THE ALMIGHTY CREATING THE SUN AND THE MOON Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512).THE ALMIGHTY CREATING THE SUN AND THE MOONCeiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512).
{31}
"That was not the only reason for my leaving. There was still another which I would rather not speak about. It is enough to say that it made me think that if I stayed in Rome that town would more likely be my tomb than that of the pope. And that was the reason for my sudden departure."
Nothing justifies us in believing that Bramante had thought of having recourse to a crime, but it was enough that Michelangelo believed him to be capable of it and, in one of those accesses of sudden terror which contrast so strangely with the stubborn boldness of his genius, he ran away. Moreover, Bramante understood perfectly how to terrorise his rivals and to make life near him impossible for them. Only a little while after Michelangelo Giuliano da San Gallo, who was Bramante's last rival at St. Peter's, also had to flee.
There was, however, still another reason for the sudden departure of Michelangelo, and though he himself has taken good care to say nothing about it, I am surprised that the historians have not brought it out more clearly. Michelangelo fled on the seventeenth of April, 1506. On the eighteenth of April there took place the solemn ceremony of the laying of the first stone of St. Peter's. This is the true reason for his sudden withdrawal; he did not want to be present at the triumph of his enemy.{32}
He had hardly left before Bramante so arranged matters that he could not come back. He ruined his work and his fortunes.
"That affair," writes Michelangelo, "caused me a loss of more than a thousand ducats. When I left Rome there arose a great riot because of the shame put upon the pope, and almost all the blocks of marble which I had on the square of St. Peter's were taken from me, especially the smaller pieces, which made it necessary for me later on to begin the whole work over again."
Nevertheless Julius II was furious at the revolt of his sculptor and sent letter after letter to the Signory of Florence where Michelangelo had betaken himself. The Signory, anxious not to compromise themselves, tried to persuade Michelangelo to take once more the road to Rome, but he would do nothing of the kind. He had tranquilly taken up his work on the cartoon of The Battle, the Twelve Apostles for the cathedral and the Madonna of Bruges, and he stubbornly persisted in his unwillingness to return. He proposed his own terms and pretended to be working on the tomb of Julius II at Florence. When, toward the end of August, 1506, Julius II went to war with Perugia and Bologna and grew more importunate in his demands Michelangelo had the idea of expatriating{33}himself. He thought of going to Turkey, where the Sultan, through the Franciscans, invited him to come to Constantinople and build a bridge at Pera.[25]
In the end he had to give in, and in the latter part of November, 1506, he went, much against his will, to Bologna, where Julius II had just entered the town as a conqueror. There took place that famous interview when the pope, angry and scolding, divided between the desire of punishing the rebel and the fear of losing the artist whom he valued, poured out his wrath on an unlucky bishop who was present, and forgave Michelangelo.
Unfortunately, Michelangelo in order to make his peace with the pope, had to submit to his caprices and to that all-powerful will which had now turned in a new direction. It was no longer a question of the tomb, but of a colossal bronze statue which Julius wished to have raised to himself in Bologna.
In vain Michelangelo protested that he understood nothing about the casting of bronze. He had two assistants, Lopo and Lodovico, come from Florence, and a foundryman, Bernadino d'Antonio dal Ponte. But he could never get along with any assistant.{34}He fell out with Lodovico and Lopo, who stole from him; then the foundryman turned out to be incapable and in June, 1507, the casting failed.
"The figure came out only as far down as the waist. Everything had to be done over again."
Fifteen months were spent in the midst of all kinds of troubles and mortifications. Michelangelo was busy with his work until February, 1508. He nearly ruined his health over it, and he wrote to his brother that he would never be in condition to make such an effort again during his life. For so great a struggle, the result was miserable. The statue of Julius II, raised on February 21, 1508, in front of the façade of S. Petronio remained there only four years.[26]In December, 1511, it was destroyed on the return of the Bentivogli, and Alphonso d'Este had his bombardier Quirino cast a cannon from its fragments.
Michelangelo returned to Rome and Julius II laid upon him another task not less unexpected and not less hazardous. He ordered the sculptor, who never painted except with reluctance and who knew nothing of the technique of fresco, to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He had already talked with him about it before the rupture in 1506 and the disinclination{35}of Michelangelo for this work had something to do with his flight to Florence. This may be inferred from the letter of a friend of Michelangelo written in May, 1506, which shows that Bramante, satisfied by the withdrawal of his rival, justified him for refusing the burden of this heavy undertaking.
