Chapter VIII: Life of Michael Angelo (2)

We are hardly able to appreciate the "Last Judgment;" it has been so smirched and blackened by the smoke and dust of centuries. And this is true of the whole Sistine Chapel.[329] Yet it is here that the genius of Michael Angelo in all its terribleness must still be studied. In order to characterise the impression produced by even the less awful of these frescoes on a sympathetic student, I lay my pen aside and beg the reader to weigh what Henri Beyle, the versatile and brilliant critic, pencilled in the gallery of the Sistine Chapel on January 13, 1807:[330] "Greek sculpture was unwilling to reproduce the terrible in any shape; the Greeks had enough real troubles of their own. Therefore, in the realm of art, nothing can be compared with the figure of the Eternal drawing forth the first man from nonentity. The pose, the drawing, the drapery, all is striking: the soul is agitated by sensations that are not usually communicated through the eyes. When in our disastrous retreat from Russia, it chanced that we were suddenly awakened in the middle of the dark night by an obstinate cannonading, which at each moment seemed to gain in nearness, then all the forces of a man's nature gathered close around his heart; he felt himself in the presence of fate, and, having no attention left for things of vulgar interest, he made himself ready to dispute his life with destiny. The sight of Michael Angelo's pictures has brought back to my consciousness that almost forgotten sensation. Great souls enjoy their own greatness: the rest of the world is seized with fear, and goes mad."

After the painting of the "Last Judgment," one more great labour was reserved for Michael Angelo.[331] By a brief of September, 1535, Paul III. had made him the chief architect as well as sculptor and painter of the Holy See. He was now called upon to superintend the building of S. Peter's, and to this task, undertaken for the repose of his soul without emolument, he devoted the last years of his life. The dome of S. Peter's, as seen from Tivoli or the Alban hills, like a cloud upon the Campagna, is Buonarroti's; but he has no share in the façade that screens it from the piazza. It lies beyond the scope of this chapter to relate once more the history of the vicissitudes through which S. Peter's went between the days of Alberti and Bernini.[332] I can but refer to Michael Angelo's letter addressed to Bartolommeo Ammanati, valuable both as setting forth his views about the structure, and as rendering the fullest and most glorious meed of praise to his old enemy Bramante.[333] All ancient jealousies, even had they ever stirred the heart of Michael Angelo, had long been set at rest by time and death. The one wish of his soul was to set a worthy diadem upon the mother-church of Christianity, repairing by the majesty of art what Rome had suffered at the hands of Germany and Spain, and inaugurating by this visible sign of sovereignty the new age of Catholicity renascent and triumphant.

To the last period of Buonarroti's life (a space of twenty-two years between 1542 and 1564) we owe some of his most beautiful drawings--sketches for pictures of the Crucifixion made for Vittoria Colonna, and a few mythological designs, like the "Rape of Ganymede," composed for Tommaso Cavalieri. His thoughts meanwhile were turned more and more, as time advanced, to piety; and many of his sonnets breathe an almost ascetic spirit of religion.[334] We see in them the old man regretting the years he had spent on art, deploring his enthusiasm for earthly beauty, and seeking comfort in the cross alone.

Painting nor sculpture now can lull to rest
My soul, that turns to His great love on high,
Whose arms to clasp us on the cross were spread.

It is pleasant to know that these last years were also the happiest and calmest. Though he had lost his faithful friend and servant Urbino; though his father had died, an old man, and his brothers had passed away before him one by one, his nephew Lionardo had married in Florence, and begotten a son called Michael Angelo. Thus he had the satisfaction of hoping that his name would endure and flourish, as indeed it has done almost to this very day in Florence. What consolation this thought must have brought him, is clear to those who have studied his correspondence and observed the tender care and continual anxiety he had for his kinsmen.[335] Wealth now belonged to him: but he had never cared for money; and he continued to live like a poor man, dressing soberly and eating sparely, often taking but one meal in the day, and that of bread and wine.[336] He slept little, and rose by night to work upon his statues, wearing a cap with a candle stuck in front of it, that he might see where to drive the chisel home. During his whole life he had been solitary, partly by preference, partly by devotion to his art, and partly because he kept men at a distance by his manner.[337] Not that Michael Angelo was sour or haughty; but he spoke his mind out very plainly, had no tolerance for fools, and was apt to fly into passions.[338] Time had now softened his temper and removed all causes of discouragement. He had survived every rival, and the world was convinced of his supremacy. Princes courted him; the Count of Canossa was proud to claim him for a kinsman; strangers, when they visited Rome, were eager to behold in him its greatest living wonder.[339] His old age was the serene and splendid evening of a toilsome day. But better than all this, he now enjoyed both love and friendship.

