Most High and that His servant must pitilessly condemn.

And yet, had the artist been allowed to work on uninterrupted at the Julian tomb, we might have missed some or all of the great work that he accomplished under the direction of the Medici Popes in Florence.

While the "Moses" is looked upon as the finest expression of his powers in mature years, as the "David" is of his younger life, there are good critics who have not hesitated to say that Michelangelo's most {40} interesting work is to be found in the series of statues the very consummation of the sculptor's skill which are in the sacristy of San Lorenzo. There are four allegorical figures, "Dawn and Twilight,"

"Day and Night," which recall the princ.i.p.al phases and the rapid course of man's destiny, in which Michelangelo has expressed in imperishable marble his thoughts with regard to life and its significance. There are, besides, two statues of the "Medici," one, that of "Lorenzo"--not the great Lorenzo, but his son--and the other, "Giuliano," the younger son of il Magnifico. So little are these considered, however, now as portrait statues of the Medici that one of them is known as _il pensiero_, the thinker, and its fellow is likewise thought of as expressing an ideal rather than a person.

Michelangelo himself had said that in a hundred years no one would care whom these statues represented, so looking through the temporal with a great artist's vision they became in his hands symbols of immortal moods of humanity.

Michelangelo's crowning work of a great lifetime came in his later years when he devoted himself to architecture. In this department of art he was as great as in any other and probably greater than anyone who had ever preceded him. Some of his smaller works, as the "Porta del Popolo" and the twin churches near it, are admirable in themselves, yet simple and admirably suited to their surroundings.

Millet once said that the essence of beauty in art consists in the adaptation of truth so as to suit the conditions. The triumph of Michelangelo's architecture came in the great dome of St. Peter's. As the great basilica was unfortunately finished in the after-time, no proper conception of this can be obtained from the plaza of St.

Peter's. Close up only from the roof of the great Church itself does one get a true idea of its marvellous beauty and stupendous size. It was intended, of course, to be seen from a long distance, and when thus seen it stands out with wondrous effectiveness. In the old days, when men came in carriages over the mountains to Rome, the Dome of St.

Peter's was the first thing to be seen from twenty miles away, and, thus seen, profoundly impressed the beholder. From Tivoli, for instance, when nothing else is visible above the horizon except Michelangelo's mighty dome, and all of Rome, {41} even on her seven hills, is lost to sight, its stupendous size and wondrous charm can be properly appreciated. It then appeals to the beholder not as a work of man, but seems more like some great natural wonder from the hand of the Creator Himself.

How Michelangelo succeeded in building it with the materials that he had at hand, with the a.s.sistance--material and personal--that he could command, and in spite of all the obstacles that were placed in his path, the misunderstandings, the jealousies, the petty rivalries of smaller artists, is indeed a wonder. Some of his biographers have been astonished that he should have known enough of mathematics to be able to plan and construct it properly. They frankly confess that he had no opportunity as a young man to make the mathematical studies necessary for such work and apparently forget that whenever Michelangelo would do anything he somehow found in himself the power to accomplish his purpose with absolute thoroughness. He had set out to put the Pantheon above St. Peter's tomb, and he succeeded in his ambition, for the great dome, though it does not begin to curve into a dome until it is more than a hundred feet above the pavement, is somewhat larger in diameter than the great vault of the Pantheon, the triumph of Roman power to build, which had been hailed as one of the wonders of the world.

One further phase of Michelangelo's accomplishment must be mentioned.

This greatest of sculptors, boldest and most successful of architects and finest of decorative painters, was also one of the greatest of poets. "Four-souled" is the apt epithet that has been coined to express this versatility. It has been said that only Dante and Shakespeare have equalled him in the writing of sonnets, and there is no doubt at all that he is one of the most important contributors to Italian literature, even in the glorious Age of Leo X. Addington Symonds declared his sonnets to be the rough-hewn blocking out of poems rather than finished works of art, and the great Italian critic, Bembo, declared "he says _things_, while other poets say words." His friend and biographer, Condivi, said, "he devoted himself to poetry rather for his own delight than because he made a profession of it, always depreciating himself and accusing his {42} ignorance." His poems were scribbled on the backs of old letters or drawings or other papers that chanced to be around, and only occasionally copied and sent off to his friends. Although often urged by his friends, he would never consent to make any collection of his poems during his lifetime.

