Part 1

[Frontispiece: THE DAVID.]

Bell's Miniature Series of Painters

MICHELANGELO

BY

EDWARD C. STRUTT

LONDON GEORGE BELL & SONS 1908

First Published, January, 1904. Reprinted, 1908.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SOME BOOKS ABOUT MICHELANGELO

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

CHRONOLOGY OF THE ARTIST'S LIFE

LIFE OF MICHELANGELO

THE ART OF MICHELANGELO

OUR ILLUSTRATIONS

LIST OF THE ARTIST'S CHIEF WORKS IN PUBLIC GALLERIES

SOME BOOKS ABOUT MICHELANGELO

"Carte Michelangiolescheinedite." Milano, 1865.

"Vita di Michelangelo Buonarroti," by A. Condivi. Pisa, 1823.

"Michelangelo," by H. Knackfuss. Berlin, 1895.

"Michel Ange," by E. Ollivier. Paris, 1892.

"The Lives and Works of Michelangelo and Raphael," by Quatremere de Quincy.

"Michelangelo," by L. von Scheffler. 1892.

"Michelangiolo in Rom, 1508-1512," by A. Springer. Leipzig, 1875.

"Life and works of M. A. Buonarroti," by Charles Heath Wilson. London, 1876.

"Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti," by John Addington Symonds. London, 1893.

"Michelangelo Buonarroti," by Sir Charles Holroyd. London, 1903.

"An account of the drawings by Raphael and Michelangelo in the University Galleries of Oxford," by Sir J. C. Robinson.

"Michael Angelo," by Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower. London, 1903.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE DAVID _Accademia, Florence, Frontispiece_

PORTRAIT OF MICHELANGELO _Uffizi Gallery, Florence_

THE CREATION OF MAN _Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome_

TOMB OF LORENZO DE' MEDICI _New Sacristy, San Lorenzo, Florence_

CENTRAL GROUP OF THE LAST JUDGMENT _Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome_

THE MADONNA DELLA PIETÀ _St. Peter's, Rome_

THE HOLY FAMILY _Uffizi Gallery, Florence_

THE MOSES _San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome_

CHRONOLOGY OF MICHELANGELO'S LIFE

1475. Born at Caprese.

1488. Is apprenticed to Domenico Ghirlandajo.

1489-92. Studies sculpture under the patronage of Lorenzo il Magnifico.

1504. Enters into competition with Leonardo da Vinci.

1505. Goes to Rome at the invitation of Pope Julius II.

1508. Begins painting ceiling of Sistine Chapel.

1512. Completes it.

1521. Commences Medicean Tombs in San Lorenzo.

1529. Fortifies Florence against Charles V.

1535-41. Paints Last Judgment.

1547. Begins building Cupola of St. Peter's.

1564. Dies in Rome.

THE LIFE OF MICHELANGELO

In the quaintly written diary of Messer Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, a well-to-do Florentine citizen, the following entry, dated March 6th, 1475, may still be found: "To-day there was born unto me a male child, whom I have named Michelagnolo.[1] He saw the light at Caprese, whereof I am Podestà, on Monday morning, 6th March, between four and five o'clock, and on the 8th of the same month he was baptized in the church of San Giovanni." Messer Lodovico had been appointed _Podestà_, or Governor, of Chiusi and Caprese in the Casentino by Lorenzo de Medici only a few months before penning this memorandum, so that, by a strange caprice of fate, it was here, in the little town overshadowed by the rugged Sasso della Verna, hallowed by the ecstatic visions of St. Francis of Assisi, and not in Florence, in the Athens of the Italian Renaissance, where resurrected Paganism ran riot and triumphed, that the longest and most glorious career in the history of art and of human endeavour began.

[1] This is the archaic form of _angelo_. The name is also sometimes spelt _Michelangiolo_, but I have thought it advisable to adopt the modern and more generally accepted _Michelangelo_.

