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YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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ALBERT H CHILDS
YALE '61
MEMORIAL COLLECTION

ET

MICHELANGELO

I'OKTKAIT Ol' MKTIELANt.K.I O HY MARCELLO \ KM'STl
Capitoline Museum, Rome.

MICHELANGELO BY
ROMAIN ROLLAND
Author of "Beethoven," "Jean Chnstophe," etc.
Translated by FREDERICK STREET
ILLUSTRATED

NEW YORK'
DUFFIELD & COMPANY
1915

Copyright, 1915 by
DUFFIELD & COMPANY

NOTE
This life of Michelangelo is published in France
in the series called "Les Maitres de l'Art," and is
here translated into English for the first time. It
is entirely distinct from a study of Michelangelo
by Romain Rolland which appeared some time ago.

CONTENTS
PAGE
Introduction  xi
Chapter I — Childhood and Youth (1475-1505)  1
Chapter II — Michelangelo and Julius II (1505-1512) . . 26 )
Chapter III — The Failure of the Great Plans (1513-1534) 45 \
Chapter IV — Vittoria Colonna (1535-1547)  80
Chapter V — Old Age and Death (1 547-1 564)  108
Chapter VI — The Genius of Michelangelo and His In
fluence on Italian Art  142
Chronological Table  169
Catalogue of the Principal Works of Michelangelo in
Public Collections  175
Note on the Drawings  179
Bibliography  181
Index  185

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Portrait of Michelangelo by Marcello Venusti. (Capitoline Museum,
Rome.)  Frontispiece FACING PAGE
Pieta. (St. Peter's, Rome.)  14
David. (Accademia delle Belle Arti, Florence.)  18
The Holy Family. Painted for Agnolo Doni. (National Gallery,
London.)  22
The Almighty Creating the Sun and the Moon. (Ceiling of the
Sistine Chapel.)  30
The Creation of Man. (Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.) .... 36
The Prophet Ezekiel. (Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.)  40
The Libyan Sibyl. (Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.)  46
The Prophet Jeremiah. (Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.) .... 50
The Erythrean Sibyl. (Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.)  58
Jesse. A Figure in the Series of the "Ancestors of Christ."
(Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.)  64
Decorative Figure. (Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.)  70
Decorative Figure. (Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.)  76
Sketch for the Tomb of Julius II. Drawing. (Uffizi, Florence.) 84
Slave. Figure for the Tomb of Julius II. (Louvre.)  94
Moses. Figure for the Tomb of Julius II. (San Pietro-in-Vinculi,
Rome.)  104
Tomb of Giuliano de' Medici. (Chapel of the Medici in San
Lorenzo, Florence.)  114
Dawn. Figure from the Tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici. (Chapel
of the Medici in San Lorenzo, Florence.)  122

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE
Twilight. Figure from the Tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici. (Chapel
of the Medici in San Lorenzo, Florence.)  130
Christ and the Saints. Detail from The Last Judgment. (Sistine
Chapel.)  138
Charon's Boat. Detail from The Last Judgment. (Sistine Chapel.) 146
The Resurrection. Drawing. (Louvre.)  152
The Dome of St. Peter's. From the Original Model in Wood. (Pre
served in the Vatican.)  158
The Descent from the Cross. (Duomo, Florence.)  164

INTRODUCTION
The life of Michelangelo offers one of the most
striking examples of the influence that a great man
can have on his time. At the moment of his birth in
the second half of the fifteenth century the serenity of
Ghirlandajo and of Bramante illuminated Italian art.
Florentine sculpture seemed about to languish away
from an excess of grace in the delicate and meticu
lous art of Rossellino, Disiderio, Mino da Fiesole,
Agostino di Duccio, Benedetto da Maiano and An
drea Sansovino. Michelangelo burst like a thun
der-storm into the heavy, overcharged sky of Flor
ence. This storm had undoubtedly been gathering
for a long time in the extraordinary intellectual
and emotional tension of Italy which was to cause
the Savonarolist upheaval. Nothing like Michel
angelo had ever appeared before. He passed like a
whirlwind, and after he had passed the brilliant and
sensual Florence of Lorenzo de' Medici and Botticelli,
of Verocchio and Lionardo, was ended forever. All
that harmonious living and dreaming, that spirit of

INTRODUCTION
analysis, that aristocratic and courtly poetry, the
whole elegant and subtle art of the "Quattrocento,"
was swept away at one blow. Even after he had
been gone for a long time, the world of art was still
whirled along in the eddies of his wild spirit. Not
the most remote corner was sheltered from the tem
pest ; it drew in its wake all the arts together. Mi
chelangelo captured painting, sculpture, architecture
and poetry, all at once; he breathed into them the
frenzy of his vigour and of his overwhelming idealism.
No one understood him, yet all imitated him. Every
one of his great works, the David, the cartoon for
the war against Pisa, the vault of the Sistine Chapel,
the Last Judgment, St. Peter's, dominated genera
tions of artists and enslaved them. From every one
of these creations radiated despotic power, a power
that came above all from Michelangelo's personality
and from that tremendous life which covered almost.
a century. No one work can be detached from that life and
studied separately. They are all fragments of one
monument, and the mistake that most historians
make is to mutilate this genius by dividing it into
different pieces. We must try to follow the entire
course of the torrent from its beginning to its end
if we are to have any comprehension of its for
midable unity.

MICHELANGELO

MICHELANGELO

CHAPTER I
Childhood and Youth
(1475-1505)
Michelangelo was born on the sixth of March,
1475, at Caprese, in Casentino, of the ancient family
of the Buonarroti-Simoni, who are mentioned in the
Florentine chronicles from the twelfth century. His
father, Lodovico di Lionardo Buonarroti-Simoni, was
then Podesta of Caprese and Chiusi. His mother,
Francesca di Neri di Miniato del Sera, died when
he was only six years old, and some years later his
father married Lucrezia Ubaldini. Michelangelo had
four brothers: Lionardo, who was two years his
senior; Buonarroto, born in 1477; Giovan Simoni,
born in 1479; and Sigismondo, born in 1481. His
foster-mother was the wife of a stone-cutter of Setti
gnano and in later years he used to jokingly attribute

2 MICHELANGELO
his vocation to the milk upon which he had been
nourished. He was sent to school in Florence under
Francesco da Urbino, but he busied himself only in
drawing and neglected everything else. "Because
of this he greatly irritated his father and his uncles,
and they often beat him cruelly, for they hated the
profession of an artist, and, in their ignorance of the
nobility of art, it seemed a disgrace to have one in
the house." '
The elder Buonarroti, however, was, like his son,
more violent than obstinate, and he soon allowed the
boy to follow his vocation. In April, 1488, Michel
angelo, by the advice of Francesco Granacci, entered
the studio of Domenico and David Ghirlandajo.
That was the most famous studio in Florence.
Domenico was an indefatigable worker who "longed
to cover with stories the entire circuit of the walls of
Florence" and possessed of a calm, simple and serene
spirit, satisfied merely to exist without tormenting
itself over subtleties. This fortunate being, who
died at forty-four, leaving an immense mass of com
pleted work in which the magnificence and the moral
force of Florence still live, was the best guide that
could have been given to the young Michelangelo.
Domenico was then, from i486 to 1490, in the ful
ness of his power, and at work on his masterpiece,
1 Condivi

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 3
the paintings in the Tornabuoni Chapel in S. Maria
Novella. It has been said that his influence on Michelangelo
amounted to nothing, and it is true that we find no
direct trace of it except in two drawings in the
Louvre and the Albertina. Still, exact imitation is
very rare with Michelangelo. He was made of too
stubborn stuff ever to be much affected by masters
or surroundings. He felt contempt for Raphael be- \
cause he was impressionable, "and drew his superior
ity not from nature, but from study." I do not be- j
lieve, however, that the time he spent in the school of
Ghirlandajo had no effect upon him. Even if it did
not influence his style or his method of working, he
must have gained from the master of S. Maria
Novella and from his wholesome work a healthy
point of view and a physical and moral vigour which
could have been given him by no other artist in
Florence — not even the two great sculptors, Polla-
juolo and Verrocchio, who were indeed not there at
that time — and which acted as a powerful balance
to the neuroticism of the Botticellian school. I do
not doubt that Ghirlandajo helped to lay the founda
tions from which arose the art of the young Michel
angelo devoted to the expression of force and so
contemptuous of morbid sentiment.
Ghirlandajo's school was enthusiastically open-

4 MICHELANGELO
minded toward everything interesting in art. It
was eclectic and encouraged intellectual curiosity.
Michelangelo while he was there studied passion
ately both the old and the new Florentine painters
and sculptors: Giotto,1 Masaccio,2 Donatello, Ghi
berti, Benedetto da Majano, Mino da Fiesole, An
tonio Rossellino and possibly, even at that time,
Jacopo della Quercia and also the Flemish and the
German artists, then very much in vogue in Italy,
especially at the court of the Medici.* He made a
copy in colour of Martin Schongauer's Temptation
of St. Anthony and went to the Florentine fish-
market to take notes for it. Later on he con
temptuously disowned Flemish realism, but a trace
of it was left in him always and in many of his
drawings there appears a certain taste, extraordinary
in an ideahst, for types of marked naturalism which
are sometimes trivial or almost caricature.
Condivi asserts that these first attempts of Michel-
1 Drawings in the Louvre from the frescoes of Santa Croce.
2 Munich. Drawings from the frescoes of the Carmine.
3 In the collection of the Medici a St. Jerome by Van Eyck was valued at
forty ducats, the Giottos and Fra Angelicos at only ten ducats. The
Flemings were no less appreciated at Urbino where Justus of Ghent had
painted, whose frescoes were copied by Raphael when he was a child,
and at Rome where Jan Ruysch, twenty years later, was to work on
the Stanze, and throughout the kingdom of Naples — not to mention the
great collection of Flemish pictures in tlie north of Italy, like those of Car
dinal Grimani at Venice., and of Cardinal Bembo at Padua.

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 5
angelo met with such success that Ghirlandajo grew
jealous. "To take from him the credit of this copy (of
the Schongauer) Ghirlandajo used to say that it
came out of his atelier, as if he had had a part in it.
This jealousy showed very clearly when Michel
angelo asked him for the book of drawings wherein
he had sketched shepherds with their flocks and
dogs, landscapes, monuments, ruins, etc., and he
refused to lend it to him. As a matter of fact, he
always had the reputation of being rather jealous,
because of his disagreeable treatment not only of
Michelangelo, but also of his own brother, for when
he saw the latter making good progress and showing
great promise, he sent him to France, not so much
for his benefit, as has been alleged, as that he him
self might remain first in his art at Florence. I have
mentioned this," adds Condivi, "because it has
been said to me that Domenico's son was in the
habit of attributing the divine excellence of Michel
angelo to the training given by his father, who
really did not help him in any way. It is true that
Michelangelo never complained of him, but on the
contrary praised him as much for his art as for his
conduct." It is very difficult to say how much is true in this
story. I am reluctant to ascribe so contemptible

6 MICHELANGELO
a jealousy to Ghirlandajo, and repeat it only because
of the last line where Condivi is constrained to re
mark on the esteem which Michelangelo, when he
was an old man, expressed for his former master.
Such admiration for other artists is too rare with
him not to have especial weight in this case.
There is no doubt that a disagreement did arise
between the master and the scholar, for though
Michelangelo had in 1488 signed a contract of ap
prenticeship which stipulated that he should remain
three years with Ghirlandajo,1 the very next year
he went with his friend Granacci into the school of
Bertoldo. Bertoldo, a pupil of Donatello, was director of the
School of Sculpture and of the Museum of An
tiquities maintained by Lorenzo de' Medici in the
gardens of S. Marco. I think that the real reason
why Michelangelo separated himself from Ghir
landajo was that after a year of feeling his way he
had just discovered the essence of his genius and
was drawn toward sculpture with irresistible force.
It was really from painting that he was separating
himself and never afterward did he consider it as
his art. We might almost say that if painting has
immortalised him it is in spite of himself. He
1 Michelangelo was to receive six florins the first year, eight the second
and ten the third.

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 7
never wished to be considered as anything but a
sculptor.1 Two things drew him to Bertoldo: the hope of
finding the tradition of Donatello and the fascination
of the antique. He found something even more
valuable there in the friendship of the prince and of
the elite of the Florentine thinkers. Lorenzo took
an interest in him, lodged him in the palace and ad
mitted him to his son's table, and in this way Michel
angelo found himself at the very heart of the Renais
sance, in the midst of the humanists and the poets
and in intimate relation with all whom Italy counted
most noble; with Pico della Mirandola, with Pulci,
Benevieni and especially with Poliziano, "who loved
him greatly and urged him to study, although that
was hardly necessary."2
Surrounded by this atmosphere of lofty paganism
he became intoxicated with the classic idea and
became himself a pagan; he made the heroic forms
of Greece live again while putting into them his own
savage vigour. Following the suggestions of Poli-
1 "On the 10th of May, 1508," as he wrote at a later time, "I Michel
angelo, sculptor, began to work on the paintings of the Sistine Chapel."
2 He had for his companions at Bertoldo's, Granacci, the sculptors
Rustici, Baccio di Monte Lupo and Andrea del Monte-Sansovino, the
painters Niccolo Soggi, Lorenzo di Credi, Giuliano Bugiardini and the
brutal Torrigiano dei Torrigiani, whose blow left its mark on Michel
angelo's face for life.

8 MICHELANGELO
ziano he wrought the bas-relief of the Combat of
the Centaurs and the Lapithae of the Casa Buonar
roti, in which the figures are athletic and struggling
and the faces impassive and proud. He carved the
bestial face of the Laughing Satyr with its violent
and strained expression as of one who was not used
to laughter, and a Httle later the rehef of Apollo
and Marsyas.
( Nevertheless this paganism did not touch his
\ Christian faith at all. The struggle that was to
/ endure almost all his life had already begun within
1 him between those two hostile worlds which he vain-
\ly tried to reconcile. In 1489 and 1490 Savonarola
began in Florence his fiery sermons on the Apoc
alypse and Michelangelo went to hear them with
all the rest of Lorenzo's circle. He had been
brought up very rehgiously by his father, a kind,
God-fearing man of the old style, and his brother
Lionardo in 1491, under the influence of Savonarola,
entered the Monastery of the Dominicans at Pisa.
He could not remain indifferent to the burning
words of a prophet who was like an elder brother of
the prophets of the Sistine and whose sombre visions
and fiery purity must have pierced the heart of the
youth who listened to the preaching in S. Marco or
the Duomo. I am convinced, nevertheless, that
historians have very much exaggerated the effect

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 9
of this influence on Michelangelo. In the beginning
he certainly did not feel very strongly the heroic
grandeur of the frail little preacher who from his
high pulpit launched his lightnings against pope
and princes. His first impression seems to have
been almost entirely one of terror; he did not escape i
from the contagion of fear which seized the entire
city at the thunder of the gloomy prophecies which
held the bloody sword of God suspended over Italy
and which filled the streets of Florence with people
weeping madly. When at last there came the new
Cyrus, foretold by the monk of S. Marco, Charles
VIII, King of France, Michelangelo was seized with
panic and fled to Venice (1494).
These superstitious terrors, irrational and uncon
trollable, which reappeared more than once in
Michelangelo's life do not prove anything in favour
of his Savonarolaism. It might be supposed on the
contrary that a true disciple of Savonarola would
have remained beside his master rather than have
abandoned him in the hour of danger. These panics
which he could not control prove nothing but the
unhealthy over-excitement of his nerves, which his
reason fought against in vain all his life. It would
be hard to find in his work at that period any ap
preciable effect of the ideas of Savonarola. The
impassive Virgin with the robust child — the bas-

10 MICHELANGELO
relief in bronze of the Casa Buonarroti — is far more a
school piece by a pupil of Donatello than a religious
work. What we know of the little wooden crucifix,
carved in 1494 for the prior of the Convent of
S. Spirito, shows us the artist without mysticism and
with a passion for the observation of nature, who
was eagerly studying anatomy from corpses until
their putrefaction made him ill and forced him to
stop. At Bologna, where he lived in 1449 after
his flight from Florence, and where he heard of the
results of Savonarola's preachings — the expulsion of
the Medici, the death of Pico della Mirandola and
of Poliziano and the scattering of the Httle circle of
Florentine poets and philosophers — he spent his
time in reading Petrarch, Boccaccio and Dante to his
protector, the noble Gianfrancesco Aldovrandi, and
when he worked at the Area (tabernacle) of S. Do
menico it was to carve that athletic angel, superb and
expressionless, which contrasts so strikingly with the
pious figure of Niccolo dell' Area to which it is the
pendant. He was evidently much more occupied in
studying and assimilating the imposing manner of
Jacopo della Quercia, his indolent and heavy but
powerful Siennese precursor, than in meditating on
the prophecies of Savonarola.
He returned to Florence in 1495, and arrived in the
midst of the struggle of the two parties, the "Arrab-

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH ii
tiati" and the "Piagnoni," at the very height of the
carnival. He was consulted about the construction
of the hall of the Grand Council in the Palace of
the Signory. The Virgin of Manchester which sug
gests the school of Ghirlandajo may be attributed to
this period, and also the Entombment of the National
Gallery, which with all its sad grandeur is proud and
cold. Michelangelo left Florence in June, 1496. He
went to Rome and in that town so full of classic
memories he absorbed himself in classic works. It
is fair to say that he was never so pagan as from
1492 to 1497, the years during which the tragedy of
Savonarola was enacted. This is the period of the
colossal Hercules * in marble (1492), of the famous
sleeping Cupid, wrought in the very heart of mystical
Florence — and sold as an antique to Cardinal Riaro
(1496) — of the large Cupid of the South Kensington,
of the Dying Adonis of the Museo Nazionale and of
the Drunken Bacchus which E. Guillaume calls the
nearest to the antique of all modern works. These
last statues, made in Rome the very year of the
Bruciamento delle Vanita, when the Florentine
"Piagnoni" danced in fanatic zeal around bonfires of
works of art, seem ahnost like a defiance launched s
1 At first in the Strozzi Palace, then bought in 1529 by Francis I and
placed at Fontainebleau, it disappeared in the seventeenth century.

12 MICHELANGELO
/against the puritanism of Savonarola. His older
< brother, Lionardo, a monk at Viterbo, who was
j forced to flee from his monastery because of his
i Savonarolaist convictions, joined him in Rome and
; Michelangelo gave him some money with which to
i return to Florence, but he did not go with him. The
ever-growing danger which threatened the prophet
and his followers did not draw him back to his
country and Savonarola's death — he was burnt in
May, 1498 — has not left a trace in any of his letters.1
I do not mean to say that he was entirely un
touched by that grand and tragic drama. He was
by nature silent and never spoke of what he felt
most deeply, andjie was also prudent and afraid of
compromising himself. If Savonarola's ideas did
have some influence on him it was at a later time
when, in his advanced age, under the influence of
strong and deep friendships, the disiUusions of Hfe
and the fear of the hereafter, rehgious preoccupa
tions gained with him the place of first importance.
He was not among those who, like BotticeUi, in
1498, consented to the dethronement of the pagan
pride of the Renaissance. Rehgious he certainly was
1 1 find it impossible to recognise, as Thode does, an allusion to the
death of Savonarola in a letter of 1508, when Michelangelo, hearing that
his father had been slandered by his brother, writes, "I have not received
worse news in ten years." Nothing justifies us in believing that Michel
angelo is not merely alluding to other family difficulties.

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 13
and a Christian as always, but his proud Christianity
was not that of the rest of the world. He was never
understood by his own time. Even when he was\
painting the Last Judgment, and his faith was most
ardent, he must have scandalised the devout. He]
was altogether a Platonist. He could have said with
Lorenzo de' Medici and his illustrious friends of the
gardens of S. Marco that "without studying Plato
one could neither be a good citizen nor an enlight
ened Christian." Savonarola undoubtedly admired
and loved Plato. Still he felt the object of art
to be religious edification and showed that ideal to
artists in "the face of a pious woman when she is
praying, illuminated by a ray of divine beauty."1
Michelangelo despised that art made for the devout \
and left it to the Flemings.2 He had a horror of I
sentimentality and almost of sentiment. "Truej
painting," he said, "never will make any one shed
a tear."3 It should contain no expression of religion or
worship, for "good painting is religious and devout
1 Sermons on Amos and Zachariah.
2 See the "Dialogues de la Peinture" of Francis of Holland, who relates
the conversations between Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna in Rome
in 1538-39-
3 Beethoven wrote in the same way to Bettina Brentano in 1810: "most
men are moved by beauty, but that is not the nature of artists. Artists
are fashioned of fire — they do not weep."

14 MICHELANGELO
in itself. Among the wise nothing more elevates the
soul or better raises it to adoration than the dif
ficulty of attaining the perfection which approaches
God and unites itself to Him."1 He believed him
self to be more religious in creating beautiful, har
monious human bodies than in searching for a
psychological or moral expression intended "for
women, especially for the old or the very young,
or for monks, nuns and those who are deaf to true
harmony."2 The Pieta of St. Peter's, undertaken
the year of Savonarola's death, has a more Christian
character than the earlier works of Michelangelo,
but this Christianity is stiU far from conforming to
the expressive and pathetic ideal of the artists of
the fifteenth century, or from the tragic expression
and agony of suffering of the virgins of DonateUo,
Signorelli or Mantegna. Very different indeed is
the noble harmony of this group and the calm beauty
of the young Virgin on whose knees rests the supple
body of Christ relaxed Hke that of a sleeping cliild.
Even though Michelangelo explained the eternal
youth of the Virgin s by an idea of chivalric mys-
1 Francis of Holland ibid.
2 Ibid. The passage applies to Flemish painting in general.
8 "Do you know," said Michelangelo to Condivi, "that chaste women
remain much more fresh than those who are not chaste. How much more,
therefore, must this be true of the Virgin who never entertained the least
immodest thought which might have troubled her body. I would put

PIETA
St. Peter's, Rome (1498-1500).

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 15
ticism it is evident that at that time the desire for/
beauty was as strong in his heart as any regard for
faith and that there was a certain relationship
between these beautiful Gods of Calvary and those
of Olympus whose charm had intoxicated him.
Michelangelo spent two years on the Pieta.1 In
the spring of 1501 he returned to Florence and there
met Cardinal Piccolomini, with whom he signed a
contract to deliver in three years' time, for the sum
of five hundred ducats, fifteen figures of apostles
and saints for the Piccolomini altar in the Cathedral
of Sienna. This was the first of those overpowering
commissions which Michelangelo never hesitated to
undertake in the first intoxication of his imagination
without any just estimate of his powers and which
this even more strongly. I believe that this freshness and flower of
youth which she received in a natural manner was preserved for her
in a supernatural one, so that the virginity and the eternal purity of the
Mother of God could be demonstrated to the world. Such a miracle was
not necessary for the Son. Quite the contrary, for if it had to be shown
that the Son of God was made incarnate in man and that he had suffered
all that men suffer except sin, it was not necessary to make the human
disappear behind the divine, but it was better rather to let the human
follow its nature in such a way that he should appear to have the age that
he really had. Do not be surprised, therefore, if for these reasons I have
represented the Very Holy Virgin, the Mother of God, much younger than
her years would require and if I have given the Son his real age."
1 Contract of August 26, 1498, with the French Cardinal, Jean de Gro-
slaye de Villiers, Abbot of S. Denis, Ambassador of Charles VIII, who
had ordered it for the chapel of the kings of France (Chapel of S. Petronille)
at St. Peter's.

16 MICHELANGELO
weighed on him all his life, like remorse. In 1504
he had delivered only four of the figures and sixty
years later in 1561 he was still tormented by the
thought of this unfulfilled contract.
Another undertaking, more tempting to him by its
very difficulty, took entire possession of him a few
months after he had made the agreement with
Cardinal Piccolomini.
A gigantic block of marble had been delivered in
1464 to Agostino di Duccio by the Board of Works
of S. Maria del Fiore to be used for the statue of a
prophet. The work had been interrupted at this
point. The Gonfalonier Soderini wanted to entrust
the completion of it to Lionardo da Vinci, but in
August, 1502, it was given to Michelangelo and he
set to work on it at once. From that block of
marble came forth the colossal David. By January
25, 1504, the work was completed and a commission
of artists among whom were Botticelli, Fihppino
Lippi, Lionardo da Vinci and Perugino was consider
ing where it should be placed. They hesitated be
tween the Loggia dei Lanzi and the entrance of
the Palace of the Signory. The latter position was
decided upon at the expressed preference of Michel
angelo. The architects of the Duomo, Simone del
Pollojuolo (Cronaca), Antonio da San Gallo, Baccio
d'Agnolo and Bernardo della Cecca were charged

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 17
with the transportation of the enormous mass of
stone which was placed in position on the eighth of
June, 1504, on the left of the entrance to the Palazzo
Vecchio where until then the Judith of Donatello
had stood.
To-day the David is in the Accademia delle
Belle Arti in Florence. There it is in too confined
a space. That colossus needs the open air, he
stifles under the roof of a Palace and his dispro
portion to everything around him is shocking. We
can perhaps judge better what he really is from the
reproduction in bronze, which on the hill of San
Miniato raises its inspiring silhouette above the
town. There the irregularity of the details disap
pears in the impression of the whole. Incredible
energy emanates from that gigantic force in repose
— from that great face in the small head, and from
that huge body with the slender waist, thin arms and
the enormous hands with swollen veins and heavy
fingers. All of Michelangelo is there in that mixture of
proud nobility and almost barbarous vulgarity. He
is all there, and he only, entirely regardless of his
subject. The head of the David with its wrinkled)
forehead, thick eyebrows and scornful lips — a type/
that he often used afterward — is, like the heads]
of Lorenzo and of Giuliano de' Medici, a lyric work j
2

1 8 MICHELANGELO
into which Michelangelo poured his own sadness,
\ disdain and melancholy.
Michelangelo had not waited to finish this work
before accepting other commissions which he was
to abandon along the way. In 1502 a David1
in bronze for Pierre de Rohan, Marechal de Gie,
the favorite of Louis XII, which in the end was
finished by Benedetto da Rovezzano in 1507 and
sent, after the disgrace of Rohan, to the new
royal favourite, Florimond Robertet, Secretary of
Finance. In 1503 he undertook twelve statues for the
Cathedral of Florence, but began only one, a St.
Matthew, which was never finished and is now in the
Accademia deUe Belle Arti. His vaciUating, un
certain genius, wherein discouragement succeeded
to enthusiasm, drove him into planning works with
fierce energy and then almost immediately so di
verted his attention that he could not force him
self to finish them.
In 1504 the Florentine Signory brought him into
competition with another great irresolute, Lionardo
da Vinci, whose universal intellectual curiosity was,
1 This David was placed in the centre of the court of the Chateau de
Bury and moved in the sixteenth century to the Chateau de Villeroy
near Mennecy from where it afterward disappeared. The figure was life-
size, with the head of Goliath at its feet; a pen-and-ink sketch in the
Louvre is all that is left of it.

