Chapter II: Front Matter (2)

In his _soul’s_ embrace, not in his arms. When he stood beside her dead body, he silently gazed at her, not daring to imprint a kiss on that serene brow even when life had departed. If he admired Petrarca, it was as a philosopher and a patriot,—for his canzone to Liberty, not for his sonnets to Laura. Dante, whom he called _Stella di alto valor_, the star of high power, was his favorite poet; Savonarola his single friend. The “Divina Commedia,” or rather the “Inferno” alone, he thought worthy of illustration by his pencil; the doctrines of the latter he warmly espoused. “True beauty,” says that great reformer, “comes only from the soul, from nobleness of spirit and purity of conduct.” And so, in one of his madrigals, says Michel Angelo. “They are but gross spirits who seek in sensual nature the beauty that uplifts and moves every healthy intelligence even to heaven.”

For the most part he walked alone and avoided society, wrapped up in his own thoughts; and once, when meeting Raffaelle, he reproached him for being surrounded by a _cortège_ of flatterers; to which Raffaelle bitterly retorted, “And you go alone, like the headsman”—_andate solo come un boia_.

He was essentially original, and, unlike his great rival, followed in no one’s footsteps. “Chi va dietro agli altri non li passa mai dinanzi,” he said,—who follows behind others can never pass before them.

Yet, with all his ruggedness and imperiousness of character, he had a deep tenderness of nature, and was ready to meet any sacrifice for those whom he loved. Personal privations he cared little for, and sent to his family all his earnings, save what was absolutely necessary to support life. He had no greed for wealth, no love of display, no desire for luxuries: a better son never lived, and his unworthy brother he forgave over and over again, never weary of endeavoring to set him on his right path.

But at times he broke forth with a tremendous energy when pushed too far, as witness this letter to his brother. After saying, “If thou triest to do well, and to honor and revere thy father, I will aid thee like the others, and will provide for thee in good time a place of business,” he thus breaks out in his postscript:—

“I have not wandered about all Italy, and borne every
mortification, suffered hardship, lacerated my body with hard
labor, and placed my life in a thousand dangers, except to aid
my family; and now that I have begun to raise it somewhat, thou
alone art the one to embroil and ruin in an hour that which I
have labored so long to accomplish. By the body of Christ, but it
shall be found true that I shall confound ten thousand such as
thou art if it be needful,—so be wise, and tempt not one who has
already too much to bear.”

He was generous and large in his charities. He supported out of his purse many poor persons, married and endowed secretly a number of young girls, and gave freely to all who surrounded him. “When I die,” asked he of his old and faithful servant Urbino, “what will become of you?” “I shall seek for another master in order to live,” was the answer. “Ah, poor man!” cried Michel Angelo, and gave him at once 10,000 golden crowns. When this poor servant fell ill, he tended him with the utmost care, as if he were a brother, and on his death broke out into loud lamentations, and would not be comforted.

His fiery and impetuous temper, however, led him often into violence. He was no respecter of persons, and he well knew how to stand up for the rights of man. There was nothing of the courtier in him; and he faced the Pope with an audacious firmness of purpose and expression unparalleled at that time; and yet he was singularly patient and enduring, and gave way to the variable Pontiff’s whims and caprices whenever they did not touch his dignity as a man. Long periods of time he allowed himself to be employed in superintending the quarrying of marble at Carrara, though his brain was teeming with great conceptions. He was oppressed, agitated, irritated on every side by home troubles, by papal caprices, and by the intestine tumult of his country, and much of his life was wasted in merely mechanical work which any inferior man could as well have done. He was forced not only to quarry, but to do almost all the rude blocking out of his statues in marble, which should have been intrusted to others, and which would have been better done by mere mechanical workmen. His very impetuosity, his very genius, unfitted him for such work: while he should have been creating and designing, he was doing the rough work of a stone-cutter. So ardent was his nature, so burning his enthusiasm, that he could not fitly do this work. He was too impatient to get to the form within to take heed of the blows he struck at the shapeless mass that encumbered it, and thus it happened that he often ruined his statue by striking away what could never be replaced.

Vigenero thus describes him:—

“I have seen Michel Angelo, although sixty years of age, and
not one of the most robust of men, smite down more scales from
a very hard block of marble in a quarter of an hour, than three
young marble-cutters would in three or four times that space of
time. He flung himself upon the marble with such impetuosity
and fervor, as to induce me to believe that he would break the
work into fragments. With a single blow he brought down scales
of marble of three or four fingers in breadth, and with such
precision to the line marked on the marble, that if he had broken
away a very little more, he risked the ruin of the work.”

This is pitiable. This was not the work for a great genius like him, but for a common stone-cutter. What waste of time and energy to no purpose,—nay, to worse than no purpose,—to the danger, often the irreparable injury, of the statue. A dull, plodding, patient workman would have done it far better. It is as if an architect should be employed in planing the beams or laying the bricks and stones of the building he designed. In fact, Michel Angelo injured, and in some cases nearly ruined, most of his statues by the very impatience of his genius. Thus the back head of the Moses has been struck away by one of these blows, and everywhere a careful eye detects the irreparable blow beyond its true limit. This is not the Michel Angelo whom we are to reverence and admire; this is an _abbozzatore_ roughing out the work. There is no difficulty in striking off large cleavings of marble at one stroke—any one can do that; and it is pitiable to find him so engaged.