"Last Saturday evening," writes Pietro Rosselli, "when the pope was supping, he called Bramante and said, 'San Gallo is going tomorrow to Florence and he will bring back Michelangelo.' Bramante answered, 'Holy Father, Michelangelo will do nothing of the kind. I have talked a great deal with him and he has often said to me that he would not undertake the chapel which you wished to entrust to him. He asks to be allowed with your permission to devote himself entirely to sculpture, for he wants to have nothing to do with painting.' He added, 'Holy Father, I do not think he has the courage to undertake the work, for he has had little experience in the painting of figures, and these must be painted on the ceiling and foreshortened, which is very different from painting on the ground.' The pope answered, 'If he does not come he will be treating me badly, and for that reason I think he will return.' I threw myself into the conversation and there in the pope's presence replied properly to that fellow{36}and spoke for you as you would surely have spoken for me. Bramante remained silent, realising that he had made a mistake in saying what he had. I went on in these words: 'Holy Father, that man has never exchanged a word with Michelangelo, and if what he says is true you can cut my head off. He has never talked with him, and I am sure that Michelangelo will come back if Your Holiness wishes it.'" When Michelangelo returned Bramante changed his tactics. As Michelangelo's friends had imprudently asserted that he could accomplish this task for which, as Bramante knew better than any one else, he was entirely unprepared, Bramante pretended to believe this and forced his rival into a position where he had to accept the commission. A failure would have been particularly serious to Michelangelo just then since in that same year, 1508, Raphael began his incomparable painting of the Stanze and Michelangelo had either to surpass him or be entirely eclipsed. This at least is what Condivi asserts.
THE CREATION OF MAN Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512).THE CREATION OF MANCeiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512).
Bramante and his other rivals suggested to the pope to make Michelangelo paint the ceiling of the chapel of Pope Sixtus IV by persuading him that he would do marvels there. They did him this service maliciously to distract the pope from any plan for sculpture and because they thought that Michelangelo would either refuse the commission{37}and quarrel with the pope or that he would accept it and be less successful than Raphael, for they considered that Michelangelo's talent was for sculpture, which indeed was true. Michelangelo, who until then had not worked in colours and who knew how difficult it is to paint a ceiling, tried in every way to extricate himself. He proposed Raphael in his place and gave as an excuse that this was not his art and that he could not succeed in it, and went so far in his attempts at refusal that the pope began to grow angry and showed such obstinate determination that Michelangelo decided to undertake the work.
The tremendous task began on May 10, 1508. The first plan was simply to represent the figures of the twelve apostles in the lunettes and to fill the rest of the space with an ornamental decoration. Bramante raised a scaffolding in the chapel and several painters who had had practical experience in fresco painting were brought from Florence. We have already said that Michelangelo could only work alone. He began by declaring that Bramante's scaffolding was of no use and replaced it with one of his own invention. As for the Florentine painters who Francesco Granacci had recruited for him, Giuliano Bugiardini, Jacopo di Sandro, the elder Indaco, and Agnolo di Donnino, he took a dislike{38}like to them and sent them away. He remained alone, shut up in the chapel with a few workmen, like Giovanni Michi, and far from allowing the great difficulty of the undertaking to dampen his courage he enlarged his plan and decided to paint not only the ceiling, but the walls of the chapel down to the old frescoes.
It is dangerous to attempt to describe the "Last Judgment"; it is indeed impossible. Analyses and commentaries have been multiplied, but they kill the spirit by taking it in detail. We must face the vision squarely and lose ourselves in the abyss of that spirit. It is terrifying and, if regarded calmly, incomprehensible—it must be hated or adored. It stifles and excites; there is no nature, no landscape, no atmosphere, no tenderness, almost nothing human; the symbolism of a primitive and the science of a decadent; an architecture of naked convulsed bodies; a barren, savage and devouring thought, like a south wind over a sandy desert. There is no corner of shade, no spring to slake the thirst; it is a whirling spout of fire, the vertigo of a delirious emotion, with no goal except the God in which it loses itself. The whole calls on God, fears Him and proclaims Him. A whirlwind blows across this throng of giants—the same whirlwind which sweeps through space the God who has created the sun and{39}hurled it like a ball of fire into the ether. There is no escape from the groaning of the tempest which surrounds and deafens you. Either you must hate this brutal force or abandon yourself to it without resistance like those souls of Dante whirled along by an eternal cyclone. When we realise that that hell was for four years the very soul of Michelangelo we understand why his life was burnt out by it and why for a long time afterward he remained like a soil exhausted by too much use and no longer productive. Above that ceiling and those vaults built up of huge bodies, where tumultuous confusion and powerful unity combine to evoke the monstrous dream of a Hindu and the imperious logic and iron will of ancient Rome, there blooms a beauty that is natural and pure. There has never been anything like it. It is at once both bestial and divine, the exquisite perfume of Hellenic grace mingles with the savage odour of primitive humanity. These giants with their Olympian shoulders and huge thighs and loins wherein we feel, as the sculptor Guillaume said, "the weight of heavy entrails" are as yet hardly free from their double origin, their two progenitors, the beast and the god. A series of drawings at Oxford University shows in what springs of realism the genius of Michelangelo bathed itself and of what common clay his heroes are moulded.{40}
THE PROPHET EZEKIEL Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.THE PROPHET EZEKIELCeiling of the Sistine Chapel.