If Michael Angelo could ever have been handsome is more than doubtful. Early in his youth the quarrelsome and vain Torrigiani broke his nose with a blow of the fist, when they were drawing from Masaccio's frescoes in the Carmine together.[340] Thenceforth the artist's soul looked forth from a sad face, with small grey eyes, flat nostrils, and rugged weight of jutting brows. Good care was thus taken that light love should not trifle with the man who was destined to be the prophet of his age in art. Like Beethoven, he united a loving nature, sensitive to beauty and desirous of affection, with a rude exterior. He seemed incapable of attaching himself to any merely mortal object, and wedded the ideal. In that century of intrigue and amour, we hear of nothing to imply that Michael Angelo was a lover till he reached the age of sixty. How he may have loved in the earlier periods of his life, whereof no record now remains, can only be guessed from the tenderness and passion outpoured in the poems of his latter years. That his morality was pure and his converse without stain, is emphatically witnessed by both Vasari and Condivi.[341] But that his emotion was intense, and that to beauty in all its human forms he was throughout his life a slave, we have his own sonnets to prove.

In the year 1534 he first became acquainted with the noble lady Vittoria, daughter of Fabrizio Colonna, and widow of the Marquis of Pescara. She was then aged forty-four, and had nine years survived the loss of a husband she never ceased to idolise.[342] Living in retirement in Rome, she employed her leisure with philosophy and poetry. Artists and men of letters were admitted to her society. Among the subjects she had most at heart was the reform of the Church and the restoration of religion to its evangelical purity. Between her and Michael Angelo a tender affection sprang up based upon the sympathy of ardent and high-seeking natures. If love be the right name for this exalted and yet fervid attachment, Michael Angelo may be said to have loved her with all the pent-up forces of his heart. None of his works display a predilection for girlish beauty, and it is probable that her intellectual distinction and mature womanhood touched him even more than if she had been younger. When they were together in Rome they met frequently for conversation on the themes of art and piety they both held dear. Of these discourses a charming record has been preserved to us by the painter Francis of Holland.[343] When they were separated they exchanged poems and wrote letters, some of which remain. On the death of Vittoria, in 1547, the light of life seemed to be extinguished for our sculptor. It is said that he waited by her bed-side, and kissed her hand when she was dying. The sonnets he afterwards composed show that his soul followed her to heaven.

Another friend whom Michael Angelo found in this last stage of life, and whom he loved with only less warmth than Vittoria, was a young Roman of perfect beauty and of winning manners. Tommaso Cavalieri must be mentioned next to the Marchioness of Pescara as the being who bound this greatest soul a captive.[344] Both Cavalieri and Vittoria are said to have been painted by him, and these are the only two portraits he is reported to have executed. It may here be remarked that nothing is more characteristic of his genius than the determination to see through nature, to pass beyond the actual to the abstract, and to use reality only as a stepping-stone to the ideal. This artistic Platonism was the source both of his greatness and his mannerism. As men choose to follow Blake or Ruskin, they may praise or blame him; yet, blame and praise pronounced on such a matter with regard to such a man are equally impertinent and insignificant. It is enough for the critic to note with reverence that thus and thus the spirit that was in him worked and moved.

When we read the sonnets addressed to Vittoria Colonna and Cavalieri, we find something inexpressibly pathetic in this pure and fervent worship of beauty, when the artist with a soul still young had reached the limit of the years of man. Here and there we trace in them an echo of his youth. The Platonic dialogues he heard while yet a young man at the suppers of Lorenzo, reappear converted to the very substance of his thought and style. At the same time Savonarola resumes ascendency over his mind; and when he turns to Florence, it is of Dante that he speaks.