DAVID
Accademia delle Belle Arti, Florence (1501-1504).

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 19
no less than the temperament of Michelangelo, an
eternal obstacle to the achievement of his great
undertakings. The two men seem to have met about
J495- They could not have understood each other
very well, for they both stood alone, each in his
own way. Lionardo was now fifty-two years old.
When he was thirty he had left Florence, where
the bitterness of the political and religious passions
was unbearable to his delicate and slightly timid
nature and to his serene and sceptical intelligence
which was interested in everything but refused to
take sides. Driven back to Florence by the death
or ruin of his protectors, the Duke of Milan and
Cassar Borgia, he came into contact there from the\
very first with Michelangelo entirely absorbed in!
his own faith and passions, however changing they
might be, and who, while he hated the enemies of
his party and of his faith, hated still more those who /
had neither party nor faith. Brutally and publicly/
on many occasions, Michelangelo made Lionardo feel j
his aversion for him. /
When the Gonfalonier Soderini put the two in
direct competition in a common work, the decoration V
of the Council Hall in the Palace of the Signory,
the rivalry was intense. In May, 1504, Lionardo
began the cartoon of the Battle of Anghiari. In
August, 1504, Michelangelo received the order for

20 MICHELANGELO
the cartoon for the Battle of Cascine. Florence
was divided into two camps keenly enthusiastic for
one or the other of the rivals. Time has made
them equal, for both pictures have disappeared.
Michelangelo's cartoon, finished in March, 1505, was
apparently destroyed about 15 12, during the dis
turbances in Florence which resulted from the return
of the Medici, and even the fragments which in
1575 were still preserved by the Strozzi in Mantua
have been lost.1
As for Lionardo's fresco, he succeeded in destroy
ing it himself. He took it into his head to try to
perfect the technique of fresco and he gave himself
up once more to his evil spirit of invention and once
more everything was lost. He tried a glaze of oU
which did not hold, and the painting which he
1 Carducho saw some fragments in 1633 in the possession of the Viceroy
of Naples. Marc- Antonio engraved in 1510 the celebrated episode of the
bathers, using for a background a landscape of Lucas van Leyden. Agostino
Veneziano made another engraving of it in 1523-24. Aristotele da San
Gallo made a drawing of the whole composition and in 1542 made" from
the drawing an oil-painting (Holkham Castle, England). There exist
many fragmentary studies of the work in the Albertina Collection at
Vienna, the Accademia at Venice, the Louvre and Oxford University.
They can be put together by following a drawing of Daniele da Volterra
in the Uffizi. The battle included, besides the episode of the bathers, a
cavalry combat. "Si vedono infiniti combattendo di cavallo cominciare
la zuffa," says Vasari. The moment chosen was the one when a trumpet
call gave the alarm to the Florentines, surprised while bathing by the
Pisans.

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 21
abandoned in 1506 in discouragement by 1550 no
longer existed.
The two cartoons of Lionardo and Michelangelo
had time, nevertheless, to exert a blinding fascination
over aU Itahan painting. They formed the style and
influenced the thought of artists from 1506 on but
without being able to transmit their own grandeur.
Lionardo, who had a cavalry combat to represent,
reasoned out coldly, as nearly as we can tell,1 all
the circumstances of a battle and then reproduced
them with his marvellous lucidity which was per
haps a little too analytic to interpret the excite
ment of passion.
Michelangelo, who was given an episode of the
war of 1364 against the Pisans under the leadership
of the condottiere John Hawkwood (Giovanni Acuto)
had intentionaUy turned his back on history and the
real subject and painted naked men bathing, noble in
form and free in movement, in the classic manner.2
1 Especially from the notes where Lionardo described a battle in his
"Thatteto della Pittura," II, 145, a combination of photographic exact
ness and academic rationalism.
3 Never had so many nudes been seen in one composition except in the
Last Judgment at Orvieto. Michelangelo pushed so far his contempt not
only for any psychological analysis, but for all dramatic probability, that
he introduced into the midst of the composition a naked man lying down
and turning over lazily without seeming to take any notice of the tumult
around him. It was a classic bas-relief radiant with heroic beauty and
regardless alike of subject and feeling.

22 MICHELANGELO
The two masterpieces contained each of them
the germ of a different danger; in Lionardo's the
excess of analysis, in Michelangelo's the excess of
abstraction. This last was the most dangerous of
the two but both were of the inteUect and agreed
in substituting for the charm of life and of real and
spontaneous movement the formula of types and of
logical action.
The influence of this work became at once univer
sal and tyrannical. Benvenuto CeUini says in 1559:
"The cartoon of Michelangelo was placed in the
palace of the Medici, that of Lionardo in the HaU of
the Pope. As long as they remained there they were
the school of the world." Raphael copied them
many times from October, 1504, untU July, 1505.
Fra Bartolommeo was inspired by them and Andrea
del Sarto, when he was very young, spent whole days
in studying them. Among the artists who taught
themselves in that school are Perino del Vaga, Rosso,
Battista Franco, Salviati, Vasari, Bronzino, Ridolfo
Ghirlandajo, Cellini, Pontormo, Jacopo Sansovino,
Franciabigio, Aristotele da San Gailo, F. Granacci,
BandinelH, Morto da Feltro, Lorenzetto — almost aU
the famous men of the period. This influence was
certainly more dangerous than useful. The first
fruits of it were the sudden unpopularity — almost
like a decree of exile of all the charming primitive

THE HOLY FAMILY
Painted for Agnolo Doni (between 1501-1505)
National Gallery, London.

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 23
painters, like Pinturicchio1 and Signorelli2 at Rome
(1508) just after their masterpieces at Sienna and
Orvieto and Perugino at Florence (1504) four years
after the exquisite decoration of the Cambio of Pe
rugia — and the loss of so much grace, elegance and
vigour sacrificed to a form of beauty undoubtedly
superior, but to which every one can not attain. In
stead of giving them a broader point of view, the!
admiration for Lionardo and Michelangelo nar
rowed and limited their followers. During 1508-j
1509 Pope Julius II had the frescoes of Sodoma,\V
Perugino, Signorelli and Piero della Francesca put jj
aside to leave space for Raphael. Thenceforth every- II
one was governed by the same ideal, and whoever
felt in himself fancy, imagination and youth gave I
them up in favour of an attempt at breadth and power "
which were not for him. Filippino Lippi renounced /
his serious simplicity for pedantic dilettanteism and
affected gestures. Instead of being the first in the<
second rank Lorenzo di Credi, Ridolfo Ghirlandajo, 1
Rafaellino del Garbo and Piero di Cosimo preferred I
to be the last of the first rank.
The same rivalry which had brought about the
'Frescoes of Pinturicchio in the library of the Cathedral at Sienna,
finished in 1507.
2 Frescoes of Signorelli in the chapel of the Cathedral of Orvieto, finished
in December, 1504. It is well known with what brutality Michelangelo
showed on many occasions his contempt for Signorelli and for Perugino.

24 MICHELANGELO
competition between Michelangelo and Lionardo
in the Council Hall appears again in a series of
works which belong to this Florentine period (1501-
1 505) . These are representations of the ' ' Holy Fam
ily" in which Michelangelo attempts to solve the
same problem of composition as Lionardo and
Fra Bartolommeo in placing the figures in a circle.
Such are the two circular bas-reliefs, the Madonna
and Child of the Museo Nazionale made for Taddeo
Taddei and the Holy Family of the Academy of Fine
Arts in London made for Bartolommeo Pitti. Chief
of them all is the great picture in distemper of the
Holy Family of the Uffizi painted for Agnolo Doni — a
heroic work filled with the lofty serene life of Olym
pus and the Parthenon. The painting is the most
carefully executed of all Michelangelo's. The colour
ing, blue, rose, orange and golden brown, has an
effect that is rather inharmonious, but young and
fresh. The aerial perspective is mediocre and the
composition shows as usual Michelangelo's supreme
contempt for the sentiment of the subject. He has
filled the background with graceful nude figures sim
ply because he considered them to be beautiful —
"per mostrare maggiormente l'arte sua essere grandis-
sima," says Vasari, and except for the type of face
used for St. Joseph there is nothing religious about
the group of the Holy Family. The impression is

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 25
religious, nevertheless, through its grace, sweetness
and proud strength. We feel that Michelangelo de
sired to contrast the puritan and virile sobriety of
this work with the voluptuous languor of the art of
Lionardo. The calm Madonna of Bruges belongs also to this
period. This was bought in 1506 by two Flemish
merchants, John and Alexander Mouscron, who
placed it in their chapel where Durer had already
seen it during his travels in Belgium in 1521.

CHAPTER II
MICHELANGELO AND JULIUS II
(1505-1513)
In March, 1505, Michelangelo was called to Rome
by Pope Julius II. Then began the heroic period
of his life and the "tragedy" of the monument of
Julius II which was not to end until forty years later.
The pope and the artist, both of them proud and
violent, were well fitted to work together — so long
as their ideas did not conflict. Their brains seethed
with tremendous ideas. The first years of their
friendship were a feverish delirium of plans. JuHus
II was on fire with enthusiasm for the plan for his
tomb which Michelangelo submitted to him. It
was to be a mountain of architecture with more than
forty statues, some of them of colossal size, and
with many bronze reliefs. "Michelangelo's design
pleased the pope so much," says Condivi, "that he
sent him at once to Carrara (April, 1505) with an
order to cut as much marble as he needed. ...
Michelangelo stayed more than eight months in the
26

MICHELANGELO AND JULIUS II 27
mountains with two servants and a horse." He was
the victim of superhuman exaltation and in his en-;
thusiasm dreamt of carving a whole mountain.. In
r
December, 1505, he returned to Rome, where the
blocks of marble which he had chosen had already
begun to arrive from Carrara. They were un
loaded at La Ripa and then transported to the
Piazza di San Pietro behind S. Caterina, where
Michelangelo lived. "The mass of the stones was
so great that they aroused the wonder and joy
of the pope." Michelangelo set to work. "The
pope in his impatience came constantly to see him
and conferred with him over the monument and
other works, with as much familiarity as if he
had been his brother. In order that he might
visit him the more easily he had a drawbridge \
thrown across from the gallery of the Vatican to |
Michelangelo's house which gave him a secret /
passage." Y~But this favour did not last. h The character of \
Julius II was as passionate and as changeable as
that of Michelangelo. His mind, always in a fer
ment, took up in rapid succession and ever with the
same eagerness the most varied projects. Another
idea drove the plan for the tomb from his mind.
In order that he might gain immortal glory by one\
gigantic work he decided to reconstruct St. Peter's, j

28 MICHELANGELO
He was encouraged in this by enemies of Michel
angelo, who himself writes in 1542 Y
"All the difficulties which arose between the pope
and myself were the work of Bramante and of
Raphael. It was their jealousy that kept him from
having his tomb made while he was still alive. They
tried to ruin me. Raphael had good reason for
doing this, since all that he knew of art he learnt
from me."
It is not easy to say how far Raphael was carried
along by the party of Bramante, who was his friend
and fellow-countryman, but there is no doubt that
Bramante was chiefly responsible for the check to
Michelangelo's great undertaking and that he prof
ited by his absence in Carrara to destroy his influ
ence over the pope.
"The marks of his favour which Julius II had
showered on Michelangelo," says Condivi, "resulted,
as often happens at courts, in exciting jealousy
against him, and, following the jealousy, endless
persecution. Bramante, the architect, who was
dear to the pope, made him change his plans. He
reminded him of the popular superstition that it
was of bad augury to build your tomb while you
1 At the end of a memorial in which he went over the whole history of
the monument of Julius II in order to clear himself from blame. (Lettere
di M. A.B., Ed. G. Milanesi, Florence, 1S75, cdxxxv, p. 494.)

MICHELANGELO AND JULIUS II 29
were stiU alive, and other stories of the same kind.
Bramante was driven to do this, not only through1)
jealousy, but from fear that Michelangelo's knowl
edge would reveal his own mistakes. For Bramante, ,
as everyone knows, was much given to pleasure and
very dissipated. The salary he received from the
pope, though it was great, was not nearly enough
for him, so that he tried to make more out of his
work by constructing walls of bad material and
neither solid nor strong enough for their height and
thrust. Anyone can prove this by the construction
of St. Peter's, or the Belvedere gallery, or the cloister
of S. Pietro in Vinculi and other buildings which he
erected and which it has been necessary to support
all over again and to strengthen with buttresses,1
either because they have fallen down or because
they very soon would have done so. Bramante
realised that Michelangelo would have discovered
his mistakes, and so he always tried to keep him
away from Rome and to deprive him of the pope's
favour and of the influence which he had gained
over the pope by his works. For it is clear that ii\
the tomb of Julius II had been actually undertaken v
Michelangelo would have stood out supreme over
all other artists, however famous they might be, for
1 Thode confirms this opinion, which was also held by Serlio in the six
teenth century, in regard to the construction of St. Peter's.

30 MICHELANGELO
he would then have had a vast field in which to
show what he could do."
Bramante succeeded. In January, 1506, Julius II
ordered the reconstruction of St. Peter's. The tomb
was abandoned and Michelangelo was not only hu-
muiated and disappointed, but in debt, according to
what he says himself:
"When the pope changed his mind and the boats
arrived with the marble from Carrara I had to pay
the charge of transport myself. And as at this
same time the stone-cutters who had come from
Florence for the tomb also arrived at Rome and I
had had the house which Juhus had given me
behind S. Caterina prepared for them, I found myself
without money and greatly embarrassed. I urged
the pope as strongly as I could to continue the con
struction of the tomb and then one morning when I
wished to talk with him about it he had me put out
by a groom."
Then it was that the famous flight to Florence
took place. Michelangelo, outraged by this affront,
took horse and fled from Rome and refused to return
in spite of the messengers which the pope sent after
him. The indignity of the affront was not, by his
own account, the only reason for his flight. In a
letter to Giuliano da San Gallo he implies that his
life was in danger from Bramante's threats.

THE ALMIGHTY CREATING THE SUN AND THE MOON
Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512).

MICHELANGELO AND JULIUS II 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 capa
ble of it and^in one of those accesses of sudden\
terror which contrast so strangely with the stubborn j
boldness of his genius, he ran away. Moreover, J
Bramante understood perfectly how to terrorise his1
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 tne\
true reason for his sudden withdrawal; he did not
want to be present at the triumph of his enemy.

3 2 MICHELANGELO
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 aU the blocks of
marble which I had on the square of St. Peter's
were taken from me, especiaUy the smaUer 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 Sig-
^nory 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 tranquiUy 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 unwilling
ness to return. He proposed his own terms and
pretended to be working on the tomb of Juhus 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 de
mands Michelangelo had the idea of expatriating

MICHELANGELO AND JULIUS II 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.1
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 v/
town as a conqueror. There took place that famous
interview when the pope, angry and scolding, di
vided between the desire of punishing the rebel andy
the fear of losing the artist whom he valued, poured
out his wrath on an unlucky bishop who was pres
ent, 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 V
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.
1 In 1519 we find traces of new correspondence between Michelangelo
and Turkey. A certain Tommaso di Tolf o of Adrianople begs him to come
to Turkey and to paint some pictures for the " Seigneur of Adrianople, who
is a connoisseur in art and has bought an antique."
3

34 MICHELANGELO
He fell out with Lodovico and Lopo, who stole from
him; then the foundryman turned out to be inca
pable and in June, 1507, the casting faUed.
"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 aU
kinds of troubles and mortifications. Michelangelo
was busy with his work untU 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 facade of S. Petronio remained there
only four years.1 In December, 151 1, it was
destroyed on the return of the BentivogH, and
Alphonso d'Este had his bombardier Quirino cast a
cannon from its fragments.
Michelangelo returned to Rome and Julius II laid
I upon him another task not less unexpected and not
'less hazardous. He ordered the sculptor, who never
/painted except with reluctance and who knew noth
ing 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 disin-
1 The statue was seven brasses (i 1 .34 metres) high and the Pope was
represented as seated.

MICHELANGELO AND JULIUS II 35
clination of Michelangelo for this work had some
thing to do with his flight to Florence. This may
be inferred from the letter of a friend of Michel
angelo 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 noth
ing 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 ceUing and foreshortened, which is very dif
ferent 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. 'j
I threw myself into the conversation and there in
the pope's presence replied properly to that fellow

36 MICHELANGELO
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 Hohness 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
I 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 Michel
angelo had either to surpass him or be entirely
^eclipsed. This at least is what Condivi asserts.
"Bramante and his other rivals suggested to the
pope^ to make Michelangelo paint the ceiHng 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

THE CREATION OF MAN
Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512).

MICHELANGELO AND JULIUS II 37
and quarrel with the pope or that he would accept
it and be less successful than Raphael, for they con
sidered that Michelangelo's talent was for sculpture,
which indeed was true. Michelangelo, who until
then had not worked in colours and who knew how
difiicult 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 determina
tion 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. Bra-,
mante 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 dis-

38 MICHELANGELO
/like to them and sent them away. He remained
I, alone, shut up in the chapel with a few workmen,
like Giovanni Michi, and far from aUowing the great
, difficulty of the undertaking to dampen his cour-
i age he enlarged his plan and decided to paint not
I 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 detaU. 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 hu-
/man; the symbolism of a primitive and the science
\pf 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

MICHELANGELO AND JULIUS II 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 I
by an eternal cyclone. When we realise that that/
heU was for four years the very soul of Michelangelo
we understand why his life was bufnt out by it and
why for a long time afterward he remained like a
soil exhausted by too much use and no longer pro
ductive. Above that ceiling and those vaults built
up of huge bodies, where tumultous confusion and
powerful unity combine to evoke the monstrous
dream of a Hindu and the imperious logic and iron
wiU of ancient Rome, there blooms a beauty that is
natural and pure. There has never been anything
Hke 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 MICHELANGELO
On the flat part of the vault, in the centre, are
the nine scenes from Genesis, ^Eschylean visions:1
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

1 The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is rectangular in form, measuring
forty metres in length by thirteen in width.
I. On the level part of the vault are nine scenes from Genesis; the Eter
nal dividing light from darkness, the Eternal creating the sun and moon, the
Eternal dividing the waters, the Creation of man, the Creation of woman,
the Temptation, Cain and Abel, the Deluge, and the Drunkenness of Noah.
II. In every angle of the imaginary frame surrounding these nine
scenes is a naked figure seated on a pedestal, twenty in all. Vasari calls
these the " Ignudi." Between them, and below each one of the five scenes
from Genesis, is a small medallion the colour of bronze.
III. At the springing of the arches of the vault, in the twelve penden-
tives, twelve prophets and sibyls are seated between pilasters crowned
by naked children who act as caryatids and are each accompanied by two
little geniuses. The figures are Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joel, Zachariah, Isaiah,
Daniel, Jonah, the Persian, Erythrasan, Cumaean, Delphian, and Libyan
Sibyls. IV. Between the prophets and sib3'ls, in the space above the twelve
arched windows, are the precursors and ancestors of Christ, groups of two
or three persons divided into two sections by an archivolt in the midst of
which are written on tablets the names of the precursors. Above these
triangles, on the ribs, are naked youths. Between the triangles and under
the thrones of the prophets and sibyls, whose names they cany on tablets,
are children's figures.
V. In the four pendentives formed by the angles of the ceiling are
David, Conqueror of Goliath; Judith and Holofernes; the Brazen Serpent,
and the Hanging of Haman.

THE PROPHET EZEKIEL
Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512).

MICHELANGELO AND JULIUS II 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 struggUng in convulsions of fear and fury or
faUing back, overwhelmed and exhausted — a sym
phony of mad force which sweeps in every direction
and beats against the walls.
As gigantic supporters of the ceUings are seated
in the pendentives twelve prophets and sibyls who
suffer and dream; disdainful Lybica; Persica, pur
blind and restless; Cumaea, with huge arms and
pendent breasts; the beautiful Erythrasa, strong,
calm and scornful; Delphica, the virgin with the
lovely body and fierce eyes; Daniel, his lips com
pressed, his eyes fixed; Isaiah, bitter and contemptu
ous; 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 sUence, and Jonah, panting and breath
less, cast out from the jaws of death — all those
tragic torches of thought which burned in the night

42 MICHELANGELO
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 fuU of
evil visions. They try to sleep, they try to forget
how long they must wait; they are sUent and they
ponder, anxious and overwhelmed. A seated woman
alone dares to look squarely in the face of the menac
ing future. In her fixed and dUated eyes I can see
j that secret feeling which weighs on aU these beings,
I a burden they dare not acknowledge — fear. At the
four angles of the ceUing 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
CromweU's time would have chosen no other sub
jects. 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 gi-
: gantic labour. His letters show intense discourage-
j ment which even his wonderful visions could not

MICHELANGELO AND JULIUS II 43
help. "This is not my profession," he complained. \
"I waste my time without any results. God help)
me." 1 /
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.J
Just as he began to paint the Deluge the whole ceil
ing 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 j
from him. There was constant friction between/
them. J
"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
1 Letter to his father, January 27, 1509.

44 MICHELANGELO
him five hundred ducats, soothed him as well as he
could and apologised for JuHus 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
i carried on as far as I would have wished. The
(Pope's impatience prevented.'"
The first part of the paintings was finished on
September ist, 1510, and the pope was able to see
the four chief compositions of the ceiling before his
departure for Bologna. In January and February,
151 1, 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, 151 1, JuHus II cele
brated mass in the Sistine Chapel, "ut picturas
novas ibidem noviter detectas videret" ; and the en
tire work was finished in October, 15 12. On Oc
tober 31, 1 5 12, the Sistine Chapel was opened to
the public.
( Soon after, on February 21, 15 13, Julius II died.

CHAPTER III
THE FAILURE OF THE GREAT PLANS
(I5I3-I534)
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. ]
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 consider- 1
able than was my first design and a contract wasj
made."
1 Michelangelo abandoned painting for almost twenty years and did
not take it up again until 1529. 45

46 MICHELANGELO
The sixth of March, 15 13, 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 JuHus II.1
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 taber
nacles was to be a statue. Between the tabernacles
were reHefs in bronze, on the platform above was
the statue of the pope supported by four figures
and surrounded by six others on pedestals. Final
ly from the platform was to rise a Httle sanctuary
thirty-four palms high2 and containing five statues
larger in size than the others."3
For three years Michelangelo devoted himself
almost exclusively to this work and from that period
1 " I did not want them to charge me with the 3,000 crowns which I had
already received, for I showed that they owed me much more than that.
But Aginensis said to me that I was a cheat." (Letter of Michelangelo,
I524-) • Twenty-six feet three inches.
* Contratti, 635 ff.

THE LIBYAN SIBYL
Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512).

THE FAILURE OF THE GREAT PLANS 47
of vigour and maturity, of relative calm and satisfy '
ing accomplishment, came his most perfect piece
of sculpture, the Moses. This statue, originally in- /
tended 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 Slaves1 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 voluptu
ous 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.
1 The two Slaves were given in 1544 by Michelangelo to Robert Strozzi,
who was at that time banished from Florence and had taken refuge in
France. They finally reached the Constable de Montmorency's Chateau of
Ecouen, and Henri de Montmorency when he died in 1632 gave them to
Cardinal de Richelieu. From the Chateau de Richelieu they were moved
in the seventeenth century to the gardens of the Marechal de Richelieu in
Paris. It is thanks to Lenoir that they were preserved to France in 1793.