Vasari and Condivi, Michelangelo's pupils and enthusiastic biographers, maintain that the Buonarroti family was closely related to the great house of the Counts of Canossa, a conviction fully shared, curiously enough, by the artist himself, who rather prided himself on his aristocratic connection. But recent genealogical researches have proved beyond all doubt that, although of gentle birth (both his father and his mother, Madonna Francesca di Miniato Del Sera, coming of ancient Florentine stock), Michelangelo could not in reality lay claim to even distant ties of kinship with the Canossa family.

On the expiration of his term of office as Podestà of Caprese, which extended little over a year, Messer Lodovico returned with his family to Settignano, the picturesque little village built on a vine-clad slope overlooking Florence, where, in an old-fashioned mansion nestling among olive trees and surrounded by a well-cultivated _podere_, many generations of the Buonarroti had lived and died. Before leaving Caprese, however, the proud father had the child's horoscope cast, and greatly did he rejoice when the astrologer announced that a singularly lucky combination of the planets had presided over the birth of his boy, who was destined "to perform wonders with his mind and with his hands," a prophecy which was amply fulfilled.

FIRST FLORENTINE PERIOD

The removal of the Buonarroti family to Settignano, the little village almost exclusively inhabited by stonemasons and workers in marble, exercised a most decisive influence on the child's future career. Indeed, Michelangelo himself used to say half jestingly, that as he had been given out to nurse to a stonemason's wife, the mania for sculpture must have entered his blood together with the milk which he had sucked as a babe. A mallet and a chisel and bits of marble were the only toys that the infant Michelangelo cared for, and it is recorded of him that when he grew up to be a sturdy boy of ten he could use his tools almost as skilfully as his foster-father himself. He soon became more ambitious, and would pass whole hours with chalk and charcoal, trying to copy the marble figures and ornaments plentifully strewn about.

For it was a busy time at Settignano, whose hundreds of stone-carvers were hardly able to cope with the numerous commissions which poured in upon them from the merchant princes of Florence, anxious to rival Lorenzo the Magnificent in the building and decoration of splendid palaces. A spirited drawing of a faun by Michelangelo's boyish hand may still be seen on a wall of the Buonarroti Villa.

Messer Lodovico did everything in his power to discourage these marked artistic tendencies, and in order the better to uproot what he regarded as a worthless inclination, he sent the boy to a grammar-school in Florence, away from the dangerous _milieu_ of Settignano, with its unceasing din of hammer and chisel on reverberating marble, which was sweet music to Michelangelo's ear. But although Maestro Francesco da Urbino, to whose care Messer Lodovico had entrusted his son, frequently had recourse to the most persuasive and forcible arguments, they were entirely lost on young Michelangelo, who had instinctively drifted into the company of the garzoni and pupils of leading Florentine artists, and sadly neglected his books in order to devote himself with growing enthusiasm to the study of art.

Amongst his new friends was Francesco Granacci, a pupil of Domenico Ghirlandajo, who often lent him drawings to copy, and took him to his master's _bottega_ whenever any work was going forward from which he might learn. "So powerfully," says Condivi, "did these sights move Michelangelo, that he altogether abandoned letters; so that his father, who held art in contempt, often beat him severely for it." But it soon became apparent that blows and persuasion were equally unavailing, and Messer Lodovico finally gave up the hopeless struggle, apprenticing his thirteen-year-old son on April 1st, 1488, to Domenico and David Ghirlandajo, reputed the best painters of the time in Florence. Although a mere child, Michelangelo was evidently already able to make himself useful in the studio, for instead of paying a certain sum for his apprenticeship, as was usually the case, it was stipulated that he should receive twenty-four florins, about £8 12_s._, during the three years of its duration.

