MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI !3 ®0t;MI Hmrmitg pilravg BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME FROM THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF X891 A.fcilW5 vMfliiii; 3777 arV18130 Michelangelo / Cornell University Library 3 1924 031 297 017 olin.anx Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031297017 ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHIES OF 7 HE GREAT ARTISTS. MICHELAGNIOLO BUONARROTI CALLED MICHELANGELO ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHIES OF THE GREAT ARTISTS. The following volumes, each illustrated with from 14 to 20 Engravings, are no-u. ready, price y. 6d. Those marked with an asterisk are 2s. bd. SIR JOSHUA REYNOLDS. By F. S. Pulling, M.A. WILLIAM HOGARTH. By Austin Dobson. GAINSBOROUGH and CONSTABLE. By G. Brock-Arnold, M.A. LAWRENCE and ROMNEY.* By Lord Ronald Gower, F.S.A. TURNER. By Cosmo Monkhouse SIR DAVID WILKIE. By J. W. Mollett, B.A. SIR EDWIN LANDSEER. By F. G. Stephens. GIOTTO. By Harry Quilter, M.A. FRA ANGELICO and BOTTICELLI. By C. M. Phillimore. FRA BARTOLOMMEO and ANDREA DEL SARTO. By Leader Scori MANTEGNA and FRANGIA. By Julia Cartwright. GHIBERTI AND DONATELLO.* By Leader Scott. LUCA DELLA ROBBIA and CELLINI.* By Leader Scott. LEONARDO DA VINCL By Dr. J. Paul Richter. MICHELANGELO BUONARROTL By Charles Clement. RAPHAEL. By N. D'Anvers. TITIAN. By R. F. Heath, JJ.A. TINTOI^TTO. By W. R. Osler. CORREGGIO.* By M. Compton Heaton. VELAZQUEZ. By E. Stowe, M.A, MURILLO.* By Ellen E. Minor. ALBRECHT DURER. By R. F. Heath, M.A. THE LITTLE MASTERS OF GERMANY. By W. B. ScoTT HANS HOLBEIN. By Joseph Cundall. OVERBECK. By J. Beavington Atkinsom. REMBRANDT. By J. W. Mollett, B.A. RUBENS. By C. W. Kett, M.A. VAN DYCK AND HALS. By P. R. Head, B.A. FIGURE PAINTERS of HOLLAND. By Lord Ronald Gower, F.S.A. CLAUDE LORRAIN. By Owen J. Dullea. WATTEAU. By J. W. Mollett, B.A. VERNET and DELAROCHE. By J. Ruutz Rees. MEISSONIER.* By J. W. Mollett, B.A. MICHELAGNIOLO BUONARROTI. " The whole world without Art would be one great wilderness. ' MICHELANGELO BY CHARLES CLEMENT, AUTHOR OF " MICHEL-ANGE — LEONARD DA VINCI— RAPHAEL." LONDON SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE, & RIVINGTON, Ltd. 5t. glunstHn's '^wxst Fktter Lane, Fleet Street, E.G. 1892 s (AU rights reserved.) Sichard Clay - int"i"'-<- •' { Mr l " iii l', JH ^^ iili vd upon this statue. It is this sublime work which remains '"Stamped upon the memory. The Moses dwells amidst the masterpieces of ancient and modern sculpture, an event with- THE "MOSES." 37 out a parallel, the representative, if not wholly faultless, still the most perfect, of an art unknown before, I will not speak of the consummate technical knowledge which Michelangelo reveals In the modelling of this statue ; the Greeks had a knowledge as well as he, but it was of another sort. Whence comes it, however, that, despite some trifling imperfections, which it were out of place either to defend or deny, and, although this stern fignre be far from attaining or pretending to the serene and tranquil beauty which the ancients regarded as the supreme limit of art, — whence comes it that even upon a soul the niost forewarned it produces an impression which cannot be resisted 1 It is because it is more than human, and it bears away the spirit into a world of thought and feelings, which the ancients were less familiar with than ourselves. Their voluptuous art, while raising the form of man to heaven, kept down the soul upon the earth. The Moses of Michel- angelo has seen God, has listened to His voice like thunder, has preserved the terrible impression of that meeting upon Sinai ; his unfathomable gaze is searching into the mysteries which he sees in prophetic vision. Is it the Moses of the Bible? I know not. Would Praxiteles and Phidias have represented Lycurgus and Solon thus 1 We may boldly answer, no. The lawgiver in their hands would have been an embodiment of law ; they would have represented an ab- stract existence by a figure over whose harmonious beauty no change could come. Moses is not only the lawgiver of a people ; it is not thought alone which dwells beneath that powerful brow ; he feels, he suffers, he lives in a moral world to which Jehovah has admitted him, and although more than human, he is still a man. There only remain to be noticed three figures of importance which were to have formed part of the tomb of Julius II., 38 MICHELANGELO. but which could not be displayed in the smaller monnment in San Pietro in Vincoli. Firstly, there is one of the statues of Victory nearly finished, which stands now in the council chamber of the Signory, then the two wonderful Captives which the Louvre is fortunate enough to possess. These last are among the finest of Michelangelo's works, and there is, to my thinking, some evidence of their being those which were blocked out during his stay in Carrara, in the first outburst of his enthusiasm, long before the Monument had caused him so much anxiety and vexation. One of these figures is by no means perfect, but the other has that delicate finish which he used to put to his early works. For loftiness of style, boldness and grace of outline, suppleness and power of model, and for idealism of character, it will ever take its place among the most finished productions of the chisel. These two works were first given by Michelangelu to Eoberto Strozzi, who had received him in his house, and tended him in ill- ness ; they were brought into France, and Francis I. made a present of them to Marshal Montmorency, who put them in his castle at Ecouen. They were conveyed afterwards to Poitou by Eichelieu ; then they were taken to his house in the Faubourg du Eoule, and put up for sale in 1793, and Lenoir purchased them for the Museum of French Monuments. They are now in one of the-rooms devoted to the sculptures of the Eenaissance. ^ ow i must go back and take up the course of events at the point where I digressed, in order to dwell upon a work which, notwithstanding its importance, has occupied too large a place in the life of Michelangelo. On his return from Bologna, at the beginning of 1508, he found Julius II. by no means cold in his feeling towards him, but preoccupied with new schemes. He talked about his tomb no longer, BEGINS WOKK IN THE SIXTINE. 39 but entirely about the rebuilding of St. Peter's, wliich he had put into Bramante's hands. Kaphael was at this time beginning the frescoes in the Hall of the Signory, and the two biographers of Michelangelo, ■whose evidence upon this point must, it is true, be received with caution, agree in declaring that the architect of St. Peter's was jealous of the superiority of the Florentine sculptor. He was afraid that he would discover the mistakes which had been made in the new buildings and the malpractices of which he was not perhaps guiltless. In the hope, therefore, of compromising and ruining him by employing him on works to which he was not accustomed, he induced the Pope to entrust Michel- angelo with the vault- paintings of the chapel which had been built under Sixtus IV. Julius caught at the idea. Buonar- roti was summoned and ordered to begin at once. He had done no fresco work since the time of his apprenticeship with Ghirlandaio, and knew that it was pot an easy thing to ^ paint a vault. He excused himself, and proposed Eaphael, saying that he was nothing but a sculptor and should fail in such a work. The Pope was inflexible, and on the 10th- of May, 1508, Michelangelo began this vault, perhaps the most prodigious monument of human genius on record. Julius had ordered Bramante to construct the necessary scaffolding, but he set about it so clumsily that Michelangelo was obliged to dispense with his assistance and to do everything for him- self. He summoned some of his old fellow-pupils from Florence, not, as Vasari, under the most strange misconcep- tion, asserts, because he knew nothing about the method of fresco-painting, which was familiar to all artists of that period, but because his fellow-workmen were more accus- tomed to it than himself, and he wanted assistance in so important a work. He was, however, so dissatisfied with 40 MICHELANGELO. their style, that he destroyed all they had done, and, if we may believe his biographer, shut himself up in the chapel without any assistant, grinding his own colours and prepar- ing his own plaster. Thither he went at daybreak and never left tiU nightfall, sometimes even sleeping in his clothes upon the scaffolding, only allowing himself one light meal at the end of the day, and permitting no one a sight of what he was doing. Scarcely had he begun than unforeseen diffi- culties arose, which were on the point of making him give up the work entirely. The colours, even before they were dry, were covered with a mould, and he could not discover the cause. He went back to the Pope disheartened : " I warned your Holiness," he said, "that painting was not my art. All I have done is lost, and if you do not believe me, send some one to see it." Julius sent Giuliano da San Gallo, who saw that the misfortune was owing to the quality of the Eoman lime, and that Michelangelo used his plaster too damp. Buonarroti resumed his work with the utmost eagerness, and in twenty months the first half was completed without another mishap. The mystery in which Michelangelo shrouded himself had excited general curiosity. The objections of the painter had not prevented Julius from coming to see him several times, and, despite his great age, he had mounted right up to the platform by a bolt-ladder and with the help of Michelangelo's hand. He would wait no longer. He would have everybody share in his admiration without more delay. It was of no use for Michelangelo to object that the scaffolding would have to be rebuilt, and that he had not put the last touch to his work : the Pope would not hear a word, and the chapel was open to the public on All Saints' Day, November the Jst, .1509. « All Eome," COMPLETION OP THE SIXTINB. 41 says Vasari, " rushed to the Sixtine. Julius was there first, before the dust from the falling scaffolding was laid, and said mass in the chapel the same day." The success was immense ; Braraante, seeing that his vile plot, far from succeeding, had only increased the fame of Michel- angelo, who had come forth in triumph from the snare which he had laid for him, begged the Pope to give Eaphael the other half of the chapel to do. Julius, however, kept to his resolution, despite his desire to please the architect, and after a short interval Michelangelo resumed the painting of the vault ; but rumours of these intrigues came to his ears ; he went to the Pope with bitter complaints of Braniante's con- duct towards him, and no doubt the coolness between him and Eaphael dated from this time. The second, and by far the most considerable part of the vault was not finished till 1512, and it is difficult to under- stand how Yasari could say that this enormous undertaking was finished in twenty months. He seems to have con- fused the dates, to have referred to the whole that which only applies to the first half. It is marvel enough that Michel- angelo could finish so gigantic a work in four years ; there is no need to excite still greater astonishment by trying to make out that it was completed in an utterly impossible space of time. The impatience of Julius was so great that he almost fell out with Michelangelo a second time. The artist wanted to go to Florence on business, and went to ask for money. " When will you finish my chapel 'I " said the Pope. " As soon as I can," replied Michelangelo. " As soon as I can, as soon as I can — why, I'll pitch you off your scaffold," cried the irascible Pontiff, giving him a slight blow with his stick. Michelangelo went home, packed up his things, and was on 42 MICHELANGELO. the point of starting o£f, when the Pope sent his favourite Accursio to him with his apologies and 500 ducats. Again IMichelangelo -could not finish his work as completely as he wished. He wanted to toach it up when it was dry. But when the scaffolding was once down, he contented himself with leaving it as it was. He said that what was wanting to the figures was immateriaL " You must put in a little gilding," said the Pope. " My chapel will look poor." " The people I have painted on it were poor," replied Michel- angelo, and no alteration was made. These paintings of the Sixtine vault are heyond descrip- tion. How could one give any idea of those numberless and sublime figures to those who have not quailed and trembled in this temple of wonders ? The unrivalled grandeur of Michelangelo shines forth even in the chapel which contains the pictures of Ghirlandaio,. of Signorelli, which pale before those of the Florentine, as the light of a lamp undflr that of the sun. Eaphael painted his wonderful Sibyls of the Pace about the same time, and under the influence of what he had seen in the Sixtine: compare them! He also, no doubt, attained to the highest regions of art in some of his works, — the St. Paul at Hampton Court,' the Vision of Ezehiel, the Virgin of the Dresden Museum, — but what was the exception with Sanzio was the rule with the great Buonarroti. Michel- angelo had glimpses of a world which is not this. His daring and unlooked-for flights of fancy are so far above and outside the ordinary range of human thought, that they repel by their very sublimity, and are far from captivating ordinary minds like the marvellous and charming creations of the painter of Urbino. It is important however to combat the widespread opinion ' Now in the South Kensington Maseum. THE 8IXTINB CHAPEL. 