Where we do find his technical excellence as a sculptor is when he comes to the surface—when with the drill he draws the outline with such force and wonderful precision—when his tooth-chisel models out, with such pure sense of form and such accomplished knowledge, the subtle anatomies of the body and the living curves of the palpitant flesh; and no sculptor can examine the colossal figures of the Medici Chapel without feeling the free and mighty touch of a great master of the marble. Here the hand and the mind work together, and the stone is plastic as clay to his power.

It was not until Michel Angelo was sixty years of age that, on the death of Antonio San Gallo, he was appointed to succeed him as architect, and to design and carry out the building of St. Peter’s, then only rising from its foundations. To this appointment he answered, as he had before objected when commissioned to paint the Sistine Chapel, “Architecture is not my art.” But his objections were overruled. The Pope insisted, and he was finally prevailed upon to accept this commission, on the noble condition that his services should be gratuitous, and dedicated to the glory of God and of His Apostle, St. Peter; and to this he was actuated, not only by a grand sentiment, but because he was aware that hitherto the work had been conducted dishonestly, and with a sole view of greed and gain. Receiving nothing himself, he could the more easily suppress all peculation on the part of others.

He was, as he said, an old man in years, but in energy and power he had gained rather than lost, and he set himself at once to work, and designed that grand basilica which has been the admiration of centuries, and to swing, as he said, in air the Pantheon. That mighty dome is but the architectural brother of the great statues in the Medicean Chapel, and the Titan frescoes of the Sistine Chapel. Granted all the defects of this splendid basilica, all the objections of all the critics, well or ill founded, and all the deformities grafted on it by his successors—there it is, one of the noblest and grandest of all temples to the Deity, and one of the most beautiful. The dome itself, within and without, is a marvel of beauty and grandeur, to which all other domes, even that of Brunelleschi, must yield precedence. It is the uplifted brow and forehead that holds the brain of papal Rome, calm, and without a frown, silent, majestic, impressive. The church within has its own atmosphere, which scarcely knows the seasons without; and when the pageant and the pomp of the Catholic hierarchy passes along its nave, and the sunlight builds its golden slanting bridge of light from the lantern to the high altar, and the fumes of incense rise from the clinking censer at High Mass, and the solemn thrill of the silver trumpets sounds and swells and reverberates through the dim mosaicked dome where the saints are pictured above, cold must be his heart and dull his sense who is not touched to reverence. Here is the type of the universal Church—free and beautiful, large and loving; not grim and sombre and sad, like the northern Gothic cathedrals. We grieve over all the bad taste of its interior decoration, all the giant and awkward statues, all the lamentable details, for which he is not responsible; but still, despite them all, the impression is great. When at twilight the shadows obscure all these trivialities, when the lofty cross above the altar rays forth its single illumination and the tasteless details disappear, and the towering arches rise unbroken with their solemn gulfs of darkness, one can feel how great, how astonishing this church is, in its broad architectural features.

At nearly this time Michel Angelo designed the Palazzo Farnese, the Church of Sta Maria degli Angeli in the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian, the Laurentian Library and the palaces on the Capitol, and various other buildings, all of which bear testimony to his power and skill as an architect.

For St. Peter’s as it now stands Michel Angelo is not responsible. His idea was to make all subordinate to the dome; but after his death, the nave was prolonged by Carlo Maderno, the façade completely changed, and the main theme of the building was thus almost obliterated from the front. It is greatly to be regretted that his original design was not carried out. Every change from it was an injury. The only point from which one can get an idea of his intention is from behind or at the side, and there its colossal character is shown.

We have thus far considered Michel Angelo as a sculptor, painter, and architect. It remains to consider him as a poet. Nor in his poetry do we find any difference of character from what he exhibited in his other arts. He is rough, energetic, strong, full of high ideas, struggling with fate, oppressed and weary with life. He has none of the sweet numbers of Petrarca, or the lively spirit of Ariosto, or the chivalric tones of Tasso. His verse is rude, craggy, almost disjointed at times, and with little melody in it, but it is never feeble. It was not his art, he might have said, with more propriety than when he thus spoke of painting and architecture. Lofty thoughts have wrestled their way into verse, and constrained a rhythmic form to obey them. But there is a constant struggle for him in a form which is not plastic to his touch. Still his poems are strong in their crabbedness, and stand like granite rocks in the general sweet mush of Italian verse.

Such, then, was Michel Angelo,—sculptor, painter, architect, poet, engineer, and able in all these arts. Nor would it have been possible for him to be so great in any one of them had he not trained his mind to all; for all the arts are but the various articulations of the self-same power, as the fingers are of the hand, and each lends aid to the other. Only by having all can the mind have its full grasp of art. It is too often insisted in our days that a man to be great in one art must devote himself exclusively to that; or if he be solicited by any other, he must merely toy with it. Such was not the doctrine of the artists of old, either in ancient days of Greece or at the epoch of the Renaissance. Phidias was a painter and architect as well as a sculptor, and so were nearly all the men of his time. Giotto, Leonardo, Ghiberti, Michel Angelo, Verrocchio, Cellini, Raffaelle,—in a word, all the great men of the glorious age in Italy were accomplished in many arts. They more or less trained themselves in all. It might be said that not a single great man was not versed in more than one art. Thence it was that they derived their power. It does not suffice that the arm alone is strong; the whole body strikes with every blow.