On the flat part of the vault, in the centre, are the nine scenes from Genesis, Æschylean visions:[27]the divine solitude, the dreadful moment of the creation, the athletic god carried by clouds of spirits, man just rousing from the sleep of earth and regarding as an equal, face to face, the God who awakes him—both in silent readiness for the{41}struggle—the calm and powerful woman in whom sleeps humanity—those human frames like temples of flesh and blood, torsos like trunks of trees, arms like columns and great thighs; those beings great with power and passion and crime and the results and punishments of their crimes—the Temptation, Cain and the Deluge.
At the angles of the cornice which frames these scenes are the twenty savage Ignudi, living statues, either struggling in convulsions of fear and fury or falling back, overwhelmed and exhausted—a symphony of mad force which sweeps in every direction and beats against the walls.
As gigantic supporters of the ceilings are seated in the pendentives twelve prophets and sibyls who suffer and dream; disdainful Lybica; Persica, purblind and restless; Cumæa, with huge arms and pendent breasts; the beautiful Erythræa, strong, calm and scornful; Delphica, the virgin with the lovely body and fierce eyes; Daniel, his lips compressed, his eyes fixed; Isaiah, bitter and contemptuous; Ezekiel, at war with himself and with a Genius of sombre beauty who seems to be pointing out to him the one who is to come; Jeremiah, plunged in the depths of silence, and Jonah, panting and breathless, cast out from the jaws of death—all those tragic torches of thought which burned in the night{42}of the pagan and Jewish world; all the human knowledge which awaited the Saviour.
Above the twelve windows the Precursors and Ancestors of Christ also wait and dream in the midst of the storm. The night is long and full of evil visions. They try to sleep, they try to forget how long they must wait; they are silent and they ponder, anxious and overwhelmed. A seated woman alone dares to look squarely in the face of the menacing future. In her fixed and dilated eyes I can see that secret feeling which weighs on all these beings, a burden they dare not acknowledge—fear. At the four angles of the ceiling are displayed the sinister acts which saved the people of God—David slaying Goliath, Judith bearing the head of Holofernes, the Hebrews writhing under the bites of the serpents of Moses, and Haman crucified. Fierce barbaric stories of murderous fanaticism—a roundhead in Cromwell's time would have chosen no other subjects.
Fear, sadness, suspense. We who know how thirty years later Michelangelo completed with the Last Judgment the cycle of his idea, we know what they awaited—the Christ who comes to destroy.
Michelangelo had suffered terribly during this gigantic labour. His letters show intense discouragement which even his wonderful visions could not{43}help. "This is not my profession," he complained. "I waste my time without any results. God help me."[28]
These were years of desperate efforts in the midst of enemies who spied upon him and hoped for his failure. He nearly gave up the work and fled again. Just as he began to paint the Deluge the whole ceiling began to grow mouldy so that the figures could hardly be distinguished. Michelangelo seized that as an excuse for giving up, but San Gallo discovered that the trouble came from the lime, which had too much water in it, and the pope ordered the artist to go on with his work.
Julius II was irritated by Michelangelo's slowness and by the fact that he persisted in hiding his work from him. There was constant friction between them.
"One day," says Condivi, "the pope asked him when he would finish and Michelangelo answered, according to his custom, 'When I can.' The pope, who was irritable, struck him with his staff, saying, 'When I can, when I can!' Michelangelo rushed home and began to make his preparations to leave Rome. Luckily the pope sent hurriedly after him an amiable young man named Accursio, who gave{44}him five hundred ducats, soothed him as well as he could and apologised for Julius II and Michelangelo accepted the excuses. The next day, however, they began again and when the pope threatened to have him thrown from his scaffolding Michelangelo had to give way. He had the scaffolding removed and uncovered the ceiling sooner than he had intended. 'That is why,' he said, 'that that work was not carried on as far as I would have wished. The pope's impatience prevented.'"
The first part of the paintings was finished on September 1st, 1510, and the pope was able to see the four chief compositions of the ceiling before his departure for Bologna. In January and February, 1511, Michelangelo drew the cartoons for the "teste e faccie attorno di ditta capella," the pictures for the corners and the lunettes, and the second period of the work began. On August, 1511, Julius II celebrated mass in the Sistine Chapel, "ut picturas novas ibidem noviter detectas videret"; and the entire work was finished in October, 1512. On October 31, 1512, the Sistine Chapel was opened to the public.