43 that Michelangelo comprehended only extravagant ideas, and could only express them by exaggerated and contorted movements. His figures possess the highest qualities of art, originality, sublimity of style, breadth and skUl in outline, precision, and harmony of colour, and that character so strik- ing in the Sixtine pictures, which precludes a thought of the painter. That portentous sky seems as if it must have come thus peopled with its giant forms, and it requires an effort of thought to imagine a creator of so sublime a work. All this is conceded, but he is refused the knowledge of grace, of beauty in its youth and brightness, of form which expresses tender and delicate feelings, such as the divine pencil of Eapliael has so wonderfully represented. I allow that Michel- angelo took little pains to please, and that his stern genius delighted only in the gravest thought ; but I do not acknow- ledge that he was a stranger to grace and beauty, especially in , women . Not to mention the Virgin of the Academy in London, or, in another style, the wonderful Captive of the Louvre ; without leaving the Sixtine, what more marvellous vision of beauty could appear in dreams than that Adam opening his eyes upon the light for the first time % "What more chaste, more graceful, more lovely than the youthful form of that Eve bending towards her Creator and drawing from his half-open lips the divine breath which gives her life ? What is the meaning of that work so full of terror ? What is the mean- ing of that long unrolling of human destiny? Why did those two beings whom we see beautiful and happy in the begin- ning people the earth with that passionate and restless race, gigantic yet powerless 1 Ah ! Greece would have made of that vault an Olympus inhabited by forms happy and god- like ! Michelangelo has peopled it with beings grand and unhappy, and this mournful poem of humanity is truer than 44: MICHELANGELO. the marvellous fictions of ancient Poetry and Art. " Michel- angelo," Condivi tells us, " was a special admirer of Dante. Moreover, he devoted himself diligently to reading the Holy Scriptures and the writings of Savonarola, for whom he always entertained great affection, retaining even the remem- brance of his mighty voice." On the other hand,' the native land of the great Florentine, the glorious Italy of the Renais- sance, was on the eve of dissolution. Such studies, such memories, such mournful realities, may interpret the visions which passed through the mind of the great. artist during the four years of almost complete solitude which he passed in the Sixtine. The precise meaning of his compositions will proba,b]y escape us, hut so long as man exists, they will draw the spirit towards the dim world of fancy, and this is the end of art. The year which followed the opening of the Sixtine, and which preceded the' death of Julius, seems, like the two first of the Pontificate of Leo X., to have been among the happiest and calmest of Michelangelo's life. The old Pope loved him " with an anxiety and jealousy," says Condivi, " which he had for no one else about him." He honoured his integrity, and even that independence of character of which he had more than once had proof. Michelangelo, on his part, over- looked that rough treatment which was so promptly and per- fectly atoned for. His sight, weakened by that four years' incessant work, compelled him to rest almost entirely. " The necessity," says Vasari, " for always looking upwards during the time of his work, had so weakened his sight, that for several months afterwards he could not see a drawing nor read a letter without holding it over his head." He enjoyed unrivalled fame in that period of semi-repose which succeeds a mighty effort. Probably all his thoughts at thi^ time were i''l'l'"'|i|||||iiui''ii'i!'iii'i''i<'ii NAKED YOUTH BY MICHELANGELO One of the figures on the vault of the Sistine Chapel. SEBRAVEZZA. 45 centred upon his •work for tlie tomb of his patron, which he had been compelled to abandon for a time ; but Leo X. re- quired him for something else. He was aU-powcrful in Florence, where, thanks to Julius and the league of Cambray, he had established his family in 1512, and he wanted to endow his country with monuments which should recall to the vanquished citizens of that glorious republic the magnificence of their former patrons, and thus make them forget the institutions which they had just lost a second time. The church of San Lorenzo, which was built by Brunelles- chi, and which was the burial-place of several members of the Pope's family, was unfinished ; he resolved to complete the front. Several artists, among whom were San Gallo, the two Sansovinos, and Kaphael, sent in plans for this impor- tant work ; but Michelangelo's was suocessfnl, and he went to Carrara in 1515 to get the necessary marbles cut out. Leo did not leave him there long at rest. Learning that there were marbles at Seriavezza, in the highest part of the moun- tains of Pietra Santa, and on Florentine territory, which ri- valled those from Carrara, he ordered Michelangelo to go and begin to work the quarries. The sculptor pointed out in vain the enormous expenditure which the opening of these quarries would involve. There were roads to carry right up the mountain, marshes to cross, and the marble was of an inferior 'quality. Leo would listen to nothing. Michelangelo set out, opened the roads, got out the marble, and remained in this solitude from 1516 to 1521, The result of four years of the flower of his age and genius spent there was the transport of five columns, four of which remained on the sea-coast, and the fifth is at this day unused and lying among the rubbish in the Piazza di San Lorenzo. 1:6 MICHELANGELO. Without wishing to deny all that the Arts owe to Leo X., his services must he accepted with some reserve. Accom- plished, and of amiable manners, hut crafty and blundering ; always vacillating between France and the Emperor ; ambi- tious above everything to find places for his family ; and to counterbalance such faults, having neither the valour, nor the affection for Italy which Julius II. undeniably displayed, his political character can not, I think, be defended. He had the merit of being the patron of Raphael, whoso compliant and easy character pleased him, and who, thanks to his patronage, left the impress of a master-piece upon every moment of his short life. "We must not forget that it was by heedless ejitravagance, and by a general traflSc, that Leo encouraged the. pleiad of artists which has cast such lustre upon his name. His obstinacy in employing Michelangelo despite his repugnance and entreaties, upon a work which his own versatility of character and the embarrassments of the Lombard war ought to have made him abandon, has doubt- less robbed us of some wonderful works. Michelangelo might ha.ve finished the tomb of Julius, and we should now have a gigantic monument which would rival the greatest works of ancient sculpture. Some expressions of Condivi show us into what a state of annoyance and discouragement Michelangelo was thrown by the instability of Leo, and the uselessness of such work. '^ On his return to Florence lie found the ardour of Leo quite subsided ; there he was for a long time filled with vexation, unable to do anything, having been hurried about from one scheme to another up to that time, to his intense disgust." It was, however, about this period, in 1520, that Leo ordered the tombs of his brother Giuliano and his nephew Lorenzo for X H >■ THE " CHRIST." 47 the Sacristy of San Lorenzo, which he did not execute till ten years afterwards. He also ordered plans for the Laurentian Library, where the wonderful collection of manuscripts by Cosimo and Lorenzo the Magnificent, which had been dis- persed daring the troubles of 1494, were to be brought together. He was at Florence when the Academy of Santa Maria Nuova, of which he was an energetic member, resolved to bring the ashes of Dante from Eavenna to Bologna, and addressed that beautiful petition to the Pope, which Gori has preserved for us, bearing the signatures of the most celebrated men of the time, among others that of Michelangelo, with this memorial : — " I, Michelangelo, the sculptor, also sup- plicate your Holiness, and offer to execute a tomb worthy of the divine poet in a place of honour in the city.'' Leo did not entertain the idea favourably, and it, was abandoned. The Statue of Christ on the Cross, whicli had been ordered by' Antonio Metelli, and which is in the Church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, was probably executed during the rare sojourns which Michelangelo made in Eome .during Leo's pontificate. So great liad become his discouragement that he had it finished and set up by a Florentine sculptor named Federigo Frizzi, at the end of 1521. The statue of the Christ, one which bears marks of the highest finish and intelligence of all that came from the hands of Michelangelo, is in my opinion far from equalling other works of the great sculptor. It was, how- ever, the rapidly-acquired celebrity of the work finished by Federigo Frizzi which decided Francis T. to send Primaticcio into Italy, under orders to copy for him the Christ of the Minerva, to order a statue from Michelangelo, and to put into his hands that flattering letter which is preserved in the pre- cious collection at Lille. Leo X. died on the 1st of December, 1521, a year after 48 MICHELANGELO. Eaphael. His successor, the humMe and stern Adrian, knew nothing of painting except that of Van Eyck and Albrecht Diirer. His simple manners were in most striking contrast with the ostentatious habits of Leo. Under his pontificate all the great works were stopped in Eome and slackened in Plorence. While Michelangelo was working quietly on the Laurentian Library, the grand age of Art was coming to an end. Eaphael and Leonardo were dead, and their pupils were rapidly hurrying on a downward course. Character began to decline with talent, and Michelangelo, who had, so to speak, opened this great epoch, was destined to remain alone when all had gone, like those lofty peaks which are the first to receive the morning rays, and the last to lose the light, even when night is deepening and aU about them is becoming dark. CHAPTEE IV. ITALIAN AFFAIRS — DEFENCE OF FLORENCE — MICHELANGELO AS AN ENGINEER — THE LEDA — SAN LORENZO — RETURN TO ROME— THE LAST JUDGMENT APPOINTED ARCHITECT OF ST. Peter's. A.D. 1521 TO A.D. 1546. JULIUS II. died witliout completely attaining his double aim, the expulsion of foreigners from Italy and the absorption of the different States of the Peninsula by the Papal power. He increased his sway by diminishing the power of Venice, but destroyed for ever one of the strongest bulwarks of Italian independence. The crafty policy of Leo upheld the supremacy of the Church, but the indecision of Clement VII. was not long in compromising the results which had been obtained by the courage and skill of his two illustrious predecessors. Pranois I. laid claim to N^aples, the Emperor to Milan, and Italy was once more a prey to all the devastating agents of the most terrible of wars. The Constable of Bourbon did not stop at Florence ; it was the sack of Eome which the Spanish and German hordes demanded, of Eome defenceless 50 MICHELANGI'iO. and more brilliant than she had ever heen. The republican party in Florence took advantage of the downfall and cap- tivity of Clement VII. to drive out the Medici again. The name of Michelangelo is closely bound up with this supreme effort which his country made for the recovery of her independence, and to have been among her most useful and active defenders is not one of his least titles to renown. When the events of 1527 occurred, Michelangelo had been in Florence for several years, employed on the works of San Lorenzo and the tomb of the Medici. He was then more than fifty years old. His character, which had always been impetuous, was not softened by age. Carrying his love of solitude almost to a mania, caring little for most of the men among whom he lived, as the sarcastic and offensive words which are attributed to him abundantly prove, he was never mixed up in party conflicts. There were reasons for his abstaining, apart from his character. His republican con- victions made him detest the tyrannical and impotent rule of the later Medici; but his attachment to Lorenzo and the gentle remembrance which he had retained of him as a patron and friend made it difficult for him to enter the lists agaiust his degenerate successors. However, in the midst of his advancing career, and just as he had determined to devote himself more than ever to his art, events occurred which imperatively demanded a change in his resolves, and which gave a peculiar character to the second part of his life, by throwing him headlong into political struggles. The captivity of Clement VII. did not last long. Charles V. had just become reconciled to the Pope, and the re- establishment of the Medici was one of the principal stipulations of the Treaty of Barcelona. The FOETIFICATIONS OF FLORENCE. 