Michelangelo's first picture was a strikingly faithful copy of Martin Schongauer's famous _Temptation of St. Antony_, which he painted with a realistic force considered wonderful for a child of his age. A number of anecdotes illustrative of the precocity of the boy's genius, are related by Condivi and by Vasari. "Michelangelo," says the latter, "grew in power and character so rapidly that Domenico was astonished seeing him do things quite extraordinary in a youth, for he not only surpassed the other students, but often equalled the work done by his master. It happened that Domenico was working in the great chapel of Santa Maria Novella, and one day when he was out Michelangelo set himself to draw from nature the scaffolding, the tables with all the materials of the art, and some of the young men at work. Presently Domenico returned, and saw Michelangelo's drawing. He was astonished, saying 'this boy knows more than I do;' and he was stupefied by this style and new realism; 'a gift from heaven to a child of such tender years.'"

Michelangelo derived very little advantage from his apprenticeship to Domenico Ghirlandajo, who was actually jealous of his pupil and gave him little or no assistance in his studies. He may have picked up some practical knowledge, however, transferring cartoons for his master in the church of Santa Maria Novella, painting draperies and ornaments, mixing colours for fresco painting, and generally fulfilling the rather menial duties which fell to the lot of an artist's apprentice in those days. The boy had no fixed plan or method of study, but devoted himself principally to drawing, in which he soon acquired a boldness and security of line never attained by his master, whose faulty cartoons Michelangelo often had the courage to correct.

It was in the gardens of the Medici at San Marco, where Lorenzo the Magnificent had collected many antique statues and decorative sculptures, that Michelangelo finally discovered his real artistic vocation, and here he would spend many hours every day, assimilating the Hellenic spirit which emanated from the masterpieces before him.

Lorenzo's principal object in establishing a museum of antique sculpture at San Marco had been to raise Florentine sculpture from the state of comparative neglect into which it had fallen since the death of Donatello. He therefore appointed one Bertoldo, who had been foreman of Donatello's workshop, keeper of the collection, with a special commission to encourage and instruct the young men who studied there. But there was evidently a great lack of students, for Lorenzo had recourse to Domenico Ghirlandajo, requesting him to select from his pupils those he considered the most promising, and send them to work in the garden of San Marco. Domenico, nothing loth to get rid of his two most ambitious apprentices, selected Francesco Granacci and Michelangelo, and it was thus that the latter came under the influence of Donatello's school. Of Bertoldo, who must be considered Michelangelo's first instructor in the art of sculpture, and who doubtless had a great share in shaping his genius, very little is known beyond Vasari's statement that "although he was old and could not work, he was none the less an able and highly reputed artist." The magnificent pulpits of San Lorenzo, begun by Donatello and completed by Bertoldo, amply suffice to confirm Vasari's eulogistic estimate.

Under such a master Michelangelo made rapid progress, and by his first attempt at sculpture, a mask of a grinning Faun, attracted the attention of Lorenzo the Magnificent, who took the keenest interest in the art school which he had founded. So struck was Lorenzo with the boy's genius, that he prevailed upon Messer Lodovico, not without the greatest difficulty, to entrust the talented young sculptor to his care. Vasari tells us that "he gave Michelangelo a good room in his own house with all that he needed, treating him like a son, with a seat at his table, which was frequented every day by noblemen and men of great importance."

Michelangelo's daily companions at this hospitable board were such men as Pico della Mirandola, surnamed "the prince of wisdom," Marsilio Ficino, the expounder of Plato, and the poets Luigi Pulci and Angelo Poliziano. It was the latter who suggested the subject of Michelangelo's first important work, a bas-relief, now in the Casa Buonarroti, representing the _Battle of the Centaurs and Lapithae_. It is a singularly powerful composition, conceived and carried out with a freedom and originality little short of miraculous in a boy of fifteen. The struggling groups of combatants, instinct with life and energy, the masterful treatment of anatomical problems, and the already profound knowledge of the human frame, reveal the future author of the _Last Judgment_.