The frescoes in the Sistine Chapel at Rome, and the statues in the Medicean Chapel at Florence, are the greatest monuments of Michel Angelo’s power as an artist. Whatever may be the defects of these great works, they are of a Titanic brood, that have left no successors, as they had no progenitors. They defy criticism, however just, and stand by themselves outside the beaten track of art, to challenge our admiration. So also, despite all his faults and defects, how grand a figure Michel Angelo himself is in history, how high a place he holds! His name itself is a power. He is one of the mighty masters that the world cannot forget. Kings and emperors die and are forgotten,—dynasties change and governments fall,—but he, the silent, stern worker, reigns unmoved in the great realm of art.

Let us leave this great presence, and pass into the other splendid chapel of the Medici which adjoins this, and mark the contrast, and see what came of some of the titular monarchs of his time who fretted their brief hour across the stage, and wore their purple, and issued their edicts, and were fawned upon and flattered in their pride of ephemeral power.

Passing across a corridor, you enter this domed chapel or mausoleum—and a splendid mausoleum it is. Its shape is octagonal. It is 63 metres in height, or about 200 feet, and is lined throughout with the richest marbles—of jasper, coralline, persicata, chalcedony, mother-of-pearl, agate, giallo and verde antico, porphyry, lapis-lazuli, onyx, oriental alabaster, and beautiful petrified woods; and its cost was no less than thirty-two millions of francs of to-day. Here were to lie the bodies of the Medici family, in honor of whom it was raised. On each of the eight sides is a vast arch, and inside six of these are six immense sarcophagi, four of red Egyptian granite and two of gray, with the arms of the family elaborately carved upon them, and surmounted with coronets adorned with precious gems. In two of the arches are colossal portrait statues,—one of Ferdinand III. in golden bronze, by Pietro Tacca; and the other of Cosimo II. in brown bronze, by John of Bologna, and both in the richest royal robes. The sarcophagi have the names of Ferdinand II., Cosimo III., Francesco I., Cosimo I. All that wealth and taste can do has been done to celebrate and perpetuate the memory of these royal dukes that reigned over Florence in its prosperous days.

And where are the bodies of these royal dukes? Here comes the saddest of stories. When the early bodies were first buried I know not; but in 1791 Ferdinand III. gathered together all the coffins in which they were laid, and had them piled together pell-mell in the subterranean vaults of this chapel, scarcely taking heed to distinguish them one from another; and here they remained, neglected and uncared for, and only protected from plunder by two wooden doors with common keys, until 1857. Then shame came over those who had the custody of the place, and it was determined to put them in order. In 1818 there had been a rumor that these Medicean coffins had been violated and robbed of all the articles of value which they contained. But little heed was paid to this rumor, and it was not until thirty-nine years after that an examination into the real facts was made. It was then discovered that the rumor was well founded. The forty-nine coffins containing the remains of the family were taken down one by one, and a sad state of things was exposed. Some of them had been broken into and plundered, some were the hiding-places of vermin, and such was the nauseous odor they gave forth, that at least one of the persons employed in taking them down lost his life by inhaling it. Imperial Cæsar, dead and turned to clay, had become hideous and noisome. Of many of the ducal family nothing remained but fragments of bones and a handful of dust. But where the hand of the robber had not been, the splendid dresses covered with jewels, the silks and satins wrought over with gold embroidery, the richly chased helmets and swords crusted with gems and gold, still survived, though those who had worn them in their splendid pageants were but dust and crumbling bones within them.

“Here were sands, ignoble things,
Dropped from the ruined sides of kings.”

In many cases, where all else that bore the impress of life had vanished, the hair still remained almost as fresh as ever. Some bodies which had been carefully embalmed were in fair preservation, but some were fearfully altered. Ghastly and grinning skulls were there, adorned with crowns of gold. Dark and parchment-like faces were seen with their golden locks rich as ever, and twisted with gems and pearls and costly nets. The Cardinal Princes still wore their mitres and red cloaks, their purple pianete and glittering rings, their crosses of white enamel, their jacinths and amethysts and sapphires—all had survived their priestly selves. The dried bones of Vittoria della Rovere Montefeltro (whose very name is poetic) were draped in a robe of black silk of exquisite texture, trimmed with black and white lace, while on her breast lay a great golden medal, and on one side were her emblems and on the other her portrait as she was in life, as if to say, “Look on this picture and on this.” Alas, poor humanity! Beside her lay, almost a mere skeleton, Anna Luisa, the Electress Palatine of the Rhine, and daughter of Cosimo III., with the electoral crown surmounting her ghastly brow and face of black parchment, a crucifix of silver on her breast, and at her side a medal with her effigy and name; while near her lay her uncle, Francesco Maria, a mere mass of dust and robes and rags. Many had been stripped by profane hands of all their jewels and insignia, and among these were Cosimo I. and II., Eleonora de Toledo, Maria Christina, and others, to the number of twenty. The two bodies which were found in the best preservation were those of the Grand Duchess Giovanna d’Austria, the wife of Francesco I., and their daughter Anna. Corruption had scarcely touched them, and there they lay fresh in color as if they had just died—the mother in her red satin, trimmed with lace, her red silk stockings and high-heeled shoes, the ear-rings hanging from her ears, and her blond hair fresh as ever. And so, after centuries had passed, the truth became evident of the rumor that ran through Florence at the time of their death, that they had died of poison. The arsenic which had taken from them their life had preserved their bodies in death. Giovanni delle Bande Nere was also here, his battles all over, his bones scattered and loose within his iron armor, and his rusted helmet with its visor down. And this was all that was left of the great Medici. Is there any lesson sadder than this? These royal persons, once so gay and proud and powerful, some of whom patronized Michel Angelo, and extended to him their gracious favor, and honored him perhaps with a smile, now so utterly dethroned by death, their names scarcely known, or, if known, not reverenced, while the poor stern artist they looked down upon sits like a monarch on the throne of fame, and, though dead, rules with his spirit and by his works in the august realm of art. Who has not heard his name? Who has not felt his influence? And ages shall come, and generations shall pass, and he will keep his kingdom.