51 Florence government did not wait for the Pope to lay siege to tiie city before taking steps for its defence. The fortifica- tions were inadequate and in a bad state. AH eyes turned to Michelangelo. He was named Director and Commissioner- General of the Fortifications. His sympathy with the move- ment which gave liberty to Florence was perfect. Whatever his repugnance might be on personal grounds he did not think that genius absolved him from being an honest man, and he accepted. The activity which he displayed on this occasion seems to have been prodigious. " He fortified the city at many points,'' says Vasari, " and surrounded San Miniato with stout bastions of chestnut and oak, not of the ordinary turf and brushwood. He even substituted bricks of animal hair and duug for the turf." In April and May he was at Leghorn, in June at Pisa, engaged in the citadel works and the Amo fortifications. The following month he was ofi' to Ferrara, whither the Signory of Florence sent him to study the new stylo of fortification employed by^ Duke" Alfonso. Again, in September, he was at Arezzo, directing the defences there. The fortifications of Michelangelo, which Yauban studied and admired, still enclose the lovely church and the cypress trees of San Miniato ; they encircle the most charming of hills with a dark and sombre belt. I am not competent to judge of these ramparts as military works, but I have never seen them without thinking of the great man who constructed them, and who, when he might have been content with his reputation as an artist, determined to take part in his country's last struggle for liberty. According to Vasari, Michelangelo remained almost con- tinaally in the fortress for the six months which preceded E 2 52 MICHKLAKGELO. the siege, directing everything in person, and trusting in no one else. "When he did come, down into the city it was to work stealthily on the San Lorenzo statues." This casual word of his biographer depicts the mental perplexities of Michekngelo better than the longest dissertation. He was compelled to fight against a Medici to satisfy his conscience and his judgment, and dared not allow the feelings to be seen which brought upon him an accusation of treason from an excited and suspicious people. So by a sort of compromise and to reassure his heart which protested against his actions, he only gave over the fight with Clement to push on the tombs of Lorenzo and Giuliano in secret. Then sprung up disunion between the defenders of the city. The condottiere, Malatesta Baglioni, was appointed Commander-in-Chief. Eumours of treason were about among the soldiers. Some officers came to give Michelangelo warn- ing. He went to the Signory, and laid bare the danger of the city ; — Malatesta was a traitor, there was still time to put everything right, but steps must be taken without delay* " Instead of thanks," says Condivi, " he only received insults from the Gonfaloniere Carduccio, who treated him like a man who was afraid and over-suspicious." He was disgusted at the injustice of Carduccio, and saw that the advice of the perfidious Malatesta was preferred to his own. Under such circumstances he could do nothing for the defence of the city. In the simple discharge of his duties he was exposing himself to the madness of the people, without advantage to any one. He left Florence with his pupil Mimi and his friend Ridolfo CorsinL He withdrew first to Ferrara and then to Venice, where he stayed for a short time. • The works for the defence of Florence had been carried on with so much skill and energy that the journey of Michel- FLIGHT FROM FLORENCE. 53 angelo was nothingtut a series of ovations, which, do wliat he would, he could not check. People saw in him not the artist only hut the defender of the independence of the Eepuhlic of Florence. It was the manly character which he had displayed, far more than his frescos and his statues, which won for him that swift popularity and enthusiastic admiration which foUow upon public services. The Duke of Ferrara, who found him out, despite all his pains to hide himself, carried him olf almost by main force to his palace, overwhelmed him with attentions and with presents, showed him his pictures, aiid, among others, his own portrait by Titian. " Immediately after his arrival," says Varchi, " Michelangelo withdrew quietly to Giudecca, to escape from visits of ceremony which he detested, and to enjoy his customary solitude." But the presence of such a man in the city could not remain unknown. The Siguory sent two of their principal gentlemen to pay him a formal visit, and to entreat his acceptance of everything which either ho or his friends might require. " This is a proof," says the historian, " of Michelangelo's eminence, and of the admira- tion in which these illustrious men held such virtues." His precipitate ilight has been attributed to an excessive and culpable prudence, without any consideration of his cha- racter and circumstances. This accusation wiU not bear examination ; but, as it has been brought up again of late, it must not bo passed over in silence. There is no doubt something unusual in this abrupt decision of Michelangelo ; but he acted consistently with that character which is familiar to us. Irritable, impetuous, quick in resolution, he took counsel with no one but himself. His conduct in the midst of the events which succeeded his departure and return, at a moment of suprpme peril, leaves no doubt as to the motives of his action. The Signory had declared Buonarroti and his companions 54 IHCHELAKGKLO. traitors by a decree of September 30 ; but the people protested, and demanded that their Michelangelo should be given them. " The most earnest entreaties," Condivi says, " were addressed to him ; they begged him to consider his country's interests and not to give up the enterprise upon which he had embarked." Overcome by consideration for those who wrote to him, but mainly urged on by his love for his country, he asked for a safe conduct, and returned to Florence at the risk of his Hfe. The march of Clement across Tuscany was rapid. Pe- rugia, Cortona, Arezzo opened their gates to him, and he arrived under the walls of Florence in the month of Oc- tober. San Miniato commands the city, and the Pope's first object was to secure the position. Besides the bastions Michelangelo had mounted several pieces of cannon on the Campanile, which made great havoc among the besiegers. He conceived the idea of covering the bastions with mattresses and bales of wool. On his return he forthwith resumed his command, and conducted the defence for six months with the utmost energy. Unhappily there was dissension in the ciiy. One part of the people, who had lost all virtues and taste for liberty under the enervating sway of the Medici, longed for them again. "Almost all the wealthy," wrote Busini to Varchi, " demanded their return, some out of am- bition or folly, others out of servility." Francesco Ferrucci performed miracles at the head of a little army devoted to him. That bold and useful diversion, the heroic struggles of the people, whose incessant sorties left the besiegers no rest, were only able to break the fall of the last of the Italian republics which had kept the spirit and the letter of its in- stitutions intact. Famine-came to join the array of evUs. At last Malatesta threw off the mask, opened the Eoman gate, and SURRENDER. 55 brought the Imperialists into the city. It surrendered on the 12th of August, 1530. Although the terms of surrender had stipulated for a wide-extended amnesty, the most illustrious citizens of Florence were put to death, exiled, or rohhed of their property. There was no doubt about Michelangelo's fate, had he been taken, for he was excluded from the amnesty along with certain of the defenders of the city. He hid himself, some say at a friend's, but more probably accord- ing to the family tradition, in the tower of S. Nicolas, beyond the Arno. There he remained for some time. The Pope's anger subsided. Clement wanted him to finish the SaR Lorenzo , tombs, so he published an announcement that he would spare his life and forget the past. During one of his visits to Ferrara, Michelangelo under- took to paint a picture for Duke Alfonso, in return fur his hospitality, directly he got back to Florence ; and during the siege he finished a Leda, which was destined for him. The duke was afraid that some harm might come to the picture during the troubles which followed the surrender of the city, and sent one of his suite to ask for it ; but through the stupidity of the messenger, this painting found its way into France, instead of going to' Ferrara. Vasari has preserved an account of the discussion which decided its fate, and which is another evidence at once of Michelangelo's irrita- bility,of temper and excellence of heart. " He received the gentleman graciously, and showed him a large paiutinp, in whiclk^e had represented Leda embracing Jupiter, under the form oia"Si«p,n, This noble personage said to him, " Oh, I don't think much of that ! " " What style do you like, thenf" said Michelangelo. "I am a merchant,'' replied the other," as if to let him see bis contempt for Florentine industry. Michelangelo, thoroughly aware of this, replied 56 MICHELANGELO. promptly, "Well, Mr. Merchant, you will make a bad tar- gain for your master to-day." Ho gave the magnificent painting to his pupil, Antonio Mimi, who had been recom- mended to him, and who had two marriageable sisters. Mimi' carried the work into France, along with some drawings, car-' toons,, and models which Michelangelo had given him. Most of these treasures perished, like so many other beautiful' things which we have not been able to keep. The Leda was bought by Francis I. and placed at Fontainbleau. It was there up to the tirae of Louis XIV., when the prudish Desnoyers had it defaced, and even gave orders to have it burned. This order does not seem to have been executed, for Mariette saw the picture reappear far on in the eighteenth century, " but so damaged that only the canvas was left in numberless places. The genius of a giaiid artist, however, shows itself unmistakably, even through these disflgu,re- ments. I have seen nothing of Michelangelo's so well painted, according to my judgment. It seemed as if the sight of Titian's works, which he had at Ferrara — the place for which his own picture was destined — stimulated him to adopt a better tone of colouring than that which was pecu-- liar to him. However this may be, I saw this picture restored by an ordinary artist, and it went into England, where, no doubt, it had a great success. This is another work of Michelangelo which seems to have been irrecoverably lost. Waagen has found no trace in Eng- land of that Ul-restored canvas of which Mariette speaks, and which, according to Argenville and Piles, was actually destroyed by fire. It is true that we are familiar with the composition from the cartoon in. the London Academy, which has also been engraved. But the loss of that painting upon bauiias, according to the exact description of the precise THE LEDA. 57 Mariette, and protably in oil, wliicli would "be a twofold ex- ception to Michelangelo's ordinary work, is so mucli the more to be regretted, as the work was executed at the time when the Artist of the Sixtine was in the fulness both of his vigour and genius. The Leda of the London cartoon lecalls the Night of the San Lorenzo Tomb. There is an atmosphere of rude and forbidding voluptuousness, but nothing in common with the obscene figures which the decline of ancient art has bequeathed to us. Under the sway of Neo-platonic sentirnents the painters of the Eenais- sance interpreted the story of Leda as the union of Man with Nature — the seduction of the intellectual being by the sensual. So Leonardo da Vinci and Correggio treated the gubject ; and it would have been highly interesting to be able to compare their works with that of their omnipotent rival. Clement VIL pardoned Michelangelo his share in the defence of Florence only upon condition that he would finish the San Lorenzo tombs. It required all the firm friendship of the Pope to defend the sculptor against the hatred of Alexander de' Medici. Deceived in his most cherished hopes, compelled to be a passive and helpless spectator of the ■triumph of a cause which he detested, irritated at the dis- sensions of his party, which had brought about a defeat which his efTorts could only delay, Michelangelo seems at this time to have become the melancholy victim of a dis- ordered mind. His health was so seriously affected that the Pope issued a brief forbidding him, under pain of excom- munication, all work in painting or sculpture, except that which related to the sacristy of San Lorenzo. Some months before his pupil , Antonio Mimi, wrote, "Michelangelo seems to me fagged and falling away. We don' I think he can live 58 MICHELANGELO. long, if he doesn't take care of himself; it's all tiiough hard work, scanty and bad food, and want of sleep. Por the last month he has been subject to headache and giddiness. He oughtn't to be allowed to work in the Sacristy aU. the winter, and he might finish the Virgin in the little room at the side." Alexander asked him to make plans for the con- struction of a citadel, but he refused flatly to work for him. This prince was a mulatto bastard of Clement VII., or, according to others, of Lorenzo II. It is said that the irri- tated artist uttered those cutting words — which apply to many other members of that degenerate race, as well as to this monster — that " the Palace of the Medici ought to be pulled down, and a piazza built upon the site, to be called the Mules' piazza." Michelangelo had not, so to speak, touched his chisel for the last fifteen years. He set to work on the Tombs of San Lorenzo with a sort of fury so great that by the end of 1531 the two female figures were finished, and the others far advanced. There was an idea of placing four tombs in the chapel, and it is probable that the one for Lorenzo the Magnificent was included in this first scheme, which Cle- ment VII. rejected, and confined himself to those of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, brother of Leo X. ; and of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, son of Peter, and father of Catharine de' Medici. The chapel which contains these monuments is in the form of a square, surmounted by a cupola. Michelangelo has given many specimens of this severe and cold style in other parts of San Lorenzo, in the numerous palaces which he built, and, the most perfect, in St. Peter's at Eome. At the head of the chapel is the altar ; opposite to it a Virgin and Child, one of his finest works, and two figures, which are probably to a great extent by the hands of his pupils, Eafaello i_l u THE MEDICI TOMBS. 