Soon after, on February 21, 1513, Julius II died.{45}
Michelangelo, freed from the Sistine Chapel, returned to sculpture and to the great project which he had most at heart, the tomb of Julius II.[29]
Julius II in his will had charged Cardinal d'Agen, Lionardo Grossi della Rovere and the Prothonotary Lorenzo Pucci (later on Cardinal de Santi Quatro) to continue the enterprise. He had stipulated that the monument should not be executed in the colossal proportions which were originally determined on. But it does not appear that his executors complied with this request. Michelangelo writes in 1524 "at the death of Pope Julius and the beginning of Leo's reign Aginensis (Cardinal d'Agen) wished to enlarge the monument and to make the work more considerable than was my first design and a contract was made."{46}
The sixth of March, 1513, Michelangelo signed what was in effect a new contract by which he pledged himself to execute the monument in seven years and not to undertake any other work of importance till it was finished. He was to receive sixteen thousand five hundred ducats, from which were deducted the three thousand five hundred which had been paid during the life of Julius II.[30]The new plan included thirty-two large statues, and the monument was to be built against the wall of the church. "At each of the three sides were two tabernacles, both containing a group of two figures; in front of each of the pilasters flanking the tabernacles was to be a statue. Between the tabernacles were reliefs in bronze, on the platform above was the statue of the pope supported by four figures and surrounded by six others on pedestals. Finally from the platform was to rise a little sanctuary thirty-four palms high[31]and containing five statues larger in size than the others."[32]
THE LIBYAN SIBYL Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512).THE LIBYAN SIBYLCeiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512).
For three years Michelangelo devoted himself almost exclusively to this work and from that period{47}of vigour and maturity, of relative calm and satisfying accomplishment, came his most perfect piece of sculpture, the Moses. This statue, originally intended for one of the six colossal figures crowning the upper story of the tomb, in the end was itself the complete expression of the whole monument. The Moses is the older brother of the Prophets of the Sistine, sprung from the same vehement and passionate inspiration, but more commanding, more sure and more master of himself (we shall come upon him again at the completion of the work thirty years later, for Michelangelo was never tired of returning to him). The two Slaves[33]now in the Louvre, who were to be placed against the pilasters of the lower story, immortal symbols of the weariness of living and of the revolt against life,—the voluptuous hero with his beautiful body overcome by deadly torpor and the athlete, vanquished but unsubdued, who writhes in his bonds, "bent like a spring," gathering himself together and hurling his scorn into the face of heaven—both belong to this period.{48}Probably the Caryatid of the Hermitage at St. Petersburg, which was certainly meant for one of the groups of conquerors in the niches, was made at this time as well as the models for many statues.
The general subject of the monument according to Condivi and to Vasari who preserved the sayings of Michelangelo himself, was an allegory cold, abstruse and courtier-like, as we must admit the subjects of his undertakings very often were. His nature was timid and lacked independence, but fortunately the force of his passionate feeling carried everything before it. Vainly did he bind himself to lifeless and commonplace programs, vainly attempt to force himself to glorify the established order and the powers that be. At the very first step he took all false pretenses fell away and a furious cry of revolt against the baseness of the world and the bondage of life broke forth. So the statues of this monument which was to express with stale flattery that "all the virtues were prisoners of death now that the pope was dead" became, unconsciously perhaps to their creator, hymns of heroic scorn and expressions of moral grandeur crushed by force yet rising unconquered.
But the peculiar quality of these figures compared with the work which was to follow is that they preserve in all their passionate agony a balance{49}and a certain melancholy serenity which the artist of the tombs of the Medici no longer possessed.[34]
In that serene and fruitful period, while the excitement of his work in the Sistine Chapel quieted little by little, like the calming of a stormy sea, Michelangelo seems to have accepted only one other commission, that for the Christ of the Minerva which came from three Romans, Bernardo Cencio, Mario Scapucci and Metello Varj. Yet beginning with the summer of 1515 his letters show that he feared and foresaw the interruption of his work.
"I must make a great effort this summer," he writes on June 16 to his brother Buonarroto, "to{50}bring my work rapidly to an end, for I think that I shall soon have to enter the service of the pope."
The new pope, Leo X (Giovanni Medici), at first left Michelangelo entirely free. He was so anxious to gain the hearts of his former adversaries that he took very good care not to seem to put any obstacle in the way of the glorification of his predecessor. He soon found, however, that the tomb absorbed Michelangelo's energies completely and he decided to draw him away from it in order to devote him to the service of his own house. He planned to build the façade of S. Lorenzo, the church of the Medici in Florence. Several artists, Baccio d'Agnolo, Antonio da San Gallo, Andrea and Jacopo Sansovino and Raphael himself brought their plans to him during his stay in Florence in November and December, 1515. But whether because Raphael was kept in Rome by his post of superintendent of the construction of St. Peter's in which he had lately succeeded the old Giuliano da San Gallo in August, 1515, or whether Leo X wished to attach to himself Michelangelo—whose family pride he had already flattered by naming his brother BuonarrotoComes Palatinusand by giving the Buonarroti the right to place in their arms the "palla" of the Medici with their lilies and the monogram of the pope—at any rate it was to him that Leo X turned. Michelangelo,{51}stirred by the growing fame of Raphael, allowed himself to be drawn into this new task which it was physically impossible for him to accomplish without neglecting the old one and which was to cause him endless worry and vexation. His correspondence with Domenico Buoninsegni shows plainly that he tried to deceive himself into thinking that he could carry on the two undertakings simultaneously.