PHIDIAS, AND THE ELGIN MARBLES.

The marble statues in the pediment of the Parthenon at Athens, as well as the metopes and _bassi-relievi_ which adorned the temple dedicated to Minerva, are popularly supposed to have been either the work of Phidias himself, or executed by his scholars after his designs and under his superintendence. This opinion, by dint of constant repetition, has finally become accepted as an undoubted fact; but a careful examination into the original authorities will show that it is unsupported by any satisfactory evidence.

The main ground upon which it is founded is that Phidias was appointed by Pericles director of the public works at Athens, and occupied that office during the building of the Parthenon. From being the director he is supposed to have been the designer at least, not only of the temple, but of all the works of art contained in it. This deduction is certainly very broad to be drawn from so small a fact, even if that fact should be established beyond doubt. It resembles the modern instance of the popular attribution of so many nameless statues of the Renaissance to Michel Angelo. And there seems to be about as much reason to suppose that Phidias executed or designed all the sculpture of the Parthenon, because he was the general superintendent of public works at Athens, as to attribute to Michel Angelo the authorship of all the statues in St. Peter’s, because he was mainly the architect and superintendent of the work of that great Christian temple.

The first fact to be opposed to this entirely gratuitous assumption is, that during the execution of the great public works at Athens under the administration of Pericles, Phidias himself was occupied on his great chryselephantine statue of Athena, which was the chief ornament of the Parthenon; and this alone, without considering the other great statues in ivory, and gold, and bronze, on which he was probably engaged at or near the same period, was amply sufficient to occupy his entire time and thoughts.

The next most important fact is that no ancient contemporary author asserts that any of the sculptures of the Parthenon, with the exception of the chryselephantine statue of Athena, were executed by him; and considering his fame in his own and subsequent ages, it seems most improbable, to say the least, that, had he been the author of any of the other statues and _alti_ or _bassi-relievi_, not only no mention of this fact, but no allusion to it, should ever have been made.

In the next place, it will be found, on careful examination of the ancient writers and of other facts bearing on the question, to be exceedingly doubtful whether Phidias ever made any statues in marble. If he did execute any works in this material, they were exceptions to his general practice, his art being chiefly in toreutic work, and in gold and ivory, or bronze. It was in these arts that he established his fame; and there is no mention of any work by him in marble within five hundred years of his death.

Plutarch, in his Life of Pericles, says that “Phidias was appointed by Pericles superintendent of all the public edifices, though the Athenians had other eminent architects, and excellent workmen.” It is plain, however, that even if Phidias was director of the works, Plutarch does not mean to represent him as the architect or artist by whom they were either designed or executed; for he immediately adds that “the Parthenon was built by Callicrates and Ictinus.” Probably also Carpion was another architect actively engaged upon it, for he and Ictinus wrote a work upon it. Plutarch then goes on to enumerate other buildings built by different artists at this very period during which Phidias was director of public works. Afterwards he positively states that “the golden statue of Minerva was the workmanship of Phidias, and his name is inscribed on the pedestal;”[1] and adds that, “as we have already observed, through the friendship of Pericles, he had the direction of everything, and all the artists received his orders.” But he does not say or intimate that Phidias himself made anything in the Parthenon except the statue of Athena, unless “having the direction of everything” is to be understood as equivalent to making everything himself. Such an interpretation is, however, absolutely in contradiction with his statements that the Parthenon was built by Callicrates and Ictinus; that the Temple of Initiation at Eleusis was begun by Corœbus, carried on by Metagenes, and finished by Xenocles of Cholargos; that the vestibule of the Citadel was finished in five years by Mnesicles; and that the Odeum was built under the direction of Pericles, by which he incurred much ridicule.

Strabo, however, would seem to differ from Plutarch on this point, and to attribute to Pericles himself, and not to Phidias, the general superintendence of the public works. Speaking of the Temple of the Eleusinian Ceres at Eleusis, and the mystic inclosure, Σηκός, built by Ictinus, he adds, “This person it was who made the Parthenon in the Acropolis in honor of Minerva, when Pericles was superintendent of the public works;” and in another passage he mentions “the Parthenon built by Ictinus, in which is the Minerva in ivory, the work of Phidias,”—thus clearly distinguishing the work of Phidias, and saying not a word about the metopes, _bassi-relievi_, or statues in the pediment, or indicating him as their author.