59 da Montelupo and Era Giovan Agnolo, wlio helped him in this great work ; on either side, the full height of the wall, the two statues of Giuliano and Lorenzo. There is nothing in this purely white and cold chapel to favour emotion ; yet, who could look upon the statues of Giuliano or Lorenzo, the four allegorical figures which, two by two, adorn the sarcophagi, without being strongly and deeply moved 1 Michelangelo did not dwell upon the likenesses of his originals. In the tomb of Julius II., Eachel and Leah repre- sent the active and contemplative life : in that of the Medici, the figures of Giuliano and Lorenzo personify thought and action. The four allegorical figures, Dawn and Tmligld, Day and Night, recall the principal phases and the rapid course of man's destiny. The two figures of Giuliano and Lorenzo are sitting. Giuliano is young, dignified, and bold : he is in armour, and is resting his commander's baton on his knee. Lorenzo is plunged in gloomy meditation ; his head, full of thought, is supported by his hand; the finger upon the lips seems as if it would stop even the murmur of the breath- ing. Is it upon the ruins of Florence that he is fixing his eyes in that absorbed and fathomless gaze ? What words can utter the majesty and power of that statue of Day — the Ti- tanic beauty of that of Night — the pensive grace of the Dawn, opening her eyes in sadness upon a world of suffering? The tongue is powerless to utter the thoughts which the art por- trays ; but the world did not hesitate for a moment about the meaning of those figures ; it gave the name of II Pensieroso, the Thoughtful, to the statue of Lorenzo. The figure of Night made so powerful and universal an impression that a crowd of poets hastened to celebrate it. The stanza attributed to Strozzi is well known : 60 MIOHJELANGELO. ' La NoUe, cte tuTedi in si dolci atti Dormire, fit da un Angela scolpita In qnesto sasso ; e, perchfe dorme, ha vita ! Destala, se no '1 credi, e parleratti. Michelangelo replied in the following verses, perhaps the most beautiful he ever wrote, which bear witness to the trouble of heart and mind in which he conceived and finished this most perfect piece of sculpture : ^ Grato mi 6 il sonno, e pill 1' eeser di sasso : Mentre ohe il danno e la vergogna dura, Non veder, non sentir m' h gran rentura ; Fer6 non mi destar ; deh parla basso ! The six statues which compose these two monuments — the admirable Madonna, which, with the two figures executed by his pupils, complete the ornaments of 'the Sacristy of .Sah Lorenzo — are the consummation of the sculptor's skill in Michelangelo. All his knowledge, all the magnificence of his style, the exuberance of his imagination, the patience, the reasoning power which he brought to the execution of his boldest and most unlooked-for inventions, the new character, true and yet superhuman, which he put into his figures, that remarkable combination of qualities which niade of the Florentine the giant of modern art, — aU these appear per- fected in this monument. The figures of San Lorenzo are not completely finished, as is the case in all the statues which he executed during the second part of his life. As ' This Night, whom thon seest slumbering in such a sweet abandon, was sculptured by an Angel in this marble ; she is alive, although asleep : if thou wilt not believe it, wake her, she will speak. 2 Sweet to me is slumber, and still sweeter to be in marble. Not to see, not to feel, is happiness in these days of baseness and dis- honour. Wake me not then, 1 pray thee, but speak low. M <^ ALLEGORICAL FIGURES. 6l he advanced in years his disposition to he impatient, at least as far as works of art are concerned, hecame more marked. Exulting in the beauty of form, jealous sometimes of its most minute details, as may be seen in the torso and maiTellous legs of the Night, and in the whole figure of the Dawn, he has only blocked-out some of his most beautiful works ; and in those he most nearly completed, he often left unfinished some secondary parts, the completion of which would have added little to the expression of his thought. His aini was to speak, to strike, to convince. No man took less pains to please in little ways, or cared less to shut the mouths of fools. When he had said enough he was silent ; and so he subdues rather than fascinates. "With his all-powerful hand he drags the spirit into the lofty region where he dwells ; but it does not follow him without reluctance and a thrill of terror. The sentiments which he evokes are not due solely to that which is strange and unfamiliar in his works ; but to their intrinsic character, to the thought which directs them, and to that special inspiration which, no doubt, Orcagna, Masaccio, Ghiberti, Donatello, at first received, but which finds its most perfect organ in the originator of the Medici Chapel. It has been asked why Michelangelo, knowing as he did know so much of ancient art, departed so far from it. From the time of his early studies in the gardens of San Marco to his extreme old age he never failed in his devotion to it. His admiration for the torso of the Belvedere is well known, — so great was it as to give rise to a story of his later dayp, that he became blind, and used to be led close to this iamous marble that he might pass his feeble hands over its form. For my part, I ask myself how he could have ex- pressed his thoughts if he had followed too closely the tra- ditions of ancient art. His manner of representing the 62 HICHELANGEIiO. human form, so different, no doubt, from Greek conception, was not due solely to that natural impetuosity which carried him wildly away over the smooth and rhythmical lines of an art which had become sacred. Ghiberti and Donatello, despite all the elegance and delicacy of their chisel, are no nearer to those lines than he. But new thoughts required a new language for their utterance. It is something more which Michelangelo gives to his figures than that abstract spirit of the ancients, that vague glimmer which draws the soul on to a sense of actual perfection by hovering softly about perfect shapes. It is a new .soul, an individual soul of later birth — passionate, suffering — which, stirs those marble forms; unfettered, full of life and action, athirst for the infi- nite; she thinks, she joys, she suffers, and, although con- fined to narrow limits, she finds means to give utterance to her feelings and emotions. Michelangelo returned to Eome in 1532. The Pnpe com- missioned him to finish the paintings of tlie Sixtine, by executing two vast frescoes for the ends of the chapel, the Last Judgment, and the Fall of the Rebel Angels. On the death of Clement "VII., in 1534, two years after, as the paintings were not begun, and as Michelangelo was very busy with the mausoleum of Julius II., whose " ashes," he said, " had been waiting too long," he tried to get released from his engagement. However, Paul III. loaded him with civilities, arranged "the tragedy of the tomb" — ^to nse Condivi's words— with the Duke d'Urbino, and won over Michelangelo to finish Clement's plan at his expense. The artist and the Pope, however, very nearly fell out at the beginning. Paul wanted to remove the arms of Julius II , which were in the chapel, and to put up his own instead. Michelangelo objected, saying " That it was not right ; that THE " LAST JUDGMENT." 63 tUa honour was due to Julius and Clement." "Paul III.," adds Vasari, " far from being annoyed by this liberty, was full of respect for a man who had the courage to oppose him." Clement's idea was that the Fall of the Relel Angels ought to commence the Tast cycle of the Sixtine compositions, and with the Last Judgment to form the celestial prologue and epilogue to the drama of humanity which was represented upon the chapel- vault. But the idea was not entirely carried out. Michelangelo had, indeed, already made several studies for the Fall of the Angels, and even a sketch, which the assistant who ground his colours copied in the Church of the Trinita de' Monti. He confined himself however to the Last Judgment, and the artist almost immediately under- took the painting of that immense composition, which was to cost him eight years of incessant toil. The Last Judg- ment was begun, at least as far as regards the cartoons, in 1633, but was not finished till 1541. The public was able to gaze on this grand fresco on Christmas Day of this year. It has been said that this was more the work of a sculptor than of a painter. It has been observed too, that the com- position is divided into three distinct zones, without regard to unity ; that the groups too, are not well connected with each other, and do not move in proper perspective ; that Michelangelo, notwithstanding his grand quahties as a painter, his knowledge of form, model, and foreshortening, his broad, bold, £md deep colouring, nevertheless excels in compositions where the number of persons represented is small, or in isolated figures ; and lastly, that in many respects the Last Judgment is inferior to the paintings on the Six- tine vault. All this is true. But it is also true that this work is unique j that it is not to be judged by any compari- 64 MICHELANGELO. ■ son, but as one of those unheard-of efforts of the human mind which terrify and subdue, in defiance of all criticism. Nowhere else has Michelangelo fallen so decidedly towards that side to which he always inclined; nowhere has he shown less care to please and captivate; nowhere has he brought together a greater mass of diflS.culties, of forced positions, and exaggerated movemeiits, or taken such liber- ties with form, motion, and posture — a sort of rhetoric of his art which was destined to plunge his followers into such monstrous excesses. Never did he soar to. such heights as in this fresco, and especially in the paintings of the vault ; and one may well believe that the Sixtiae wUl remain the most wonderful monument of modern art. There are hardly any details of the eight years which Michelangelo spent in the completion of his work. More alone, more gloomy than ever, always in face of those terrible creations of his mind, intoxicated with the strong overflowing of his thought, — what dreams, what chimeras, what terrors tnust have crowded upon his imagination ! At times he was the victim of despair. One day he was injured by a fall from a scaffold ; he went back and shut himself up — ^he longed for death. His doctor, Baccio, anxious at not seeing him, had the greatest difiiculty to get at him ; he insisted on nursing him, and brought him round. Strange and painful problem, this man ! Stern, reserved, yet good and sensitive, he seems In this work to have forgotten his heart ! His bold fancy, ever insatiable, ever in full flight, penetrated the realms of unfathomable mystery tiU. dizzy with its very soaring, and saw nothing but horrors there ! The Christ of the Last Judg- ment is neither the Christ of the Gospel nor of Michelangelo ; it is nothing but an avenging and terrible God. I see, indeed, the angels, the saints, the elect ; but their songs are J3IAG10 DA CESENA. 05 drowned by shrieks of despair, and by the wailings of the damned. There is no day of pardon — no, not of justice there ; it is the day of vengeance and of wrath, — Dies irce, dies ilia ! The Last Judgment produced a marvellous effect, and, as might be expected, also gave rise to a host of adverse criticisms. That final catastrophe of the world, .with its nude figures and forced pcaitions, its developments of muscle and form, its giant shapes, its forgetfulness of Christian sentiment, seems to have been severely blamed by several contemporaries, and even friends, of Michelangelo, among others by Aretino, virho wrote to .