THE PROPHET JEREMIAH Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512).THE PROPHET JEREMIAHCeiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512).
The heirs of Julius II, however, were more clear-sighted and in order to fight fire with fire they tried to bind him by a third contract on July 8, 1516. By this agreement the monument of the pope was to be diminished by one-half and the number of the statues reduced from thirty-two to twenty. They gave Michelangelo nine years more in which to complete the work, with full liberty to execute it in Florence, Pisa or Carrara. In return they forced from him the formal agreement that he would not undertake any other important work "opus saltim magni momenti." That clause was aimed directly at the plans of Leo X. Michelangelo signed this in good faith, for he thought that it would not prevent his making some statues for the façade of S. Lorenzo. His imagination carried him away. He was more and more attracted by Leo's project and he let himself go so far as to write that he would undertake the work and he sent a design for the façade. Then,{52}almost at once, he was seized with scruples and wanted to rid himself of the greater part of the task by turning it over to the architect Baccio d'Agnolo and only reserving for himself the principal statues. The pope agreed to everything, sure of what would happen, for it was no secret that Michelangelo was incapable of collaborating with anyone, no matter who he might be. As a matter of fact Michelangelo was not satisfied with the model of the façade which Baccio made according to his plan. He made another one, and in the end grew irritated with Baccio, whom he accused of having an understanding with his enemies. Little by little his enthusiasm for the work grew.
He wrote restlessly to Domenico Buoninsegni in July, 1517: "I wish to make of this façade of S. Lorenzo a work which shall be a mirror of architecture and of sculpture for all Italy. The pope and the cardinal[35]must make up their minds quickly whether they want me to do it or not. If they want me to do it they must sign a contract and give me full powers. I will finish it in six years. Messer Domenico, give me an exact answer as to the intentions of the pope and the cardinal. That would afford me the greatest satisfaction."{53}
Here it is Michelangelo himself who begs Leo X to give him this heavy burden, who trembles for fear of not getting it, and is consumed with the desire to bind himself to a new servitude! January 19, 1518, he signed a contract with Leo X by which he agreed to erect the façade of S. Lorenzo in eight years.
It was to be composed of:
First: An inferior order of eight fluted columns, eleven brasses[36]high, three portals with four statues five brasses high and seven bas-reliefs; and around the sides on each lateral face two columns, and between them a figure in high relief.
Second: A superior order of eight pilasters from six to seven brasses high; on the façade four seated bronze statues; and on each side two pilasters and a statue.
Third: The upper cornice carrying an entablature of eight pilasters in front and two on the side, with four niches in the façade, and one on each side intended for six marble statues five and a half brasses high.
There were besides on the façade, undoubtedly in the lower story, seven bas-reliefs of marble with life-size subjects, five squares and two round plaques. In the centre a pediment with the arms of the Medici.{54}
Michelangelo had the choice of executing the work himself or of having it done after his models. The heirs of Julius II were obliged to give way to the order of Leo X and to be satisfied with the permission which he gave to Michelangelo still to go on with the work on the monument of Julius in Florence. Even that permission was very soon withdrawn, according to Michelangelo. "Pope Leo," he writes, "does not want me to do the monument of Julius." When he began to work on it again in his atelier in Florence he says: "The Medici, who later on became Pope Clement and who was then in Florence, saw that I was working at the tomb and he would no longer permit it. For that reason I was prevented from doing anything until the Medici became pope."
Michelangelo always sought excuses for not finishing his undertakings. The real culprit was his eager and changeable genius, uncontrollable and constantly seized with enthusiasm for some new idea. He no more succeeded in raising the façade of S. Lorenzo than in finishing the tomb.