But granting that Plutarch is right, it is quite manifest that it was impossible for Phidias to have had more than an official superintendence of these great works. The sole administration of public affairs was conferred on Pericles in B. C. 444, and it was not until then or subsequently that Phidias could have been appointed to this office. Among the public works built at this period were the Propylæa, the Odeum, the Parthenon, the Temples of Ceres at Eleusis, of Juno at Argos, of Apollo at Phigaleia, and of Zeus at Olympia—the last being finished in B. C. 433. Within these eleven years, therefore, Phidias is supposed to have superintended all or a portion of these temples, with their manifold sculptures and statues, and, in addition, to have made the colossal chryselephantine statues of Athena in the Parthenon, Zeus at Olympia, Aphrodite Urania at Elis, and also, perhaps, the Athena Areia in bronze at Platæa.

But excluding all consideration as to the other temples, and confining ourselves solely to the Parthenon, let us see if it be possible, with all his occupations, for him to have executed the Athena alone, and also executed or even designed the other sculptures of the Parthenon.

In the tympanum there are 44 statues, all of heroic size. There were 92 metopes representing the battles of the Centaurs and Lapithæ, and the frieze, which was covered with elaborate _bassi-relievi_ representing processions of men, women, and horses with riders, was about 524 feet in length.

There seems to be no distinct statement of the exact time when the Parthenon was begun; but it certainly was after the appointment of Pericles in 444 B. C., and we know that it was finished and dedicated in 438 B. C. This gives us six years as the outside possible limits within which it was built. Now, if Phidias made, executed, or even modeled or designed, only the 44 statues of the tympanum within this period, he must have been a man of astonishing activity and rapidity in his work. To do this he must have made more than seven heroic statues in each year, or more than one statue every two months for six years. This may safely be said to be impossible, unless we mean by the term designing the making of small sketches in clay or terra cotta, with little elaboration or finish. But if we add the 92 metopes and the 524 feet of figures in relief, the mere designing in clay of all the figures and groups becomes impossible.

But this is not enough: we know that he executed in this time the colossal chryselephantine statue of Athena,—and to the other statues, therefore, he could only have given the overplus of his time which was not needed for his great work. Nor are we without data by which we can estimate the probable time given to the Athena alone. At Elis he was engaged exclusively from four to five years upon the Zeus, in the temple at Olympia; and in the execution of this colossal work we know that he had the assistance of other artists, and especially of Kolotes; and we also know that he did nothing else in this temple, the statues in the two tympana having been executed by Alcamenes and Pæonios. In all probability about the same amount of time was given to the Athena. Supposing, then, that he began his work on the Parthenon immediately after the appointment of Pericles, which is most improbable, he would have had about a year’s time in which to make all the statues and reliefs in the Parthenon, and exercise supervision of the public works. If he modeled the designs only of the tympana in this period, he must have made a statue in eight days. If he also modeled the designs of the metopes, 92 in number, of two figures each, he must have given less than three days to each, without allowing any time for the performance of his functions of general director, and supposing him also to have worked without a day’s intermission. Such suppositions must be rejected as approaching so near to impossibilities as to render them utterly untenable. All probabilities are in favor of the supposition that, during the period in which the Parthenon was constructed, Phidias was employed solely upon the statue of Athena, and upon the duties incident to his position as superintendent of public works.

This conclusion will seem all the more probable when we consider that Phidias, far from being rapid in his execution, was, on the contrary, a slow and elaborate worker, devoting much time to the careful and minute finish of his statues. Themistius is reported by Plutarch as saying of him, that “though Phidias was skillful enough to make in gold or ivory” (it will be observed that he speaks of his work in no other materials) “the true shape of god or man, yet he did require abundance of time and leisure to his work; so he is reported to have spent much time upon the base and sandals of his statue of the goddess Athena.”[2]

We must also add another consideration, and it is this: that in the time of Phidias it was necessary for a sculptor to do far more with his own hand than it is now. Modern facilities have greatly abridged the personal labor of the sculptor in marble or bronze. The present method of casting in plaster, which was then unknown, or at least unpracticed, enables the sculptor of our days to elaborate his work to the utmost finish, in its full size, in the clay model; and when this is completed and cast in such a permanent material as plaster, the workman has an absolute model, which he may, to a certain extent, copy with almost mathematical accuracy. The greater portion of the work may therefore be now committed to inferior hands, as it requires only mechanical dexterity and care; while it merely remains for the sculptor himself to finish the work in marble, and add such elaboration of detail and expression as he may desire. But in the time of Phidias this method was unknown; and the sculptor himself was forced to do a much greater part of his work in marble. In like manner, the modern method of casting in bronze is so admirable that the labor of the artist in finishing the cast is comparatively small; but in the earlier period of bronze casting, there is no doubt that the cast originally was far more imperfect, and the labor of the sculptor in finishing far greater. These facts will in some measure seem to account for the comparatively long time during which Phidias was engaged on his works. As there evidently was no full-sized and completely finished model of the Athena or Zeus for the workmen mechanically to copy, Phidias was forced to work out the details of his great works with his own hands, moulding and designing them as he went on; and this he was obliged to do, not in a plastic material like clay, but in the final material of his statue—whether gold, ivory, or bronze. Assistants of course he had, and undoubtedly they were very numerous. Plutarch tells us that the public works gave employment to carpenters, modelers, brass cutters and stampers, chiselers and engravers, dyers, workers of ivory and gold, and even weavers;[3] and some of these men certainly worked for Phidias. In fact, he used the hands of others as much as he could—as any sensible artist would; but a great part of his invention and work was carried on in hard and difficult materials, instead of being perfected in a facile clay, as it would be by a modern sculptor; and this carried with it, of course, a great expense of time and labor.