48 MICHELANGELO
Probably the Caryatid of the Hermitage at St. Peters
burg, 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 aUegory cold, ab
struse and courtier-like, as we must admit the sub
jects of his undertakings very often were. His na
ture was timid and lacked independence, but for
tunately the force of his passionate feehng 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 re
volt against the baseness of the world and the bond
age of life broke forth. So the statues of this monu
ment 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 un
conquered. But the peculiar quality of these figures com
pared with the work which was to follow is that they
preserve in all their passionate agony a balance

THE FAILURE OF THE GREAT PLANS 49
and a certain melancholy serenity which the artist \
of the tombs of the Medici no longer possessed.1 j
In that serene and fruitful period, while the excite
ment 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 v
which came from three Romans^. Bernardo Cencio,
Mario Scapucci and Metello Varj. Yet beginning
with the summer of 15 15 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
1 Condivi wrote that according to Michelangelo the statues of the\
bound men which were to be placed against the pilasters of the lower part \
of the tomb "represented the liberal arts, painting, sculpture and archi- j
tecture each with its characteristic attributes, in such a way that they could J
be easily recognised. At the same time they expressed the idea that alii
the virtues were prisoners of death with Pope Julius and that they would!
never find anyone to encourage them and to support them as he had done.";
Some sketches at Oxford show a number of these prisoners struggling
against their chains. The large statues of the upper story were to personify
St. Paul, Moses, Adam, Life and Contemplation; Julius II was repre
sented asleep on an open sarcophagus which was supported by two angels,
"one smiling to express the joy of heaven, and the other weeping to repre
sent the sorrow of earth."
A large pen-and-ink drawing in the Uffizi partly shows the architecture
of the monument — that Charles Garnier called the architecture of a gold
smith — and which is indeed a frame to group the sculptured figures to
gether as well as possible. I would like to believe that this drawing refers
not to the plan of 1513, but to the simplified plan of 1516.
4

SO MICHELANGELO
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 buUd
the facade of S. Lorenzo, the church of the Medici
in Florence, i Several artists, Baccio d'Agnolo, An
tonio da San Gallo, Andrea and Jacopo Sansovino
and Raphael himself brought their plans to him dur
ing his stay in Florence in November and December,
1 5 15. But whether because Raphael was kept in
Rome by his post of superintendent of the con-
1 struction of St. Peter's in which he had lately suc
ceeded the old Giuliano da San Gallo in August, 15 15,
or whether Leo X wished to attach to himself Michel
angelo — whose famUy pride he had already flattered
by naming his brother Buonarroto Comes Palatinus
and 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,

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THE PROPHET JEREMIAH
Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512).
THE FAILURE OF THE GREAT PLANS 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 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 fuU 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 fagade of S. Lorenzo.
His imagination carried him away. He was more
and more attracted by Leo's project and he let him
self go so far as to write that he would undertake
the work and he sent a design for the facade. J Then,

52 MICHELANGELO
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'Ag-
nolo and only reserving for himself the principal
statues. The pope agreed to everything, sure of
(what would happen, for it was no secret that Michel
angelo 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 facade 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 under
standing with his enemies. Little by little his en
thusiasm for the work grew.
He wrote restlessly to Domenico Buoninsegni in
July, 1517: "I wish to make of this facade of S.
Lorenzo a work which shaU be a mirror of architec
ture and of sculpture for all Italy. The pope and
the cardinal : 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 inten
tions of the pope and the cardinal. That would
afford me the greatest satisfaction."
¦Cardinal Giulio Medici, future Clement VII.

THE FAILURE OF THE GREAT PLANS 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, 15 18,
he signed a contract with Leo X by which he agreed
to erect the facade of S. Lorenzo in eight years,  -^
It was to be composed of:
First: An inferior order of eight fluted columns,
eleven brasses J 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 f acade four seated
bronze statues; and on each side two pUasters and
a statue. Third : The upper cornice carrying an entablature
of eight pUasters in front and two on the side, with
four niches in the fagade, and one on each side in
tended for six marble statues five and a half brasses
high. There were besides on the fagade, 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.
1 A brasse is 1.62 metres.

54 MICHELANGELO
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
Iwork 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 ateher in Flor
ence 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 finish
ing his undertakings. The real culprit was his
eager and changeable genius, uncontroUable and con
stantly seized with enthusiasm for some new idea.
He no more succeeded in raising the facade of S.
Lorenzo than in finishing the tomb.
His terrible mania for doing everything himself
drove him — insteading 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

THE FAILURE OF THE GREAT PLANS 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 buUd 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 im
patience to begin the fagade, 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 MICHELANGELO
marble. He kept putting off the moment of begin
ning. Was it not the truth — though he did not
admit it even to himself — that he was reaUy 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 ac
quired 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 monoHthic
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 use
less 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 fagade of S. Lorenzo and from aU obHgations 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

THE FAILURE OF THE GREAT PLANS 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 V
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 unreason
ably, that he committed the sin against the Holy
Ghost in wasting so many years in such unimpor
tant work. What did he accomplish from 151 5 to
1520 in the fulness of his vigour? Plans which he
could never carry out, plans for the fagade of S.
Lorenzo, plans for the tomb of Julius II, plans for
the tomb of Dante, whose remains the Acade
micians of Florence wanted to bring back from
Ravenna to his own country1 — for in October, 15 19,
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."
1 Appeal of the Academicians of Florence to Leo X, signed by Michel
angelo. (Gotti, Vol. II, p. 84.)

58 MICHELANGELO
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 as
sistant, 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.1
1 Michelangelo ended his work in April, 1520. The Christ was sent to
Rome in March, 1521. Pietro Urbano worked at it from June until the
middle of August when he suddenly left Rome.
Sebastiano del Piombo writes to Michelangelo in September, 1 521:
" Pietro Urbano has mutilated everything. In particular he has shortened
the right foot and you can see clearly that he has cut off the toes: he
has even shortened the fingers, especially those of the right hand which
held the cross. Frizzi says that they look as if they had been made
by a 'baker.' That hand does not even look like marble; you would think
it had been made by a pastry cook, so stiff are the fingers. You can see,
too, that he has worked at the beard and you would think he had modelled
it with a blunt knife. He has also mutilated one of the nostrils, and almost
spoilt the nose."
Michelangelo had to commission the sculptor, Federigo Frizzi, to finish
the work. With his customary honesty he offered to make an entirely
new statue for Metello Varj, who had ordered the work from him, but
Varj declined. Michelangelo was so ashamed of the Christ of the Minerva
that when the statue was unveiled in December, 152 1, Lionardo Sellajo,
one of his friends in Rome, took great care that everyone should know
that it was not by Michelangelo, but that he ha.l simply retouched it.

THE ERYTHREAN SIBYL
Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512).

THE FAILURE OF THE GREAT PLANS 59
Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, when he had ex
tricated Michelangelo from this hopeless enter
prise, determined to turn his genius in a new
direction and one in which he could direct him
more closely. He entrusted him with the con
struction 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,
Giuhano 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.1
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
'After the death of Leo X on December I, 1 521, and during all the
pontificate of Adrian VI, who died on September 23, 1 523, Cardinal
Giulio de' Medici had put a "mute" on all his undertakings. It is
probable that during that year's respite (1522-23) Michelangelo was able
to take up again the tomb of Julius II, and that he worked at the admirable
Victory of the Bargello and at the scarcely blocked-in figures of the Boboli
Grotto.

60 MICHELANGELO
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 en
trusted 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, neverthe
less, to aUow him a monthly pension of three times
the amount for which he had asked x 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 wliich 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 ad
versaries 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
1 Fifty crowns. Michelangelo only asked for fifteen.

THE FAILURE OF THE GREAT PLANS 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. ' ' 1
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
1 He was fifty years old. In 1517, when he was forty- two, in a letter to
Domenico Buoninsegni he called himself "old." In 1523 in a letter to
Cardinal Domenico Grimani, he emphasised the lessening of his strength
through age. "If I work a day," he says, "I must rest for four."

62 MICHELANGELO
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 pa
tience 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 bless
ing." But the incurable frivoHty 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.1
It is sad to see this poor great man trying so hard
1 Thode pretends that Michelangelo did not take this seriously and that
the letter which follows is "ironisch und humorvolle.'' Full of humor, yes,
but I do not think it ironical. If there is any trace of irony it is rather on
the side of the pope, who might have been making fun of Michelangelo's
naivete' and of his well-known tendency to grow enthusiastic over any new
undertaking, particularly the most fantastic ones. In fact after frequent
exchanges of letters in October and November, 1525, Fattucci, a friend of
Michelangelo, warned him secretly in December that "the Colossus was
only a joke." Michelangelo had not suspected any malice in this scheme
and had already pictured in his mind the bizarre Colossus to which he
gave a frankly popular character, monstrous and comic, like one of Aristo's
giants.

THE FAILURE OF THE GREAT PLANS 63
to understand the absurd whims of his Maecenas
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 expro
priation, 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 hoUow 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 im
possible, 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 bells
so that the sound would come out of the mouth it

64 MICHELANGELO
would seem as if the giant cried for mercy, especially
on holidays when they use the big bells."
Michelangelo had constant trouble with his work
men, 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 re
ligious reverence and who undoubtedly loved him,
but who, irritable like himseU, and peevish and sus
picious, 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 weU 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).
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 suc
ceeded in reconciling his love of liberty with his

JESSE
A Figure in the Series of the "Ancestors of Christ."
Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512).

THE FAILURE OF THE GREAT PLANS 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 pohtical 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 ex
tremity of suffering brought to the surface and into
action his fundamental beliefs.
His timid introspective soul was secretly ardent
ly repubhcan. We can see this in the violent dis
cussions which he had in 1545 with intimate friends,
Luigi del Riccio, Antonio Petreo and Donato
Giannotti, who made note of them in his " Dia
logues on Dante's Divine Comedy." In these talks
he defends tyrannicide with enthusiasm.
He found himseU in the front ranks of the Floren
tine 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 com
missions. He was ordered to cut from a block of
'5

66 MICHELANGELO
marble a colossal group of two figures as a companion-
piece to the David. He obeyed, and began a
Hercules and Cacus;1 then changed his plan and
made a sketch for a Samson slaying the PhUistines.
But the situation grew tragic and he was called to
more pressing tasks. In October, 1528, at San
Miniato he took part in a councU 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 the Collegium of the Xove di
Milizzia to direct the works of defense. He was
named on April 6th for one year Governatore Generale
and Procuratore of the fortifications of Florence, and
was given a salary of one golden ducat a day.2 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
1 The block of marble abandoned by Michelangelo was taken a little
while afterward by his jealous rival, Bandinelli, who made from it a
Hercules and Cacus which to-day still stands on the Piazza della Signoria.
2 Until then Michelangelo had given his sen-ices gratuitously to his
country.

THE FAILURE OF THE GREAT PLANS 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 ex
amine the celebrated defensive works there and to
consult with the Duke, a great expert in fortifica
tions. 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.1 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 con
dition in which he found the work on his return.
To block these intrigues he installed himseU 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
1 It was for him that Michelangelo some time after this made his paint
ing of Leda, but he never sent it to him because of some discourtesy
on the part of the Ferrarese ambassador.

68 MICHELANGELO
untrustworthy Malatesta Baglioni, who later on was
to give up the town, was named Condottiere and
governor-general of the Florentine troops. Michel
angelo foresaw his treason and confided his suspicions
to Carducci. Malatesta did not faU 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, Michel
angelo believed himseU lost. "I had resolved, how
ever, to await without fear the end of the war,"
he writes on September 25, 1529, to Battista deUa
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
Hfe 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 untU he had put me
outside of Florence."
Varchi, filling in the detaUs, gives the name of
the Councellor Rinaldo Corsini 1 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
1 Michelangelo does not name him, undoubtedly so as not to compromise
him,

THE FAILURE OF THE GREAT PLANS 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 with
drew 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 Baif, the ambassador of
France at Venice, was told of this and wrote im
mediately 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 ban
ished 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 MICHELANGELO
figure on the list. They gave him another chance.
A few days later the Florentine envoy at Ferrara,
Galeotto Guigni, informed the Signory that Michel
angelo had heard of the decree too late and that he
was ready to return U 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. Accord
ing to a letter of Sebastiano del Piombo, Michel
angelo also had to pay to the city a fine of fifteen
hundred ducats.
From that time on he did his duty bravely. He
took his place again at San Miniato, which the enemy
had been bombarding for a month. He had the
hUl fortified all over again, and it is said that he
saved the campanile by covering it with bales of
wool and mattresses hung on cords. The last
record of his activity during the siege is a note of
February 22, 1530, which shows him climbing the
dome of the cathedral, doubtless to watch the

DECORATIVE FIGURE
Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512).

THE FAILURE OF THE GREAT PLANS 71
movements of the enemy or to examine into the
condition of the dome itself, strained by the bom
bardment. The misfortune which he had foreseen took place
on August 2, 1530, when Malatesta Baglioni turned
traitor. On the 12th Florence capitulated, and the
Emperor turned the town over to the representa
tive of the pope, Baccio Valori. Then the execu
tions began. During the first few days nothing
checked the vengeance of the conquerors and some
of Michelangelo's best friends were among the
victims. Michelangelo hid himself, it is said, in
the tower of S. Niccolo oltr' Arno. He had especial
reason to fear because the report had been spread
that he had wished to tear down the palace of the
Medici. "When the wrath of Clement VII had
subsided," says Condivi, "he wrote to Florence that
Michelangelo should be searched for. He added
that if he was found and was willing to go on work
ing at the tombs of the Medici he should be treated
with all the consideration he deserved." Michel
angelo came out of his hiding-place and in Sep
tember or October, 1530, again undertook his work
for the glory of those against whom he had
fought. It was not the glory of the Medici he wrought,
but his own sorrow and wrath. The same thing

72 MICHELANGELO
happened here as with the tomb of Julius II. Michel
angelo did not have the force to refuse a task un
worthy of him: his genius was heroic, his wUl not
so at all. He accepted the order, he even outhned
a program whose sychophantic affectation arouses
a feeling of sadness and of pity for the humiliation
of so great a man, forced to He. A note in his own
hand at the Casa Buonarroti explains one of the
monuments in the following way.
"Day and Night talk together and say: In our
rapid flight we have brought Duke Giuhano to
death. It is therefore just that he should avenge
himself. His vengeance, now that we have kiUed
him, is to snatch away the Hght from us; by closing
his eyes, he has closed ours, which wUl no longer
illumine the earth. What would he have done with
us if he had remained alive?"
Is not that insipid interpretation the veil of pru
dence which he wrapped about his rebel spirit?
How much of this is really left in the work? Who
can find it there? Who thinks only of the Medici
before this tragic expression of a lonely and de
spairing soul? The burning and mighty spirit of
the Sistine breathes again, and austere forms rise
from the shade. Yet here everything is sadder;
a funereal silence reigns. It is no longer the tragic

THE FAILURE OF THE GREAT PLANS 73
struggle of the Son of Man. It is the void which
weighs on these giants who groan and complain and
on those two sombre, pondering heroes. The superb
imperfection of some of these colossal figures, from
which the sculptor has only torn aside with his
chisel part of the veil of marble that covers them,
adds stiU more to the impression of mysterious
terror expressed by these classic divinities, half
released from chaos and soon to exhaust themselves
in a vain struggle against the forces of destruction.
Action, resigned and powerless, turns his head aside.
At his feet Day in fierce contempt for all things,
shows for a moment over his shoulder, his face
wrapped in clouds. He turns his back on life and
plunges into passionate isolation. Night, overcome
by leaden sleep and burning with fever, sinks into
the midst of a stifling nightmare, like a stone into
a gulf. Thought, self-divining, bends toward the tomb
his austere face bathed in shadow and considers
the succession of his days. Dawn, so beautiful
and pure, wakened against her will, weary of liv
ing and exhausted, stirs in mortal pain; Twi
light, with bended brow, bitter and disabused, re
members the past without regret. The dolorous
and resigned Virgin looks on at this threnody of

74 MICHELANGELO
negation while the child God, famished, gnaws her
breast in anger.1
It was in this outburst of despair that Michel
angelo drowned his shame at raising this monument
of slavery.2 He fell ill from overexcitement and
Clement VII attempted in vain to soothe him.
He sent affectionate messages to him by his secretary,
Pier Paolo Marzo, urging him not to overexert him-
' In entering the chapel of S. Lorenzo the tomb of Giuliano, Duke of
Nemours, (Action) is on the right; and on the left that of Lorenzo, Duke of
Urbino (the Thinker) ; and opposite the altar, the Virgin nursing the Child.
Each of the two captains is placed in a rectangular niche flanked by two
other niches which are empty. Below each of them on the fluted cover
of a sarcophagus are two allegorical figures half reclining (Day and Night —
Dawn and Twilight) with their backs turned. The sarcophagi are design
edly much too small; there is hardly room for the figures on them. No
doubt Michelangelo wished to emphasise the impression of heroic and
agonising effort produced by the sight of these athletic forms turned back
upon themselves in involved and constrained positions. The two tombs
were finished in 1531. We know the admirable verses which Michelangelo
wrote on his figure of Night and which undoubtedly date from a dozen
years later, March, 1544. See Frey CIX, pp. 16-17.
2 At this same time by a savage and instinctive reaction of his nature
against the Christian pessimism by which it was stifled, Michelangelo
executed some works of daring paganism like the painting of Leda caressed
by the Swan (1 529-1 530) which, originally made for the Duke of Ferrara, was
given by Michelangelo to his pupil Antonio Mini, who carried it to France,
where it is said to have been destroyed about 1643 by Sublet des Noyers
because of its licentiousness. A little later Michelangelo painted for
Bart. Bettini a cartoon of Venus caressed by Love from which Pontormo
made a picture now in the Uffizi. Other drawings full of a grandiose and
severe shamelessness are probably of the same period. To the first months
of the siege belongs also the admirable unfinished statue of the Apollo of the
Museo Nazionale which he made for Baccio Valori in the autumn of 1530.

THE FAILURE OF THE GREAT PLANS 75
self, to work reasonably and at his leisure, to take a
walk occasionally, and "not to reduce himself to the
condition of a drudge." In the autumn of 1534 his
Hfe was in danger. Giovanni Battista di Paolo
Mini wrote on September 29th to Valori, "Michel
angelo is worn and emaciated. I have spoken of it
to Bugiardino and Antonio Mini; we agreed that
he had not long to live unless someone looks out
for him."
Clement VII was disturbed and on November
21, 1 53 1, by a special letter he forbade Michelan
gelo under pain of excommunication "to work in
any way whatever, except on the tomb of Julius II
and the undertaking which we have entrusted to
you (ne aliquo modo laborare debeas nisi in
sepulture et opera nostra quam tibi comisimus)
so that you may still bring glory to Rome, your
famUy and yourseU."
He protected Michelangelo against the impor
tunities of those who came to beg for works of art,
and he reprimanded him paternally for accepting
these orders. "When anyone asks you for a paint
ing," he said, "you should fasten a brush to your
foot, make four strokes and say, 'The picture is
done.' " He promised also to arrange Michelangelo's
difficulties with the heirs of Julius II.
On April 29, 1532, by his mediation a fourth con-

76 MICHELANGELO
tract was agreed upon between the representative of
the heir to Julius II, the Duke of Urbino, Francesco
Maria della Rovere and Michelangelo. Michel
angelo promised to make a new model of the tomb,
to deliver the six statues aheady begun and still
unfinished, as weU as everything else that was
ready ; to complete it in the course of three years at
S. Pietro in Vinculi and to pay all the expenses as weU
as two thousand ducats in compensation for the
sums which he had already received. The pope
gave him permission to come for two months every
year to Rome for this work. Michelangelo was
agreeing to the ruin of the greatest undertaking of
his lUe and he had besides to pay so much that he
was forced to sell houses and goods.
Like the plans for Julius II, the plans for the
Medici collapsed. Clement VII died on September
28, 1538. Michelangelo was at that time away from
Florence and he never went back there. Duke
Alessandro de' Medici hated him, and only his fear
of the pope prevented the tyrant from assassinating
him. Michelangelo therefore left Florence (where
his brother Buonarroto died in January, 1534) just
after he had lost his father, Lodovico, in June of
that same year. Nothing bound him any longer to
his own country, and he was never to see it again.
That was the end of the chapel of the Medici.

DECORATIVE FIGURE
Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512).

THE FAILURE OF THE GREAT PLANS 77
It was never completed.1 What we know of it
to-day is only a very far-away suggestion of what
he had dreamed. Barely the lifeless skeleton of the
architectural decoration is left. Michelangelo had
only made (partially) seven statues — Lorenzo da
Urbino, Giuliano de Nemours, the four allegorical
figures and the Madonna — and he had barely begun
some of the others which were planned ; he had aban
doned to Raffaele da Montelupo and Giovanni
Montorsoli the figures of S. Cosmo and S. Damien
for the tomb of Lorenzo the Magnificent and to
Tribolo the figures for the tomb of Giuliano the
brother of Lorenzo, which were to represent the
Earth crowned with cypress, her head bowed,
weeping, and Heaven with lifted arms, radiant with
joy. When these statues were ready to be placed
no one knew where they should go. Vasari inquired
in vain of Michelangelo in 1562 what statues he had
intended for the empty niches beside the captains,
above the doors and in the pavilions at the corners
1 In the plan of construction (a square crowned by a dome with fluted
pilasters and niches with pediments) Michelangelo was influenced by
Brunelleschi and Vitruvius, whom he was studying at that time. There
was very little ornamentation and the idea of the plan was clear, simple
and abstract. With Michelangelo, architecture is always a frame for his
statues. He even went so far as to write, in 1560, to Cardinal Carpi that
the divisions of architecture were the same as those of the human frame,
and no one who was not "un buon maestro di figure" and did not under
stand anatomy could be an architect.

78 MICHELANGELO
and "what sort of painting he had planned for the
walls." Evidently the Medici Chapel, so bare and
cold to-day, was to have had a complete decoration
of painting and sculpture of which it is impossible
for us to form any idea.
Almost the same thing is true of the Laurentian
Library. Michelangelo never took any interest in
it except in 1 525-1 526, when the pope wanted him to
write about it almost every week. When he left
Florence he had only completed the construction of
the vestibule and the ceiling of the chief structure.
The staircase had not been begun. When the
Grand Duke Cosmo wished to have it finished by
Tribolo in 1558 no model of Michelangelo's could be
found. Vasari begged him to say what his plan
had been and Michelangelo answered that he would
tell him willingly tf he could remember it, but he had
only a vague idea, as if in a dream, of a certain
staircase, but he did not think it could be the one
he had planned, because it was absurd.1

1 He sent a model in 1559. It is from this model that Vasari executed the
much-criticised staircase of the Laurentian . In spite of faults it shows the
rugged genius of Michelangelo, who seemed to enjoy making difficulties
for himself. That breakneck staircase, conceived in such a dry, hard and
complicated way, but strong and violent, and which ever seeks to accentuate
the ascending lines, is certainly a product of the same spirit which created
the Medici tombs. Besides it is well to note that the faults were empha
sised by the manner in which Vasari carried it out. Michelangelo had recom-

THE FAILURE OF THE GREAT PLANS 79
He had so completely given up all these under
takings that he had wiped them from his memory,
or rather his memory had disappeared with them.
"Memory and mind have gone on ahead," he
wrote, "to wait for me in the other world."
mended that the staircase be made of wood, but Cosmo held to the idea
of building it in stone.

CHAPTER IV
VITTORIA COLONNA
( 1 535-1 547)
Michelangelo, worn out and discouraged, re
turned definitely to Rome on September 23, 1534,
and there he remained until his death. He was in a
condition of great mental unrest, his heart hungry
for love. This was the period of those strange
violent and mystical passions for beautiful young
men like Gherardo Perini, Febo di Poggio and, most
loved of all and most worthily so, Tommaso dei
Cavalieri. These attachments, about which most
historians have preferred to be sUent, were an almost
religious delirium of love for the divinity of beauty
and hold an important place in the work of Michel
angelo. It is to their inspiration that most of his
love -poems are due. For a long time this was
either not known or a stupid and unfortunate
attempt was made to conceal it. Even in 1623
Michelangelo's grandnephew in his first edition of
the "Rime" did not dare publish the poems to
80

VITTORIA COLONNA 8 i
Tommaso dei Cavalieri with their real titles, but
dedicated them to a woman. This error persisted
until Caesare Guasti, in his edition of 1863, re-estab
lished the exact text, but nevertheless did not dare
admit that Tommaso dei Cavalieri was a real person
and forced himseU to believe that Vittoria Colonna
was concealed under the fictitious name. Mezieres
in his " L'CEuvre et la Vie de Michelange," published
in 1876, repeated this same mistake, which was only
finaUy denounced and corrected by Scheffler and
Symonds in 1878.
Tommaso dei Cavalieri, according to Vasari and
Varchi, was "a young Roman gentleman, devoted
to art and of incomparable personal beauty," whom
Michelangelo met in the autumn of 1532. It is in
1 533-1 534 that this friendship reached its height
and inspired his most ardent poems and letters.
Cavalieri remained a faithful friend to Michelangelo
to his very last hour, at which indeed he was present.
He made use of this friendship only for the good of
his friend. Not only did he take devoted care of the
old man in his last years, but he saw to the carrying
out of his wishes while he was alive and after his
death. It was he who persuaded him to complete
the wooden model of the dome of St. Peter's and who
preserved his plans for the construction of the
Capitol. Their names would always be associated

82 MICHELANGELO
together even U his beauty had not inspired some of
Michelangelo's most perfect sonnets.1
AU these attachments, however, were to be
eclipsed by his friendship with Vittoria Colonna.
She was the daughter of Fabrizio Colonna, Lord
of Paliano, Prince of Tagliacozzo, and of Agnesena di
Montefeltro, daughter of the great Federigo, Duke
of Urbino. She had married Ferrante Francesco
d'Avalos, Marquis di Pescara, the victor of Pavia,
who treated her badly, but whom she loved. A
widow since 1525, she had turned for consolation to
religion and poetry. Her sonnets, in which she
sang her idealised love, had been weU known through
out Italy since 1530 and had won for her a fame
unique among the women of her day. She was a
friend of all the great poets and great writers:
Bembo, Castiglione who entrusted to her the manu
script of his "Cortegiano," Ariosto who celebrated
1 See in the edition of Michelangelo's poems by Carl Frey, " Die Dich-
tungen des Michelangelo Buonarroti," Berhn, 1S97, the sonnets, CIX,
LXXVI, XLV, etc.
Vasari tells us that Michelangelo made a life-size drawing of Cavalieri,
the only portrait which he ever made, for he had a horror of copying a
living person unless they were of incomparable beauty.
He adds that he made him beautiful presents, "many astonishing draw
ings, a Ganymede carried to Heaven by the eagle of Zeus, a Tityos with the
vulture feeding on his heart, the fall of Phaeton and the chariot of the
Sun into the Po, and a Bacchanale of children— all works of the rarest
beauty ami of such perfection that their like has never been seen."