His terrible mania for doing everything himself drove him—instead of staying and working in Florence—into going to Carrara to oversee the quarrying of the blocks of marble. There he found himself in all sorts of difficulties. The Medici wanted to use the quarries of Pietra Santa, which{55}had been lately bought by Florence, instead of those of Carrara and Michelangelo, because he took sides with the Carrarese, found himself suspected by the Cardinal Giulio de' Medici of having been bought by them; and because he was forced in the end to obey the strict orders of the pope he was persecuted by the people of Carrara, who made an arrangement with the Genoese boatmen at Pisa so that he could not secure any barge to transport his marble. He had to build a road several miles in length across the mountains with pick and shovel. The ill-will of the people of Pietra Santa and the stupidity of the workmen who did not understand their work so upset him that he fell ill at Seravezza from over-strain and worry. He felt that his vigour, his health and his ideas were being wasted in this life of an engineer and contractor. He was dying with impatience to begin the façade, but the blocks of marble did not reach Florence because the barges were stopped or the Arno was dry. They arrived at last and the marble was unloaded, but instead of setting to work Michelangelo returned to Seravezza and Pietra Santa. He was obstinately determined not to begin until he had gathered in Florence, just as he had done before in Rome for the tomb of Julius II, all the material which would be necessary for the entire undertaking, a veritable mountain of{56}marble. He kept putting off the moment of beginning. Was it not the truth—though he did not admit it even to himself—that he was really afraid of the great architectural undertaking into which he had imprudently plunged and for which he had so little training? How, indeed, could he have acquired this new art which he had had no chance of practising? Had he not promised too much and did he not feel himself in a blind alley with no way out, where he no longer dared either to advance or retreat?
All his efforts were unsuccessful, even those for the transportation of the marble. He was cheated by his workmen, and four of the six monolithic columns sent to Florence were shattered on the way, one of them at Florence itself. At last the pope and Cardinal de' Medici grew impatient at this useless loss of so much precious time in the marshes and quarries of Pietra Santa and on March 10, 1520, an order of the pope clearly and completely released Michelangelo from the agreement of 1518 concerning the façade of S. Lorenzo and from all obligations in regard to it. Michelangelo only knew of this through the arrival at Seravezza of the gangs of workmen sent by Cardinal Giulio to take his place. He was cruelly hurt.
"I do not begrudge the cardinal," he says, "the{57}three years which I have lost here. I do not blame him because I am exhausted by this work for S. Lorenzo. I do not blame him for the great affront of having ordered me to do this work and then of taking it away from me—I do not even know for what reason. I do not count against him all that I have spent, which amounts to this: Pope Leo takes back the quarry with the blocks already cut; I have left the money that I have in hand—500 ducats—and I am given my liberty."
He could not hold his patrons responsible. The fault was his own, as he well knew, and that was his worst punishment. Justi has said, not unreasonably, that he committed the sin against the Holy Ghost in wasting so many years in such unimportant work. What did he accomplish from 1515 to 1520 in the fulness of his vigour? Plans which he could never carry out, plans for the façade of S. Lorenzo, plans for the tomb of Julius II, plans for the tomb of Dante, whose remains the Academicians of Florence wanted to bring back from Ravenna to his own country[37]—for in October, 1519, in the midst of the very worst of his difficulties he had not hesitated to offer his services to Leo X to "raise to the divine poet a monument worthy of him."{58}
One single work was realised amidst all these dreams: the Christ of the Minerva, and it is the coldest and dullest thing he ever did—a work of Michelangelo (and this is almost unbelievable) which is commonplace and uninspiring. It can hardly even be called his, for he did not finish it himself, but gave it over to the neglect of his assistant, Pietro Urbano, a bungler without talent and incurably lazy, who, when he was ordered to accompany the statue to Rome and to finish it, ruined it by his awkwardness and left it there hopelessly marred.[38]
THE ERYTHREAN SIBYL Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512).THE ERYTHREAN SIBYLCeiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512).
{59}Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, when he had extricated Michelangelo from this hopeless enterprise, determined to turn his genius in a new direction and one in which he could direct him more closely. He entrusted him with the construction of the new sacristy of S. Lorenzo and the tombs of the Medici. In November, 1520, Michelangelo submitted to him a drawing which met with his approval. This original plan was for four tombs: those of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Giuliano his brother, his son Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, and his grandson Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino. The work was begun before April, 1521, but was not pushed vigorously until after the nomination on November 19, 1522, of Cardinal Giulio de' Medici to the pontifical throne under the name of Clement VII.[39]
In May, 1524, Clement VII accepted the idea, suggested to him by the flattering Salviati, of adding to the four sarcophagi already planned tombs for Leo X and for himself and of giving them the place{60}of honour. In June Michelangelo sent him a new plan as well as the drawings for the Library of S. Lorenzo, the building of which had also been entrusted to him.