^Enea Vico that " this painting might give the artist a place among the Lutherans." As to the Pope, he v^as not offended, and took a more lively view of things. One day, as he was going to visit the works in the Sixtine, acccompanied by his Master of the Cere- monies, Biagio da Cesena, he asked him what he thought of this painting, Biagio replied that he thouglit it was a deplorable thing to put so many figures which made a shame- less exhibition of their nakedness, in so sacred a place; the proper place for them was a bathing-house or a beer-shop, not the Pope's chapel. Michelangelo heard of it, and when he was alone he put in a likeness of the unfortunate master of the ceremonies among the damned, under a representation of Minos. The resemblance was so striking that the story soon got all over the city. Biagio went to the Pope with his grievances, who asked him where Michelangelo had put him. "In hell," he replied. "Alas!" rejoined Paul, : laughing ; " if he had only put you in, purgatory, I could have got you out ; but as you are in hell I can do nothing for you. My power doesn't reach so far. Nulla est redemptiol" V 66 MICHELANGELO." Julius III. and Maroellus II. respected, the work of the great artist, but Paul IV. wanted to efface the Last Judgment as soon as he became Pontiff. It was only with great diffi- culty that he was induced to revoke the order which he had actually given. ", Tell the Pope," replied Michelangelo to some one who was speaking of the Pontiff's dissatisfaction, " not to trouble himself with such a cause of distress, but to do something towards reforming mankind, a much easier thing than correcting pictures." Paul confined himself to com-' missioning Daniele da Volterra to dress the figures which injured his scruples, as he had already dressed Eaphael's Isaiah. The painter executed his task to the satisfaction of the Pontiff, and got the surname of braghettone — {breeches- maker,) for his pains. Gregory XIII., no less scrupulous than Paul IV., conceived the idea of substituting a composition of Lorenzo Sabbatini for the grand work of Michelangelo ; and later on the fanatical Clement XIII. made Stefano Pozzi finish the work which Daniele da Volterra began. Th;s fresco was not destined to be the last of Michel- angelo's paintings. Paul III. had built the chapel which still bears his name in the interior of the Vatican. He commissioned Michelangelo to paint two pictures in it — the Crucifixion of St. Peter and the Gonversicn of St. Paul, These frescoes were not finished till much later, probably in 154^, that is to say, a short time before the death of Paul, and when Michelangelo was 75 years old. This work had tried him greatly. " Painting,' and especially fresco," says Vasari, " is not fit for old men," Although these two works are now in bad condition, the Sixtine painter is to be recog- nized in them, but rather by his faults than his excellences : ARCHITECT OF ST. PETEE's. 67 Ihe inspiration is not sustained ; the drawing, bold and clever as always, is unnecessarily constrained ; and, as it is useless to conceal the fact, they bear marks of that feebleness of age which Michelangelo was free from more than any other man, but which no one entirely escapes. The activity of Michelangelo did not however slacken, but was employed upon objects more suited to his age. Paul III , who was busy about the fortifications of the Borgo, required his advice. Michelangelo gave an opinion entirely opposed to that of San Gallo, who flew into a rage, and finished by telling him that he might be able to meddle with sculp- ture and painting, but understood nothing about fortifications. Michelangelo replied that he did not lay great store by his painting, but had not been very unsuccessful in the Florence defences. He reproached his opponent sharply for the blunders which he had made ; and defended his own scheme so trium- phantly, that the Pope abandoned San Gallo's to adopt it. Finally, at the death of San GaUo, in 1546, Michelangelo was appointed architect of St. Peter's. About this time it was that ho received a commission to construct the buildings of the Capitol, and the admirable entablature of the Farnese Palace, the most inspired of his architectural works. Not being able to paint any longer, he commenced the Descent from the Cross as a recreation, and " because mallet work was necessary for his health;" The work is to be seen in an unfinished state behind the high altar in Florence Cathe- dral. Notwithstanding his advanced age, he was still so vigorous that Blaise de Vigenere, who saw him at work somewhere about this time, speaks of him thus : " I saw him when he was past sixty, and moreover not one of the strongest of men, strike off more scales of marble in one quarter of an hour than F 2 68 MICHELANGELO. three young marble cntters would have done in three or four — a thing almost incredible to anyone who did not see it ; and he set to with such force and fury that I thought the whole work must go to pieces. He brought to the ground big pieces three or four fingers thick with a single blow, so precisely on his mark that if he had struck ever so little wide of it he would have been in danger of ruining the whole, because marble cannot be repaired afterwards like clay or stucco." CHAPTEE V. MICHELANGELO AS A POET— VITTORIA COLONNA, MAEOHIONBSS OF PBSCARA— RELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS — FRANCESCO d'oL- LANDA AT MO.VTE CAVALLO — OPINIONS UPON PAINTING — GRIEF AT THE DEATH OF VITTORIA. A.D. 1521 TO A.D, 1547. MICHELANGELO woTked. up to his latest days on the Descent from the Gross, and on a Fieta, of ■which Vasari speaks, but of which nothing is known. He did not, however, undertake any other work in painting or sculpture. He was growing old. The time of great creations was gone. He was destined to consecrate his prodigious activity hence- forth to the immense labour of managing the building of St, Peter's, and to other architectural works. I did not wish to interrupt the account of the longest part of his life, of which his works of art are the characteristic and principal events, to study closely the feelings which he has unfolded, with too sparing a hand, in his verses and letters which have been preserved, and upon which his ardent and pure attachment for the Marchioness of Pesoara sheds an unlooked-for light. The half-concealed form of this noble lady completes that of 70 . MICHELANGELO. the great Florentine, and it is not without pleasure that wo find his heart, which seemed to have slumljcred for more than -sixty years, animated with a life no less powerful than his genius. The poetic talent of Michelangelo is genuine, but has heen too highly rated. Pindemonte calls the artist of the Sixtine " the man of four souls." To he whoUy just we must acknow- ledge, as M. Vitet has done in a very judicious notice, that one of these souls of the great sculptor was " less richly en- dowed than its sisters." Graceful imagery, hut more espe- cially vigorous and nervous thought, ahound in his verses. . . . He has put his mark on everything that he has touched ; yet it is more as a comment upon his life and a revelation of his thoughts and innermost feelings, than for their literary and poetic merit, that they seem to me to deserve attention. The verses of Michelangelo belong to every period of his long career. Eroni his first stay in Florence after his return from Iiome he wrote them. Those on the back of his first sketch of the David in the Louvre are a proof of this ; and we know from Condivi, that after finishing the statue of the Piazza of the Signory he remained for some time without doing any sculpture work, and was wholly devoted to the study of the Italian poets and orators,- and to writing sonnets for his own amusement. Condivi assures us that Michelangelo " loved not only human beauty, but every beautiful thing — a beautiful horse, a dog, or landscape, forests and mountains." ... I will not linger upon his love verses ; I do not believe in them. If Michelangelo had loved, there would remain other proofs of that love than feeble imitations of Petrarch. . . . Pure in character from his youth, Michelangelo was devoted to his art. ..." I have often," says Condivi, "heard him discuss the subject of love, and have learned from men who were present VITTORIA COLONNA. 71 that he never spoke of it in other language than we find in Plato. I do not know what Plato says, but I do know very well that I was on most intimate terms with Michelangelo, and never heard from his lips any words but such as were becoming, and likely to check the ill-regulated desires which spring up in the bosoms of the young." ... It is only in those of his poems which relate directly to his art that we discover the powerful and lofty thought of Michelangelo. I should like to quote as an example only one of his effusions, which seems to me one of his most ample and best inspirations: " There Was .given me at my birth, as an assurance of my vocation, that sense of the beautiful, my guide and my light in two arts ; but, believe me, it is this alone which raises my eyes to that height which I strive so eagerly to reach in painting or in sculpture. Leave more rash and grosser spirits to search only in the material for a beauty which raises and transports loftier souls even unto heaven. Eyes so weak cannot be lifted from mortal forms upwards towards God, or reach that point to which Divine favour alone can direct them." In his way, however, Michelangelo was destined to love. It is his love for a woman, and the passionate remembrance of her which he retained to extreme old age, which fills up and brightens the closing period of his life. . . . The gentle yet stately form of the Marchioness of Pescara remains shrouded in a sort of mystery. Eesearches, and recently discovered documents, however, throw some light upon this noble lady and her relations to Michelangelo. Yittoria Colonna, Mar- chioness of Pescara, was born at Marino, an ancient fief of her family, in 1490. Her father, Fabrizio Colonna, had embraced the cause of the House of Aragon, and it was' through the in- strumentality of the young king Ferdinand that Yittoria was 7 a . MICHELANGELO. betrothed at four years of age to Ferdinand d'Avalos, Marquis of Fescara, whose family, of Castilian origin, had settled in the kingdom of Naples. She received that severe and ro- mantic education which gives so special a character to the women of the sixteenth century. A touch of pedantry in them did not exclude either grace or tenderness, and we may pardon their Latin for the sake of the vigour and loftiness of their sentiments. Vittoria was sought in marriage hy the greatest personages of the time, among others by the Dukes of Savoy and Bra- ganza ; but she had grown up with the young Ferdinand. His taste had confirmed the choice of his family, and, as she herself says in one of her sonnets, immediately she knew him " her heart proscribed all other feeling.'' She married the Marquis of Pescara in 1507. Neither of them was more than seventeen years old. The marriage of these young people was celebrated with great pomp. They passed several years of even and perfect happiness in a villa which belonged to theni 'upon the island of Ischia. However, they had no children, and inaction was irksome to the young marquis. Julius II. had just drawn Francis of Aragon into his league against France. Pescara offered his services, which were accepted. He was appointed a cavalry general directly he joined the army. He took part in the battle of Eavenna, and performed prodigies of valour against Gaston de Foix. "Wounded and a prisoner, he was taken to Milan, as well as the Cardinal de' Medici, afterwards Pope Leo X. . . . During his captivity he composed his dialogues \ipon Love, which he dedicated to his wife as a proof of the faithfulness of his feeling. For twelve successive years husband and wife saw each other only at rare intervals, and almost by stealth. Pescara VITTOBIA COIiONNA. 73 held most important commands in the armies of Charles V. ; as his reputation increased, his military duties became more urgent and absoi'bing. Vittoria, on her part, passed these long years of premature widowhood partly at, Ischia, partly at Naples, engrossed in her love, and seeking no distraction save study and the hardest reading. ... At the battle of -Pavia, Pescara directed those famous charges which drove back the French cavalry and decided the victory. He was severely wounded, and after lingering for some time died in 1525. Vittoria set out for MUan, as soon as she heard of the danger, but the fatal news reached her at Viterbo. She returned to Naples, where she remained for seven years, plunged in the gloom of despondency At the death of the Marquis of Pescara Vittoria was only thirty-five years old. She was m,a&' the bloom of a beauty, which has been celebrated by her contemporaries. Several princes and illustrious personages sought her hand. She entrenched herself in the invariable reply, " that if the choice had been given her she would have died with her husband ; ■that he lived, and would ever live, in her remembrance." It was in the midst of her despair that her religious convictions, the source of the inspiration of her Rime Spiritudle, were ■born, and under circumstances which deserve narration. For several years the ideas of the Eeformation had been making great progress in Italy. . . . The Spaniard Valdez, whom Charles V. had ennobled for his military services, and whom he had employed on several diplomatic missions to Germany, had brought back thence to Naples the doctrines of Luther. He was well informed, of engaging conver- sational power, and soon became the centre of an association composed of a small number of persons belonging to the higher classes. Among these were several ladies, and, 71 MICnELANGKLO, according to the historian Giannoue, Vittoria Colonna herself. . . , I do not, however, think that there is reason to conclude that Yittoria— and consequently Michelangelo— did, more or less secretly, abandon the Church and embrace the Eeformed religion. Their religious poems, it is true, preserve no trace of Catholic legend. Christianity is there in all its simpli- city, carried hack to fundamental and primitive dogma. The ideas of the inability of man to do right, of justification by faith, of Christ as a Mediator — upon which the Eeformers particularly insist — are to he met with in every line. But these ideas belong to St. Augustine, as well as to Luther and Calvin. . . . Yittoria came to Rome in 1538. It is supposed that her earliest relations with Michelangelo date from this time, and that it was in the first outburst of grateful affection that he wrote to her, — "I am going in search of truth with uncertain step. My heart, floating imceasingly between vice and virtue, suffers and finds itself failing, like a weary traveller wander- ing on in the dark. "Ah ! do thou become my counsellor. Thy advice shall be sacred. Clear away my doubts. Teach me in my waver- ing how my unenlightened soul may resist the tyranny of passion unto the end. , Do thou thyself, who hast directed my steps towards heaveii by ways of pleasantness, prescribe a course for me." This first stay of Yittoria at Eome was not of long dura- tion. More and more weary of the world, she retired to the Convent of St. Catherine, at Yiterbo, where she found her learned and pious friend, Cardinal Pole. She divided her time between this retreat and Eome, where she settled per- FRANCESCO d'oLLANDA. 