VITTORIA COLONNA 83
her in his Orlando, Paul Jove, Bernardo Tasso and
Ludovico Dolce. But after 1534 religion absorbed
her and she was carried away by the movement for
the reform and regeneration of the Catholic Church.
Although she was a friend of all the men who per
sonified in Italy this spirit of religious freedom,
Cardinal Contarini and Cardinal Pole, Giberti,
Sadolet, Bernadino Ochino, Pietro Carnesecchi, and
in touch with Renee of Ferrara and Marguerite of
Navarre, yet she could not, like many of her friends,
break away from the church of Rome, and later she
sacrificed her sympathies to her faith.
Michelangelo knew her about 1535, but their
friendship did not really begin until the end of 1538.
She was then forty-six years old and he was sixty-
three. It was a serious and devout friendship. They met
on Sundays in the church of S. Silvestro at Monte
CavaUo, and there they had those noble discussions
which the Portuguese painter, Francis of Holland,
has preserved for us in his four "Dialogues sur la
Peinture," which took place in Rome in 1 538-1 539
and were written in 1548.
Then Vittoria, driven by her religious doubts, left
Rome in 1541, to retire first to Orvieto to the
cloister of S. Paolo and later to Viterbo to the cloister
of S. Caterina near Cardinal Pole, her friend and

84 MICHELANGELO
spiritual guide. She returned to Rome from time
to time to see Michelangelo and she wrote to him.
We have only a very few of these letters which
Michelangelo sacredly preserved. They are affec
tionate, but cold, and we feel that she was much
more detached from him than he was from her.
He often complains that she does not answer him.
She wrote him:
"Magnificent Messer Michelangelo — I did not
reply earlier to your letter because it was, as one
might say, an answer to my last ; for I thought that
if you and I were to go on writing without intermis
sion according to my obligation and your courtesy,
I should have to neglect the Chapel of S. Catherine
here, and be absent at the appointed hours for
company with my sisterhood, while you would have
to leave the Chapel of S. Paul, and be absent from
morning through the day from your sweet usual
colloquy with painted forms, the which with their
natural accents do not speak to you less clearly than
the living persons around me speak to me. Thus we
should both of us fail in our duty, I to the brides,
you to the vicar of Christ. For these reasons,
inasmuch as I am well assured of our steadfast
friendship and affection, bound by knots of Chris
tian kindness, I do not think it necessary to obtain
the proof of your good-will in letters by writing on

C/JJ D I* o

8 I

Pi s
O M
fe ^

(J W

VITTORIA COLONNA 85
my side, but rather to await with well-prepared
mind some substantial occasion for serving you.
Meanwhile I address my prayers to that Lord of
whom you spoke to me with so fervent and humble
a heart when I left Rome, that when I return thither
I may find you with His image renewed and en
livened by true faith in your soul, in like measure
as you have painted it with perfect art in my Sa
maritan.1 Believe me to remain always yours and
your Urbino's."
In this way she merely made use of her powers to
soothe her friend's spirit and to stimulate him to
work. Most of all she relit that light of faith which
had never ceased to burn in his soul, although en
veloped in a night of doubt and despair. Besides
"The Samaritan Woman at the Well," which is
spoken of in the letter from Vittoria, Michelangelo
made for her a drawing of a descent from the cross
with these words of Dante, " Non vi si pensa, quaneo
sangue costa," and a tragic crucifixion in which Jesus
writhes as he implores Heaven. Perhaps the two
admirable drawings of the Resurrection in the Louvre
and the British Museum are of this same period.
^rom the monastery at Viterbo, July 20, 1542 or 1543. The letter
bears this address: "Al mio piu che magnifico et piu che carissimo M.
Michel Agnolo Buonarroti." (Carteggio de Vittoria Colonna. Published
by Ermanno Ferrero and Giuseppe Muller, Turin, 1892, pp. 268, 269.)

86 MICHELANGELO
Vittoria, in sending him, after 1539, her Sonetti
Spirituali, also opened before his poetical genius
another path to immortality.
Ever since his childhood he had made verses from
an impelling need of expression. He covered his
drawings, his letters and loose sheets of paper with
thoughts in verse which he took up again and again,
corrected and worked over ceaselessly. We have
only a very few of these poems of his youth, for he
burned many of them in 1518 with some drawings.
He did not think them of value untU he met the
banker Luigi del Riccio and Donato Gianotti, who
advised him to publish a collection of them. Donato
took the matter up seriously about 1545. Michel
angelo made a selection from his poems and his
friends recopied them. But the death of Riccio
in 1546 and perhaps also that of Vittoria in 1547
distracted him from this thought of worldly fame,
and the poems remained unpublished untU his death.
Nevertheless they were passed from hand to hand
and the most famous composers of the time, G.
Archadelt, Bartolommeo Tromboncino, Costanzo
Festa, Consilium — ItaHans, Frenchmen and Flem
ings — set his madrigals to music. Cultured peo
ple admired them, and Varchi, reading and com
menting on one of these sonnets in 1546 before
the Academy of Florence, declared that it had the

VITTORIA COLONNA 87
clarity of the classic and the richness of the thought
of Dante.
Michelangelo was in fact nourished on Dante.
"No one understood him better or knew his works
more perfectly," says Donato Giannotti, who placed
him as arbiter in his dialogues on Dante in 1545.
Michelangelo dedicated to Dante one of his most
beautUul sonnets in which he envied his exile and his
glory: Fuss'io pur lui! c'a tal fortuna nato,
Per l'aspro esilio suo con la virtute
Dare' del mundo il piu felice stato.2
He knew equally well all the other classics of
Italian lyric poetry, Cavalcanti, Cino da Pistoia and
Petrarch. His style is wrought from theirs, but his
thought is entirely his own.
"You speak words only, but he speaks in deeds,"
wrote Francesco Berni to the poets of his time.
Tacete umquanco pallide viole
Et liquidi cristalli et fere snelli:
Et dice cose, e voi dite parole.3
1 Donato Giannotti, " De' giorni che Dante consumo nel cecrare
l'lnferno e' Purgatorio. Dialoghi."
J Were I but he, born for like lingering pains
Against his exile coupled with his good,
I'd gladly change the world's best heritage.
(Translation of J. A. Symonds.)
3 Capitplo di Francesco Berni a fra Sebastiano del Piombo. (Rime.
Ed. Frey, p. 263.)

88 MICHELANGELO
It is true that this was not achieved without a
great obscurity of thought, remarked even by his
contemporaries and which to us often makes their
reading very difficult.
"He writes what Phcebus, Euterpe and the divine
fury dictate to him, and afterward he hardly under
stands what he has written," says Lodovico Martelli.1
The sonnet form cramped him, and characteristic
ally he loved that form because of its difficulty.
He always delighted in doing violence to his genius
and in making himself suffer. His poetry has often
been compared to his sculpture. We can almost see
him, as in Mariette's account,2 making the chips of
marble fly under his chisel or tearing from the block
of his thought the idea that is haunting him, leaving
it scarcely freed from the matrix. Frey, in his ad
mirable edition, which is the only exact one of the
"Rime" of Michelangelo, reveals the heroic fury
with which he composed. He strikes only the main
chord on his instrument, nothing more — no develop
ment, no variations. His dominant emotion once
expressed, there is nothing more to say, the idea is
exhausted. Most of his poems have remained in the
condition of blocked-out torsos.
The most beautUul of these verses were written
1 Canzone in lode di Michelagnolo Bonarroto. (See Frey, p. 7.)
2 A Frenchman who saw him at that time.

VITTORIA COLONNA 89
under the inspiration of Vittoria Colonna and the
religious ideas which she revived in him. Separated
from each other, they exchanged sonnets; she sent
him forty from Viterbo1 and he answered her in
verse.2 In 1544 Vittoria returned to Rome to live in the
cloister of S. Anna and remained there until her
death on February 25, 1547. Her death prostrated
Michelangelo. "He remained for a long time stu
pefied and out of his senses," says Condivi. But
the faith which she had given back to him never
again left him. The death of his friend only deep
ened it, and the two strange and powerful sonnets
which celebrate that death3 are a hymn of tri
umphant faith and love.
When Michelangelo finally left Florence in 1534
and went to settle in Rome he expected to be at
last free and able to discharge his debt to the mem
ory of JuHus II. But no sooner was the new pope
elected than he hastened to attach Michelangelo
to himseU. He was Paulo III Farnese, "a choleric
man, ambitious, daring, full of intelligence and
cunning, ostentatious, one of the last great popes
of the Renaissance and the one who perhaps did the
1 Letters of Michelangelo to Fattucci, March 7, 1551.
2 Rime. Ed. Frey, LXXXVIII, p. 93.
3 Ibid., C and CL, pp. 105, 106.

qo MICHELANGELO
most to beautify Rome, the great builder among the
popes of the sixteenth century." l
He summoned Michelangelo, overwhelmed him
with promises, and asked him to work for him.
Michelangelo wanted to decline, alleging as excuse
his old contracts with the heirs of Julius II, but
Paul III was furious and declared that he would
tear up aU those contracts and that Michelangelo
should work for him in spite of everything. Michel
angelo thought of taking flight to Urbino or to Genoa
to his friend, the bishop of Almeria, but he gave in
as usual, too weak to resist. The pope, who came
with ten of his cardinals to see the statues aheady
completed for the monument of Julius II, went
into ecstasies over them, especially over the Moses,
of which the Cardinal of Mantua said that "that
figure alone would be enough to honour the mem
ory of Pope Julius," and he was even more deter
mined than before to reserve Michelangelo exclu
sively for his own plans.
On September I, 1535, he appointed him by
official letters architect-in-chief, sculptor and painter
1 The work on the fortifications of Rome directed by Antonio da San
Gallo dates from his reign and also the construction of the Capitol, the
raising of the statue of Marcus Aurelius, the completion of the Farnese
Palace, the construction of the Via Paola, of the Sala Regia and the Pauline
Chapel at the Vatican, the Caffarelli and Spada palaces, the Villa Medici,
etc.

VITTORIA COLONNA 91
to the Apostolic Palace with a salary for life of twelve
hundred golden crowns a year, of which six hundred
were the revenue (uncertain and at once contested)
of a toll-bridge on the Po near Placentia.1
Ever since April, 1535, Michelangelo had agreed
to work on the Last Judgment. The idea of com
pleting the decoration of the Sistine Chapel with that
fresco originated with Clement VII, who had already
talked to Michelangelo about it in 1533. At that
time the plan also included a Fall of Lucifer2 on
the entrance wall of the Sistine.
The first thing to be done was to destroy the
frescoes of Perugino which covered the great wall
below the altar.3
This did not, of course, trouble Michelangelo,
who despised Perugino and called him a "block
head." He worked on the Last Judgment from
1536 to 1541.4
WhUe he was working at it probably in 1539 he
1 As a matter of fact Michelangelo did not actually receive any
income from this source until 1538, and after many difficulties he lost
it in 1547.
2 Later on the subject was treated after the sketches of Michelangelo
in the Chapel of S. Gregorio at Santa Trinita. (See Vasari.)
3 Perugino had painted the Assumption with a portrait of Sextius IV
kneeling, Moses saved from the waters, and the Birth of Christ.
4 Leon Dorez has found recently in the records of the private accounts
of Paul III the exact dates of the work, April-May, 1536, to November 1 8,
1541-

92 MICHELANGELO
fell from the scaffold and injured himseU seriously
in the leg. Still he completed his immense task
by December 25, 1541, the day when the public
was admitted to see it.
No one of his works has been more diversely
judged. Before considering it at all, we should
remember that it was the work of an old man
between sixty and sixty-six. The vitaHty which
this "terrible" man still possessed after a Hfe of
exhausting labours and troubles is, whatever we may
think of the work, something superhuman. The
first thing which strikes us in that colossal fresco
twenty metres high and ten wide and swarming
with hundreds of figures, is order, reason and imperi
ous will, controlled and almost cold. The innu
merable human bodies, a throng which produces
at first a sense of stifling discomfort, are gathered
in a dozen groups which balance each other and are
all drawn along in a dizzying whirl from right to left
around the Christ.
If we turn to the drama itseU we are overwhelmed
by an impression of brutal force. Force alone rules.
There is no soul; nothing but unreasoning physical
force and the terror of it. The moment chosen is
terrible. Through the thunder of the trumpets
blown to bursting by the angels, the herculean
Christ curses.

VITTORIA COLONNA 93
" Now there is no longer any time for pity or room
for pardon."1
Before that implacable gesture which launches
eternal death all the army of gigantic bodies swerves
and bows, a prey to one feeling — that of fear;
crushing, horrible fear relieved by no reasoning
thought, a fear of blows like that of a dog under the
whip. The tremendous vigour of these trembling
athletes throws more harshly into relief their abject
helplessness. The martyrs in order to recall to
the Master their claims on His mercy exhibit
servUely the instruments of their martyrdom. St.
Laurence covers himself with his gridiron; St. Blaise
waves his rack; St. Bartholomew holds out his
bloody skin and lUts his bare knife with such ferocity
that he appears rather to be the flayer than the
flayed. The Virgin withdraws into the background
so as not to see. Abel hides behind Adam, and one
of his sisters throws herself, terrified, on Eve's knees
and buries her face in the arms of her mother. The
1 Thus Vittoria Colonna had herself described the Last Judgment to
Michelangelo: "Christ comes twice, the first time he is all gentleness;
he only shows his great kindness, his clemency and his pity; he comes
for the sinners and the sick, to give peace, light and forgiveness, all glow
ing with charity, clothed in humanity. . . . The second time he comes
armed and shows his justice, his majesty, his grandeur and his almighty
power, and there is no longer any time for pity or room for pardon.
(Letter of Vittoria between 1 535-1 546, probably to Bernadino Ochino,
— Carteggio de Vittoria Colonna, p. 242.)

94 MICHELANGELO
tempest howls above. The heavy flight of angels
rolls through space, head over heels, bearing with an
exaggerated and forced violence the column, the cross
and the instruments of the Passion. Below at the
right is a savage melee of souls and angels in a hand-
to-hand struggle. At the left the bodies rise heavily
from Purgatory like inflated balloons drawn up by
the sun. At the bottom is the monstrous harvest
of the earth giving up its dead; Hell, full of the
atrocious horror of suffering and the stUl more atro
cious joy of creating suffering. "Charon with eyes
like burning coals, who smites with his oars." The
maddened damned, crowded together Hke a herd of
sheep, demons grabbing shrieking souls who hide
their eyes and ears with horror, the faUing of bodies
which come down like masses of lead, and in the
extreme right-hand corner Minos, evil and undis
turbed. There is in such a work a mass of wrath, ven
geance and hate which is suffocating. If it was not
purified by colossal and almost elementary force
it would be insupportable.
This, then, is what the Prophets and the Sibyls are
looking forward to, this is what the convulsive
agony of the paintings of the ceiling predicts. This
implacable conclusion of human history conformed
perfectly to the essence of Christian thought, but

SLAVE
Figure for the tomb of Julius II (1513-1516). Louvre.

VITTORIA COLONNA 95
the expression of it was so audacious and so stripped
of all compromise that it revolted the majority of
Christians, whom Michelangelo, aristocratic in his
faith as in his whole spirit, never considered at all.
It was not only Biagio da Cesina,1 Master of
Ceremonies to Paul III, who declared the painting
to be "improper" — -"opera da stufe o d'osterie"
(work fit only for a bagnio or an inn), but the ma
jority of Catholic opinion agreed. Aretino sounded
the alarm. He might not seem to be very well
qualified to do this, but he wanted to revenge himself
on Michelangelo, who had not shown that regard for
him which the Master Singer knew how to exact
even from kings.2 The author of "The Hypocrite,"3
the prototype of Tartuffe, was also the model.
aWe know that Michelangelo, to revenge himself, portrayed Biagio
from memory in the Hell of his Last Judgment under the form of Minos
with a huge serpent wound about his legs in the midst of a mountain of
devils. (Vasari.)
2 We must not, however, imagine that Michelangelo any more than his
contemporaries had the courage to show openly to Aretino the contempt
which he must have felt for him. If he declined the offer of collaboration
in the Last Judgment which Aretino had baldly made him and for which
he had outlined a detailed program, it was only with many compliments
and much flattery. (Letter of September, 1537.) Even though Aretino
did not obtain from him the gift for which he asked, we find, nevertheless,
that he had received in September, 1535, through Vasari, a head in wax
and a sketch for a St. Catherine. But he did not consider himself satisfied.
3 The " Hypocrite," dedicated to Guidobaldo II, Duke of Urbino. (See
Pierre Gaultier, "L'Aretin," 1895.)

96 MICHELANGELO
"Messire," he wrote in November, 1545, "as a
baptised man I am ashamed of the license which
you have permitted yourseU in expressing your con
ception of that end toward which turn all the
aspirations of our true faith. Nov/ behold that this
Michelangelo, a man of such astounding fame and
universally admired, has exposed to the world as
much impiety and irreligion as perfection of paint
ing. Is it possible that you, who, being divine, do
not condescend to have commerce with men, is it
possible that you have done this in the greatest
temple of God, above the highest altar of Christ, in
the most sacred chapel in the world, where the
great hinges of the church, the venerable pontiffs, the
Vicars of Christ, by the Catholic ceremonies and
holy prayers confess, contemplate and adore His
body and blood? In so lofty a representation you
draw saints and angels, the first without any terres
trial decency and the others deprived of all celestial
honours. Remember the Pagans, who, when they
made statues of Diana, clothed her and even made
the naked Venus cover with her hands those parts
which should not be shown, and behold here a
Christian, who, placing art above faith, holds it a
royal spectacle not to observe equal decency toward
the martyrs and the virgins, and shows gestures
so coarse that even women of the street would shut

VITTORIA COLONNA 97
their eyes so as not to see them. Such a style be
longs only in a voluptuous bagnio and not in the
most holy chapel. It would be a lesser crime not
to believe than to attack in such a way the faith
of others. Aheady the excellence of these indiscreet
wonders has been punished, since they have accom
phshed the miracle of kUling your glory. There
fore regain your honour by placing flames of fire
over the shameful parts of the damned, and rays of
sunhght over those of the saved, or, still better,
imitate the modesty of the Florentines, who hid
under golden leaves the belly of your beautiful
colossal David, even though that stood in a public
square and not in a sacred place. May God forgive
you. I do not say this to you through resentment
at not having received what I asked you for, although
you should have sent me what you agreed, and
you would have done well to have taken the greatest
possible trouble about it, for you would in that
way put an end to the rumours which say that no
one can get anything from you but Gherardi and
Tomai.1 But U the treasure which Julius II left
you so that his remains should be placed in a monu
ment carved by you, has not been enough to make you
1 Gherardo Perini and Tommaso dei Cavalieri — thus Aretino in passing
adds to the accusation of impiety an allusion to the evil reports about the
habits of Michelangelo. Two lines lower down he will accuse him of theft.
7

98 MICHELANGELO
keep your promises, what could I expect? Anyway,
it is a fact that your failure to redeem that debt
is considered as a theft. . . But since our souls have
more need of faith than of lifelikeness of drawing,
may God inspire his Holiness, Paul III, as He in
spired the blessed Gregory who decided to strip
Rome of the superb statues of the idols rather than
to do harm through them to the respect due to
the humble images of the saints ! Finally, to sum up,
tf you had taken counsel in your composition of the
universe, the abyss and paradise of the glorious
and terrible sketch which I sent you and of my in
structions, and of the knowledge which the world has
so praised in me, I dare say that no one would have
regretted it."1
This venomous letter was, unluckily, not a simple
act of vengeance and of blackmaU. It was the
hypocritical echo of many sincere protestations. A
Florentine in 1549 called Michelangelo "the creator
of that vileness, irreproachable in art but not in
faith," and he added, "All the modern painters
and sculptors imitate such Lutheran abominations.2
1 In postscript: Now that I have a little discharged my anger against
the cruelty with which you have repaid my devotion, and have made you
see, I believe, that if you are "divino" I am not "d'acqua," tear up this
letter as I do, and reflect. For I am a man to whom even Kings and Em
perors answer.
2 Gaye Carteggio, Vol. II, p. 500.

VITTORIA COLONNA 99
They paint and carve even in the least important
churches only such figures as are calculated to destroy
faith and devotion; but I hope that some day God
will send His saints to overthrow such idolatries."
The trial of Veronese in a certain measure justifies
these accusations. Brought before the Inquisition
on July 18, 1573, for the indecency of his Feast
in the House of Simon, Veronese did not fail to
intrench himseU behind the example of the Last
Judgment.1 It is true that the Inquisition un
dertook nobly the defense of Michelangelo against
him. "Do you not know that in representing the Last
Judgment, in which we can not imagine any clothing,
there was no ground for painting any? But what is
there in those figures that is not inspired by the
Holy Spirit? There are neither buffoons nor dogs,
nor arms or other mockeries. ..."
But Rome had not so lofty a spirit; the ideas of
Biagio and Aretino made their way. Neither the
European glory of Michelangelo nor his favour with
the popes nor the respect inspired by the nobility
of his life and his well-known faith succeeded in
protecting the Last Judgment from the zeal of the
bigots. Paul IV Caraffa had for a while the idea
1 A Baschet " P. Veronese devant le Saint Office," 1880.

ioo MICHELANGELO
of covering up the entire fresco. By his order
Daniele da Volterra clothed the nakedness which
wounded Aretino's modesty (in 1559- 1560) and
gained for this the surname of "Braghettone."
Under Pius V in 1566 Girolamo da Fano continued
this holy work. This was not enough to satisfy
the wrath of the good people, for in 1596 Clement
VIII Aldobrandini again wanted to have the
Judgment painted out. He was prevented by a
protest from the Academy of St. Luke.1 Indeed,
until the eighteenth century the work of Michel
angelo was shamelessly redressed, retouched and re
painted.2 It is therefore impossible to judge today
exactly of the original appearance and especially
of the colour, the harmony of which has been
outrageously destroyed.3 Michelangelo, unmoved,
watched the mutilation of his work. He was asked
his opinion, and he answered without anger and with
' "Missirini: Memorie per servire alia storia della romana Accademia di
S. Luca." (Cited by E. Muntz, "Histoire de l'Art pendant la Renais
sance," Vol. Ill, p. 126.)
2 In 1762 Stefano Pozzi was polishing it under Clement VIII. AbM
Richard, in his "Voyage d'ltalie," says that he saw "some very mediocre
artists occupied in covering with draperies the most beautiful nude figures
of the painting and of the ceiling."
3 The only document which makes it possible for us to give an account
of the original work is a copy by Marcello Venusti in the Museum of Naples,
from which a painter of Orleans, Robert Le Noyer, seems to have made in
1750 a reduced copy which is now in the Museum of Montpellier. (See
G. Lafenestre ct E. Richtenberger, " La Peinture en Europe." Rome.)

VITTORIA COLONNA ior
calm contempt: "Say to his Hohness that this is a
little thing which can easily be put in order. Let
him attend to putting the world in order; to reform
a painting is not much trouble."
In spite of everything the Last Judgment was
the school of the world. Men came from all over
Italy and from abroad to be present at its unveiling
on December 25, 1541. Hosts of Italian, French,
Flemish and German artists followed each other
without respite through the Sistine Chapel, copying
zealously the entire fresco, and the glory of Michel
angelo, far from being diminished as Aretino pre
dicted, became colossal on account of it.
"That sublime painting," writes Vasari, "should
serve as a model in our art. Divine Providence
made this present to the world to show how much
intelligence she could bestow on certain men whom
she sends to the earth. The most learned draughts
man will tremble when he sees those bold outlines
and those marvellous foreshortenings. In the pres
ence of that celestial work our senses are paralysed
and we ask ourselves what will exist of the works
which were made before this and the works that
wiU be made after it. One can caU oneself happy
when one has seen this prodigy of art and of genius.
0 fortunate Paul III! Heaven has aUowed you
to be the patron of that glory. Your name wiU live

102 MICHELANGELO
forever beside that of Buonarroti whose fame fills
the universe."
The fresco of the Sistine was hardly finished when
the insatiable Paul III insisted that Michelangelo,
in spite of his extreme old age, should paint the
frescoes of the Pauline Chapel. With a great effort
he completed the conversion of St. Paul and the
Crucifixion of St. Peter which, begun in 1542, in
jured after 1545 by a fire, interrupted by two severe
illnesses in 1544 and 1546, were finally completed in
1549-1550. "He complained," says Vasari, "that he
had suffered greatly in executing these works. Paint
ing, and especially fresco, is not fitted for an old man."
He was, as a matter of fact, seventy-five years old.
Both frescoes to-day have almost disappeared. In
spite of the exaggeration of the attitudes and the
abuse of virtuosity Michelangelo had preserved in
them his lough vigour, and we can stiU see there a
tumultuous force which struggles in darkness.1
During this fifteen years' work the old man had
lost all hope of ever finishing the monument of
Julius II, and had with great difficulty prevented
Paul III from taking some of the statues to serve
as ornaments of the Pauhne Chapel. He had had
1 The British Museum and the University of Oxford have drawings
which are related to these frescoes. The Cartoon is in the Museum at
Naples.

VITTORIA COLONNA 103
to sign, on August 20, 1542, a fifth and last contract
with the heirs of Julius II. By this agreement he
relinquished for the time being three statues, which
must have been the Moses and the two Slaves.1
Then he decided that the Slaves were not any
longer fitted to the tomb and he began two other
figures, Active Life and Contemplative Life.2
In addition, Michelangelo agreed to give fourteen
hundred crowns3 to his pupil Urbino and to Raf
faelli da Montelupo for finishing the monument, after
which he was to be free from all obligation forever.
But he had not reached the end of his troubles,
for the heirs of Julius II continued persecuting the
poor man with insulting demands for money which
they pretended to have previously disbursed to
him. Michelangelo went almost mad, as he had
done in the time of Clement VII over the Medici
Chapel, and it was in vain that Paul III commanded
him not to think about it, but to give himself up en
tirely to his painting of the Pauline Chapel.
1 March 6, 1542. (Gaye, Vol. II, p. 289.)
2 July 20, 1542 (Petition of Michelangelo to Paul III), Michelangelo
added that the two figures were already so far advanced that they could
be easily completed by other artists. (Gaye, Vol. II, p. 297.)
3 The fourteen hundred crowns had been deposited at the bank of Sil
vestro da Montanto & Co. They were to be divided as follows: eight
hundred for the work of Urbino; five hundred and thirty for the statues
of Raffaelli da Montelupo, whose Madonna was already finished; and
fifty for the transportation and placing of the statues by Urbino.