Clement VII wished to monopolise Michelangelo's services, and he suggested to him in January, 1524, that he should join the order of the Franciscans so that he might be given a benefice. Michelangelo refused to do this, but the pope decided, nevertheless, to allow him a monthly pension of three times the amount for which he had asked[40]and a house in the neighbourhood of S. Lorenzo. Everything seemed to be going well and the work on the chapel was progressing when Michelangelo suddenly left the house which had been given to him and refused to accept Clement VII's pension. He was going through another crisis of discouragement and doubt. The heirs of Julius II could not forgive him for having abandoned the work that he had undertaken. They accused him of unfaithfulness and threatened him with the law. He was terrified at the idea of a lawsuit, for his conscience told him that his adversaries were in the right, and he was tormented by the thought that he had not kept his word. He felt that he could not accept the money of{61}Clement VII as long as he had not yet either given back that of Julius II or carried out his promises. But struggle as he would he lacked strength to free himself from the ties which bound him to the pope, and necessity forced him to take the pension which he had refused. He continued to protest while he worked. By the end of October, 1525, he had only blocked out four figures, the allegories of the seasons. He was always thinking of the monument of Julius II and he tried to simplify his plan by changing it to a tomb built against the wall, like those of Pius II and Pius III at St. Peter's. He felt that he could finish the figures within a stated time and then give to Pope Clement all the rest of his powers, "and in truth they are feeble, for I am old and ought not to have all these worries, for they affect me greatly. You can not work while your hands are doing one thing and your head another, especially in sculpture."[41]
Clement VII seemed at times to be touched by Michelangelo's troubles and expressed an affectionate interest in him and his work. He sent him a letter on December 23, 1525, in which he said:
"You know that popes do not have long lives and{62}we could not long more ardently than we do to see the chapel with the tombs of our family and to know that it is finished and also the Library. We recommend them both to your zeal. Nevertheless we are trying to possess ourselves in salutary patience and we pray God that He may inspire you to carry on all these works at once. Do not fear that you will ever lack either work or rewards as long as we live. Go on with God and our blessing."
But the incurable frivolity of the Medici regained the upper hand, and instead of relieving Michelangelo of part of his work he laid new burdens on him; a Ciborium for S. Lorenzo and a ridiculous Colossus which it was proposed to put up outside the Medici gardens, the fantastic plans for which took up much of Michelangelo's time.[42]
It is sad to see this poor great man trying so hard{63}to understand the absurd whims of his Mæcenas that he ends by almost becoming interested in them.
"I have thought about the Colossus," he writes to Fattucci in the autumn of 1525; "I have indeed thought a great deal about it. It seems to me that it would not be well placed outside the Medici gardens because it would take up too much room in the street. A better place, I think, would be where the barber's shop is. There it would not be so much in the way. As for the expenses of expropriation, I think to reduce them we could make the figure seated, and as it could be hollow, the shop could be placed inside so the rent would not be lost. It seems to me a good idea to put in the hand of the Colossus a horn of abundance, and this could be hollow and would serve as a chimney. The head could also be made use of, I should think, for the poultryman, my very good friend who lives on the square, said to me secretly that it would make a wonderful dovecote. I have another and still better idea—but in that case the statue must be made very much larger, which would not be impossible, for towers are made with stone—and that is that the head should serve as a bell-tower to S. Lorenzo, which now has none. By placing the bell so that the sound would come out of the mouth it{64}would seem as if the giant cried for mercy, especially on holidays when they use the big bells."
Michelangelo had constant trouble with his workmen, and to these worries and his pangs of conscience were added domestic difficulties which never ceased to embitter his life. During the period of the Sistine frescoes it was his relations with his brothers that gave him most trouble, for they tried to make use of him and he had to watch them sharply. Then it was his father whom he adored with almost religious reverence and who undoubtedly loved him, but who, irritable like himself, and peevish and suspicious, picked unfair quarrels and spread odious calumnies about him.
In the midst of all these difficulties the work did not progress at all. A letter of June, 1526, says that one statue of a captain had been begun, as well as four allegories and the Madonna, but as a matter of fact not one of these was ready in 1527. As for the Library and the Medici Chapel they were hardly begun.
At this moment the revolution broke out in Florence (April, 1527).
JESSE A Figure in the Series of the "Ancestors of Christ." Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512).JESSEA Figure in the Series of the "Ancestors of Christ."Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512).
Michelangelo had until then shown in politics the same indecision from which he had suffered so much in his own affairs and even in his art. He never succeeded in reconciling his love of liberty with his{65}obligations to the Medici. It must be admitted that this violent genius was always timid in action; he never incurred any risk through struggling against the powers of this world on political or religious grounds. He was afraid of compromising himself. He was afraid of everything. He was always afraid. If in spite of his natural timidity he let himself be drawn into the Florentine Revolution of 1527 he must have been driven by deep despair and the belief that his life was practically lost. That extremity of suffering brought to the surface and into action his fundamental beliefs.
His timid introspective soul was secretly ardently republican. We can see this in the violent discussions which he had in 1545 with intimate friends, Luigi del Riccio, Antonio Petreo and Donato Giannotti, who made note of them in his "Dialogues on Dante's Divine Comedy." In these talks he defends tyrannicide with enthusiasm.