At last the moment came when this strong solitary spirit, much suffering and much loving, had to render its account. It appears from a letter written to Lionardo Buonarroti on February 15, 1564, that his old servant Antonio del Francese, the successor of Urbino in his household, together with Tommaso Cavalieri and Daniello Ricciarelli of Volterra, attended him in his last illness. On the 18th of that month, having bequeathed his soul to God, his body to the earth, and his worldly goods to his kinsfolk, praying them on their death-bed to think upon Christ's passion, he breathed his last. His corpse was transported to Florence, and buried in the church of S. Croce, with great pomp and honour, by the Duke, the city, and the Florentine Academy.

FOOTNOTES:

[289] See Vasari, vol. xii. p. 333, and Gotti's _Vita di Michelangelo Buonarroti_, vol. i. p. 4, for a discussion of this claim, and for a letter written by Alessandro Count of Canossa, in 1520, to the artist.

[290] That Michael Angelo was contemptuous to brother artists, is proved by what Torrigiani said to Cellini: "Aveva per usanza di uccellare tutti quelli che dissegnavano." He called Perugino _goffo_, told Francia's son that his father made handsomer men by night than by day, and cast in Lionardo's teeth that he could not finish the equestrian statue of the Duke of Milan. It is therefore not improbable that when, according to the legend, he corrected a drawing of Ghirlandajo's, he may have said things unendurable to the elder painter.

[291] Engraved in outline in Harford's _Illustrations of the Genius of Michael Angelo Buonarroti_, Colnaghi, 1857.

[292] This group, placed in S. Peter's, was made for the French Cardinal de Saint Denys. It should be said that the first work of Michael Angelo in Rome was the "Bacchus" now in the Florentine Bargello, executed for Jacopo Gallo, a Roman gentleman.

[293] Pitti approved of the form of government represented by Soderini. Machiavelli despised the want of decision that made him quit Florence, and the euêtheia of the man. Hence their curiously conflicting phrases.

[294] See the chapter entitled "Della Malitia e pessíme Conditioni del Tyranno," in Savonarola's "Tractato circa el reggimento e governo della Citta di Firenze composto ad instantia delli excelsi Signori al tempo di Giuliano Salviati, Gonfaloniere di Justitia." A more terrible picture has never been drawn by any analyst of human vice and cruelty and weakness.

[295] Guasti's edition of the _Rime_, p. 26.

[296] He defends himself thus in a letter to Lodovico Buonarroti: "Del caso dei Medici io non ò mai parlato contra di loro cosa nessuna, se non in quel modo che s' è parlato generalmente per ogn' uomo, come fu del caso di Prato; che se le pietre avessin saputo parlare, n' avrebbono parlato."

[297] It seems clear from the correspondence in the Archivio Buonarroti, recently published, that when Michael Angelo fled from Florence to Venice in 1529, he did so under the pressure of no ignoble panic, but because his life was threatened by a traitor, acting possibly at the secret instance of Malatesta Baglioni. See Heath Wilson, pp. 326-330.

[298] See Guasti, p. 4.

[299] Vol. I., _Age of the Despots_, p. 251.

[300] To these years we must also assign the two unfinished medallions of "Madonna and the infant Christ," the circular oil picture of the "Holy Family," painted for Angelo Doni, and the beautiful unfinished picture of "Madonna with the boy Jesus and S. John" in the National Gallery. The last of these works is one of the loveliest of Michael Angelo's productions, whether we regard the symmetry of its composition or the refinement of its types. The two groups of two boys standing behind the central group on either hand of the Virgin, have incomparable beauty of form. The supreme style of the Sistine is here revealed to us in embryo. Whether the "Entombment," also unfinished, and also in the National Gallery, belongs to this time, and whether it be Michael Angelo's at all, is a matter for the experts to decide. To my perception, it is quite unworthy of the painter of the Doni "Holy family;" nor can I think that his want of practice in oil-painting will explain its want of charm and vigour.