With these facts in view, and considering the great size and elaboration of the ivory and gold statue of Athena, it is quite evident that the few years which elapsed between the commencement of the Parthenon and its dedication would have been amply occupied by this work alone,—and with the other duties incident to his position as superintendent of public works. More than this, we shall find it difficult to fix the time when he made some other of his statues, unless it was during these six years; and it would seem probable that at or about this time he must have been engaged upon the Athena Areia for the Platæans, or at least upon his chryselephantine statue of the celestial Venus for the Eleans.

Before proceeding farther in this argument, it may be as well to give a glance at the artistic career of Phidias, and the various works executed by him, or assigned to him by different writers of an after-age.

A good deal of discussion has arisen as to the age of Phidias at his death. The date of his birth is distinctly given by no one, and is purely a matter of conjecture. Thiersch, among others, supposes him to have been already an artist of some distinction in the 72·3 Olympiad, or about B. C. 490—the date of the battle of Marathon; and this opinion he founds chiefly on the fact that the Athena Promachos, as well as the group of statues at Delphi and the acrolith of Athena at Platæa made by him, were cast, according to Pausanias, from the tithe of the spoils taken from the Medes who disembarked at Marathon. Other writers suppose him to have been born at about the date of the battle of Marathon, and that the statues executed by him out of the spoils were made some twenty-five years later. Mr. Philip Smith, in his “Dictionary of Biography and Mythology,” taking this view, places his birth in the 73d Olympiad; and Müller is of the same opinion. Dr. Brunn, on the contrary, thinks it probable that he was born about the 70th Olympiad, and Welcker and Preller agree substantially with him.

According to the supposition of Thiersch, placing his birth at 67·2 Olympiad, or B. C. 510, he would have been twenty years of age at the battle of Marathon (B. C. 490), seventy-two years of age when he finished the chryselephantine statue of Athena in the Parthenon in 85·1 Olympiad (B. C. 438), and seventy-seven years of age when he finished the chryselephantine statue of Zeus at Olympia in 87·3 Olympiad (B. C. 433). This, if we suppose that five years elapsed after the battle of Marathon before the group of statues at Delphi was executed, would make Phidias twenty-five years old when he made them.

Taking the supposition that he was born in the 72·3 Olympiad, and that the statues at Delphi were modeled twenty-five years after, this would make him also twenty-five years of age when he executed them; and fifty-two years of age, instead of seventy-two, when he finished the Athena of the Parthenon; and fifty-seven, instead of seventy-seven, when he completed the Zeus—shortly previous to his death.

Dr. Brunn’s supposition that he was born in the 70th Olympiad, which is also held by Welcker and Preller, would make him fifty-six when he made the Athena, and sixty-one when he made the Zeus.

In opposition to these two later suppositions, there is this one undisputed fact, that on the shield of the Athena of the Parthenon he introduced his own likeness as well as that of Pericles, in which he is described as representing himself as a bald old man (πρεσβύτου φαλακρός) hurling a stone, which he lifts with both hands, while Pericles is portrayed as a vigorous warrior in the full prime of manhood. He must therefore have intended to represent himself as a much older man than Pericles; and Pericles at this time was over fifty-two years of age[4]—which is the age assigned to Phidias himself by some writers. Besides, a man of fifty-two, or even of fifty-six, could scarcely be accurately described as an “old man;” and an artist making a portrait of himself at that age would be inclined to give himself a little more youth than he really possessed. The mere fact that he represents himself as old shows that he had in all probability arrived at a more advanced period of life, when one accepts old age as too notorious and well-established a fact to be disguised. The supposition of Thiersch, therefore, would, in view of this fact alone, seem to be the best founded, as this would make him seventy-two years old when the Athena was completed,—an age which might fairly be called old.

Mr. Smith seems to think it very improbable that at the age of eighty-three Phidias could have undertaken to execute the Zeus; but the fact is, that Thiersch’s conjecture would only make him seventy-three when the Zeus was begun, and certainly at this age it is by no means uncommon for sculptors to undertake large works. Tenerani, for instance, in our own time, had passed that age when he executed the monument of Pius VIII., one of his largest works, and consisting of four colossal figures. Besides, it is to be taken into account that the Zeus was the last work of Phidias, and that death overtook him immediately after.

On the whole, it would seem that the probabilities of the period of his birth lie between the middle of the 67th Olympiad (B. C. 510) and the beginning of the 70th Olympiad (B. C. 500).

There is also another consideration which is entitled to weight in this connection. Suppose Phidias to have commenced his artistic career four years after the battle of Marathon—in B. C. 490 (Olymp. 72·3). From that time to B. C. 444 (Olymp. 83·4), when he began the Athena of the Parthenon, there are forty-five years; and during this time he is supposed to have executed six colossal statues in bronze or acrolith,—two of which, the Athena Promachos and the Athena Areia, were from 50 to 60 feet in height—and one, the Athena Lemnia, was considered as perhaps his most beautiful work. Besides this, he executed thirteen statues at Delphi, the size of which is not stated. Nineteen statues in forty-five years give a little over 2⅓ years to each; and if the thirteen statues at Delphi were colossal, this will certainly seem insufficient for their execution, when we keep in mind the facts—1st, That Phidias was a slow and elaborate worker; 2d, That of necessity he must have done a great part of the work in bronze personally; 3d, That he was occupied four years on the Zeus alone; 4th, That two of these statues, at least, were larger than the Athena of the Parthenon, though not in the same material. It is, however, probable, that the thirteen statues at Delphi were not of colossal proportions, but rather of heroic size, and therefore requiring less time in their execution; and this would enable us to assign a longer time to the mighty colossi of Athena.