Many of them were faithfully preserved, however, and of some of them the various readings and corrections show that his artistic sense would not allow him to let things go from him without, to some extent at least, giving them a form worthy of the thought.

Nowhere can one find the character of Michelangelo better expressed than in his sonnets, and there is a deep religious vein in them which reveals the profound belief of this greatest of men in all the great truths of Christianity and his sense of personal devotion to the Creator and his dependence on Him and the necessity for doing everything for Him that is extremely refreshing. For Michelangelo this was the solution of the mystery of life.

Perhaps the best idea of his sonnets can be obtained from his lines on Dante. It had come to be the custom during the Renaissance to think that the only literature worth while thinking about was the cla.s.sical, and above all Greek, and that the Middle Ages had produced nothing of significance in art or letters. Even Dante was not thought to be a great exception to this rule, though it was admitted that he stood far above his contemporaries. The word Gothic, as applied to the architecture, the art and the literature of these rude ancestors, the descendants of the Gothic barbarians, was invented by the critics of the Renaissance to express to the full their contempt for the products of the earlier period. Michelangelo had no illusions with regard to comparative values. Above all he recognized the surpa.s.sing character of Dante's poetry. His sonnet tells the rest and sympathetically insists that he would have been willing to have borne even Dante's years of suffering and exile to produce such marvellous poetry.

"Into the dark abyss he made his way; Both nether worlds he saw, and in the might Of his great soul beheld G.o.d's splendor bright, And gave to us on earth true light of day: Star of supremest worth with his clear ray, Heaven's secrets he revealed to our dim sight, And had for guerdon what the base world's spite Oft gives to souls that n.o.blest grace display, Full ill was Dante's life work understood, His purpose high by that ungrateful state.

That welcomed all with kindness but the good.

Would I were such, to bear like evil fate.

To taste his exile, share his lofty mood!

For this I'd gladly give all earth calls great."

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The bitter rivalries and jealousies that surrounded him have sometimes produced the impression that Michelangelo must himself have been of a carping disposition, not ready to acknowledge the merits of other artists, though it is felt in extenuation, as it were, that in this he only shared the spirit of the time. Any such impression would be quite unjustified by what we know of Michelangelo. His admiration for the ancients was unbounded. It was he who, when they were first excavated, stepped up to the horses that are now on the Capitoline in Rome, and patting one of them on the back said "get up," as if they seemed to him so true to life that they ought to walk off. A single paragraph from the sketch of Michelangelo in the Artists' Biographies [Footnote 3] will show how thoroughly he appreciated some of his immediate predecessors:

[Footnote 3: Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1878.]

"Angelo was a great admirer of the three famous Florentine artists who had preceded him. Of Ghiberti's 'Gates to the Baptistry,' he said, 'They are so beautiful that they are worthy of being the gates of Paradise.' Standing before Donatello's statue of St. Mark, he cried out, 'Mark, why don't you speak to me?' and on another occasion he said, 'If St. Mark looked thus we may safely believe what he has written.' When he was advised to vary the lantern on the Medici Chapel from that which Brunelleschi had built on the old sacristy of San Lorenzo, he remarked, 'It may be varied, but not improved.' Of other artists he spoke no less pleasantly, saying of Gentile da Fabriano that his name corresponded with the grace of his {44} style; and of Cesari's medals, that 'art has reached its last hour, for beyond this it cannot go.'"

If there ever was a man who had a right to pride himself a little on his powers and his achievements, surely it was Michelangelo. He had succeeded in bodying forth thoughts too deep for words in every mode of human expression, even making words serve his purpose greatly though inadequately; men of genius had so admired his work and been influenced by it that all during life he had that sincerest of flattery, imitation, from men who themselves were among the notable geniuses of his generation, yet it was he who, in his sonnet towards the end of his life, begged pardon of his G.o.d if he had ever used his powers as if they were his own and not for the glory of the Creator who had given them. We have any number of stories of his patient study of art and architecture, even until the end of his life. Once Cardinal Farnese met him, when he was past sixty, in solitary contemplation amid the ruins of the Coliseum. To his question as to why he was there and alone, Angelo replied, "I am still at school taking my lessons so that I may continue to learn." He once drew a picture of an old man, somewhat resembling himself, seated in a child's carriage with the motto, "I still learn."