7^ manently during the last years of her life. She had founded a retreat there for poor young girls, and devoted the time which was left from useful woits to study and to Michel- angelo. , . . Master Francesco d'Ollanda, the architect and illuminator, had heen sent into Italy hy the Portuguese Government to study art. He wrote the account of his journey; this account contains some passages relating to Michelangelo and Vittoria, too characteristic not to he quoted verhatim : — "Among the numher of days that I passed thus in this capital (Rome)," says Master Francesco, "there was one, it was a Sunday, when I went to see, as was my wont, Messer Lactantius Tolomeo, who had become friendly with Michel- angelo. . . . They told me at his house that he had left word for me that he would he at Monte Cavallo, in the Church of San Silvestro, with Madam the Marchioness Pcscara, to hear a reading from the Epistles of St. Paul; away I went then to Monte Cavallo. . . , She made me sit down, and when the reading was over she turned to me and said, ' One ought to he able to make presents to those who can be grateful, and so much the more as after I have given I shall have as great a share as Francesco d'Ollanda after he has received. Here, So. an J- so! go to Michelangelo's, and tell him that Messer Lactantius and I are in this chapel, which is nice and fresh, and that the church is closed and pleasant. Ask him if he will he good enough to come and lose a part of the day with us, that we may have tlie benefit of gaining it with him ; but don't tell him that Francesco d'Ollanda, the Spaniard, is here.' After some moments of silence we heard a knock at the door. ... It was he. The marchioness rose to receive him, and remained standing for some time, until she placed him between herself and Messer 7-6 MICHELANGELO. Lactantras.' I sat a little apart. She spoke of one thing and another with much intelligence and grace, without ever touching upon the suljject of painting, so as to make sure of the great painter. ... At last she said, ' It's a .-spejl-known fact that a man will always he utterly beaten if he tries to attack Michelangelo on his own ground. ... As for you (she said to him), I do not think you less praiseworthy for the way in which you can isolate yourself, and avoid our trivial talk, and to refuse to paint for every prince who asks you.' " ' Madam,' says Michelangelo, ' perhaps you give me more than my deserts. ... I can assure your Excellency that even his Holiness annoys me sometimes, by asking me why I do not show myself more often. Then I say to his Holiness that I prefer working for him after my own fashion than spending a whole day in his presence, as some others do.' " ' Happy Michelangelo !' I exclaimed, on hearing this. ' Only Popes, of all princes, could pardon such an offence.' " ' It is just such offences,' said he, ' that kings ought to overlook.' Then he added, 'I can tell you that the work I am responsible for gives me so much liberty that sometimes it happens while I am talking with the Pope, that without thinking I put on my old hat, and talk freely to his Holi- ness. However, he doesn't kill me for it.' . . . " But Vittoria wants to accomplish her end, and make Michelangelo talk about padnting. ' Should I ask Michel- angelo,' she said to Lactantius, ' to relieve my doubts about painting, I hope he won't box my ears, as he usually does, to prove that great men are reasonable and not eccentric' " ' If your Excellency,' replied Michelangelo, ' will ask of ITALIAN PAINTING. 77 me anything that is worth offering to her, she shall be obeyed.' " The Marchioness continued, smiling, ' I want very much' to know what you thint of Flemish painting,- for it seems to me more devout than the Italian.' " ' Flemish painting, madam,' said Michelangeolo, ' will generally please any devout person more than that of Italy. The latter will never bring a tear to the eye, while the Flemish will make many a one flow ; and this result is due not to the force or merit of the painting, but simply to the sensibility of the devout. Flemish painting will always seem beautiful to women, especially to the very old or very young, also to monks and nuns, and some noble spirits which are deaf to true harmony ... It is only to works which are executed in Italy that the name of true painting can be given, and that is why good painting is called Italian. Good paint- ing is in itself noble and religious. Nothing elevates a good man's spirit, and carries it farther on towards devotion, than the difficulty of reaching that state of perfection nearest to God which unites us to Him. Now good painting is an imi- tation of His perfection, the shading of His pencil, a music in fine, a melody ; and it is only a refined intellect which can appreciate the difficulty of this. That is why good painting is so rare, and why so few men can get near to or produce it ... It is a fact that if Albrecht Durer, amanoffine and delicate touch, or Francesco d'Ollanda, wanted to deceive me, and were to try and counterfeit or imitate a work so as to make it appear from Italy— well ! he might produce a good, indifferent, or bad work, but I give you my word that I should very soon tell that it was not painted in Italv or by an Italian.' " Michelangelo was not long to enjoy th?, society of his noble / 8 MICHELANGELO. friend. Vittoria fell ill at the beginning of 1547. Sh.e was taken to the house of a relative, Giulia Colonna. Her con- dition rapidly became alarming, and she succumbed at the end of February of the same year. MicheLingelo was present at her death. " He was mad with grief," says Condivi " Wieu she was dead he imprinted a kiss upon her hand, and bitterly regretted afterwards that he had not ventured to leave the like token of his love upon her brow." CHAPTEE VL ST. PETEb's and the SAN GALLI8TS — ^DEATH OF URBINO — URGED TO* RETURN TO FLORENCE, BUT REMAINS AT BOMB TO DIE — FUNERAL— SKETCH OF HIS CHABACTEB, MODE OF LIFE, AND PERSONAL APPEARANCE — HIS PLACE IN HISTORY. A.D. 1547 TO 1563. MICHELANGELO survived Vittoria sixteen years. Although he was employed successively by Popes Julius III., Paul IV., and Pius IV. on the works of the Villa Giulia, on the fortifications, and several of the gates of Eome, on the construction of bridges, churches, and monuments, yet he devoted himself almost entirely to' St. Peter's, which he was anxious to complete before his death. Old age laid its hand upon him without breaking him down, and he remained active and upright to the extreme limits of the age of man. Years did not tell upon his mind more than upon liis body. He was upwards of four score years old when he made most of the calculations for the dome of St. Peter's, and the beautiful model which is preserved in the chamber of San Gregorio, above the Clementine chapel. His opinions do not seem to have been any longer contradictory. After 80 MICHELAKGELO. having obstinately refused the friendly and flattering attentions which Duke Cosmo lavished upon him, he seems, it is true, at the close of his life to have pardoned him for being the ruler of his country ; but although several times he seriously enter- tained the idea of returning to die in Florence, he always excused himself with the duke, on the score sometimes of his great age, sometimes of his works ; and we may well believe that the sore feelings of the battered old republican confirmed him in his determination not to leave Eome. The increasing decline of art, and the first excesses of his disciples, did not unsettle his ideas. We know with what admiration and with what severity he spoke of Titian, after he had been with Vasari to see him at the Belvedere. During those long years of decline, which saw the springs of life decreasing day by day, and his enthusiasm — that heaven-sent frenzy which makes everything easy to youth — flickering and going out, he preserved a settled silence upon his innermost feelings. He gave no sign of what he was suffering in a solitude peopled but just now with the phantom forms of his own genius ; and though still filled with an ardent and sacred love, became yet more desolate and gloomy than ever by the death of Vittoria. He spoke of himself with haughty pride : " For myself, in ajl my sufi'erings I have at least this satisfaction, that no one can read in my face the story of my weariness or my longing. I fear no envy, for I look for no honour or applause from a world so blind and so deceiving, which only cares for those who repay it with the most ingratitude ; and I go upon my way alone." In many respects, however, he lost his ruggedness of dis-' position under the influence of Vittoria. In his last years he was glad to do justice to Bramante, against whom he had formerly made too bitter accusations. " It must, be acknow- JUSTICE 10. BIViLS. 8'1 ledged,'".he wrotfe, " that Bramante was as great an architect as any who have appeared from ancient times to our own. Jt was he who laid the. first foundations of St. Peter's. His clear, simple and luminous plan would not have been wrong in any single detail of that vast monument. His conception was looked upon as fine, and must be so still ; so fine, that whoever has deviated from the design of Bramante has deviated ivprn the truth." Aiid in his presence Vittoria could, without hurting his feelings,, praise Eaphael, whom he .had suspected, and not without some show of reason, of hav- ing mixed in the intrigues relative to the Sixtine. " Eaphael d'Urbino painted a masterpiece in Rome, which would have a just title to the first rank, if the other (the Sixtine) did nQt» exist. It is a hall and two rooms, and the alcoves in the palace belonging to St. Peter's." Moreover, ' despite his grievances, he had at all times done justice to his yOuhg rival ; . " and he used willingly to bestow his praise .upon all," says Coiidivi, " even upon Raphael, though there was some rivalry between them." Bocchi relates, that after liaving received 500 crowns upon account for the Sibyls.oi the Pace, Raphael claimed the balance which he thought due to him, from Agostino Chigi ; the latter made some difficulty about it, and Michelangelo was called upon to arbitrate, and, filled with admiration, 'he replied " that each head was worth 100 crowhs." ' ' . Nevertheless, his character resumed aU its roughness when St. Peter's was in question. " All the nasty tricks of the San-GaUists," ' says Vasari, " were disgusting to the integrity of Michelangelo. One day, before he accepted the title of architect, he said openly to the foremen of the works, that i Fartiaans of San Gallo. i 82 MICHELANGELO. he would advise them to combine all their efforts to keep .him out of the place, for the first use that he would make of his power would be to turn them offi" The cabal was for a moment upon the point of getting him dismissed. The church was said to want light. Julius III. assembled the Council. Michelangelo replied triumphantly to all the criti- cisms of his enemies ; and then interrupting Cardinal Mar- ceUo, who was irritating him with his remarks : " I am not, and do not mean to be, compelled to tell your lordships mure than any one else what I am about, and intend to do. Tour business is to give me money, and to get rid of knaves: as to the building, that's my affair." Then turning to the Pope: "You see. Holy Father, what I get. If the fatigue which I endure is of no use to my soul, I am losing time and trouble." The Pope, who was fond of him, put his hands . upon his shoulders and said, " You are doing much both for soul and body." At the same time Michelangelo wrote to Vasari, who was urging him to come to Florence : " If I leave Eome it would be the ruin of St. Peter's, which would be a . great disgrace to me, and an unpardonable sin. When this great edifice has got to such a point that no one can possibly alter it, I hope to be able to comply with your wishes ; it is, however, a mistake perhaps to make certain intriguers wait so long who are impatient for me to be gone." Under Pius IV. the intrigues redoubled. Michelangelo was eighty-seven. His