Certainly, however, if we accept the theory that Phidias commenced working twenty-five years after the battle of Marathon, we are in very great straits as to time, unless the date when these colossal statues were made be incorrect, and unless some of them were made after the Athena of the Parthenon. This, again, we cannot accept; for, from the date of the completion of the Athena of the Parthenon until his death, there are only at most some seven years, four of which were dedicated to the Zeus. We are then forced to believe that these nineteen statues were made in twenty years; and this is certainly very improbable.

In this view other difficulties also appear, which it would seem impossible to overcome, if we accept all the statues attributed to Phidias as having been executed by him; for in such case, not only must he have made these nineteen statues in twenty years, but some fifteen more at least. Taking, then, the longest supposition as to his age, and giving him forty-five years of labor for some thirty-five statues, the time will altogether be too restricted. It may be as well at this point of the discussion to give a catalogue of the works which he is supposed to have executed, and to examine into the probable authenticity of some of them. The list is as follows:—

1. The Athena, at Pellene, in Achaia. This was probably his first great work, if we credit Pausanias, who says it was made before the Athena of the Acropolis and the Athena at Platæa. “They say,” says Pausanias, “that this statue was made by Phidias, and before he made that for the Athenians, which is in their town, or that which is among the Platæans.”

2–14. Thirteen statues in bronze, made from the spoils of the Persian war, and dedicated at Delphi as a votive offering by the Athenians, representing Athena, Apollo, Miltiades, Erechtheus, Cecrops, Pandion, Peleus, Antiochus, Ægeus, Acamas, Codrus, Theseus, and Phyleus. “All these statues,” says Pausanias, “were made by Phidias;” and on his sole authority the statement stands. He does not mention their size.

15. The colossal Athena Promachos in bronze in the Acropolis. This statue, which was from 50 to 60 feet in height, was made from the spoils of Marathon. It represented the goddess holding up her spear and shield in the attitude of a combatant, and was visible to approaching vessels as far off as Sunium. “On the shield,” says Pausanias, “the battle of the Centaurs and Lapithæ was carved by Mys; but Parrhasius, the son of Evenor, painted this for Mys, and likewise the other figures that are seen on the shield.” Pausanias, however, must be mistaken in this, since Parrhasius lived about Olymp. 95 (B. C. 400), or about thirty years after the death of Phidias; and it would scarcely be probable that this shield would have remained uncarved and unpainted for from seventy to eighty years after the statue was executed.

16. The Athena Areia, at Platæa. This was an acrolith, also made from the spoils of Marathon. “This statue,” says Pausanias, “is made of wood, and is gilt, except the face and the extremities of the hands and feet, which are of Pentelic marble. Its magnitude is nearly equal to that of the Minerva, which the Athenians dedicated on their tower” (the Promachos). “Phidias too made this statue for the Platæenses.”

17. The Athena in bronze, in the Acropolis, called the Lemnia, which, according to Pausanias, “deserves to be seen above all the works of Phidias.” Lucian also speaks specially of its beauty.

18. The Athena mentioned by Pliny as having been dedicated at Rome, near the Temple of Fortune, by Paulus Æmilius. But whether this originally stood in the Acropolis is unknown. Possibly or probably it was the same statue as that last mentioned.

19. The Cliduchus (Key-Bearer), also mentioned by Pliny, may have been an Athena; but more probably it represented a priestess holding the keys, symbolic of initiation into the mysteries.

20. The Athena of the Parthenon, in ivory and gold.

21. The Zeus at Olympia, in ivory and gold.

22. The Aphrodite Urania, in ivory and gold, at Elis. This statue, attributed by Pausanias to Phidias, “stands with one of its feet on a tortoise.”

23. A bronze figure of Apollo Parnopius, in the Acropolis. The authority for this statue is Pausanias, who states that “it is said to be the work of Phidias,”—λέγουσι Φειδίαν ποιῆσαι. Tradition alone gives it to Phidias.

24. Aphrodite Urania, _in marble_, in the temple near the Ceramicus. This also is attributed by Pausanias to Phidias.

25. A statue of the Mother of the Gods, sitting on a throne, supported by lions, in the Metroum near the Ceramicus. This is attributed by Pausanias and Arrian to Phidias. Pliny, on the contrary, says it is by Agoracritos.

26. The Golden Throne, so called, and supposed generally to be that of the Athena. What this was is very dubious. It could not be the throne of the Athena, for she had no throne, and probably was another name for the Athena herself. Plutarch calls it “τῆς θεοῦ τὸ χρυσοῦν ἕδος,” and Isocrates, “τὸ τῆς Ἀθηνὰς ἕδος.”

27. Statue of Athena, at Elis, in ivory and gold. Pausanias says it is attributed to Phidias,—“φασὶν Φείδιου,”—_they say_ it is by Phidias. Pliny, however, says it was executed by Kolotes.