104 MICHELANGELO
He answered, "You paint with your head and
not with your hands. Who does not think for him
seU dishonours himseU. That is why I can do
nothing good so long as I have these preoccupations.
I have been chained to this trouble aU my Hfe," he
continued, bitterly, "I have lost my youth over it;
I have been ruined by my too great conscientious
ness. It is my fate; I see many people who Hve
tranquUly on an income of two or three thousand
crowns and I have only succeeded after a terrible
struggle in being poor."1
To satisfy his creditors he finished with his own
hands the statues of Active LUe and Contemplative
LUe,2 although he was not obhged to do so.
At last the monument of JuHus II was finished
and shown in the Church of S. Pietro in VincuH in
February, 1545. What was left of the beautiful
original plan? Only the Moses which had become
the central figure after having been merely one of
the details. Would the complete work have been
a prodigy analogous for sculpture to what the Sistine
Chapel is for painting? Certainly no prophet of the
Sistine Chapel attains to the sovereign perfection of
the Moses.
'October, 1542. Letter to an unknown person whom he calls Mon-
signore. * 18 November, 1542. Letter of Michelangelo to Luigi del Riccio.

MOSES
Figure for the Tomb of Julius II (1513-1516).
San Pietro-in-Vinculi, Rome.

VITTORIA COLONNA 105
The Moses is a supernatural and savage apparition
half beast, half god. Pagan? Christian? No one
knows. Two horns pierce the narrow skull, a flowing
beard descends from his face to his knees like a para
sitical vine attached to a great tree. He seems calm,
but in his terrible jaw with close-shut teeth and pro
jecting lower lip is wrath which shatters and crushes
like the first chords of the overture to " Coriolanus."
An implacable and murderous force, a tumult of
rage and contempt wars in the sUence of that arro
gant being, with his huge bulk, his knotted arms
— less brutal than those of most of Michelangelo's
heroes, and with strong and beautiful hands —
and left leg bent ready to rise. The dress is a bar
barous one. No other work of Michelangelo is as
completely finished. We feel that he had lived with
it more than thirty years without being willing to
let it go. He could see himself in it as in a superb
mirror which gave him back the image that he
had divined of his own soul. For the Moses is
not only the most perfect artistic expression of
his genius, but also its highest moral expression.
Nowhere else has he so completely realised the
majestic balance of a violent and passionate soul
controlled by an iron wiU./ Everywhere else pas
sion is let loose and the human being is given into
its hands. Here the savage elements are in sus-

io6 MICHELANGELO
pense, ready to fuse. It is a thunder-cloud charged
with lightning. /
Beside that superhuman creation rich with the
whole life of Michelangelo, the two gracious figures
of Leah and Rachel the work of his old age, seem
a little cold and affected.
"I seemed in a dream to see a lady, young and
beautiful, going through a meadow, gathering flowers,
and singing she was saying, ' Let him know, whoso
asks my name, that I am Leah, and I go moving my
fair hands around to make myseU a garland. To
please me at the glass here I adorn me, but my sister
Rachel never withdraws from her mirror, and sits
all day. She is as fain to look with her fair eyes
as I to adorn me with my hands. Her seeing, and
me doing, satisfies.' " 1
1 Giovane e bella in sogno mi parea
Donna vedere andar per una landa
Cogliendo fiori; e cantando dicea:
Sappia, qualunque il mio nome domanda
Ch'io mi son Lia, e vo movendo intorno
Le belle mani a farmi una ghirlanda.
Per piacermi alio specchio qui m'adorno;
Ma mia suora Rachel mai non si smaga
Dal suo miraglio, e siede tutto giorno
Ell' e de' suoi begli occhi veder vaga,
Com' io dell' adornami con la mani;
Lei lo vedere, e mi l'oprare appaga.
— (Purgatorio, XXVH.)
(Translation of C. E. Norton.)

VITTORIA COLONNA 107
The perfume of these lovely verses of Dante
penetrates Michelangelo's two statues, which are
rather apart from the rest of his work. If it were
not for the largeness of their conception they would
recall by their "morbidezza" and their cold grace
the style of Civitale and Rossellino. Michelangelo
seems here to be softened and a little tamed.
The symbolical meaning of these figures is obscure,
as usual with him. His intellectual quality was
rarely strong enough or rather clear enough to impose
itseU on his artistic conceptions. It is placed in
juxtaposition to them in a puerile and accessory
way as in the allegorical attributes of the Medici
tombs, and we can take it away without hurting the
strength of the work.
As for the rest of the monument of Julius II, it is
not worth mentioning.1 It is a caricature of the
great project, but at least it was finished. Michel
angelo was delivered from the nightmare of his
whole life.
1 A Prophet and a Sibyl are by Raffaelli da Montelupo, and the absurd
statue of the Pope by Maso Boscoli da Fiesole.

CHAPTER V
OLD AGE AND DEATH
(i 547-1 564)
Michelangelo cared no longer for his own glory.
He thought only of the glory of God, and art had
become to him merely a means of service. He wrote,
"I understand now how great is the mistake, the
passionate delusion in which I made of art an idol
and a king."
1 L'affectuosa fantasia,
Che l'arte mi fece idol'e monarca,
Conosco or ben, com' era d'error carca. . . .l
His soul "had turned to that divine love which
welcomes us with arms outspread upon the cross."
L'anima, volta a quell' amor divmo
C'aperse a prender noi' n croce le braccia.
He wished to consecrate all that remained of his Hfe
1 Now know I well how that fond phantasy
Which made my soul the worshipper and thrall
Of Earthly Art, is vain. (Translation of J. A. Symonds.)
IOS

OLD AGE AND DEATH 109
to the task of building for his God the temple of
temples, St. Peter's.
By a pontifical letter of Paul III, dated January
I, 1547, and renewed by Julius III in 1552 he had
been appointed governor and architect of St. Peter's
with full power to carry on the construction. He
accepted this heavy task as a sacred duty, and
refused to take any pay for it. In 1557 he wrote
to his nephew Lionardo, "many people believe, as
I do myseU, that I have been placed at this post
by God. I will not leave it because I am serving
for the love of God and put all my hope in Him."1
He at once found himself in trouble with the party
of San Gallo. They had always been his enemies
and it must be acknowledged that he had done his
best to deserve their hostility.
When Raphael was directing the work on St. Peter's,
Antonio da San Gallo had been his assistant, and
he therefore belonged to the party opposed to
Michelangelo. In 1537 San Gallo became architect-
in-chief, succeeding Baldassare Peruzzi, and he aban
doned, as Raphael had done, Bramante's great
design for the main construction. Michelangelo,
on the contrary, went back to that plan, for what
ever rancour he might feel against Bramante per-
1 July, 1557. Letter of Michelangelo to Lionardo Buonarroti.

no MICHELANGELO
sonally, his genius bowed before that of the great
architect. He wrote in 1555 to Bartolommeo Am-
manati, "It can not be denied that in architecture
Bramante was greater than any other man since
classic times. He conceived the first design for
St. Peter's, simple, clear and free from aU con
fusion, and whoever like San Gallo has turned
aside from this plan has turned aside from the
truth." Before the disagreement over St. Peter's, Michel
angelo had twice come into sharp conflict with San
Gallo over the fortifications of the Borgo and the
completion of the Farnese palace.
Paul III wished to reconstruct and complete the
fortifications of Rome which had been destroyed in
1527. San Gallo had been engaged on them since
1534, but the work had only been actively pushed
since 1542. In February, 1545, meetings were held
under the presidency of Pier Luigi Farnese in the
Castle of St. Angelo to discuss the subject of the
fortifications of the Borgo, and to these Michel
angelo was summoned. He expressed opinions abso
lutely opposed to those of San Gallo and enumerated
the faults already committed in the works. Hot
words were exchanged, and the pope was obliged
to command both men to be silent. Soon after this
affair Michelangelo made a new design for the forti-

OLD AGE AND DEATH in
fications, involving the destruction of San Gallo's
work, and this was accepted.1
Michelangelo added to this defeat another more
bitter still. San Gallo had built the Farnese palace
up to the second story, but his plans for the third
story and the cornice did not please the pope, who
turned them over to Michelangelo to be mercilessly
criticised. A competition was opened in 1546 for
the cornice in which Perino del Vaga, Sebastiano
del Piombo, Vasari and Michelangelo took part.
Michelangelo's design was accepted, and when San
GaUo died from this humiliation in October, 1546,
the direction of the work on the palace passed at
once into his hands. Michelangelo set aside the
original plan entirely and built the third story on the
court on the Corinthian order. He also built the
beautUul cornice, so broad and fine in conception, in
which he had possibly the assistance of Vignole or
Guglielmo della Porta. Even San Gallo's death did
not disarm Michelangelo, who searched relentlessly
for the malpractices committed under his predecessor
in the work on St. Peter's and who raged against
1 See Vasari. In October, 1546, Michelangelo with Jacopo Meleghino
was commissioned to direct the fortification of the Borgo. He was un
doubtedly subordinate to the orders of Pier Luigi Farnese, who was
replaced after his death in 1547 by Jacopo Fusto Castriotto d'Urbino.
Toward the end of 1547 they were at work on the bastion of the Belvedere.
(See Gotti.)

112 MICHELANGELO
the guilty with a violence which Vasari still echoes
when he says, "Michelangelo delivered St. Peter's
from thieves and bandits."
It is easy to imagine what hatred these proceed
ings awakened in San Gallo's party, supported by
all the contractors and foremen whose faults Michel
angelo had denounced and prosecuted. The •mem
bers of the committee of administration themselves
were accomplices.1
A coalition was formed against him which had for
its chief Nanni di Baccio Bigio, the rascaUy archi
tect whom Vasari accuses of having stolen Michelan
gelo's plans even before this trouble. From the very
beginning of Michelangelo's direction at St. Peter's
Nanni spread the rumour that he knew nothing of
architecture, that his model was chUdish, that he
squandered the money and hid himseU to work at
night for fear that his blunders would be seen. It
was also rumoured that the cornice of the Farnese
palace was in danger of falhng. Michelangelo was
1 Michelangelo wrote to the committee: "You know that I told Balduc-
cio not to send his lime unless it was good. He has sent bad lime and won't
admit that he can be forced to take it back, which proves that he has
an understanding with the person who accepted it. Such things encourage
the effrontery of those whom I have dismissed for similar frauds. Who
ever accepts bad materials or bribes corrupts justice. I beg of you, in the
name of the authority which I have received from the pope, never more
to accept anything which can not be used, even if it came from Heaven-
I do not want anyone to believe that I shut my eyes to these irregularities."

A

OLD AGE AND DEATH 113
exasperated. "Who are these rogues, these triple
scoundrels," he wrote to the committee of adminis
tration, " who, after they had spread lies about myl
work on the Farnese palace, lied still more in th
report that they sent to the committee of St. Peter's?
The committee, instead of defending him, joined!
in the chorus of his calumniators. They sent a pro-1
test to the pope because, they said, he kept themi
entirely ignorant of his plans, which he showed to !
no one, while he destroyed the work of his pre
decessor. They wished to be freed from any re- 1
sponsibility for such proceedings, especially for " the
destruction which had been and continued to be so
great that all who witnessed it were greatly dis
turbed." They succeeded in bringing about in 1551 a meet-\
ing at St. Peter's under the presidency of the pope,
where all the builders and foremen, supported by
the Cardinals Salviati and Marcello Cervini (the
future pope, Marcellus II), testified against Michel
angelo. Vasari describes the scene for us. At this
time Michelangelo had already finished the main
apse with the three chapels and the three windows
above them, but no one knew yet how he would
vault the church, and all agreed in prophesying that
the lighting would be insufficient. Michelangelo,
when he was questioned by Cardinal Cervini, ex-

114 MICHELANGELO
plained that besides the three windows already built
there would be three more in the vault, which was
,}to be built of travertine. "You never told us
anything about that," said the cardinal. "I am
not obliged to tell your lordships or anyone else
what I intend to do," replied Michelangelo; "your
business is to take charge of the expenses and to
see that no one steals. The building is my affair."
He then turned to the pope and said, "Holy Father,
you see what my pay is. If the miseries I endure
do not help my soul it is all time and trouble lost."
The pope, who loved him, placed his hands on his
shoulders and said: "You gain for both your soul
and your body. Have no fear." 1
Without the favour of the pope he could not have
held out for a moment against the enmity which his
haughty and contemptuous ways roused against
him. Therefore when Paul III died and MarceUus
II succeeded him (April 9, 1555) Michelangelo was
on the point of leaving Rome, but by the twenty-
third of May Marcellus had died and Paul IV took
his place. Michelangelo, again sure of the highest
protection, went on with his fight. He would have
thought himself dishonoured and would have feared
for his salvation U he had given up the work.
1 Vasari.

TOMB OF GIULIANO DE' MEDICI
Chapel of the Medici in San Lorenzo, Florence (1524-1526 and 1530-1534).

OLD AGE AND DEATH 115 '
"Against my will," he wrote in 1555, "I was en
trusted with this task, and for eight years I have
exhausted myself in vain in the midst of all kinds
of trouble and weariness. Now that the construc
tion is so far advanced that I can begin to vault
the dome, to leave Rome would be to ruin the whole
work, a great shame to me and for my soul a great
sin."1 In 1557 Cosmo de' Medici begged him to come /'
back to Florence "where honour and rest awaited \
him," but he answered firmly, "I can not leave here
until I have carried the construction of St. Peter's
so far that my plan can not be changed or destroyed
and there will no longer be any possibility for
thieves to begin their work again, as these scoundrels
are only waiting for a chance to do. This is my
resolve." ^
That same year his friends, who were afraid tha&
he' would carry his great designs with him into the\
grave, for none of them were written down, urged
and besought until they succeeded in persuading
him to execute a model in wood of the dome of
St. Peter's.2 He was still working on this in 1560
The building went on, but not without many
1 Letter of Michelangelo to his nephew Lionardo, May 1 1, 1555.
2 Particularly Cardinal Carpi, Tommaso dei Cavalieri, Donato Gian
notti, Francesco Bandini and Gio. Francesco Lottini.

J

116 MICHELANGELO
difficulties. It was necessary in 1557 to rebuild
almost the entire vault of the Chapel of the King of
France because Michelangelo had been Ul and unable
to watch the work closely enough.
The attacks on him began again with fresh vigour
at each mistake, and some of his best friends, like
Cardinal Carpi, joined in them. Michelangelo
heard from Francesco Bandini that the cardinal
said everywhere that the work on St. Peter's could
not be worse managed. Much hurt, he wrote to
him at once that, "although he felt sure that the
work was going on weU, he feared that possibly his
own enthusiasm and his age had blinded him and
were, without his knowing it, a source of harm and
danger to the building." In consequence he begged
that they "would be so kind as to reheve him of the
load which he had carried without pay for seventeen
years under the orders of the popes." He offered
his resignation. "A greater favour than its ac
ceptance," he said, "could not be accorded him."1
His resignation was not accepted, and Pius IV in
a pontifical letter gave him full powers and forbade
that his plans should be set aside.
But Nanni di Baccio Bigio, indefatigable in his
hate, moved heaven and earth to drive him away.
1 Letter of September 13, 1560.

OLD AGE AND DEATH 117
In 1562 Nanni appealed to Cosmo de' Medici for his
aid in securing the appointment of architect of
St. Peter's. Cosmo answered that he would do
nothing about it while Michelangelo lived.
In 1563 the struggle became a tragic one. The
head of the work at St. Peter's, Cesare de Castel-
durante, was stabbed, and Pier Luigi Gaeta, Michel
angelo's friend and one of his best aids, was thrown
into prison on a false accusation of theft. Michel
angelo responded to this by appointing Gaeta in
Cesare's place. The committee of administration \
dismissed Gaeta and put Nanni in his place, and
Michelangelo, beside himseU with rage, no longer
went to St. Peter's. His enemies did not lose this
chance to spread the report that he was no longer
willing to take charge of the building, and Michel
angelo denied this in vain. The committee nom
inated a successor, and this successor was of course/
Nanni. Nanni cut loose at once from his master
and began to give orders, for he thought that the
old man of eighty-eight, weary at last of the struggle,
would be forced either to submit or to resign. He
did not know his antagonist. Michelangelo went at\
once to the pope and told him that U justice was not \
done he would leave Rome and go to Florence. I
The pope called the committee together and the \
members accused Michelangelo of having com-

1 1 8 MICHELANGELO
mitted errors which endangered the whole buUding.
Michelangelo asked for an investigation and sum
moned Nanni to show the mistakes of which he
accused him. Nanni could show nothing but his
own bad faith, and was dismissed in disgrace.1
This did not prevent Nanni from sending, five
months later just after the death of Michelangelo,
a letter by the Florentine ambassador to Cosmo
de' Medici, asking again to be appointed his suc
cessor. Until his last hour Michelangelo met with this
fierce opposition over the work on St. Peter's, but
his faith and his fighting spirit found in this only
another reason for persevering.
While Michelangelo had taken Bramante's design
for the church and rested on his authority, he had
in the course of construction introduced many
important modifications into the plan, and stamped
the whole monument with the imprint of his own
\ grandiose and heavy genius.
\ He kept the Greek cross with equal arms and four
apses, at the same time hiding the apse of the fagade
in a rectangular mass against which he wished to
'Vasari. See in the excellent work of Henry Thode, "Michelangelo
und das Ende der Renaissance," Vol. I, the detailed account of these
struggles of Michelangelo with the faction of San Gallo and Nanni di
Baccio Bigio.

OLD AGE AND DEATH iig
put a portico with four gigantic columns. He sup-\
pressed the salient angles and the towers which]
should have risen at the extremities of the four arms '
of the cross. The beautiful clean-cut lines of the
curved ends of these arms, which in Bramante's
plan stretched out in the form of a semicircular
tribune, were smothered in a massive, vigorous
envelope which gave the construction the effect of
a fortified bastion.
The most beautiful part of the work was the
famous dome, where the influence of Brunelleschi
combined with the conception of Bramante. Michel
angelo said once while he was working on S. Lorenzo
in Florence that "it was possible to do differently
from BruneUeschi, but not to do better." ^
He did not fail ro remember the masterly dome "
of S. Maria de Fiore, for as soon as he was appointed
to St. Peter's he had the exact measures of this dome
from the lantern to the ground, and also the height
sent to him. The dimensions that he chose for St.
Peter's seem to have been inspired by them.1
Bramante in his design as shown by BurckhardtX
and de Geymueller 2 gave the principal importance
to a circular colonnade crowned by statues on which
1 See Anatole de Montaiglon, " La Vie de Michel-Ange." (" L'Qiuvre
et la Vie de Michel-Ange," p. 288.)
1 H. de Geymueller, " Ursprungliche Entwurfe zu S. Peter."

120 MICHELANGELO
the dome seemed to rest. Michelangelo concen
trated his attention on the dome itseU, subordinat
ing, as ever, grace and harmony to majesty and
force. He accentuated the buttresses of the drum
with pairs of columns and raised the outer dome
of the cupola, whose beautiful curve possesses an
impetuous quality which recalls, with less passion
, and more freedom, the huge octagonal dome of
' Brunelleschi, crouching on its base like a beast
ready to spring.1 The lofty serenity of the dome
of St. Peter's is almost unique in the work of Michel
angelo. He had Hved so long with the thoughts of
Raphael and Bramante that at last their smUe was
reflected in his work.2
"Besides this great masterpiece other architectural
works filled the end of his lUe — the rebuUding of the
Capitol, the Porta Pia, S. Maria degU AngeH and
S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini.
It was in 1548 that Michelangelo presided over
1 The cupola of St. Peter's, like that of Florence, has two concentric
domes. It was to have had three according to Michelangelo's model, but
Guglielmo della Porta, who carried out the plans after his death, left out
the lower one.
2 Michelangelo had also the rather unfortunate idea of flanking the
main cupola by four little domes (of which only two were made) instead
of the four towers which were to frame it in Bramante's plan. Michelangelo
did not have the happiness of seeing his work completed for at his death the
cupola was only finished as far as the drum. Guglielmo della Porta fin
ished the dome in a year.

OLD AGE AND DEATH I2i
the erection of the statue of Marcus Aurelius in
the square before the Capitol, but his first sketch
for the palaces were no earlier than 1546, and when he
died the buildings were far from finished.
He never saw the stairway or the colonnades.
An engraving of P6rac's executed in 1559 after
Michelangelo's own drawings, "ex ipso exemplari
Michaelis Bonaroti," and reproduced in the Speculum
Romanie Magnificentice of Lafreri, show exactly
what his plan was and take from him all blame
for the incoherencies and vulgarities put into the
execution after his death. The beautiful double
staircase of the Senatorial Palace and the fountain
with the river gods is all his own; but he had meant
to put a colonnade crowned by pilasters at the top
of the stairway, the windows of the upper story
should have been higher and the campanile crenel
lated.1 The Porta Pia was at the end of a long
1 See " Michaelis, Zeitschrift fur bildende kunst." 1891, Vol. Ill, p. 184
et seq.; E. Muntz, "Histoire de l'art pendant la Renaissance," Vol. Ill,
pp. 338-340. The palace of the Senate was built in 1546 to 1568, the two
staircases in 1555. The fagade of the Palazzo dei Conservatori dates
from after the death of Michelangelo; the campanile is the work of Martino
Lunghi, and dates from 1579. The groups of the Dioscuri were installed
in 1583. From 1592 to 1598 the facade of the palace of the Senate was
rebuilt and changed. The Capitoline Museum dates from the seventeenth
century under the pontificate of Innocent X.
We must be very careful not to blame Michelangelo for the faults of his
successors as Charles Gamier has done in a too severe article published
in "L'QJuvre et la Vie de Michel-Ange," in which he nevertheless acknowl-

122 MICHELANGELO
street which ran from the Monte Cavallo.1 Michel
angelo made three designs for it in 1561, of which
Pius IV chose the most reasonable, according to
Vasari. This was more to the credit of the pope
than the artist, for the plan which was carried out
shows, with a few remnants of massive and im
perious power, a complete lack of good taste.
He also worked in 1 560-1 561 at the transforma
tion of the great haU in the baths of Diocletian into
the church of S. Maria degli Angeli, but it is almost
impossible to judge this now, for his work was en
tirely changed and disfigured in 1746 by VanviteUi.
He was no more fortunate with the Church of
S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini at Rome, which was
another of his great projects, undertaken with en
thusiasm and ending in nothing. S. Giovanni had
been begun under Leo X by Jacopo Sansovino.
Antonio da San Gallo had worked on it later and
had made a model of the church, and then the con
struction had been abandoned. In 1550, at the
suggestion of Bindo Altoviti, Michelangelo deter
mined to consecrate himseU to this work and had
almost persuaded Julius III, but the money was
edges that he was thinking of the Capitol when he built the Loggia of the
Opera House at Paris. He adds it is true that he had "studied the pro
portions with great care and skill, and I can say without blushing, with
more talent.''
' Michelangelo also made drawings for the other gates of Rome. (Vasari.)

DAWN
Figure from the Tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici.
Chapel of the Medici in San Lorenzo, Florence (1524-1526 and 1530-1534).

OLD AGE AND DEATH 123
lacking.1 In 1559 the Florentines took up the idea
again and decided to put a church of a new plan on
the old foundations, and their procurators, Francesco
Bandini, Uberto Ubaldini and Tommaso de' Bardi,
asked Michelangelo to take charge of it in spite of
his duties at St. Peter's. Cosmo de' Medici himself
wrote a most flattering letter begging him to accept,
and Michelangelo answered the duke that he "con
sidered his wish an order" and had already shown
the Florentine deputies several drawings, of which
they had chosen the one which he considered the
best.2 "I am sorry," he added, "to be now so old
and so Httle alive that I can not do all I would or all
that is my duty to your lordship and the people.
Nevertheless I will make the effort by directing
everything from my house to accomplish what your
lordship desires."3
In spite of his age he began with the same en
thusiasm with which he had undertaken the un
lucky fagade of S. Lorenzo. He told the commission
that U they carried out his plans "neither the Greeks
nor the Romans would have done anything like it."
"Words," says Vasari, "of a kind that never came
* Letters of Michelangelo to Vasari, August i-October 13, 1550.
2 Letter of Michelangelo to Cosmo, November, 1559.
'Letter of Michelangelo to Cosmo, November I, 1559. The same,
November 1, 1559, and March 5, 1560.

124 MICHELANGELO
from the mouth of Michelangelo before or after,
for he was extremely modest."
The Florentines accepted his plans without
change and gave the execution of them to Ti-
berio Calcagni.
"Michelangelo," says Vasari, "explained his proj
ect to Tiberio so that he could make a clear and
accurate drawing of it. He gave him the profiles
of the interior and exterior and made him a model in
wax. Tiberio in ten days finished a model two feet
high, and as it pleased aU the people another model
was made in wood which is now in the Consulate.
It is a work of such rare art that there never was
seen a church so beautUul, so rich and with such
variety of fancy." The bunding was commenced and
five thousand crowns spent ; then the money gave out
and the work stopped, to Michelangelo's most pro
found disappointment. Not only was the church not
built, but the model disappeared with aU the plans.
This was the last artistic disappointment of his Ufe.1

1 Michelangelo in the last period of his life, when he seemed entirely
devoted to architecture and poetry, had many other ambitious plans,
like that of continuing the arcade of the Loggia dei Lanzi around the
palace of the Signory at Florence, of connecting the Farnese palace and
the Farnesina by a bridge, of raising in the court of the Belvedere a Moses
striking water from the rock, etc. It was that taste for the colossal, and
what we might even dare to call the uselessly colossal, which was handed
down through his school as far as Bernini.