enemies declared that he was in his dotage, and was utterly ruining everything. He does seem at that time to have been discouraged for a moment, for he writes to Cardinal di Carpi: "Your lordships must have informed Messer Dandini that the construction of St. Peter's was going on as badly as possibly, which has distressed me greatly, for it is not true. Unless J am grossly deceived, I think I may declare^ DOME OP ST. PETBr's. 83 on the contrary, that it could not he going on hetter. But as it is true that my own interest and advanced age may easily impose upon me, and be injurious to this building, contrary to my intention, I intend, as soon as possible,' to ask permis- sion of his Holiness to withdraw. I likewise beg your Ex- cellency, in order to gain time, kindly to relieve me at once of the too great responsibility which I have gratuitously undertaken for the last ten years under the commands of several Popes." He afterwards changed his mind, and a few weeks before his death retorted upon his detractors by that beautiful model of the dome, completing that of the nave, which was executed in 1546. The Greek cross of the ori- ginal plan, which was changed to a Latin cross by Eaphael, replaced by Baldassare Peruzzi, and again discarded by Antonio di San GaUo, was reinstated by Michelangelo. [The architects who succeeded him carried out his plans conscientiously up to the beginning of the 17th century. But at this time, under the pontificate of Paul V., Carlo Maderno, who was commissioned to finish St. Peter's, conceived the unhappy idea of lengthening the front part of the nave, without observing that by changing the Greek into a Latin cross he diminished the eflect of the dome, destroyed every feature of the edifice; and that by adding the ridiculous fafade of the present building, he was taking away from a church the religious character which ought above aU things to be maintained.] However, if Michelangelo was valiantly resisting the per- petual knavery of the San-Gallists, the inevitable shadow of old age was creeping over him. One evening Julius III. requested Vasari to go and get a drawing from him. He found him alone in his workshop, working on the Descent from lite Cross by the light of a little lantern. Talking about one o 2 84 MICHELANGELO. thing and another, Vasari happened to cast his eyes on one of the legs of the Christ which he was intending to alter. Michelangelo dropped his lantern on purpose to prevent him seeing his work, and while he was calling Urbiuo to light it again, he went out of the workshop, saying, " Ah ! I am so old that death is often pulling at my coat to take me away. Some day my hody will fall like that lantern, and my life will go out just as it has." Another time, Vasari wrote him word that his nephew, Leonardo, had just had a son who would perpetuate the name of Buonarroti. Michelangelo replied, " My friend Giorgio, I have read your letter with much pleasure, for I see that you do not forget the poor old man. You have heen at the hirthday feast of a new Buonar- roti. I am as much obliged as I can be for all these details ; hut I don't like these festivals, for man oiight not to he smUiug when everybody is weeping. I don't think Leonardo ought to have such rejoicing over a new-born child. This joy ought to be kept for the death of a man who has lived well." About 1556 one of the most cruel blows fell upon him. His faithful TJrbino died. He had been with^him since the siege of Florence. He was more than a servant — ^he was a friend of every day and every moment. It was to him that he put that abrupt question one day, "What would you do if I were to die?" " I should have to find another master." " Oh ! my poor TJrbino 1 I couldn't bear you to be unfortunate :" and he gave him two thousand crowns on the spot. " He loved him so well," says Vasari, " that lie waited on him in his illness, and sat up with hirn at night." "When Vasari, who was at Florence, heard of his loss, he wrote to console him, and received this touching Teply : " Messer Giorgio, my dear friend, it is hard for me to write; however, I must give you ti line in answer to tJEBlNO's WIDOW. 85 yours. You know how Urbino died: it is a mark of God's great goodness, and yet a bitter grief to me. . I say a mark of God's goodness, because ■ Urbino, after having been the stay of my life, has taught me not only how to meet death without regret, but even t6 long for it. Por twenty-six years I have had him with me, and have always found him perfect and faithful., I had made him a rich man, and looked upon him as the staff and prop of my old age; and he lias gone from me, leaving me nothing but the hope of seeing him again in Paradise, I have an assurance of his happiness in the manner of his death. He had no desire to live, but was only distressed at the thought of leaving me, laden with misfortunes, in the midst of this false and evil world. I feel that the greater part of myself has gone with him, and all that is left me is misery and suffering. I beg you to think of me." About the same time he wrote to TJrbino's widow, Cornelia : "No doubt you are angry with me, without being able to give me any reason for being so. I think I under- stand it though^ from your last letter. When you sent me the cheeses you said that you wanted to give me something else, but that the pocket-handkerchiefs were not finished. I replied that you were not to send me anything, so that you shouldn't spend your money upon me ; but, on the contraryj that you were to ask me for something,, which I should have had the greatest pleasure in giving you, for you know per- fectly well what love I still , have for Urbino though he is dead, and what interest I take in everything that concerns his affairs. As to coming to you to see the children, or having little Michelangelo ■ here, I must tell you how I am situated. It would not be advisable to send Michelangelo ' Urbino's child, and Michelangelo's godson. 86 MICHELANGELO. here, because I have no womankind about me, or a suitable establishment. The child is too young and delicate yet, and some accident might happen to him, which would distress me very much. Moreover, for the last month the Duke of Florence has been making me the most eligible and tempting offers, to get me back to Florenjce. I have asked him for time to settle my affairs, and to be able to leave the building of St. Peter's in a satisfactory state, so that I think of stay- ing here all the summer, and when my business is s^tled, and yours with the monte-di-Pieta, I shall come to Florence for good in the spring ; for I am an old man, and shall never come back to Eome again. I shall look in upon you, and if you will give me Michelangelo I wiU keep him with me at Florence, and shall love him better than my nephew Leo- nardo's children, and will teach him what I know, and what his father would like him to learn." Vasari kept on urging him more and more to give up the building of St. Peter's, and to join him in Florence. He answered that he wa&at the end of his career — " that he had not a thought which Iwas not tinged with death j" and in his letter, among other sonnets, was the following : — " Borne away upon a fragile bark, amid a stormy sea, I am reaching the common haven to which every man must come, to give account of the good and the evil he has done. Now I see how my soul fell into the error of making Art her idol and her sovereign lord. "Thoughts of love, fond and. sweet fancies, what will become of you, now that I am near to a double death — the one certain, the other threatening ? " Neither painting nor sculpture can avail to calm a soul which turns towards Thee, God, who hast stretched out Thy aims upon the Cross for us." DEATH. 87 One of his last works was for Ha fellow-countrymen. The Florentines wanted to resume the works of their Church San Giovanni de' Fiorentini. They asked Michelangelo, in 1559, to make them a plan for this monument. He made five. The Council of the Buildings chose the most elabo- rate ; and when Michelangelo heard it, he said naively, " If they carry it out, they wiU have such a temple as Greece and Eome never had." In 1562 the health of Michelangelo began visibly to de- cline. Vasari became anxious, and entreated Duke Cosmo to ask the Pope to have an inventory made of all Michelangelo's cartoons, models, plans, and drawings, lie had already burned part of them, and they wanted to save at least all that had reference to the sacristy, fa9ade, and library of San Lorenzo, as well as the plans which were prepared for the buildings of St. Peter's. His nephew had been told of his condition. He was to be in Borne about Lent. Michel- angelo was taken with a slight fever ; he saw his end approaching, and begged that Leonardo might be written to and urged to come directly ; but his Ulness made rapid pro- gress. In the presence of his doctor, Donati, of Daniele da Volterra, and of some others of his friends, he dictated this brief will : " I commit my soul to God, my body to the earth, and my property to my nearest relatives." He died on the 17th of February, 1563, at the age of eighty-nine, all but afew days. Immediately after his death the Pope had his body placed in the Church of the SS. Apostoli, until a tomb should be raised for him in St. Peter's. When Leonardo arrived, the friends who had been present in Michelangelo's last moments informed him that, as he was dying, he had begged that his remains might be conveyed to Florence ; but the feeling of 83 MICHELANGELO. the people of Eome liad been so strong since the service which was performed at the SS. Apostoli, that they were afraid of their opposing, the removal of the iDody ; Leonardo was compelled, therefore, to enclose the body in a bale of wool, and get it out of the city by stealth. At Florence, as soon as the arrival of the corpse was known, "All the, painters, sculptors, architects/' says Vasari,; •'assembled qnietly about the Church of SanPiero Maggiore. They had brought a pall of velvet, embroidered with gold, to cover the cofRn and bier. At about one o'clock in the night the oldest and most distinguished among them took torches in their hands, while the younger lifted up the bier, and were proud to be the bearers of the greatest artist who had ever existed.. Many persons observed this assemblage, and the whole city soon became aware that the body of Michelangelo had arrived, and was being conveyed to the Church of Santa Croce. Everything had been done, how- ever, with the utmost secrecy, to avoid tumult and confusion. But the news passed from mouth to mouth, the church was invaded in a moment, and the academicians had great diffi- culty in getting as far as the c/iapel." The actual obsequies were, however, deferred till the following July, so as to give time for completing the immense preparations for this national mourning. The renowned Varchi was deputed to deliver the funeral oration over Michelangelo, whose body was placed in Santa Croce, in the spot where it still rests. The monument was designed by Vasari, and executed by Battista Lorenzo. Notwithstanding the caprices which are attributed to him, the violence of his character, his irritable and sarcastic temper, his love of solitude, which almost amounted to dis- HIS FJllENDS, 89 ease, Michelangelo, was intimately associated with, the most distinguished and celehrated men of his time— not reckoning the seven Popes who employed him, and with whom, de- spite some storms, he lived on terms of the utmost familiarity and consideration. Cardinals Pole, Bembo, Hippolytus de Medici, and so many others were among his most intimate and constant friends. As to his pupils, Sebastiano del Piombo, Daniele da Volterra, Rosso, Ppntormo, Vasari, we know from the testimony of the last-named what zeal ho devoted to their protection, with what generosity he gave them, not only his advice, but plans, drawings, and some- times the entire composition of their pictures. He seems, however,, to have preferred the friendship of unimportant people, whose simple habits and ingenuousness pleased him, to that of great personages. He was attached not only to his servant Urbino, whom he treated as a friend, but to Topolino, his marble cutter, whose graceless sketches he used to correct with the utmost care, and to Meuighella, " an ordinary painter of Valdarno, but a very pleasant person, who used to come from time to time and beg him to draw a St. Eoch or a St. Anthony for hiui, from which he used to paint a picture for the country folk." Michelangelo, whom it was hard to induce to work for kings, would give up his work at once to compose simple drawings, which he adapted to the taste of his friend. Among other things, he made a model of a Chrid on the dross iov Menighella, with a mould for making copies in cardboard, which the painter used to sell in the country; and he "used to be much amused with the little adventures which happened to the artist on the tramp." Good and generous, loading his pupils and friends with kindness, comforting the unfortunate, giving dowries to poor girls, enriching his nephew, to whom he never gave less than 90 MICHELANGELO. three or four thousand crowns at a time, — he was himself immovable in respect to presents, " which he always looked upon as so many ties, which were irksome, and diflScult to break." He used to live poorly enough, and to say a propos of this to Condivi, " Although I am rich, I have always lived like a poor man." He was hard upon himself, and even