28. Statue of Æsculapius, at Epidaurus. This is attributed to Phidias by Athenagoras (Legat. pro Arist.); but by Pausanias to Thrasymedes of Paros.

29. At the entrance of the Ismenion, near Thebes, are two _marble_ statues called Pronaoi—one of Athena, ascribed by Pausanias to Scopas, and one of Hermes, ascribed by Pausanias to Phidias.

30. A Zeus, at the Olympieum at Megara. The head of this statue was made of gold and ivory, the rest of clay and gypsum. “This work _is said_ (λέγουσι) to have been made by Theocosmos, a citizen of Megara, with the assistance of Phidias,” says Pausanias, and it was interrupted by the breaking out of the Peloponnesian war. Probably it was executed solely by Theocosmos.

31. The statue of Nemesis, at Rhamnus, _in marble_, attributed to Phidias by Pausanias; but there can be little question that it was made by Agoracritos.

32. The Amazon. This statue, which is highly praised by Lucian, was, according to Pliny, made by Phidias in competition with Polyclitus, Ctesilaus, Cydon, and Phradmon; the first prize being given to Polyclitus, the second to Phidias, the third to Ctesilaus, and the fourth to Cydon.

33, 34, 35. Three bronze statues mentioned by Pliny, the subjects not stated, and placed by Catulus in the Temple of Fortune.

36. The marble Venus in the portico of Octavia, which Pliny says “is said to be by Phidias.”

37. The Horse-Tamer, in marble, now existing, and standing before the Quirinal in Rome.

There are some other statues attributed to Phidias by various writers, which may be at once rejected. Among them were the statues of Zeus and Apollo at Patara, in Lycia, which were supposed by Clemens Alexandrinus to have been by Phidias, but which are clearly settled to have been by Bryaxis. So also the Kairos, or Opportunity, by Lysippus, was attributed to Phidias by Ausonius; and the famous Venus of the Gardens (ἐν κήποις), by Alcamenes, was said to have received its finishing touches from him.

It will, I think, be clear that many of the statues in the foregoing list must also be rejected. In the last ten years of his life he executed only two statues, each colossal—the Athena of the Parthenon, and the Zeus at Olympia. Taking the earliest date of his artistic career at five years before the battle of Marathon, according to the theory of Thiersch, he would, as we have seen, have had forty-five years only in which to execute the other thirty-five statues, besides all the other and minute work to which, as we shall see, he gave his genius. Several, at least, of these statues are colossal, several elaborately wrought in ivory and gold; and it is in the highest degree improbable that they could have been executed in this period of time.

On examination of the list, three at least will be seen to rest purely on tradition. The Apollo Parnopius and the Athena at Elis are mentioned by Pausanias as being “said to be” by Phidias. The Venus of the portico of Octavia “is said to be by Phidias,” says Pliny. Little weight can be given to current and common opinion in respect to the authorship of works of art executed many centuries before, about which there is no written documentary proof. In our own time it is always exceedingly difficult, and often impossible, to decide upon the authorship of pictures and statues of one hundred years ago. Double that period, and the difficulty would of course be enormously increased. Now Pausanias wrote some six hundred years after the death of Phidias, and yet we are ready to accept as authoritative his passing statement that a certain statue “is said” to be by Phidias. How many statues at the present day are said to be by Michel Angelo, which he never saw! How many spurious Raffaelles and Titians adorn our galleries! Do we not know that every traveler in Italy sees statues “said to be” by Michel Angelo in such numbers that ten Michel Angelos could not have made them all? There is scarcely a church that does not boast of something from his hand. There is no reason to suppose that the case was not similar in Greece fifteen hundred years ago, and none to suppose that Pausanias was superior in artistic knowledge and acumen to any average intelligent traveler of his day. He did not stop to investigate the grounds upon which the popular or accidental account given him as to the authorship of any work was founded, nor does he pretend to have done so. He took it for what it was worth. “They say the statue is by Phidias.” He had, besides, as far as we know, no written authority for what he said,—at least he cites none.

Again, in respect to the authorship of some of the statues of which he speaks, he at times differs from other writers, and at times unquestionably mistakes. Thus, to cite only examples in the case of Phidias, the statue of Athena, at Elis, he attributes to Phidias, while Pliny says it was by Kolotes. Again, the statue of Æsculapius, at Epidaurus, he attributes to Thrasymedes of Paros, while Athenagoras says it was the work of Phidias. In like manner, the statue of the Mother of the Gods, which Pausanias and Arrian give to Phidias, Pliny declares to be the work of Agoracritos. Still more, Pausanias distinctly affirms that the Nemesis at Rhamnus was executed by Phidias; while Pliny, on the contrary, asserts it to be the work of Agoracritos. And in this assertion Pliny is borne out by Zenobius, who gives us the inscription on the branch in the hand of Nemesis: ΑΓΟΡΑΚΡΙΤΟΣ ΠΑΡΙΟΣ ΕΠΟΙΗΣΕΝ. Strabo, however, hesitates between Agoracritos and an unknown Diodotos, and says it was remarkable for beauty and size, and might well compete with the works of Phidias; and to confuse matters still more, at a later time Pomponius Mela, Hesychius, and Solon agree with Pausanias. There would seem, after weighing all authorities, to be little doubt that the Nemesis was the work of Agoracritos.