OLD AGE AND DEATH 125
He could no longer paint, but he still continued
to work at his sculpture from a sort of physical need.
Vasari says that "his genius and strength could not
live without creation." He attacked a block of mar
ble to cut from it four figures larger than life, of
which one was a dead Christ.1 He did this to amuse
himself and to pass the time, and because he said
that work with a chisel kept him in health. He
worked at night2 and slept very little, and had made
himseU a helmet of cardboard to hold a lighted
candle on his head so that with both hands free
he could light what he was doing. Even at that
age he cut the marble with such impetuosity and
vigour that it seemed to fly in pieces. He broke
off in one blow great fragments four or five inches
thick and left a line so pure that if he had gone a
hair's-breadth further he would have risked ruining
the whole. This did happen to many of his works,
which remained merely blocked out like the figures
in the Boboli grotto, or half finished like the Madonna
of the Medici chapel, or destroyed, as all but hap-
1 In 1553- See Condivi. This is the famous Pieta of the cathedral of
Florence. Blaise de Vigenere in "Les Images de Philostrate," Paris,
1629, speaks of a Pieta on which Michelangelo was working in 1550 for
his own tomb.
2 All his life he suffered from insomnia brought on by overwork, a fever
which continually consumed him and his ascetic sobriety.

126 MICHELANGELO
pened to the admirable Descent from the Cross in
the cathedral at Florence.
"He would break a work in pieces," says Vasari,
"either because the block was hard and full of flaws
and sparks shot out from under the chisel, or be
cause the uncompromising judgment of this man was
never contented with anything that he did, which is
easily proved by the fact that so few of the works
of his maturity are complete ; the only finished ones
dated from his youth."
The Florentine sculptor Tiberio Calcagni, who
was a friend as well as his assistant at S. Giovanni
dei Fiorentini, found the debris of a Pieta one day,
and asked why he had destroyed "so admirable a
work." Michelangelo told him that it was partly
the fault of his servant Urbino, who urged him every
day to finish it, when he was already annoyed by a
flaw in the marble so that he had lost patience and
had broken it. He would have destroyed it entirely
but that his servant Antonio "had begged for what
remained." Tiberio bought the marble from An
tonio for two hundred gold crowns and asked Mi
chelangelo's permission to finish it for their mutual
friend Francesco Bandini. Michelangelo was entire
ly willing, and the group was restored by Tiberio,
who completed several parts of it, but Bandini,

OLD AGE AND DEATH 127
Michelangelo and Tiberio all died and it was never
finished.1 It is all the more moving for that reason. In the
haU- shadow behind the high altar in Florence it
stirs one with indescribable emotion. Perhaps no
other work of Michelangelo is so human or speaks
so directly to the soul. "From heart to heart," as
Beethoven wrote at the end of his mass in D. It
is the expression of those long nights when he was
alone face to face with his sorrow and spoke only to
himself. He represents himself in the form of an
old man, in a monk's cowl, bending with infinite
sadness and tenderness to support the sinking body
of the dead Christ.
In this piece of stone hardly blocked out smoulders
deep sorrow and an agony of pain. But what great
love is in that suffering, in the scarcely modelled
face of the mother with closed eyes and parted lips,
and in the tender movement of the hand which rests
on the naked breast of her son, whose head has sunk
against her shoulder. How much Michelangelo has
softened since his early work, how far this feeling
is from the implacable heroism of his youth, how far
it is indeed from the lovely Pieta of St. Peter's,
where serene beauty rises above the sorrow. Here
1 Two other unfinished Pietas have been preserved. One is in the court of
the Rondanini palace in Rome, the other has just been found in Palestrina.

128 MICHELANGELO
he suffers and abandons himself to the suffering.
What matters a lack of proportion and an uncertain
composition? ! The work is unique in its intimacy.
It is his whole soul laid bare.
Michelangelo never lacked illustrious friends.
From the time of his early youth, when he talked in
the gardens of San Marco with Lorenzo de' Medici
and Poliziano, he was always in close touch with the
best among the nobles and princes, prelates and
poets and artists of Italy.2 He had a peculiarly close
friendship with Francesco Berni and Sebastiano del
Piombo3 under Clement VII and with Luigi del
Riccio, Donato Giannotti and Benedetto Varchi*
under Paul III, and at the close of his lUe he was
surrounded by the pious worship of pupUs and ad-
1 The figures are not on the same scale, especially the figure of the Mag
dalen, which is too small. She is colder than the rest of the group and more
finished, and we may suspect that it was upon her figure that Calcagni
worked. 2 Among these artists he knew particularly well Francesco Grannacci,
Giuliano Bugiardini, Jacopo Sansovino, Aristotele da San Gallo, Rosso,
Pontormo, Guglielmo della Porta, Vignole, and the musician Archadelt.
3 Correspondence between Sebastiano del Piombo and Michelangelo has
been published by Gaetano Milanesi with a French translation by A.
LePileur and an introduction by E. Muntz. in the Bibi. internationale
de l'Art (Librairie de l'Art, 1890).
4 Donato Giannotti has, as we have said, preserved the memory of
these relations in his "Dialoghi," 1545. Michelangelo was particularly
intimate with Luigi del Riccio through their mutual friendship with the
beautiful Cecchino dei Bracci, whose premature death in 1544 inspired
Michelangelo with a cycle of verses.

OLD AGE AND DEATH 129
mirers like Benvenuto Cellini, Bronzino, Daniele da
Volterra, Leone Leoni, Vasari and his biographer,
almost his hagiographer, Condivi, whose book be
gins with these words:
"Since the hour when our Lord God by special
mercy judged me worthy to not only see Michel
angelo, which I could hardly have dared to hope
for, but to enjoy his affection, his conversation and
his confidence — grateful for such a great blessing,
I have made all possible effort not only to collect
and write down the instructions which he gave me
on art, but all his words, actions and habits and
all things in his life which seemed to me worthy of
praise, admiration or emulation. This I do to pay
back a little of the infinite obligation which I owe
to him no less than to be useful to others by giving
them the example of such a man." J
The artists were not the only ones who looked
upon Michelangelo as a supernatural being, for
princes bowed before his fame and his great virtue
as Vasari calls it. Cosmo de' Medici, who tried in
vain to recall him to Florence, even offering to make
him a senator,2 treated Michelangelo as an equal.
'"La Vita di Michelangelo," by Ascanio Condivi, appeared in July,
1553, in Rome, published by Antonio Blado and dedicated to Julius III.
The first edition of Vasari's "Vite" had already appeared in 1 551 and
Vasari had sent it to Michelangelo, who had thanked him in the sonnet
"Se con lo stile." 2 See Benvenuto Cellini.
9

130 MICHELANGELO
Cosmo's son Don Francesco received him with even
greater respect (in October, 1561), his cap in his
hand, "showing a reverence without limit for so
extraordinary a man."
In spite of all this adulation, or perhaps because
of it, he had as little intercourse as possible with the
world. Popes and princes, men of letters and artists,
held but small place in his lUe, except a few favour
ite pupils like Vasari, for whom he showed a fatherly
affection, especially in his last years, when, growing
more feeble day by day, he grew more demonstrative.
"I have been to see my great Michelangelo,"
Vasari wrote to Cosmo in 1560. "He did not ex
pect me and showed as much feeling as a father who
has recovered a lost son. He threw his arms around
my neck and kissed me a thousand times, crying
with pleasure" (lacrymando per dolcezza).1
But the best of his heart was kept for his kin
and for a few humble friends. Of his two remaining
brothers, Giovan Simone died in 1548, and Gismondo,
with whom he had never had much intercourse, in
J555- He turned to Lionardo and Francesca, the
children of his favourite brother Buonarroto. for the
family affection which he could not do without.
He charged himself with the education of Lionardo,
1 Letter of Vasari to Cosmo de' Medici, April 8, 1560. See also the affec
tionate letter of Michelangelo to Sebastiano del Piombo in May, 1555.

TWILIGHT
Figure from the Tomb of Lorenzo de* Medici.
Chapel of the Medici in San Lorenzo, Florence (1524-1536 and 1530-1534).

OLD AGE AND DEATH 131
who was nine years old at his father's death, and
the long correspondence between them which has
been preserved shows how seriously he took his
responsibility as guardian. The children grew up
and after they had married he found himself even
more lonely than before.1
In his own house he had assistants who were de
voted to him, but of no great ability. "He had
trouble with those in his service," says Vasari, "for
he never chanced to find men who could imitate him
well." Pietro Urbano de Pistoia was intelligent,
but would take no trouble; Antonio Mini was will
ing, but not intelligent; and Ascanio della Rip a
Transone tried hard, but never succeeded in doing
anything. It is possible that he deliberately chose
mediocre assistants in order to have docile tools in
stead of collaborators, which indeed would have
been quite legitimate; but Condivi says that it is
not true that he refused to teach them, but, on the
contrary, he did so willingly. "I myself am the proof
of that, for he opened the secrets of his heart to me.
The trouble was that he met with pupils that had no
ability, or with able ones who were not persevering
and who after a few months of his teaching thought
themselves already masters. And though he took
1 Francesca married, in 1538, Michele de Niccolo Guicciardini. Lionardo
married, in 1553, Cassandra, the daughter of Donato Ridolfi.

132 MICHELANGELO
a great deal of trouble to help them he did not want
to have this known, for he loved rather to do good
than to seem to do it."
His letters show what fatherly patience he had
with these poor creatures. He forgave them any
folly if they only showed a little good will and
affection. The one that he cared for the most was Fran
cesco d'Amadore, called Urbino, the son of Guido
di Colonello de Castel Durante, who was in his ser
vice from 1530 and had worked on the tomb of
Julius II. Michelangelo was worried about what
would become of Urbino after his own death, and
one day, says Vasari, he asked him, "What will
you do when I die?" When Urbino answered, "I
will have to serve some other master," Michel
angelo said, "Poor fellow, I am going to cure your
poverty," and gave him two thousand crowns on
the spot, "a gUt such as only emperors and popes
bestow." It was Urbino who died first in 1555, and the day
after Michelangelo wrote to his nephew Lionardo:
"I must tell you that Urbino died yesterday at ten
o'clock. He has left me so sad and troubled be
cause of the love I had for him that it would have
been easier to have died with him. He was a
worthy man, loyal and faithful. Since he has gone

OLD AGE AND DEATH 133
I do not seem to be alive and I can not recover my
peace of mind." J
Lionardo and his wife Cassandra, anxious on ac
count of his great grief, went to Rome and found him
much weakened. But he drew new energy from the
charge which Urbino had left him in the guardian
ship of his sons, one of whom was his godson and
bore his name. He wrote to Cornelia, Urbino's
wife, that he would like to take the little Michel
angelo to live with him. He showed him more affec
tion than even the children of his nephew, and had
him taught all that Urbino had wished him to
learn.2 He showed the most touching affection for his old
servants, and also for those of his family whom he
had taken in after his father's death, and for the
workmen who had helped him at Carrara and in the
Sistine Chapel.
His enemies accused him of avarice,8 but Vasari
1 A few days before Michelangelo had lost his last brother, Gismondo.
See also his admirable letter to Vasari, February 23, 1556.
2 Letter of Michelangelo to Cornelia, March 28, 1557. He quarrelled with
Cornelia in 1559, when she married again, and wanted to take the charge
of the children from her, but their friendship was re-established in 156 1.
3 He justified these accusations by his almost sordid manner of living
and constant complaints of poverty, although he was really rich. A De-
nunzia de' beni, in 1534, before he had received anything from Paul III,
showed that he owned a house and three estates in Settignano, a property
at St. Stephano de Pozzolatico, two farms and a house at Stradello, a farm

134 MICHELANGELO
answers the charge with indignation and a list of his
royal gifts to all his friends: "To Messer Tommaso
dei Cavalieri, to Messer Bindo Altoviti, and Fra
Bastiano (del Piombo) drawings of great value.
To Antonio Mini all the drawings, cartoons and
models in wax and clay and the painting of Leda;
to Gherardo Perini some divinely beautUul heads
drawn in pencil which passed later into the hands
of Don Francesco, Prince of Florence, who rightly
esteemed them among his treasures; to Bartolom
meo Bettini a cartoon of Venus with Cupid kissing
her, a divine work now in possession of his heirs
in Florence; to the Marchese del Vasto a cartoon
of the noli me tangere, a beautUul work from which
Pontormo made a painting as he did from the Venus
and Cupid; to Roberto Strozzi the two Slaves in
marble; to his servant Antonio and to Francesco
Bandini the Pieta in marble which he broke. I do
not understand how a man can be caUed avaricious
who gives away such works of art worth many
thousands of crowns."
His generosity was not limited to his friends, for
at Rovezzano, three houses in the Via Ghibellina, one house in the Via
Mozza, etc. The inventory made after his death in Rome showed seven
or eight hundred gold crowns (worth about four to five thousand francs)
and Vasari tells us that he had twice given his nephew Lionardo seven
thousand crowns, beside two thousand to Urbino and sums invested at
Florence.

OLD AGE AND DEATH 135
he gave much to the poor, especially the disreputable
poor. He particularly remembered poor young girls
and dowered them secretly, taking care that they
should never know the name of their benefactor.
He was always ailing in health, and several times
very near death, particularly in 1544, when he was
nursed by his friend Riccio in the house of the
Strozzi, and in his later years he suffered cruelly
from gout and stone. His indomitable nervous
energy supported him, and at eighty-five he in
spected the works of St. Peter's on horseback. In
spite of a severe attack of gout in August, 1561, he
would let no one take care of him and he still lived
alone. His nephew Lionardo was least of all allowed
to interfere with these arrangements, for Michel
angelo attributed his anxiety to an interest in his
inheritance and did not hesitate to tell him so.
Both the Duke of Tuscany and the pope were
anxious about the plans and drawings of his public
works, which Michelangelo kept in his own house,
for fear that they might be stolen after his death.
So in June, 1563, at the instigation of Vasari, who
saw that Michelangelo was failing rapidly, Cosmo
de' Medici secretly directed his ambassador, Ave-
rado Serristori, to keep a strict watch on the do
mestic life of Michelangelo and on everyone who
came to his house. In case of his sudden death an

136 MICHELANGELO
inventory was to be taken of all his possessions,
drawings, cartoons, models, silver, etc., and a
watch to be kept that nothing was taken in the
first confusion. All that had to do with the con
struction of St. Peter's or the sacristy or the Lauren
tian library was to be put carefully aside.
Weakened as he was, Michelangelo stiU worked.
Since 1562 he had hardly written at all himseU, and
Daniele da Volterra did most of his correspondence,
but he never relinquished his chisel. On February
12, 1564, he spent the whole day standing at work
on his Pieta, and on the fourteenth, although he
was seized with fever, he rode out on horseback into
the country in the rain, and would not consent to
stay in his bed until the sixteenth.
On the eighteenth of February he died in fuU con
sciousness, with Daniele da Volterra and his faith
ful friend Tommaso dei CavaUeri beside him.
Giunto 6 gia' 1 corso della vita mia
Con tempestoso mar per fragil barca
Al comus porto. . . -1
Cosmo de' Medici was at once notified by his
ambassador, and the next day the governor of Rome
1 Now hath my life across a stormy sea
Like a frail bark reached that wide port where all
Are bidden. . . . (J. A. Symonds' translation.)

OLD AGE AND DEATH 137
made an inventory of Michelangelo's property in the
presence of Pier Luigi Gaeta and Cavalieri. There
was much less than had been expected, for he had
burned almost all his drawings. They found a chest
containing seven or eight thousand crowns and a
trunk closed and sealed and full of papers, and also
three statues, the unfinished Pieta,1 a figure of Saint
Peter just begun, and a little unfinished figure of
Christ bearing the cross in the style of that in the
Minerva, and yet different. There were besides ten
cartoons as follows:
1. The plan of St. Peter's.
2. The facade of a palace (a small cartoon).
3. A window of St. Peter's.
4. The old plan for St. Peter's, after a drawing of
San GaUo's.
5._Three sketches of Httle figures.
6. Windows.
7. A Pieta., merely sketched. A composition of
nine figures.
8. Three large figures and two putti.
9. Large figure (a study of an apostle for the
figure of Saint Peter).
10. Farewell of Christ to his mother, drawn for
Cardinal Morone.2
1 The Pieta Rondanini.
2 Gotti, Vol. II, p. 358.

138 MICHELANGELO
This last drawing was given to Cavalieri as Michel
angelo had wished. The rest went to Lionardo,
who reached Rome three days after his uncle's
death, and who acquired also some little sketches
which Michelangelo had given to Michele Alberti
and Jacopo del Duca — an annunciation and a
prayer at Gethsemane. These show how much
the thought of the gospel filled Michelangelo's
mind.1 On February 19th Michelangelo's body was car
ried by the brotherhood to which he belonged, the
Confratelli di S. Giovanni Pecolla, to the church of
the SS. Apostoh for the funeral mass. The pope had
meant to have the body placed in St. Peter's, but
Michelangelo had expressed a desire to return to
Florence dead, as he could not do so Hving,2 and
Lionardo was determined to carry out his last wishes
in accordance with the orders of Cosmo de' Medici,
who promised to erect a statue to him in the Floren
tine cathedral. The Romans would not aUow the
body to be taken away, so it was necessary to wrap
1 Besides these there were in the atelier in Florence in the Via Mozza
a number of blocks of marble and the beautiful statue of Victory intended
for the tomb of Julius II, and which in 1565 was taken to the Palazzo
Vecchio. Also Antonio del Franzese, Michelangelo's servant, who was with
him at the time of his death, gave to the Duke of Urbino in 1570 a statuette
of Moses which his master had given to him.
2 Gaye, " Cartoggio inedito d'artisti," 1839, Vol. Ill, p. 131.

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Detail from The Last Judgment (1536-1541). Sistine Chanel.
OLD AGE AND DEATH 139
it secretly in a roll of cloth and to send it to Florence
on the twenty-ninth as merchandise.
Thus did Michelangelo return to his country on
March 10, 1564. The next day the artists of
Florence carried his body by torchlight to the
church of Santa Croce. The crowd was so great
that they could hardly force their way through the
church. In the sacristy Vincenzo Borghini, Di
rector of the Florentine Academy of Painters, had
the coffin opened. The body was intact and
Michelangelo seemed asleep. He was dressed in
black velvet, a felt hat on his head, and on his feet
boots and spurs, just as while living he had had the
habit of sleeping, dressed and ready to rise and take
up his work.1
The Academy of Florence had been preparing
since March 2d for the solemn obsequies. Varchi
was given the funeral oration, Bronzino, Vasari,
Cellini and Ammanati the artistic arrangements.
On the 14th of July, 1564, in the church of S. Lorenzo,
a triumphant memorial service was held in the pres
ence of a hundred artists and an innumerable crowd
of people.2
1 The Florentine Academy of Painters had just been founded in 1563,
and Michelangelo had been unanimously chosen as a president together
with Cosmo de' Medici, January 31, 1563.
sThe Duke was not there, Cellini was ill and could not come and
Francesco da San Gallo did not appear.

I4o MICHELANGELO
Between the two side doors arose a huge cata
falque. Daniele da Volterra had wanted to use for
the tomb the fine Victory and other sculptures of
the Via Mozza, but this most reverent and appro
priate idea for the glorification of the master was
not accepted.1 Instead, a huge arrangement, dis
proportionate and swollen, was erected, a real tower
of Babel to which each sculptor of Florence brought
his stone. It was undoubtedly, however, a fine
thought to associate all the world of artists in a
supreme homage to the man whom Italy considered
the incarnation of her genius and the God himseU
of art.2 The result of these combined efforts was
only to prove more strikingly the contrast between
the man who was dead and the men who claimed
the right to succeed him. This agglomeration of
sculpture recalls also that bitter saying of Michel
angelo shortly before his end that "art and death
do not go well together."
"L'arte e la morte non va bene insieme."
From 1564 to 1572 Vasari raised in Santa Croce,
at the expense of Lionardo Buonarroti, and with the
1 Daniele da Volterra had offered to make a sketch for the tomb with
his assistant, Jacopo del Duca, but Vasari's jealousy prevented it. Daniele
died April 4, 1566, after having made rough models for three busts of
Michelangelo which Jacopo del Duca or Michele Alberti finished after him.
2 See the detailed account of the obsequies; "Esequie del divino Michel
angelo," Florence, Giunti, 1564. Varchi wrote the "Orazione funerale."

OLD AGE AND DEATH 141
collaboration of Borghini, Valeria Cioli and Battista
Lorenzi, the monument to Michelangelo. Thode
has proved that the so-called tomb of Michelangelo
in the SS. Apostoli in Rome has nothing whatever
to do with him. It is really the monument of a
professor of medicine, Ferdinando Eustacio, and the
false attribution dates only from 1823.

CHAPTER VI
THE GENIUS OF MICHELANGELO AND HIS INFLUENCE
ON ITALIAN ART
"I have no friend of any kind," said Michelangelo
in 1509, "and I do not want any." l
Forty years later, in 1548, Michelangelo wrote
again, "I am always alone and I speak to no one." 2
"From his youth," says Condivi, "Michelangelo
had consecrated himself not only to sculpture and
painting, but to all the other arts with such devour
ing energy that he had to separate himseU almost
entirely from the society of men. For that reason
many people considered him proud, and others ec
centric or mad. In reality it was his love of work
alone, his labour without respite, which made him
solitary, for he was so filled by the joy and rapture
which his work gave him that the society of men did
not offer him any pleasure, but rather bored him by
distracting him from his own thoughts. Like the
1 Letter of October, 1509.
2 Letter of March, 1548, to Lionardo Buonarroto.
I42

THE GENIUS OF MICHELANGELO 143
great Scipio, he was never less lonely than when he
was alone."
That passionate solitude was the very soul of the '
genius and of the work of Michelangelo. He lived
shut up in himself without any real connection with
the art of his time. He despised Raphael becausel
he said, "All his talent came from study and not
from nature." J He himself declared that he de
rived all his inspiration from within, and if in his
pride he underestimated what he was always study
ing with feverish and persistent ardour, yet it is true
that he never sought in the study of the works of
others a means of changing or of renewing his own
personality, but only of still further emphasising it.
In a way he sought from others not examples or
lessons, but reasons for being still more himself. It
is true that from the beginning to the end he fed on
his own soul. Who knows the man, knows his work.
The most striking thing about this extraordinarily
unified nature is that it was composed of hostile i
worlds; a brutal materialism and serene idealism, '
an infatuation with pagan strength and beauty and
a Christian mysticism; a mixture of physical vio-/
lence and intellectual abstraction; a platonic soul
in an athlete's body. That indissoluble union of
1 Condivi.

144 MICHELANGELO
opposing forces which undoubtedly caused part of
his suffering was also the cause of his unique great
ness. We feel that the supreme balance of his art
is the result of a fierce struggle, and it is the sense
of that struggle which gives to the work its heroic
character. All is passion even to the abstract idea,
so that idealism, which with many artists is a cause
of coldness and death, is here a hearth burning with
love and hate.1
There is undoubtedly a danger in that mystic
faith which loses itseU in inward visions of such
charm that they often leave a feehng of only dis
gust and contempt for reality.
Non vider gli occhi mei cosa mortale
E se creata a Dio non fusse eguale
Altro che 1 bel di fuor, ch' a gl'occhi piace,
Piu non vorria; ma perch' e si fallace,
Tracende nella forma universale.2
1 See the Lezione of Benedetto Varchi on the sonnet of Michelangelo,
"Non ha l'ottimo Artista. . . ."
' I saw no mortal beauty with these eyes
When perfect peace in thy fair eyes I found;
But far within, where all is holy ground,
My soul felt love, her comrade of the skies;
For she was born with God in Paradise;
Else should we still to transient love be bound;
But, finding these so false, we pass beyond,
Unto the Love of loves that never dies.
(Translation of J. A. Symonds.)

THE GENIUS OF MICHELANGELO 145
Varchi was quite right in recognising in Michel
angelo the Socratic spirit.1 Whether he gained
these ideas from the teaching of the great Platonists
with whom he had talked as a youth in the gardens
of San Marco or whether that teaching had merely
revealed to him his true nature there is certainly a
close relationship between the theories on art of the
school of Socrates and those of Michelangelo.
Parrhasius believed in representing only "the
perspective, the light and the shadow, the softness,
hardness and surface of bodies." Socrates taught
him that the object of painting is to represent the
soul and the innermost being.2 "The fields and
trees can teach me nothing," he says in the "Phas-
do"; "I only find what is useful to me among men
in the towns." These very men only interested him
because there was something eternal in them. The
fugitive and changing side of their physiognomy,
which for us makes the delicate charm of lUe and
the object of painting, seemed to him an empty and
wearisome illusion. Art creates illusions. The ob
jects which it represents are "the dreams of the
human imagination offered to people who can see.
It is an image which one shows in the distance to
1 " Tutti i componimenli di lui pieni d'amore Socratico, e di concetti
Platonici." 2 Xenophon, Memor, Vol. Ill, p. 10.
10

146 MICHELANGELO
little children who can not reason, in order to create
illusions for them. These illusions of the senses
distract the soul from the only realities, eternal
ideas." Michelangelo reasoned thus in his disdain of all
exact reproduction of nature. He had studied it
with passion but, in order to discover its laws, he
regarded it as an enemy which held the human spirit
prisoner. He wanted to free himseU from it, he
wanted to make of it an instrument for his thought.
That is why he sought for and discovered its ma
chinery, and when he could guide it at wUl he out
raged it; he made it produce unprecedented results.
He constructed for himseU out of his profound
knowledge of anatomy a general idea of man, and
thereafter, without having recourse to any observa
tion of individuals, he recreated the whole of nature
in the image of his ideas and in the likeness of God,
source and originator of ideas.
Come dal foco '1 cald' 'esser' diviso
Nom puo '1 bel dalT eterno; e la mia stima
Esalta che ne scende, e chi '1 somiglia.
"As heat can not be separated from fire, so beauty
can not be from eternity; and my thought extols
what comes from it and what resembles it."
He wanted to express in his work only what was

CHARON'S BOAT
Detail from The Last Judgment (1536-1541). Sistine Chapel.