He found himself in the front ranks of the Florentine revolutionists in those days of national and republican revival which, in Florence, followed the news of the taking of Rome by the Imperialists (May 6, 1527) and the driving out of Ippolito and Alessandro de' Medici (May 17th). At first the Republic seems only to have given him artistic commissions. He was ordered to cut from a block of{66}marble a colossal group of two figures as a companion-piece to the David. He obeyed, and began a Hercules and Cacus;[43]then changed his plan and made a sketch for a Samson slaying the Philistines. But the situation grew tragic and he was called to more pressing tasks. In October, 1528, at San Miniato he took part in a council presided over by the Gonfalonier Niccolo Capponi to discuss the question of the fortification of the town. Florence had summoned the architect Sebastiano Serlio and the engineer Pierfrancesco d'Urbino and had sent Francesco da San Gallo and Amadio d'Alberto to examine the fortifications of Prato, Pistoia, Pisa and Livorno. Michelangelo was chosen in his turn on January 10, 1529, in theCollegiumof theNove di Milizziato direct the works of defense. He was named on April 6th for one yearGovernatore GeneraleandProcuratoreof the fortifications of Florence, and was given a salary of one golden ducat a day.[44]He realised that the important point of defense was San Miniato for, "if the enemy gained possession of that hill they would be master of the city." He determined, therefore, to strengthen that position{67}with bastions, but he encountered the ill-will of the Gonfalonier Capponi, who tried to send him away from Florence on various missions.
In June, 1529, he was ordered to inspect the citadel of Pisa and the fortifications of Arezzo and Livorno. In July and August he was sent to Ferrara to examine the celebrated defensive works there and to consult with the Duke, a great expert in fortifications. The Duke received him with great honour and took him over the fortifications himself, showed him his art collection and asked him for one of his works.[45]But Michelangelo suspected Capponi and the party of the Medici of taking advantage of his absence to delay the fortification of the town and his suspicions were confirmed by the neglected condition in which he found the work on his return. To block these intrigues he installed himself at San Miniato and would not stir from there again. His restless spirit felt the least breath of the rumours of treason which, as always, circulated in a besieged town and which unhappily, as the future showed, were only too well founded.
Capponi, under suspicion, had been replaced as Gonfalonier by Francesco Carducci, but the{68}untrustworthy Malatesta Baglioni, who later on was to give up the town, was namedCondottiereand governor-general of the Florentine troops. Michelangelo foresaw his treason and confided his suspicions to Carducci. Malatesta did not fail to hear of this denunciation. He was all-powerful at Florence as Generalissimo, and since a man of his type would stop at nothing when it was a question of revenge or of the removal of a dangerous adversary, Michelangelo believed himself lost. "I had resolved, however, to await without fear the end of the war," he writes on September 25, 1529, to Battista della Palla. "But on Tuesday morning the twenty-first of September a certain man came to me outside of the Porta San Niccolo, where I was on the bastions, and whispered in my ear that if I wished to save my life I must not stay any longer in Florence. He went with me to my house, brought me some horses, and did not leave me again until he had put me outside of Florence."
Varchi, filling in the details, gives the name of the Councellor Rinaldo Corsini[46]and adds that Michelangelo had sewed twelve thousand golden florins into three quilted shirts, and that it was not without difficulty that he escaped from Florence{69}with Rinaldo and his pupil Antonio Mini by the gate of Justice, which was the least guarded. That was on the morning of September 21st. He went through Ferrara without stopping there and arrived at Venice on September 25th. The Signory at once sent two gentlemen to do anything for him which he might need (a proof of the fame which he enjoyed already throughout the whole of Italy). Michelangelo, however, refused everything and withdrew to the Giudecca. He thought of going to France and spoke of this intention to Battista della Palla, the agent of Francis I in Italy for the purchase of works of art. Lazare de Baïf, the ambassador of France at Venice, was told of this and wrote immediately to Francis I and to the Constable de Montmorency, urging them to profit by this chance to secure Michelangelo. The King at once offered Michelangelo a pension and a house, but by the time the letter arrived at Venice he had already returned to Florence.
His flight had caused a great sensation there. The Signory on September 30th decreed that all those who had deserted should be declared rebel and banished if they did not return by October 7th. On the date fixed Michelangelo had not returned. A decree declared the fugitives rebels and their goods confiscated, but the name of Michelangelo did not{70}figure on the list. They gave him another chance. A few days later the Florentine envoy at Ferrara, Galeotto Guigni, informed the Signory that Michelangelo had heard of the decree too late and that he was ready to return if he would be pardoned. The Signory promised to forgive him and had a safe conduct sent to him in Venice by the stone-cutter, Bastiano di Francesco, who brought him at the same time letters from ten of his friends all beseeching him to return to Florence. He had had time to reflect on what he had done and was ashamed of his pitiful panic. He went back to Florence on November 20, 1529, and on the 23rd the decree of banishment was removed by the Signory, but the Grand Council was closed to him for three years. According to a letter of Sebastiano del Piombo, Michelangelo also had to pay to the city a fine of fifteen hundred ducats.