[301] It has long been believed that Baccio Bandinelli destroyed Michael Angelo's; but Grimm, in his Life of the sculptor (vol. i. p. 376, Eng. Tr.), adduces solid arguments against this legend. A few studies, together with the engravings of portions by Marc Antonio and Agostino Veneziano, enable us to form a notion of the composition. At Holkham there is an old copy of the larger portion of the cartoon, which has been engraved by Schiavonetti, and reproduced in Harford's _Illustrations_, plate x.

[302] _Vita_, p. 23. Cellini, the impassioned admirer of Michael Angelo, esteemed this cartoon so highly, that he writes: "Sebbene il divino Michelagnolo fece la gran cappella di Papa Julio da poi, non arrivò mai a questo segno alla meta: la sua virtù non aggiunse mai da poi alla forza di quei primi studj."

[303] The cartoon was probably exhibited in 1505. See Gotti, vol. i. p. 35.

[304] Gotti, pp. 277-282.

[305] Springer, in his essay, _Michael Agnolo in Rome_, p. 21, makes out that this large design was not conceived till after the death of Julius. It is difficult to form a clear notion of the many changes in the plan of the tomb, between 1505 and 1542, when Michael Angelo signed the last contract with the heirs of Julius.

[306] In the Uffizzi at Florence. See Heath Wilson, plate vi.

[307] Boboli Gardens, Bargello, Louvre. These captives are unfinished. The "Rachel" and "Leah" at S. Pietro in Vincoli were committed to pupils by Michael Angelo.

[308] "Che mi fosso messo a fare zolfanelli.... Son ogni di lapidato, come se havessi crucifisso Cristo.... io mi truovo avere perduta tutta la mia giovinezza legato a questa sepoltura."

[309] Gotti, p. 42. Grimm makes two visits to Carrara in 1505 and 1506, vol. i. pp. 239, 243.

[310] See his letter. Gotti, p. 44.

[311] Our authorities for this episode in Michael Angelo's biography are mainly Vasari and Condivi. Though there may be exaggeration in the legend, it is certain that a correspondence took place between the Pope and the Gonfalonier of Florence, to bring about his return. See Heath Wilson, pp. 79-87, and the letter to Giuliano di San Gallo in Milanesi's Archivio Buonarroti, p. 377. Michael Angelo appears to have had some reason to fear assassination in Rome.

[312] See Michael Angelo's letters to Giovan Francesco Fattucci, and his family. Gotti, pp. 55-65.

[313] See the sonnet to Giovanni da Pistoja:--

La mia pittura morta
Difendi orma', Giovanni, e 'l mio onore,
Non sendo in loco bon, nè io pittore.

[314] According to the first plan, Michael Angelo bargained with the Pope for twelve Apostles in the lunettes, and another part to be filled with ornament in the usual manner--"dodici Apostoli nelle lunette, e 'l resto un certo partimento ripieno d' adornamenti come si usa." Michael Angelo, after making designs for this commission, told the Pope he thought the roof would look poor, because the Apostles were poor folk--"perchè furon poveri anche loro." He then began his cartoons for the vault as it now exists. See the letter to Ser Giovan Francesco Fattucci, in the _Archivio Buonarroti_, Milanesi, pp. 426-427. This seems to be the foundation for an old story of the Pope's complaining that the Sistine roof looked poor without gilding, and Michael Angelo's reply that the Biblical personages depicted there were but poor people.

[315] Bramante, the Pope's architect, did in truth fail to construct the proper scaffolding, whether through inability or jealousy. Michael Angelo designed a superior system of his own, which became a model for future architects in similar constructions.

[316] See chapters vi. vii. and viii. of Mr. Charles Heath Wilson's admirable _Life of Michel Angelo_. Aurelio Gotti's _Vita di Michel Agnolo_, and Anton Springer's _Michael Agnolo in Rome_, deserve to be consulted on this passage in the painter's biography.

[317] The conditions under which Michael Angelo worked, without a trained band of pupils, must have struck contemporaries, accustomed to Raphael's crowds of assistants, with a wonder that justified Vasari's emphatic language of exaggeration as to his single-handed labour.