THE GENIUS OF MICHELANGELO 147
eternal, and he did not believe he could do this
with external objects. He tried, therefore, to
give to everything he did a character of com
pelling force. His Platonic idealism was lined /
with Christian pessimism. Like Vittoria Colonna,/
he was filled with the sense of the beauty of all
human things, and he was obsessed with the idea
of death.
He lived in an exhausted epoch which no longer-
had any happy sense of reality. In God was thei
only help, in the eternal and immutable perfection]
Michelangelo was filled with dislike for all realising
Like Plato, he despised painting in comparison with (/*
sculpture. "Painting seems to me the better the more it re
sembles sculpture, and the sculpture worse the more it
resembles painting. Sculpture is the torch of paint
ing, and between the two there is the same difference
as between the sun and the moon." 1
If he was above all things a sculptor it was because
he found in sculpture the most appropriate expression
of his abstract and concentrated genius.

'He adds: "He who wrote that painting was nobler than sculpture,
if that idea is a sample of his intelligence, then my servant knows more
than he does."
This seems to be directed at Lionardo. See the first chapter of "Trat-
tato della Pittura."

148 MICHELANGELO
Non ha l'ottimo artista alcun concetto,
Ch' un marmo solo in se non circonscriva
Col suo soverchio, et solo a quello arriva
La man, che ubbidisce all' intelleto.1

Moreover he reduced sculpture to its most simple
form, the isolated statue. Michelangelo had little
liking for bas-reliefs and groups, which he hardly
ever made, and where he always shows some awk
wardness. What we know, through CelHni and
Vasari, of his manner of working would incline
us to feel to-day that the basis of his sculpture
and of all his art was drawing,2 because that was
most immaterial and closest to the form of his
thought. No one has ever drawn as Michelangelo did, and
Charles Blanc is right in saying that "U he is un-
1 The best of artists hath no thought to show
Which the rough stone in its superfluous shell
Doth not include; to break the marble spell
Is all the hand that serves the brain can do.
(Translation of J. A. Symonds.)
s If it is true that Michelangelo attacked the marble with the greatest
fury, it was only after he had prepared his drawings and his models with
the most minute care. Cellini in his "Trattati dell'oreficeria'' (Florence,
1557) says that for the statues in the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo he saw
him first make models of the same height as the statue was to be and then
draw with charcoal on the marble the general appearance of his figure.
Vasari says almost the same thing in regard to the four statues of Captives
sketched in the block and not yet cut from it.

THE GENIUS OF MICHELANGELO 149
equal in his sculptures and his frescoes, never does
his drawing, even when apparently most careless
and most summary, betray any feebleness of hand
or distraction or hesitancy of spirit." Not only do
we penetrate, then, into the mystery of his creative-
ness, into the dreams and soliloquies of his lonely
soul, but we discover there also his most intimate
and perfect expression. There he is altogether him
self, as Beethoven is in his quartets and in his short,
pieces for the piano.1
I compare these two purposely; for the genius
of each of them was solitary, intellectual and pas
sionate, only realising itself completely in the most
simple and abstract forms in which the senses had
the least part and the spirit the greatest. All the
voluptuous charm of art was not only foreign
to Michelangelo, but antagonistic to him. The
more art was aimed at the senses the more he
despised it.
1 The science of design or drawing, said Michelangelo, according to
the Dialogues of Francis of Holland, is the source and the essence of
painting, of sculpture, of architecture and of all kinds of representa
tion as well as the soul of all the sciences (Third Part of the
" Dialogues sur la Peinture dans la Ville de Rome "). " Sculpture," says
Francis of Holland, " is clearly bound to drawing; it comes out of it
and at bottom is nothing more than the drawing itself. The great
draughtsman, Michelangelo, said to me many times that he regarded
it as a greater thing to make a masterly stroke with the pen than with
the chisel." {Ibid., Second Part.)

ISO MICHELANGELO
Voglia sfrenata el senso e, non amore,
Che Talma uccide. . . .'
Painting, therefore, seemed to him, as it did to
Plato, less virUe and less pure than sculpture, be
cause of its seductive quality, its illusive magic which
imitates the appearance of things and merely creates
illusions. He disdained it inasmuch as it appealed
through the attraction of colours at the expense of
the idea. He could not endure painting in oils,
which he said was only good for women.2 He re
jected landscape, and Hke Plato only saw in it a
vague and deceiving Ulusion — a sport for chUdren
and ignorant people. He had a horror of portraits.
They seemed to him a form of flattery for the grati
fication of vain curiosity and the imperfect Ulusion
of the senses.3 It is curious to contrast with these
principles which were adopted by a part of the
Italian school in the sixteenth century, the naive
confession of faith of Durer at almost the same
1 Sense is not love, but lawlessness accursed;
This kills the soul. . . . (Translation of J. A. Symonds.)
2 "Or for sluggards like Sebastiano del Piombo.'- He had a quarrel
because of this remark with Sebastiano, who tried to persuade him to paint
the Last Judgment in oils.
5 "Aborriva il fare somigliare al vivo" (Vasari). — "Michelangelo never
would paint a portrait." — (Journal de Bernin, Gazette des Beaux Arts,
Vol. XVII, p. 358.) "His rule,'' says Vasari, "was never to make any
likeness of a living person unless he was of transcendent beauty."

THE GENIUS OF MICHELANGELO 151
period. "The art of painting is used in the ser
vice of the Church to show the sufferings of Christ
and of many other models of virtue, and it also pre
serves the faces of men after their death." (15 13)
That pious and bourgeois realism of Germany and
Flanders filled Michelangelo with the same sort of
contempt that many artists of to-day feel for sub
ject-painting. "It is," he says, "an anecdotal and
sentimental art, which aims only at success and ob- ,
tains it easily, not by its own value, but by the
choice of its subjects. These are pious, figures for
which tears are always ready, or else rags, ruins, very
green fields shaded by trees, rivers and bridges —
what they call landscapes — with many figures here
and there. That sort of thing is always popular;
the least artistic spirit can find something there that
appeals to it; it is enough to be inquisitive and to
have good eyes." Again — "Flemish painting seems
beautUul to women, especially to those who are
either old or very young, and to monks and nuns
and to a few people of quality who are deaf to true
harmony. Although it makes a good effect in the
eyes of some people, in truth there is neither reason
nor art in it, no proportion, no symmetry, no selec
tion, and no grandeur. In fact, such painting is
without body or vigour. The only real paintings are
those done in Italy. These are not, like the Flemish

152 MICHELANGELO
pictures, made for the pious.1 They wUl never cause
anyone to shed a tear." 2
We can well understand that disdainful confession
of faith. What artist is there who has not felt this
same irritation at the success of mediocre work ex
ploited by the sentimentality of an uncritical pub
lic and who will not understand Michelangelo's
haughty refusal to share this too easy success? This
pride, ennobling as it is to the character, is unfortu
nately perilous for art; it cuts it off from all simple
souls, it isolates it in the arrogant feeling of inner
perfection and of a secret ideal which very few can
know or understand. As Michelangelo says:
"Good painting is noble and devout in itseU, for
among the wise nothing tends more to elevate the
soul or to raise it toward devotion than the difficulty
of that perfection which approaches God and be
comes one with him. Good painting is but a copy
of this perfection, a shadow of his pencU, a music, a
melody, and only a very keen intelhgence can feel

1 "Flemish painting generally is more pleasing to the devout than Italian
painting." 2 Francis of Holland, "Quatre Entretiens sur la Peinture," held in Rome
in 1538-1539, written in 1548, published by Joachim de Vasconcellos
(translation into French in "Les Arts en Portugal," by Comte Raczynski,
Paris, Renouard, 1844). To prove the theory of Michelangelo, Vittoria
Colonna, who presided over this talk, undertook the defense of the re
ligious and consolatory art of the North.

THE RESURRECTION
Drawing (about 1540). Louvre.

THE GENIUS OF MICHELANGELO 153
the difficulty of it. That is why it is so rare and
why so few people can attain to it or know how to
produce it. Painting is the music of God, the inner
reflection of his luminous perfection." 1
If instead of Michelangelo with his ardent faith
and that warmth of enthusiasm which sweeps along
his idealism and makes of the Divine Idea as he
conceives it a living being to whom he passionately
desires to unite himself we should take, I do not
say a sceptic or an atheist, but a sincere believer
after the manner of the Council of Trent, a Vasari
or a Zucchero, then God will be to them not a source
of love and ecstasy, but the principle of reason. The
reason of the wise — behold the beginning and the
end of art. A hundred years after Michelangelo,
Poussin was to bind all art in obedience to this prin
ciple. He applied all its natural resources to the
rendering of one idea. With him the attention is
confined to the idea of the work — that is the prin
cipal thing. The abstract idea is more important
than the form; thought alone is spontaneous; all
the rest — life, expression, colour — is determined by
the logic of reason. The subject regulates the com
position and determines the centre of interest and
the groupings of the picture; it indicates the char-
1 We find the same ideas, more exuberant and more confused, in the
writings of Lomazzo, "Idea del Tempio della Pittura" (1590).

1 54 MICHELANGELO
acter of the people, their moral aspect and, con
sequently, their exterior, for the two are bound
together. It determines the character of the land
scape, which must bear a logical relationship to
the scene; it presides even over the execution of
the work. The manner of painting is imposed by
the subject to be treated; it will be Phrygian or
Dorian or Lydian, according to whether the idea
is gentle or serious or sad. In this way everything
is logical and calculated. Michelangelo's mystical
ardour toward divine perfection at least left him
his impetuous liberty of feeling. Poussin no longer
left anything to chance. His reason commanded
and his hand obeyed. If I name him here it is
because he was both the end and the climax of ar
tistic intellectualisni. At least Poussin left on his
work the impress of his great inteUigence. His
system rests on this idea, and with him the idea was
clear and powerful. But what would it be in the
hands of men of mediocre talent? The number of
artists who either think for themselves, or express
with new force the ideas of others, is infinitesimal.
Moreover, the ideal is ordinarily to them merely
an emphatic rendering of a vague conception of
perfection which they have been taught. Under
pretext of an intellectual ideal they deform nature;
they leave it little by little, turning their backs, their

THE GENIUS OF MICHELANGELO 155
eyes proudly closed, looking only within themselves.
"La bellezza," says Tomazzo, "e lontana dala ma
teria" (Beauty is far from matter).1 The symbol of
the period which was to follow is that very Lo-
mazzo,2 painter, aesthetician — blind. \
BHnd, more or less, were all who lived around \
Michelangelo. Their too feeble eyes were dazzled
by this sun which shone alone in that twilight of art, ;
the night which was falling on Italy of the Renais- j
sance. A long time after that sun had disappeared j
below the horizon the radiant glow still remained in '
the sky. Michelangelo enthralled Italian art.
There is no comparison between the influence
which he exerted and that of the other masters of
the sixteenth century, Corregio and Raphael. How
ever superior they may have been to their century,
Corregio and Raphael only reflected its thoughts
with more charm and grandeur. Michelangelo is
outside of his time, alone, apart and colossal. He
is like a great mountain which inspires in those whq
dwell at the foot an invincible desire to reach the
top; and what men have ever existed who were
less capable of climbing those austere and sublime

1 Idea del Tempio, etc.
2 Lomazzo became blind when he was twenty-three, but that did not
prevent him from judging of painters and their works until his death when
over sixty.

156 MICHELANGELO
heights? AU those effeminate artists of the de
cadence, intoxicated by his inspiration, attempted to
\ express heroic ideas in their insipid works. They
lost the sense of proportion which alone could have
saved them. Instead of confining themselves to the
little world of their own fancy which, though cold,
could have been redeemed by sincerity, they at
tempted great subjects. A mass of forms, heroic
figures and furious gestures that they had learned,
were whirled about in their mind, uncontroUed either
by greatness of intelligence or of heart.
We must remember that Michelangelo Hved
through more than fifty years of the Golden Age of
Italian art and, as happened in our own day to
Victor Hugo, admiration for his works increased in
proportion as they deserved it less. Even the fac
tions that had been longest hostUe to him — the
school of Raphael, for instance — recognised his
triumph . Perino del Vaga admits that aU the painters
worshipped him as their master, their leader and the
god of drawing.1
The independents, or those who boasted that they
were, said as CelHni did in his sonnets:

1 Perino del Vaga made this declaration when he refused to undertake the
drawings for the jewel-box of Cosmo de Medici, when he found that they
had addressed themselves first to Michelangelo. (Jay, " Receuil de Lettres
sur la Pcinturc." Claude Tolomci a Apoll. Philarete.)

THE GENIUS OF MICHELANGELO 157
"Just a leaf from thy crown, 0 divine Michelangelo,
who alone art rich, who alone art immortal. That
wiU suffice me and I shall have no desire for anything
else, since for me that only is good and beautiful."
Florence, his own country, more even than the
rest of Italy gave him blind admiration. The
Academy of Drawing, founded by Vasari, was a
college of disciples and apostles. Since Michel
angelo's great paintings were at Rome the Floren
tines copied chiefly his statues, devoting themselves
principally, as Lanzi says, to ostentatiously showing
"magna ossa lacertosque."1
This was in accordance with the doctrine of the
master, who declared that sculpture should be the
school of the painter and the ideal of painting.
Cellini, thinking to define the thought of Michel
angelo, absurdly declares and demonstrates that
sculpture is seven times greater than painting.
The painter formed himself from this time on by
the study of statues, and especially of those of Michel
angelo. Colour was therefore regarded as a second
ary consideration,2 and the only aim pursued was
1 Luigi Lanzi; " Storia Pittorica d'ltalia, Bassano, 1795-96," Vol. I, p. 167.
2 Tintoretto himself, under the influence of Michelangelo, says: "The
most beautif td colours are black and white because they give relief to figures
by light and shade," and at the end of his life, abandoning the principles
of the Venetian School, he gives the preference to drawing, "Draw, draw
now and always."

158 MICHELANGELO
drawing over-accentuated, full of unreasonable ac
tion, and of excessive virtuosity. If he seemed to
Cellini the greatest painter of all time, it was only
because all painting from Cellini's point of view was
an imitation of sculpture, and the artist who came
nearest to him in perfection is Bronzino.1
The danger of following a model is less U the model
can be understood, but the ideas of Michelangelo
absolutely escaped his admirers. How could it be
otherwise when aU his work is an act of revolt against
his century. We can but smUe with pity when we
see his contemporaries expressing their enthusiasm
for the formidable Night in precious and carefully
chosen phrases.2
What supreme irony! The world only sees and
admires the outer form of those tremendous incar-
1 Daniele da Volterra was also more a sculptor than a painter, and ended
by giving himself up to sculpture. He made casts of the statues of the
Medici and also some statues of his own. Some of his pictures, like the
David and Goliath in the Louvre, which is painted on both sides, are
only two faces of one of his statues. Rosso and Salviati were also sculptors.
2 The verses of Giovanni Strozzi (1545) are well known:
La Notte, che tu vedi in si dolci atti
Dormir, fu da un Angelo scolpita
In questo sasso, e perche dorme, ha vita.
Destala, se noi credi, e parleratti.
The night which you see sleeping so peacefully was carved by an angel
in this rock. Since she sleeps, she lives. If you do not believe it awake
her and she will speak to you.

THE DOME OF ST. PETER'S
From the Original Model in Wood. Preserved in the X'atican (1558).

THE GENIUS OF MICHELANGELO 159
nations of contempt and weariness which are called
Moses or the Day, Victory subduing the Prisoner,
the Dawn or the Slaves. The world applauds the
style of the imprecations launched against it! It
even repeats them without knowing the meaning.
Two drawings by Federigo Zucchero, which are
in the Louvre, show a number of artists installed
in the chapel of S. Lorenzo zealously copying
Michelangelo's statues. How many artists of the
sixteenth century built their entire work on these
notes without ever thinking that such forms are
only justified by the passions which animate them, ,
and that it is ridiculous to use them as aids to the
learned virtuosity of a cold and forced talent!
Battista Franco of Venice, il Semolei distinguished
himseU above all others by his zeal in copying Michel
angelo. Vasari says that there was not a sketch,
not the roughest note, or any sort of fragment of
his which he had not devoutly drawn. He knew the
whole Sistine by heart. In 1536 he came to Flor
ence and drew once more all the statues of S.
Lorenzo. In 1541 he hurried to Rome for the
"premiere" of the Last Judgment, and he made a
drawing of the whole thing "con infinite maraviglia
il designo tutto." We can understand that he had
no time to do any thinking for himself. For a long
time he refrained from painting anything of his own.

t6o MICHELANGELO
When he decided to begin it was to reproduce in his
Battle of Montemurlo some fragments of the war
against Pisa or of the Rape of Ganymede.1
The independent CelHni writes in his memoirs:
"I devoted myself continually to trying to absorb
thoroughly the beautiful style of Michelangelo, and
since then I have never departed from it."
A hundred years later stUl Bernini copied the
Last Judgment for two successive years before he
began to draw from nature. Scivoh watched him
doing it and said: "Sei un furbo; no fai quel che
vedi: questa e di Michelangelo." (" You are a fool.
You are not drawing what you see; this is nothing
but Michelangelo").2
Bernini, who tells of this, does not see that it
is a criticism, for he recommends this same system
of education to young artists.
"It is necessary first for a young man to form an
idea of the beautUul, for this is of use to him aU his
life; it ruins young men to begin by drawing from
nature, which is almost always weak and mean, and
which then fills their imagination, so that they can
1 The same thing is true of Girolamo Muziano of Brescia. Even the
School of Milan was affected. Lomazzo makes of Michelangelo the ruler
of all painting. The imitation of Michelangelo spread especially in sculp
ture, and there the decadence was dizzying.
2 "Journal du Voyage du Cavalier Bernin en France," par M. de Chan-
telou. ("Gazette des Beaux Arts," Vol. XXIX, p. 453.)

THE GENIUS OF MICHELANGELO 161
never produce anything beautUul or great, qualities
which are never found in natural things. Those
who make use of nature should be already skilful
enough to recognise its faults and to correct them.
A young man is not capable of this untU he has
gained full knowledge of beauty."1
The essential idea of this teaching was that na^
ture is evil; just what Michelangelo thought. But
we now see to what unexpected results his pessimis
tic ideahsm led. It produced not only separation
from nature, but renunciation of personal feeling for
formulas, "since it is not possible for one individual
to have Hght on all subjects nor to grasp without as
sistance the dUficulty of arts so profound and so lit- ¦
tie understood."
What would Michelangelo have thought of these
servile disciples, he who said proudly that "whoever
follows others will never go forward, and whoever
does not know how to create by his own abilities
can gain no profit from the works of other men".
But they had lost even the consciousness of their
servility and took more pride in living on Michel
angelo's crumbs than he had in creating the work
which was to be the nourishment of two centuries.
Some drew tranquilly on their memory and their
ii » Ibid., Vol. XXI, p. 383.

1 62 MICHELANGELO
notes, others mimicked the master's grandiose man
ner, and they were all entirely satisfied with them
selves, not one of them reaHsing what their master
and model had suffered in giving birth to these
works which were so easy for them to imitate.
/ Michelangelo's idealism had a powerful correc-
{ tive in "the sense of the beauty of struggle, and the
j holiness of suffering." "Nothing approaches nearer
Ito God," he wrote, "than the effort to produce a
perfect work, because God is perfection."
No one ever struggled more fiercely than this man,
who ceaselessly tormented himseU and wept at
"losing his time uselessly" whUe he was working at
the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, who wrought with
his blood the beings whom he created and was dis
satisfied with his sublime creations at the moment
of finishing them and left them incomplete, who to
his last day in agony and tears
\ Piangendo, amando, ardendo, e sospirando, —
\ Ch'affetto alcun mortal non mi & piu nuovo, — *
"Weeping, loving, burning and sighing — for there
was no human emotion which he had not felt."
1 Ed. Frey, XLIX.
Michelangelo said one day to Ammanati, "Nelle mie opere caco sangue."
Varchi said to him one day, "Signor Buonarroti, avete il cervello di
Giove.'- Michelangelo answered, "Si vuole il martello di Vulcano per
fame uscire qualche cosa." (Quoted by E. Delacroix in his Journal, Vol.
II, p. 429.)

THE GENIUS OF MICHELANGELO 163
He was vainly seeking the visioned ideal, and in
dying he regretted not the joy of living, but his in
terrupted labours.1
Beside that virile modesty what can we think of
the absurd vanity of all those little masters who
declared that they derived from the great master
and believed themselves to be Michelangelos?
Vasari dares to write:
"Today art has been brought to such perfection
that while our predecessors produced a picture in
six years we produce six in one year. I can bear
witness since I have seen this done and have done it
myself, and nevertheless our works are much more
finished and more perfect than those of the renowned
painters who preceded us." 2
Even the weakest ones had the same feeling.
Perino del Vaga considered himself very much su
perior to Masaccio, and in Cellini vanity ended by
touching madness. He felt that antiquity was only
valuable as a background to his works, and for his
1 Michelangelo said to Cardinal Salviati, who was ministering to him
on his death-bed, that he only regretted two things: not to have done all
he should have for his salvation, and to be dying just as he was learning
the alphabet of his profession. (Journal de Bernin, Vol. XXI, p. 388.)
2 Vasari, " Vite," Preamble to the Third Part.
Lionardo spent six years in painting some hair, but Corregio only an
hour, and with four strokes of his brush gained just the same effect.
(Journal de Bernin, Vol. XX, p. 453.)

1 64 MICHELANGELO
Jupiter he used the bronze castings which Prima-
taccio brought from Rome.1
When an artist is so sure of success he no longer
takes any trouble to deserve it. "Che cartoni o
non cartoni," cries Giorlamo da Treviso, "io, io, ho
1'arte su la punta dell pennello" ("Have I need of
studies, I who have art on the point of my
brush!"). The scruples that Michelangelo had felt no longer
checked the artists. They were not afraid to finish
what they had begun. Pomeranci, Semino, Calvi,
painted four square yards a day. Cambiaso painted,
at the age of seventeen, the story of Niobe without
studies or sketches. He produced as many works
as a dozen painters together, and his wUe lighted
the fire with bundles of drawings which he tossed
off every moment. His contemporaries compare
him to Michelangelo, and add that the latter does
not gain by the comparison. Santi di Tito made
a portrait in less than haU an hour. He set up a
factory in his house and turned them out in enor
mous quantities. His pupU, Tempesti, did not suc-
1 He went so far as to canonise himself while he was still alive, after a
vision in which he saw a miraculous aureole around his own head.
Nothing shows more surely the gulf which separated Michelangelo
from his disciples than the comparison of his sombre poetry with the
proudly exultant sonnet which serves as preamble to the memoirs of
Cellini.

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THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS
Duomo, Florence (1553-1555).
THE GENIUS OF MICHELANGELO 165
eeed in finding sufficient occupation for his talents
in the great frescoes at Rome and, as a relaxation
from painting, made fifteen hundred engravings. In
a month Vasari, Tribolo and Andrea del Cosimo
built and decorated a palace. In a day Perino del
Vaga painted the Passage of the Red Sea.
The Venetians, thanks to their distance from
Rome and Florence and to their ardent communion
with nature, which to the horror of Vasari they
dared to copy honestly,1 were saved for a time, but
in the end caught the infection. The Florentine
spirit won this last refuge of art, and Tintoretto in
fused the spirit of Michelangelo into Venetian
realism.2
1 See what Vasari writes of the revolution of Giorgione in 1507 when Gior
gione began to "pose before him living and natural things, to represent
them as nearly as he could by painting directly with colour without
making any drawing." He adds that Giorgione did not perceive that
it is necessary, if you wish to arrange and balance a composition, to
put it first on paper. "In fact the mind can not very well see or per
fectly imagine its own creations, if it does not reveal and explain its
thought to the eyes of the body which will aid it in judging — we must
add that in drawing on paper one succeeds in filling the mind with
beautiful conceptions and learns to make natural objects from memory
P without being obliged to have them always before you." (Vasari, Ed.
1811, Vol.'III, pp. 427-428.) The whole point of view of Florentine art >
of the sixteenth century is in this naive avowal.
2 Tintoretto had long studied Michelangelo. He had brought to him at
great expense casts of his statues which Ridolfo says he lighted by a lamp
and drew in bold relief . (Ridolfo; " Delle maraviglie dell' arte in Venetia,"
1648.)