His anatomical studies begun in his early youth at Florence were never given up, and when other subjects were lacking he dissected domestic animals and above all welcomed the opportunity to dissect several horses. Durer in Germany and Da Vinci in Italy had been faithful dissectors, and Michelangelo kept up the tradition.

The personality of this greatest of geniuses that the world has ever known can scarcely fail to be interesting. Michelangelo is the true type of one of the greatest periods of human history, and as such every detail of his life appeals to men. Like many great geniuses, Michelangelo was what is called a handy man, that is, one who could fashion implements and objects skilfully with his hands. It is said that all through his life he preferred not to entrust the making of the implements of his art to any other hand. He used to make his own chisels, files, and piercers and to mix his own colors. Even to an advanced age he continued to use the chisel for himself and was {45}ever famous for his audacious skilfulness with it. At the age of sixty he is described as bringing down more scales from a very high block of marble in a short time than three young marble-cutters could in three or four times that s.p.a.ce. With a single blow, Vigenero described him as bringing down scales of marble three or four inches in breadth and with such precision to the line that if he had broken away, even a very little more, he risked the ruin of his work.

How lonely he was in the midst of all his great work, and how many material difficulties there were to weigh on his spirit and keep him from intoxication with that joy of the artist in accomplishment, which might even have hurt the work or at least the striving of even so great an artist as he, can be very well understood through quotations from some letters to his father, in which, not querulously, but as if needing someone as a confidant, he pours out his inmost feelings:

"I stand here in intense anxiety and with the greatest fatigue of body. I have no friends of any sort, nor do I wish any; and I have not time enough to eat what is needful. Let no more annoyances be added to me, for I cannot bear another ounce." In the summer of 1508 he wrote, "I am sick at heart, ill, and worn out with fatigue, helpless and penniless." A year later he wrote again: "The Pope has not given me a groat for a year; and I do not ask for it, for I feel that I have not merited it, and this because painting is not the sort of work which is my profession. And yet I waste my time without fruits--G.o.d help me!"

Michelangelo's views with regard to matrimony are well known. To a priest who asked him one day why he never married he said, "I have a wife who is too much for me already; one who unceasingly persecutes me. It is my art; and my works are my children." And yet his tenderness of soul and his affection for children was not eclipsed by his absorption in his art, for Grimm tells the story of a child stopping him on the street and asking him to make a drawing, and the artist took the sheet of paper offered him and fulfilled the wish.

When Michelangelo was an old man of seventy-five, however, he was ready to give advice to his grandnephew Leonardo in the matter of marriage. That advice is interesting {46} from a good many standpoints, but especially because Michelangelo thought that the choice of a wife was something to pray and ask for special aid from on High about:

"Leonardo, I wrote thee about taking a wife, and told thee of three girls which have been here mentioned to me. ... I do not know any of them, and cannot say either good or evil of them, nor advise you about one more than the other. ... Giov. Francesco might give you good advice; he is old and knows the world. [Michelangelo himself was seventy-five years young at this time.] Remember me to him.

Above all, seek the counsel of G.o.d, for it is a great step. Remember that the husband should be at least ten years older than the wife, and that she should be healthy." Again he wrote, "Leonardo, I sent thee in my last a note as to marriageable girls, which had been sent me from Florence. ... Thou needst a wife to a.s.sociate with, and whom thou canst rule, and who will not care about pomps, and run about every day to parties and marriages. It is easy for a woman to go wrong who does these things. Nor is it to be said by anyone that thou wishest to enn.o.ble thyself by marriage, for it is well known that we are as ancient and n.o.ble citizens of Florence as those of any other house. Recommend thyself to G.o.d and He may aid thee."