[318] In speaking of the Sistine I have treated Michael Angelo as a sculptor, and it was a sculptor who designed those frescoes. _Nè io pittore_ is his own phrase. Compare an autotype of "Adam" in the Sistine with one of "Twilight" in S. Lorenzo: it is clear that in the former Michael Angelo painted what he would have been well pleased to carve. A sculptor's genius was needed for the modelling of those many figures; it was, moreover, not a painter's part to deal thus drily with colour.

[319] The Laurentian Library, however, was built in 1524.

[320] See Gotti, pp. 150, 155, 158, 159, for the correspondence which passed upon the subject, and the various alterations in the plan. As in the case of all Michael Angelo's works, except the Sistine, only a small portion of the original project was executed.

[321] Cosimo de' Medici found it impossible to induce him to return to Florence. See B. Cellini's Life, p. 436, for his way of receiving the Duke's overtures.

[322] See above, Chapter II, Michael Angelo.

[323] Vasari names the gloomy statue, called by the Italians _Il Penseroso_, "Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino," the sprightly one, "Giuliano, Duke of Nemours;" and this contemporary tradition has been recently confirmed by an inspection of the Penseroso's tomb (see a letter to the _Academy_, March 13, 1875, by Mr. Charles Heath Wilson). Grimm, in his _Life of Michael Angelo_, gave plausible aesthetic reasons why we should reverse the nomenclature; but the discovery of two bodies beneath the Penseroso, almost certainly those of Lorenzo and his supposed son Alessandro, justifies Vasari. Neither of these statues can be accepted as a portrait.

[324] The "Bacchus" of the Bargello, the "David," the "Christ," of the Minerva, the "Duke of Nemours," and the almost finished "Night," might also be mentioned. His chalk drawings of the "Bersaglieri," the "Infant Bacchanals," the "Fall of Phaëthon," and the "Punishment of Tityos," now in the Royal Collection at Windsor, prove that even in old age Michael Angelo carried delicacy of execution as a draughtsman to a point not surpassed even by Lionardo. Few frescoes, again, were ever finished with more conscientious elaboration than those of the Sistine vault.

[325] See Varchi, at the end of the _Storia Fiorentina_, for episodes in the life of Pier Luigi Farnese, and Cellini for a popular estimate of the Cardinal, his father.

[326] This extract from Cesare Balbo's _Pensieri sulla Storia d' Italia_, Le Monnier, 1858, p. 57, may help to explain the situation: "E se lasciando gli uomini e i nomi grandi de' governanti, noi venissimo a quella storia, troppo sovente negletta, dei piccoli, dei più, dei governati che sono in somma scopo d' ogni sorta di governo; se, coll' aiuto delle tante memorie rimaste di quell' secolo, noi ci addestrassimo a conoscere la condizione comune e privata degli Italiani di quell' età, noi troveremmo trasmesse dai governanti a' governati, e ritornate da questi a quelli, tali universali scostumatezze ed immoralità, tali fiacchezze e perfidie, tali mollezze e libidini, tali ozi e tali vizi, tali avvilimenti insomma e corruzioni, che sembrano appena credibili in una età d' incivilmento cristiano."

[327] Vasari's description moves our laughter with its jargon about "attitudini bellissime e scorti molto mirabili," when the man, in spite of his honest and enthusiastic admiration, is so little capable of penetrating the painter's thought. Mr. Ruskin leaves the same impression as Vasari: he too makes much talk about attitudes and muscles in Michael Angelo, and seems to be on Vasari's level as to comprehending him. The difference is that Vasari praises, Ruskin blames; both miss the mark.

[328] "È possibile che voi, che _per essere divino non degnate il consortio degli huomini_, haviate ciò fatto nel maggior tempio di Dio?.... In un bagno delitioso, non in un choro supremo si conveniva il far vostro." Those who are curious may consult Aretino's correspondence with Michael Angelo in his published letters (Parigi, 1609), lib. i. p. 153; lib. ii. p. 9; lib. iii. pp. 45, 122; lib. iv. p. 37.

[329] Braun's autotypes of the vault frescoes show what ravage the lapse of time has wrought in them, by the cracking of the plaster, the peeling off in places of the upper surface, and the deposit of dirt and cobwebs. Mr. Heath Wilson, after careful examination, pronounces that not only time, but the wilful hand of man, re-painting and washing the delicate tint-coats with corrosive acids, has contributed to their ruin.