166 MICHELANGELO
/
/ The brain of Italy was a prey to fever.1 Michel-
( angelo had destroyed the balance of mind of a
period dried out by intellectualism and weakened
by the taste for pleasure. The shock of his dazzhng
light on their eyes, too feeble to bear it, blinded
them and inspired a delirium of imagination with
out poetry, without thought and without Hfe.
The Carracci were needed at the end of the cen
tury, U not to snatch Italian art from inevitable
death, at least to lend it, emerging from its follies
and delusions, an air of dignity and a cold distinction
in which it could veil itseU to die.
The greatness of Michelangelo was thus fatal to
Italian art. So it is with everything that rises too
far above its own time. Decadence can only be
averted or retarded by intelHgent and moderate
talents like the Carracci, who, hardly separated from
the average of their times, are easUy understood by
it. They are the geniuses of common sense, and they
pre, therefore, useful to the common man. The
heroes of art are also its tyrants; their glory kUls,
and the greater they are the more they are to be
feared, for they impose on all men the laws of a
1 This fever attacked the art of other countries which were filled with
caricatures of Michelangelo, Maarten van Heemskerck, "the Dutch
Michelangelo," Frans Floris, "the Flemish Michelangelo," and their
innumerable followers, not to mention the French and Spanish imitators,
the Freminets and the Cespedes.

THE GENIUS OF MICHELANGELO 167
personality which can exist but once. They are a
devouring force; they illumine, but they burn;
they have the right to be unique in their being and
in their work. They seem to realise in themselves
the whole aim of nature, and there is nothing left
for those who foUow but to be absorbed and dis
appear. It would be absurd to offer Michelangelo as a model
to young artists. Should great men ever be taken
as models in art? Is not that one of the errors of
classical training? They are examples of energy,
scurces of force and beauty. It is well to look for
a moment on their radiance, then tear ourselves
from their contemplation and work.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

DATE IMPORTANT EVENTS
147S March 6. Birth of Michelangelo
at Caprese.
1488 April 1. He enters the school of
Domenico and David Ghirlan
dajo.
1489 He enters the school of Bertoldo
and becomes the protege of Lo
renzo de' Medici.
1490-1492 

1492 April 8. Death of Lorenzo de'
Medici
1492-1494 In the service of Piero de'
Medici.
1494 October. Flight to Venice
and Bologna. He worked at
S. Petronio in Bologna.
1495 Return to Florence.
1496 June 25. Arrival in Rome.
1498 May 23. Savonarola is burned
in Florence.
1498-1 500 
1501 Return to Florence.

PRINCIPAL WORKS

Mask of a Faun.
Madonna of the Stairs.
Combat of the Centaurs.

Wooden crucifix.
Statue of Hercules.
Angel for the Area of
S. Domenico in Bo
logna.
Giovannino.
Sleeping Love.
Bacchus.
Cupid.

Pieta of St. Peter's.
Statues for the Piccolo
mini altar in the ca
thedral of Sienna.

169

170 MICHELANGELO
1501-1505  David.
Cartoon for the battle
of Cascina.
Holy Family of Agnolo
Doni.
Virgin of Bruges.
Bas-reliefs of the Ma
donna for Taddeo
Taddei and Bartolom
meo Pitti.
1505 March. He is summoned to Rome First plan for the tomb
by Julius II. of Julius II
1506 The Laocoon was discovered at
Rome.
1506 April 17. Flight to Florence.
1506 End of November. Reconcilia
tion with Julius at Bologna.
1506-1508  Bronze statue of Julius
II at Bologna.
1508 Return to Rome.
1508 May 10 to 1512, October,  Paintings on the ceiling
of the Sistine.
1 513 February 21. Death of Julius II.
1 5 13 March 11. Election of Leo X.
1513 May 6. Second contract for the
tomb of Julius II.
1513-1516 Michelangelo at Florence. The Slates.

Moses.

1 5 16 July. Third contract for the
tomb of Julius II.
1 51 7 September. Serious illness of
Michelangelo.
1518 January 19. Contract in regard
to the fagade of S. Lorenzo in
Florence.
1 518-1520 Michelangelo at the quarries
of Carrara, Seravezza.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

171

1520

1520 1521
152115221524

1527

1529

March 10. Michelangelo is re
leased from the contract for the
facade of S. Lorenzo by an
order from Leo X.
April 6. Death of Raphael.
Beginning of the work on the chapel
of the Medici at S. Lorenzo.
At the end of the year serious ill
ness of Michelangelo.
November 19. Election of Clem
ent VII.
1526 

1529

1529

iS3o

iS3i

IS32

1533

IS34

May 6. Capture of Rome by the
Imperialists.
April 6. Michelangelo is named
Governatore Generale and Pro-
curatore of the fortifications of
Florence. Mission to inspect
the fortifications at Pisa, Li
vorno and Ferrara.
September 21. Flight to Venice.
Siege of Florence.
November 20. Return to Flor
ence. Defense of San Miniato.
August 12. Capitulation of Flor
ence. Proscriptions.
June. Serious illness of Michel
angelo.
April 29. Fourth contract for the
monument ofi Julius II.
Beginning of the friendship with
Tommaso dei Cavalieri in
Rome.
Death in Florence of Lodovico, the
father of Michelangelo.

The Christ of the Min
erva.

The Madonna of the
chapel of the Medici.
The Victory.

Work on the tomb of
the Medici and the
Laurentian library.

Leda.

Apollo.Work on the Medici
tombs.

First plan for the Last
Judgment.

1 7 2 MICHELANGELO
1534 September 23. Michelangelo re
turns to Rome, where he re
mains until his death.
1534 September 25. Death of Clement
VII.
1534 October 13. Election of Paul
IH.
1535 September 1. Michelangelo is
named by order of Paul III
architect-in-chief, sculptor and
painter of the Apostolic Palace.
1536 Beginning of the friendship with
Vittoria Colonna at Rome.
1536 April to November, 1541  Last Judgment in the
Sistine.
1538 The statue of Marcus Aurelius is Brutus.
raised on the Capitoline. Drawings of Christ for
Vittoria Colonna.
1542-1544  Frescoes of the Pauline
Chapel.
1542 August 20. Last agreement for
the monument of Julius II.
1544' June. Serious illness of Michel
angelo, who was cared for in
the palace of the Strozzi.
1545 February  Completion of the monu
ment of Julius II in
S. Pietro in Vinculi.
IS45-IS46 Titian in Rome.
1546 January. Serious illness of Michel- Work on the cornice of
angelo. He gives the Slaves to the Farnese palace.
the Strozzi.
*547 January 1. Michelangelo named
by Paul III architect of St.
Peter's.
1547 February 25. Death of Vittoria Work on the Capitol.
Colonna.

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE

173

1549 November 10. Death of Paul III.
1550 February 8. Election of Julius III.

i55i15531555 15551555

1558

First edition of the "Vite" of
Vasari.
First edition of the life of Michel
angelo by Ascanio Condivi.
March 23. Death of Julius III.
May 23. Election of Paul IV.
December 3. Death of Urbino,
Michelangelo's servant.

1 5 59- 1 560 Daniele da Volterra, at the
command of Paul IV, paints
drapery on the figures of the
Last Judgment.
1560 Catherine de' Medici requested
Michelangelo to make the statue
of Henri II.

1561 1563

1564 1564 1564

August 29. Michelangelo was
taken ill.
January 31. Michelangelo made
President of the Academy of
Florence.
February.February 18. Death of Michel
angelo.
July 14. Funeral at S. Lorenzo
in Florence.

Work on the Vigna del
Papa Giulio and the re
construction of the Bel
vedere stairway.

Work on St. Peter's.

The group of the Pieta,
broken by Michelan
gelo, is continued and
completed by Tiberio
Calcagni.
He works at the model of
the dome of St. Peter's.

Work on the transforma
tion of the Baths of
Diocletian into the
church of S. Maria
degli Angeli.
Work on the Porta Pia.

The Rondanini Pieta.

CATALOGUE OF THE PRINCIPAL WORKS
OF MICHELANGELO IN PUBLIC
COLLECTIONS
I.— PAINTINGS ITALY
FLORENCE. Uffizi.
Holy Family, painted for Agnolo Doni (between 1501 and 1505).
ROME. Vatican.
Paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine (1508-15 12).
The Last Judgment (1536-1541).
The frescoes of the Pauline chapel (1542-1549).
ENGLAND
LONDON. National Gallery.
The Entombment (about 1495).
The Virgin of Manchester (about 1495).
IL— SCULPTURE ITALY
FLORENCE. Museo Nazionale.
Mask of a Faun (between 1490 and 1492).
Bacchus (1497). 175

176 MICHELANGELO
The Dying Adonis (1497).
Virgin and Child, a circular bas-relief made for Taddeo Taddei (between
1501 and 1505).
Victory (1522-1523).
Apollino (1530).
Brutus (1538).
Galleria antica e moderna e Tribuna del David.
David (between 1501 and 1504).
Casa Buonarroti.
The Centaurs and Lapiths, bas-relief in marble (between 1490 and 1492).
Virgin and Child, bas-relief in bronze (between 1490 and 1492).
San Lorenzo.
The Medici tombs (1524-1527 and 1530-1534).
Santa Maria dei Fiore.
The descent from the cross (1 553-1 555).
ROME. Saint Peter's.
Pieta (1498-1500). San Pietro in Vinculi.
Tomb of Julius II: (Moses, 1513-1516).
Rachel and Leah (1 542-1 545).
FRANCE
PARIS. The Louvre.
The Slaves (151 3- 151 6).

CATALOGUE OF PRINCIPAL WORKS 177
ENGLAND
LONDON. South Kensington Museum.
Kneeling Cupid (1497)- Royal Academy.
Holy Family, circular bas-relief made for Bart. Pitti (between 1501
and 1505).
BELGIUM
BRUGES. The Cathedral.
Madonna (between 1501 and 1505).
GERMANY
BERLIN. Koenigliche Museum.
Giovannino (1495).
12

NOTE ON THE DRAWINGS
The great European Museums — especially the Louvre, the Uffizi,
the Albertina in Vienna, the British Museum, Oxford University and
Windsor — contain very rich collections of Michelangelo's drawings.
The most beautiful of those in the Louvre came from the Jabach and
Mariette collections.
"You could not ask for anything more finished or showing a
greater knowledge of drawing," says Mariette; . . . "they are almost
too much finished. ... I do not know any other master who finished
his studies more completely. When he is looking for a certain pose
he dashes off impetuously on the paper what comes from his imagina
tion. He draws with large strokes. . . . But if he wants to study
nature so that he may reproduce it later on in sculpture or in painting
he follows an entirely different method. . . . His drawing is no longer
a sketch, but a finished fragment in which no detail is left out, it is
the flesh itself; and Michelangelo needed nothing more than this for
his modelling. I have a number of drawings where you can see the
marks which Michelangelo made on them, and which indicate that
these designs were used by him as guides in his modelling. . . ."
Some of the drawings in the Louvre were for the tombs of the
Medici and for the bronze David for Florimond Robertet.
Another curious thing about these drawings is that we often find
upon them verses by Michelangelo, fragments of poems. Both verses
and drawings are often the repetitions or variations of certain ideas
which were in his mind for years and occupied his attention with the
tenacity of fixed ideas.
Michelangelo used indifferently red chalk, pen and ink, and charcoal
or pencil. 179

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I.— WRITINGS OF MICHELANGELO
Le Letter e di Michel-Angelo Buonarroti, publicate, coi Ricordi ed i
Contratti artistici, per cura di Gaetano Milanesi. Florence, 1875,
in-fol., ix, 721 pages. Lemonnier (495 letters, from 1497 to 1563).
Rime di Michel-Angelo Buonarroti, raccolte da Michelagnolo suo
nipote. Florence, 1623, Giunti (first complete edition, but full of
errors).
Rime di Michel-Angelo Buonarroti, cavate dagli autograft e publicate
da Cesare Guasti. Florence, 1863 (first really accurate edition).
Die Dichtungen des Michel-Angelo Buonarroti, herausgegeben und mit
kritischem Apparat versehen von Carl Frey. Berlin, 1897 (the finest
and most complete edition of the poems of Michelangelo which has
been made up to the present time).

II— WORKS ON MICHELANGELO
1. writings of his contemporaries.
Giorgio Vasari. — Vite degli architetti, pittori e scultori (first edition).
Florence, 1550, in 4to; — (second edition). Florence, 1568, in 4to. —
edition of Milanesi. Florence, 1856, Lemonnier.
Ascanio Condivi. — Vita di Michel-Angelo Buonarroti. Rome, 1553,
Antonio Blado; — (second edition). Florence, 1746, with notes by
Mariette.
Paolo Giovio. — Michaelis Angeli Vita, published by Tiraboschi in
his Storia della letteratura italiana, Vol. IX, Modena, 1781.
181

182 MICHELANGELO
Sammlung ausgewaehlter Biographien Vasaris, herausg. von Carl
Frey (in the second volume are gathered le Vite de Michel-Angelo
Buonnaroti, critical edition of all the biographies written by his
contemporaries) .
Vittoria Colonna. — Rime (first edition). Parma, 1538; — (second
edition), 1539; — (third edition), 1544; — edition Saltini. Florence,
1S60, Barbera.— Carteggio, published by Ermanno Ferrero and
Giuseppe Muller. Turin, 1892, Loescher (Letters and documents).
— Lettere inedite, published by Salza. Florence, 1898. — Codice delle
Rime di Vittoria Colonna, appartenente a Margherita, regina di
Navarra scoperto ed illustrate Pistoia, 1900, ed. Tordi.
Francois de Hollande. — Quatre Entretiens sur la Peinlure, held in
Rome 1538 to 1539, written in 1548, pubhshed by Joachim de Vas-
concellos;— French translation in Les Arts en Portugal, by Count
RaCzynski. Paris, 1846, Renouard.
Donato Giannotti. — De' giorni che Dante consumo nel ctrcare V Inferno
e' I Purgatorio. Dialoghi. Florence, 1859.
Benvenuto Cellini. — Vila (1559 to 1562), first edition. Naples,
1728. — / Trattali dell' oreficeria e della scultura. Florence, 1893,
edition C. Milanesi.
Benedetto Varchi. — Due lezioni di Benedetto Varchi. Florence, 1549.
¦ — Orazione funerale rtcilata nelle esequie di Michel-Angelo Buonar
roti. Florence, 1564, Giunti.
Francesco Berni. — Opere burlesche. Florence, 1548. Giunti.
Michelangelo' s correspondents: I. Sebastiano del Piombo, Ed. Milanesi,
French translation by A. Le Prieur. Paris, 1890, Librairie de
l'Art.
Blaise de Vigenere. — Les Images de Philostrate. Paris, 1629.

II.— MODERN WORKS
Richard Duppa. — The Life and Literary Works of Michel-Angelo
Buonarroti. London, 1806, 18 16 (translations in verse of the
poetry of Michel-Angelo by Southey and Wordsworth).
Quatremere de Quincy.— Histoire dc la vk et des outrages de Michel-
Ange Buonarroti. Paris, 1S35.

BIBLIOGRAPHY 183
Giovanni Gaye. — Carteggio inedito d'artisti dei secoli XIV, XV, XVI.
Florence, 1839, three volumes.
Fr. Al Rio. — Michel-Ange et Raphael (first edition). Hanover, i860
(since then there have been seven editions; the last appeared in
1900 with illustrations).
Aurelio Gotti. — Vita di Michel-Angelo. Florence, 1875, two volumes.
C. Heath Wilson. — Life and Works of Michel-Angelo. London, 1876.
L'CEuvre et la Vie de Michel-Ange, by Charles Blanc, Eug. Guillaume,
Paul Mantz, Charles Garnier, A. Mezieres, Anatole de Mon-
taiglon, Georges Duplessis and Louis Gonse. Paris, Gazette
des Beaux-Arts, 1876.
Anton Springer. — Rafael und Michelangelo, 1878.
John Addington Symonds. — The Life of Michel-Angelo Buonarroti.
London, 1893.
Corrado Ricci. — Michelangelo. Florence, 1901.
Henry Thode. — Michel-Angelo und das Ende der Renaissance. ie vol.
Berlin, 1902. — 2e vol. Berlin, 1903.
Alfred von Reumont. — Vittoria Colonna. Fribourg, 1881.
Albert Haucic. — Vittoria Colonna. Heidelberg, 1882.
Giotti. — Catalogo delle opere d'arti e dei disegni di Michel-Angelo
Buonarroti, 1875.
F. Reiset. — Notice des dessins du musee du Louvre. Paris, 1866.
Baron H. Geymuller. — Michelangelo als Architekt.
Dr Ernst Steinmann. — Die Sixtinische Kapelle.
Carl Frey. — Studien zu Michelagnolo (Jahrb. der K. preuss. Kunsts-
samml. 1895-1896.
Luigi Passerini. — La bibliografia di Michel-Angelo Buonarroti e gli
incisori delle sue opere. Florence, 1875.

INDEX

^ Bettini (Bart.), 134.
Biagio da Cesena, 95.
Academy of painters, Florence, Boboli (Figures in the grotto), 59.

139-
Aldovrandi, 10.
Altoviti (Bindo), 122, 134.
Amadio d'Alberto, 66.
Ammanati (Bart.), no, 139.
Annunciation, 136.
Apollo, 74.
Apollo and Marsyas, 11.

Bocaccio, 10.
Borghini (Vincenzo), 139, 141.
Borgo (Fortifications of), no.
Botticeili, 12, 16.
Bramante, 28-31, 35-37, 109, 119.
Bronzino, 22, 128, 139.
Brunelleschi, 77, 119.
Bugiardini (Giuliano), 7, 37, 128.

Area of S. Domenico of Bologna, Buonarroti (Lodovico), 1, 76.

10.
Archadelt, 86.
Aretino, 95-98.
Ariosto, 82.

B

Bacchus, 10.
Baccio d'Agnolo, 50, 52.
Baglioni (Malatesta), 68, 71.
Baif (Lazare de), 69.
Bandinelli, 22, 66.
Bandini, 116, 123, 134.
Bartolommeo (Fra), 24.
Beethoven, 13, 127, 149.
Bembo, 82.
Berni (Francesco), 87, 128.
Bernin, 160.
Bertoldo, 6, 7.

Buonarroti (Lionardo, son of Lo
dovico), 1, 12.
Buonarroti (Buonarroto) , 1, 49, 76.
Buonarroti (Giovan Simone), r,
13°-
Buonarroti (Sigismondo), 1, 130.
Buonarroti (Lionardo, son of Buo
narroto), 115, 130, 132, 135, 138,
140.
Buonarroti (Francesca), 130.
Buoninsegni (Domenico), 52, 61.

Calcagni (Tiberio), 124, 126.
Capitol, 120-121.
Capponi (Niccolo), 66, 67.
Carducci (Francesco), 67, 68.
Carnesecchi (Pietro), 83.
185

1 86 INDEX
Carpi (Cardinal), 116. Descent from the cross, drawing,
Carracci, 166. 85.
Carrara, 26, 27, 30, 51, 54, 55. Dolce (Lodovico), 82.
Caryatid in the Hermitage, 48. Donatello, 6, 7, 10.
Castiglione (Bald.), 82. Doni (Agnolo), 24.
Cavalcanti, 87. Duccio (Agostino di), 16.
Cavalieri (Tommaso dei), 80, 81, Durer (Albrecht), 25, 150.
97, 134, 137, 138. Dying Adonis, 11.
Cecchino dei Bracci, 128.
Cellini (Benvenuto), 22, 128, 139, g
148, 158, 160, 163.
Christ of the Minerva, 49, 58. Entombment, 11.
Christ, incompleted.
Cino da Pistoia, 87. p
Civitale, 107.
Clement VII, 54, 56, 59, 60, 61, Farnese (Palace), in.
74-76, 128. Fattuci, 62, 63.
Clement VIII, 100. Febo di Poggio, 80.
Colonna (Vittoria), 82-86, 89, 93, Ferrara (Renee de), 83.
147. Festa (Constanzo), 86.
Colossus of Florence, 62-64. Francesca (Piero della), 23.
Combat of Centaurs and Lapiths, Franco (Battista), 159.
8. Francis I, 60.
Condivi, 129. Frizzi (Federigo;, 58.
Consilium, 86.
Contarini (Cardinal), 83. q
Corregio, 155.
Credi (Lorenzo di), 7. Gaeta (Pier-Luigi), 117, 137.
Cronaca, 16. Ghiberti, 4.
Crucifix in wood of the convent Ghirlandajo (Domenico), 2-6.
of S. Spirito, 10. Ghirlandajo (Ridolfo), 23.
Crucifixion, 85. Giannotti (Donato), 65, 87, 115,
Cupid sleeping, 11. 128.
Giberti, 83.
j-. Giotto, 4

Granacci (Francesco), 2, 7, 22, 37.
H

Dante, 10, 57, 87, 106-107.
David, colossal, 16-18, 97.
David in bronze, 17.
Descent from the cross (Duomo, Hercules and Cacus, 66.
Florence), 126, 127. Hercules, colossal, n.

Holland, Francis of, 13, 83.
Holy Family (Agnolo Doni), 24.
Holy Family (Bart. Pitti), 24.
Holy Family (Taddeo Taddei), 24.

I

Indaco, 37.

Jacopo di Sandro, 37.
Jove (Paul), 82.
Julius II, 26-36, 43-44.
Julius II (Tomb of), 26-36, 45-47,
48-50, 72, 89-96, 102, 103.
Julius II (Bronze statue of), 33-34.
Julius III, 109.

Last Judgment, 91-102.
Leah, 105-107.
Leda, 67, 74.
Le Noyer (Robert), 100.
Leo X, 50-54, 57, 59.
Leone Leoni, 128.
Lippi (Filipino), 23.
Lomazzo, 153, 155. M
Madonna of Bruges, 25.
Madonna and child (bas-relief in
bronze), 9.
Majano (Benedetto da), 4.
Mantegna, 14.
Marcellus II, 114.
Masaccio, 4.
Medici (Lorenzo de'), 6, 7, 13.
Medici (Alessandro de'), 65, 76.

INDEX 187
Medici (Duke Cosmo de'), 78,
115-117, 129, 130, 138.
Medici (Don Francesco de'), 129,
i34-
Medici (Tombs of the), 59-62, 71-
74-
Michi (Giovanni), 38.
Minni (Antonio), 69, 75, 131, 134.
Mino da Fiesole, 4.
Mirandole (Pico della), 7, 10.
Montelupo (Raffaelle da), 77, 103,
107.
Montmorency (Constable de),47,
69.
Montorsoli (Giovanni da), 77.
Moses, 47, 104-106.
Moses (small), 138. N
Nanni di Baccio Bigio, 112-118.
Navarre (Marguerite de), 83.
Noli me tangere, 134.
O
Ochino (Bernadino), 83.
P
Palla (Battista de la), 68.
Paul III, 89-112, 109, 114.
Paul IV, 99, 114, 118.
Pauline Chapel, Frescoes of, 102.
Perini (Gherado), 80, 97, 134.
Perino del Vaga, 22, in, 156, 163.
Perugino, 22, 91.
Peruzzi (Baldi), 109.
Petrarch, 10, 87.
Petreo (Antonio), 65.
Pierfrancesco d'Urbino, 66.

i88

INDEX

Piero di Cosimo, 23.
Pieta of St. Peter's, 14, 15.
Pieta Rondanini, 137.
Piet&, drawing, 137.
Pieta, 13.
Pinturicchio, 23.
Pius IV, 122.
Poems of Michelangelo, 86-89.
Pole (Cardinal), 83.
Poliziano (Angelo), 7, 8, 10, 128.
Pollajuolo, 3.
Pontormo, 22, 134.
Porta (Guglielmo della), in.
Porta Pia, 120-122.
Poussin, 153, 154.
Pulci, 7. Q
Quercia (Jacopo della), 4, 10.
R
Rachel, 105-107.
Raffaellino del Garbo, 23.
Raphael, 3, 22, 28, 36, 50, 109, 143,
iSS, 156.
Resurrection of Christ, 85.
Riccio (Luigi del), 65, 86, 128, 135.
Rossellino (Antonio), 4, 107.
Rosso, 22.
Rustici, 7.

San Gallo (Antonio da), 16, 50,
ioo-iii, 122.
San Gallo (Aristotele da), 22.
San Gallo (Francesco da), 66,
139-
San Gallo (Giuliano da), 31, 43,
5°-
San Lorenzo (fagade of), 5°-57-
San Lorenzo (sacristy of), 59.
San Lorenzo (library of), 60, 78.
San Lorenzo (chapel of the Me
dici), 76-78.
Santa Maria degli Angeli, 120,
122.
San Miniato (defense of), 66-67,
70.
Sansovino (Jacopo), 22, 50, 112.
Sansovino ( Andrea del Monte), 7,
So-
Sarto (Andrea del), 22.
Satyr (laughing), 8.
Savonarola, 8-14.
Schongauer (Martin), 4, 5.
Sebastiano del Piombo, 58, 70,
87, in. 128, 134. 150.
Serlio (Sebastiano), 66.
Signorelli, 14, 23.
Sistine chapel (ceiling of), 36-42.
Slaves, 47, 49.
Soderini, 16, 19.
Sodoma, 23.
Strozzi (Roberto), 47, 134.

Sadolet, 83.
St. Peter's (construction of), 27.
St. Peter (statue), 137.
St. Matthew, 18.
Salviati, 2:

Tasso (Bernardo), 82.
Temptation of St. Anthony, 4.
Tintoretto, 151, 165.
Torrigiani, 7.
Tribolo, 78, 165.

Samaritan woman at the well, 85. Tromboncino, 86.

INDEX

189

U
Urbano (Pietro), 58, 131.
Urbino, 103, 132, 133.

Victory, 138, 140.
Vignole, 128.
Vinci (Lionardo da), 18-22, 24.
Virgin of Manchester, 11.
Vitruvius, 77.
Y Volterra (Daniele da), 100, 128,
136, 140, 158.
Valori (Baccio), 71, 75.
Varchi, 68, 86, 128. vy
Varj (Metello), 49, 58.
Vasari, 20, 78, 101, in, 128, 139, War with Pisa (Cartoon), 18-23.
140. iS3-
Venusti (Marcello), 100. 7
Veronese, 99.
Verrocchio, 3. Zucchero, 153, 159.

THE END

YALE UNIVERSITY

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