wore dog-skin gaiters upon his bare legs. He rarely admitted a friend to his table ; when he was at work he was satisfied with a scrap of bread and a drop of wine, which he used to eat ■without breaking off from work. He lived in this frugal way up to the time when he began the last pictures in the Sixtine. Then he was an old man, and he allowed himself a simple meal at the end of the day. Michelangelo was a man of extraordinary activity, but irregular in work. He used sometimes to remain for whole months absorbed in medi- tation, without touching a brush or a chisel ; then, when he had made out his composition, he would set to work with a sort of fury. He used often to give up his work in the middle, discouraged, and even in despair, because, says Vasari; '' his imagination was so lofty that his hands could not express his great and awful thoughts." Generally he used to put his first idea hurriedly to paper, and afterwards take up each part in detail, or sometimes the whole, as may be seen in several of his designs, finished with the utmost minuteness, Vasari asserts that ho used often to . draw th.e same head ten or twelve times over before he was satisfied with. it. Some of his studies are executed with so sure a touch that he was able to use them for models, as the bench-marks in them show ; but generally he used to make little models in wax, many of which are preserved. He would attack the marble without taking precise measurements, and found himself more than once out of his calculations thereby. He took very little PERSONAL APPEARANCE, 91 sleep, and used oi'ten to get up in the night to work. He used to wear a sort of cardboard helmet, which he contrived so as to hold a light, and thus the part on which he wanted to work was perfectly illuminated without any incumbrance to his hands. We possess several portraits of Michelangelo. The minute accounts which his biographers supply, and which would seem childish in the case of any other man, enable us to picture him pretty precisely. He was of middle height, with broad shoulders, slender and well proportioned; of a dry nervous temperament, his complexion was full of health and vigour, which was due as much to the regularity of his hfe as to nature ; he had a round head, high temples, a broad square forehead with seven lines straight across it, and a nose, as is well-known, disfigured by a blow from the fist of Torrigiano ; his lips were thin, the under one a little pro- jecting, which is especially observable in the profile ; his eyebrows were somewhat thick, eyes rather small than large, of the colour of horn, with scintillating specks of yellow and blue J hair black, and beard of the same colour, rather ragged, and four or five inches long, forked, and only towards the end of his life interspersed with many white hairs ; his expression was agreeable, lively, and decided. Such was Michelangelo, the last and greatest of the severe masters. This giant form closes and consummates the move- ment begun by Dante and Giotto, carried on by Orcagna, Brunelleschi, and Leonardo da Vinci. Though doubtless surpassed by many of his predecessors and contemporaries in some of the arts which he cultivated, this proud and gloomy genius has stamped upon his every work an awe-inspiring impress. It may be said of him that he had no ancestors ; for he so immeasurably sui'passed his predecessors, that notwith- 92 MICHELANGELO. standiftg everything with which his age had endowed him, he had all the characteristivjs of those exceptional beings who -owe to circumstances nothing but the opportunity for the free development of their extraordinary faculties.; , He was one of those men who derive theii^ existence and th^ir greatness from themselves alone, prolem sine matre creatam ; and the day on which he finished his long and glorious career, his whole self 4ied with him. " My knowledge," he himself said, " wUl give birth to a tribe of know-nothings ;'' and it would be un- fair to hold him responsible ior the extravagances of his impotent successors, who fancied that they/svere imitatijig him in their affectation of the sublime, fbrgettihg that without i'orce, audacity is only ridiculous. It is. nbt alone by., the creative might of his all-powerful imagination, but .by an Ainparalleled combination of the highest and raresst. faculties, that he towers above the most celebrated men of that age of prodigies. Painter, sculptor,, architect, engineer, poet, citizen, he stands forth among Dante, Leonardo, Brunelleschi, Raphael, like a Titan, the last- surviving scion of a perished race, lordly commander of that army of giants. And since his character was as lofty as his genius, is not his true place the foremost among the great ones of the modern era] w S- o fi % < o H K H ►J M A< M*i»ONNA DELLA PiEtA, 1499 —l^^nma Adonis, 1501 . --fc-M-ADONNA AND ChILD, 1503 . Head ok a Woman, 1503 . St. Matthew, 1503 ——The Virgin seated, holding the In- fant Christ in hor arms, 1503-4 Medallion — the Virgin and Child and St. John, 1503-4 .... -fr>-^ATiD, 1504. Colossal statue . . ~T Tomb op Pope Julius II., 1605 to 1542 The CAPTIVES;— chained, 1505. two statues ...... Lonvre, Paris. "ts-JMCosES, 1513 to 1520. Colossal statue San Pietro in Vincoli, Eome. " t>Tt)MB OP GlULIANO de' Medici, 1520 to- 1534 San Lorenzo, Florence. Tomb op Lokenzo de' Medici, 1520 to 1584 San Lorenzo, Florence. Ifational Masenm, Florence. Casa Buonarroti, Florence. Buonarroti, Florenot Bologna. iJational Museum, Florence. S. Kensington Museum. St. Peter's, Eome. National Museum, Florence, ifotre Dame, Bruges. S. Kensington Museum, Accademia, Florence. TJffizi, Florence. Koyal AcS/demy, London. Accademia, Florence. San Pietro in Vincoli, Borne. 108 PEINCIPAL WOHKS OF MIOHBLANGBLO. Bkutus, 1529 ? A hust . . . . National Museum, Florence. Cheist taken down from the Cross. Oolossal statue. Finished iy Federigo Frizzi S. Maria del Fiore, Florence Madonna and OnitD . ' . ' . . Saa Lorenzo, Florence The Dead Christ, the two Maeiks, AND JosEHH OP Abimathea . . San Lorenzo, Florence. FAiwnsas. The Virgin, Infant Christ, Si. John AND An&els, 1493-95 ? . t-THE Holy Family, 1504 . Entombment of oue Lord. Unfinished Madonna and Holy Child and St. John. Unfinished . . . The Parc^, 1531-32. The composition is by Michela/ngelo : htit the painting is tJwught to be by Basso . . . ^Frescoes on the Ceiling, 1507 to 1512 The Last Judgment. Finished 1541. V The Convbesion of St. Paul ; and L-The Crucifixion of St. Peiee. Finished in 1519 ■ . . . Stoke Park. TJffizl, Florence. National Gallery, London. National Gallery, London. Pitti Palace, Florence. Sixtine Chapel. Sixtine Chapel. Pauline Chapel. THE HOLY FAMILY. BY MICHELANGELO.. In the Gallery of the Uffizi, Florence. BIBLIOGRAPHY OF THE MOST EEGBNT WORKS ON MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI. Black : JUjcbel Angelo Buokaseoii, Scalptor, Fainter, ArcHtect. The story of his life and labours. By Charles Christopher Black. London, 1875. Blanc : L'oeuvre et la vie de Michel-Ange. Far Chakles Blanc, Eugene Guillavme, Pavl Mantz, C?ables Gabniere, &c. Atbo 111 gravures. (From the Oazette des Beaux Artn.) Faris, 1876. Blanc : Hicbel-Anoe Buonabroti. Far Cearles Blanc. (In the ' Sistovre des Peinires de toutes les EcoUs.) 4to. Paris. Gate : Carteggio inedito d'Artisti, &o. Vol. ii. Florence, 184p. Goiii : YiTA Di Michelangelo Buonabroti. By the Cohmend. Aube- Lio GoTTi. 2 Tols. Florence, 1875. Grimh : Leben Michel Angelos. Von Herman Grimm. 2 vols. 8vo. Hannover, 186U-63. There is an JEngUsh translation of this work, 1865. ■ ■ • Haefoed : The Life of Michel Anqblo BuoNareoti. By John S. Eabfobd. With translations, &o. 2 vols. London, 1857. Speingee! BAPrABL tmd Michelangelo. Von Anton Spbingbe. (In the Kunst wnd Kv/nstler.) Leipzig 1877-78. Wilson: Life and Works of Michelangelo Buonabeoti. By Chaeles Heath Wilson. Partly compiled irom the Life written by the Commend. Aurelio Gotti, Director of the Boyal Galleries of Florence. London, 1876. INDEX. Adonis, at the Uffizi, The Adrian TI., Pope , AldoTrandiui ... PAGE . 13 33,48 . 12 Bacchus, The , • . .13 Baglioni, Malatesta . . 52 Dattleof Pisa, The . . 20,25 Berfcoldo 8 Biagio da Cesena . . .65 Blaise de Vigen&re . . .67 Bramante ... 39, 80 Buonarroti, Leonardo . 84, 87 Baonarroti Simoni, Lodovioo 5, 9 Capitol, Buildings of the . 67 Capiimes, The . . . 38 Carduccio, The Gionfaloniere . 52 Carpi, Cardinal di . . .82 Cellini, Benvenuto . .25 Christ on the Cross, The . 47 Clement VII., Pope . 35, 54 Colonna, Tittoria . . .71 Condivi . 5, 7, 10, 44, 54, 70 Conversion of St. Paul . . 66 Crucifixion of St. Peter . . 66 Cupid, at the South Kensing- ton Museum, Tlie . . 13 Daniele da Tolterra . . 66 David, The . . , .16 Descent from the Cross, The . 67 Famese Palace, The . . 67 Ficino, Maxsilio . . .10 Florence, Siege and defence of §1 Francesco d'OUanda . . 75 Frizzi, Federigo . . .47 Ghirlandaio .... 7 Gie, Marshal de . . .18 Granacoi, Francesco . . 7, 9 Julius II., Pope . . 27, 41 „ „ Statue of . 31 „ „ Tomi of 26, 33, 36 Julius III., Pope . , .82 Last Judgment, The . . 63 Laurentiau Library, The . 47 Leda, The .... 55 Leo X., Pope . . .35, 46 Leonardo da Vinci , . .23 Lorenzo, Battista . , .88 INDEX. Ill PAGE Maroello, Cardinal . . £3 Medici, Alexander id . . 57 „ Lorenzo de' . . 8 „ Piero de' . 11 Tombs of the 46, 50, 59 Metelli, Antonio . . 47 Mimi, Antonio . 56 Mirandola, Pico della . 10 Moses, The . . 36 Paul III., Pope . 85, 62, 65 Peseara, Ferdinand d'Avaloa, Marquia of . . . .72 Poliziano . . . .10 Raphael . . 41, 45, 86 Eobertet, Treasurer of Louis XII .18 St. Jolvn, Statuette oj , .12 St. Matthew, statuo of . .22 St. Peter's, Michelangelo ap- pointed architect of . .67 San Gallo, Antonio da . 67, 81 PAGE San Griorgio Cardinal . . 12 San Giovanu de' Fiorentini, Church of . . . . 87 Santa Maria Novella, Chuich of 7 SS.Apostoli, Church of the . 87 Santo Spirito, Hospital of . 10 Serravezza Marble Quarries . 45 Sixtine Chapel, The . 39, 63 Sleeping Gwpid, The . . 12 Soderini ... 18, 29 Tombs of the Medici 46, 50, 59 Torriggiano . . . .10 XJrbino, Duke d* . . .85 „ Francesco da . .6 „ Michelangelo's servant 84 Vasaii, Giorgio . 6, 10, 22, 28, 51, 83, 86, 88 Victory, Statue of • . .38 Virgin and Child, bas-relief . 22 Virgin of the Tribune, The . 22 Yolterra, Cardinal da . .29 .Richard Clay ife Boss, Limited, London & Bungay. ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHIES OF THE GREAT ARTISTS. NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 1. Eeprinted from the Times, Jannary 22, 1880. " Few things in the way of small books upon great subjects, avowedly cheap and necessarily brief, have been hitherto so well done as these biographies of the Great Masters in painting. They afford just what a very large proportion of readers in these hurry- ing times wish to be provided with — a sort of concentrated food for the mind. The Liebigs of literature, however, especially in that of the fine arts, need no small amount of critical acumen, much experience in the art of system, and something of the bee-like instinct that guesses rightly where the honey lies. The mere ' boiling down ' of great books will not result in giving us a good little book, unless the essence is properly diluted and set before us in a form that can be readily assimilated, so to speak, and not in an indigestible lump of details. The writers of these biographies have, on the whole, succeeded in giving an excellent aperfu of the painters and their works, and better where they have adhered to the lives written by acknowledged Specialists — such as M. Vosmaer for Rembrandt, Passavant for Raphael, and Dr. Woltmann for Holbein. The life of Holbein is by the editor, with whom the 2 Illustrated Biographies of tlie Great Artists. idea of such a series originated, and to whose great experience is to be attributed the very valuable copies of all the important pictures contained in the different biographies. These have been selected with gi'eat taste and judgment, and being taken generally from less well-known works by the masters, they enhance the interest and add much to the practical utility of the hooks. The chronological lists of the works of the masters are also very useful additions." 2. From La. Chronique des Arts, March 20, 1880. " A un prix d'extrSme bon marche, 4 francs environ, en petits volumes joliment cartonnfo, et ornes do qctinze a vingt planches, la maison Sampson Low, Marston, et Cie., a Londre?, a entrepris de puhlier une serie de biographies des grands artistes, rdsumees d'apres les travaux les plus recents et les plus estimes. Une bihliographie, une liste des gravures executdes par ou d'apres Tarfciste, une liste de ses oeuvres ou de leurs prix; enfin, uu index accompagnant ces r&um& confies a des eorivains distingu^s versfe dans I'histoire de Tart. Ont paru ou sont en preparation dans cette serie de notices : Titien, Rembrandt, Raphael, Yan Dyck et Hals, Holbein, Tintoret, Turner, Rubens, Michel-Ange, Leonard, Giotto, Gainsborough, Velasquez, Perugin, Reynolds, Landseer, Delaroche et Vernet, les Petit Maitres, les Peintres de figure en Hollande. "Peut-fetre la maison Sampson Low, Marston, et CSe., devrait-elle tenter une Edition fran^aise de ces jolis et inteiessants petits volumes s^rieusement etudies, dont la brievetS substantielle et le bon marche deviennent une benediction par ce temps d'enormes publications a prix non moins ^normes." — Dubaitit. LO>fDON: SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & Co., La