[Footnote 4]

[Footnote 4: It may be interesting to know that the grand-nephew did take a wife, one of those recommended by his grand-uncle, and that Michelangelo dictated the names of the children, often went to see them, loaded them with presents and was their mother's best friend and confidant.]

The great artist did not escape the disturbing cares of family life by his bachelorhood, however, for it became the custom of his brothers to turn to him for aid whenever there was trouble. His family had objected to his becoming a sculptor because it was beneath the dignity of their n.o.bility, but now that he was successful they were quite willing to use his money freely. He had a scapegrace younger brother who was particularly a thorn in his side, ever getting into trouble and being helped out, above all constantly demanding money.

Michelangelo once wrote to him while he was at work on the great ceiling of the Sistine.

"If you take care to do well, and to honor and revere your {47} father, I will aid you like the others, and will soon establish you in a good shop. ... I have gone about throughout all Italy for twelve years, leading a dog's life, bearing all manner of insults, enduring all sorts of drudgery, lacerating my body with many toils, placing my life itself under a thousand perils solely to aid my family, and now that I have commenced to raise it up a little, thou alone wishest to do that which shall confound and ruin in an hour everything that I have done in so many years and with so many fatigues."

Michelangelo's letters of consolation to his brother's (Leonardo's) daughter, who was delicate and ailing, show how tender were his family affections. He has sometimes been pictured as the self-centred bachelor, occupied only with his art. Any such picture of him is but one of the many one-sided false impressions of these geniuses of the Renaissance, all of whom, when known intimately, prove to be whole-hearted human beings with all the human interests deeply developed.

One of the most interesting incidents in Michelangelo's life is his a.s.sociation with Vittoria Colonna. This is one of the most charming episodes of platonic friendship with wonderful mutual influence for good chronicled in history. Vittoria was an inspiration to Michelangelo in his work, and his tributes to her are full of the loftiest admiration and almost saintlike worship. On the other hand, no one could have held a higher place in the esteem of Vittoria than Michelangelo. She had suggested the subjects for certain pictures and Michelangelo painted them. She wrote in thankfulness and said with regard to one of them:

"I had the greatest faith in G.o.d, that He would give you a supernatural grace to paint this 'Christ'; then I saw it, so wonderful that it surpa.s.sed in every way my expectations. Being emboldened by your miracles, I desired that which I now see marvellously fulfilled--that is, that it should stand in every part in the highest perfection, and that one could not desire more nor reach forward to desire so much. And I tell you that it gave me joy that the angel on the right hand is so beautiful; for the Archangel Michael will place you, Michelangelo, on the right hand of the Lord at the Judgment Day. And, meanwhile, I know not how to serve you otherwise than to {48} pray to this sweet 'Christ,' Whom you have so well and perfectly painted, and to entreat you to command me as altogether yours in all and through all."

This friendship of Michelangelo and Vittoria has become so celebrated that to many it may seem that time has woven a romantic halo around it, far transcending the reality. Only a little study of contemporary doc.u.ments, however, is needed to show that the facts are interesting beyond even the stories that are told. Modern biographers have enriched the tradition with many details, and Grimm has given a most beautiful picture of this most famous of friendships between man and woman which reflects so much honor on both the partic.i.p.ants. Nothing that I know contradicts so many false notions as to the Renaissance that are widely disseminated and that are only too often taken as a criterion of modes of thinking and of conduct in this period. All the so-called Pagan tendencies of the Renaissance are contradicted by it.

Condivi, Angelo's pupil, who wrote about his master during his master's lifetime and who was intimately a.s.sociated with him for many years, pays an affectionate tribute to Michelangelo's purity of mind and speech. The great master was a model of magnanimity, and Condivi says:

"I have often heard him speak about love; and others who have listened to him on this subject will bear me out in saying that the only love of which he spoke was the kind which is spoken of in Plato's works. For my part I do not know what Plato says, but one thing I, who have lived with him so long and so intimately, can a.s.sert, that I have never heard any but the purest words issue from his mouth."