[330] _Histoire de la Peinture en Italie_, p. 332.

[331] That is not counting the frescoes of the Cappella Paolina in the Vatican, painted about 1544, which are now in a far worse state even than the "Last Judgment," and which can never have done more than show his style in decadence.

[332] See above, Chapter II, S. Peter's.

[333] See Gotti, p. 307, or _Archivio Buonarroti_, p. 535.

[334] I have reserved my translation of the sonnets that cast most light upon Michael Angelo's thought and feeling for an Appendix, No. II.

[335] The majority of Michael Angelo's letters are written on domestic matters--about the affairs of his brothers and his father. When they vexed him, he would break out into expressions like the following: "Io son ito, da dodici anni in qua, tapinando per tutta Italia; sopportato ogni vergognia; patito ogni stento; lacerato il corpo mio in ogni fatica; messa la vita propria a mille pericoli, solo per aiutar la casa mia." They are generally full of good counsel and sound love. How he loved his father may be seen in the _terza rima_ poem on his death in 1534.

[336] Notice this expression in a letter to his father, written from Rome, about 1512, "Bastivi avere del pane, e vivete ben con Cristo e poveramente; come fo io qua, che vivo meschinamente." It does not seem that he ever altered this poor way of living. For his hiring at Bologna, in 1507, a single room with one bed in it, for himself and his three workmen, see Gotti, p. 58. His father in 1500 rebuked him for the meanness of his establishment; _ibid_. p. 23. It appears that he was always sending money home.

[337] "Io sto qua in grande afanno, e con grandissima fatica di corpo, e non ò amici di nessuna sorte, e none voglio: e non ò tanto tempo che io possa mangiare el bisognio mio." Letter to Gismondo, published by Grimm. See, too, Sebastian del Piombo's letter to him of November 9, 1520: "Ma fate paura a ognuno, insino a' papi." Compare, too, the letter of Sebastian, Oct. 15, 1512, in which Julius is reported to have said, "È terribile, come tu vedi, non se pol praticar con lui." Again, Michael Angelo writes: "Sto sempesolo, vo poco attorno e non parlo a persona e massino di fiorentini." Gotti, p. 255.

[338] When anything went wrong with him, he became moody and vehement: "Non vi maravigliate che io vi abbi scritto alle volte cosi stizosamente, che io ò alle volte di gran passione, per molte cagioni che avengono a chi è fuor di casa." So he writes to his father in 1498. A letter to Luigi del Riccio of 1545, is signed "Michelagnolo Buonarroti non pittore, nè scultore, nè architettore, ma quel che voi volete, ma none briaco, come vi dissi, in casa."

[339] See the letters of Cosimo de' Medici, Gotti, pp. 301-313, the letter of Count Alessandro da Canossa, _ibid._ p. 4, and Pier Vettori's letter to Borghini, about the visit of some German gentlemen, _ibid._ p. 315.

[340] See the story as told by Torrigiani himself in Cellini, ed. Le Monnier, p. 23.

[341] After saying that he talked of love like Plato, Condivi continues: "Non senti mai uscir di quella bocca se non parole onestissime, e che avevan forza d' estinguere nella gioventù ogni incomposto e sfrenato desiderio che in lei potesse cadere." Compare Scipione Ammirato, quoted by Guasti, "Le Rime," p. xi.

[342] Her intense affection for the Marquis of Pescara, to whom she had been betrothed by her father at the age of five, is sufficiently proved by those many sonnets and _canzoni_ in which she speaks of him as her Sun.

[343] See Grimm, vol. ii.

[344] See the Sonnets translated in my Appendix and in my _Sonnets of Michael Angelo and Campanella_, London, Smith & Elder, 1878. See also the letters to Cavalieri, quoted by Gotti, pp. 231, 232, 234. It is surely strained criticism to conjecture, as Gotti has done, that these epistles were meant for Vittoria, though written to Cavalieri. Taken together with the sonnets and the letter of Bartolommeo Angiolini (Gotti, p. 233), they seem to me to prove only Michael Angelo's warm love for this young man.