He was one of the most abstemious of men. He literally thought nothing about creature comforts. Often he would take a piece of bread in his hand while at his work and that would be all during the course of a long day. His meals were likely to be irregular, and he paid very little attention to them. As for his sleep, he was noted even among the strenuous livers of his time for his ability to work without sleep and for the small amount that he took. When he was deeply interested in some work he would lie down in his clothes, and after a few hours get up to work again. The surprise is that he should {49} have lived to the age of nearly ninety under such living conditions, but work never kills, and if the original vitality is extensive men live on to the limit of existence much better by consuming their energy than by allowing it to react within them, as it so often does. Some repentant expressions of his had been taken to indicate, be it said by modern writers, never by his contemporaries, that he was of a pa.s.sionate nature and had given rein to his impulses in youth. Except these words of repentance, however, which are rather conventional in his time and indicate a falling below ideals rather than actual serious faults, we have absolutely no evidence. On the other hand, we have some expressions of his which indicate how much difficulty he found in curbing his pa.s.sions in youth and how glad he is that he used the effort, since it saved him from regrets in after life.

The thought of death was a favorite one with him, and he seems frequently to have dwelt on it and to have considered that there was no thought that was better for a man. Not only did it prove chastening, but above all it helped a man to eliminate the quest of the trivial and the merely selfish in life. He held the thought of death as the only consideration that makes us know ourselves and saves us from becoming a prey to kindred, friends or masters, to ambition, and to the other vices and sins which rob a man of himself. That was his main purpose in life, to live it for accomplishment and not merely for the trifles which easily satisfy so many men. Whenever he was tempted to permit himself to derogate from his highest aims in life for the sake of the distinction of the moment, the thought of death was sobering, and the time when the darkness cometh and no man can labor brought him back to his best work, no matter what the difficulties might be in doing it.

Angelo's relation to religion is all the more interesting because it is often said that the great men of the Renaissance, because of their profound study of pagan antiquity, had become touched with paganism.

There is not a trace of this in Michelangelo, however, and surely he must be considered as the typical great man of the Renaissance. All his life he had thought of his relation to his Creator and of the necessity for accomplishing work, not for himself alone nor for selfish {50} purposes, but with great aims that would be worthy of the talents that had been given him. Once, when he was having great difficulties because of opposition to his plans and interference with designs that he felt must be carried out, he said to Pope Paul III, "Holy Father, you see what I gain; if these fatigues which I endure do not benefit my soul I lose both time and labor." The Pope, with whom Michelangelo was a great favorite and who loved above all his sincere, straightforward simplicity and his deep feeling of religion, laid his hands paternally on the great artist's shoulders and said, "Have no doubt. You are benefiting both soul and body."

Toward the end of his life his mind became more and more occupied with religious thoughts, and there was a charmingly simple piety that he cultivated. This had been expressed often before in his great works of art, both paintings and sculptures, and still more clearly in his sonnets. Some seem to think that an artist, because of his occupation, may express beautiful thoughts on religious subjects, even though he does not feel them. Somehow it is supposed to be the artist's business to work himself into such moods and then express them, as if it were possible to express greatly in art, what one does not really feel.

Most people, however, seem to think that formal expression in _words_ must mean more in such matters, and for them Michelangelo's sonnets will doubtless be proofs of his absolute sincerity in religious matters. Towards the end of his life most of his poetry is deeply religious in character. He sent two sonnets to Vasari when he was about seventy-five, as he told the biographer "that you may see where I keep my thoughts." A more lofty expression of Christian humility and the spirit of prayerfulness has perhaps never been made. One of them, because it expresses his recognition of the fact that the trifles of the world had carried even him away, that _fascinatio nugacitatis quae obscurat bona_ of the Scriptures, is worth quoting as a summation of his religious life and feelings:

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"The fables of the world have filched away The time I had for thinking upon G.o.d; His grace lies buried 'neath oblivion's sod, Whence springs an evil crop of sins alway.

What makes another wise, leads me astray, Slow to discern the bad path I have trod: Hope fades, but still desire ascends that G.o.d May free from self-love, my sure decay.

Shorten half-way my road to heaven from earth!

Dear Lord, I cannot even half-way rise Unless Thou help me on this pilgrimage.

Teach me to hate the world so little worth.

And all the lovely things I clasp and prize.

That endless life, ere death, may be my wage."