Michelangelo himself, when at the height of his artistic greatness, used to say that he had never quite fulfilled the splendid promise contained in this youthful work of his. Apart from its intrinsic merit, this bas-relief is interesting as illustrating Michelangelo's complete independence from the school and methods of Donatello. His bold and original genius had sought inspiration directly from the antique, and the _Battle of the Centaurs and Lapithae_ might easily be taken for a fragment from some Roman sarcophagus. In view of these very pronounced characteristics, it is difficult to understand why another bas-relief, also in the Casa Buonarroti, representing a seated Madonna with the Infant Jesus, and chiefly notable for its almost servile imitation of Donatello's manner, should be ascribed by most critics to this same period. Indeed, the execution and design of this _Madonna and Child_ are so inferior as to render it a work of extremely doubtful authenticity.

Although he applied himself principally to the study of sculpture, Michelangelo continued to devote many hours every day to drawing, and, like most young artists of his age, he drew and studied assiduously in the Brancacci Chapel of the Church of the Carmine, containing the famous frescoes of Masaccio and his followers. Conscious of his own superiority, Michelangelo was, it appears, in the habit of frankly criticizing the work of his fellow-students in the Brancacci Chapel, and one of these, named Piero Torrigiani, a brutal and proud fellow, got so angry one day that he hit Michelangelo a formidable blow on the nose, breaking the cartilage and disfiguring his critic for life. For this act of temper Torrigiani was banished from Florence, but it is pleasant to know that Michelangelo successfully interceded with Lorenzo on behalf of the man who had assaulted him.

Michelangelo had just completed the _Battle of the Centaurs and Lapithae_ when he lost his best friend and munificent patron, to whom he had become deeply attached. On April 8th, 1492, Lorenzo the Magnificent died at Careggi, sincerely mourned, not only in Florence, but throughout Italy. The generous encouragement which he gave to art and letters, the power and splendour which he bestowed on Florence in exchange for her lost liberty, more as an infatuated lover dowering a wayward bride than as a conqueror imposing his will, the consummate ability displayed in his diplomatic dealings with the other Italian States, these were the principal merits which justified the proud title of _Il Magnifico_, conferred on him by his contemporaries, and which caused Lorenzo's death to be regarded as a public calamity throughout Italy.

So much grief, says Condivi, did Michelangelo feel for his patron's death, that for some time he was quite unable to work. He left the Medicean palace, which had been his home during three years, and returned to his father's house. But his love for art was stronger than his grief, and after a few weeks, when he was himself again, he bought a large piece of marble that had for many years been exposed to the wind and rain, and carved a Hercules out of it. This statue was placed in the Strozzi Palace, where it stood until the siege of Florence in 1530, when Giovanni Battista della Palla bought it and sent it into France as a gift to King Francis I. It has unfortunately been lost.

At this time Michelangelo applied himself most diligently to the study of anatomy, a profound knowledge of which is apparent in all his subsequent works. He was indebted to the Prior of Santo Spirito for many kindnesses, amongst others for the use of a room where he dissected the subjects, for the most part executed criminals, which the Prior placed at his disposal. "Nothing," says Condivi, "could have given Michelangelo more pleasure, and this was the beginning of his anatomical studies, which he followed until he had completely mastered the secrets of the human frame."

It is surprising that artists of the Cinquecento should have enjoyed privileges for practically studying anatomy which were denied to physicians. When the famous Dr. Hunter saw Leonardo da Vinci's anatomical drawings and their descriptions, preserved in the library of George III., he discovered with astonishment that the artist had been a deep student, "and was at that time the best anatomist in the world." Michelangelo, as Vasari tells us, "dissected many dead bodies, zealously studying anatomy," whereas Cortesius, professor of anatomy at Bologna, who wrote a century later, complains that he was prevented finishing a treatise on "Practical Anatomy" in consequence of having only been able twice to dissect a human body in the course of twenty-four years. To please his friend the Prior, Michelangelo carved a crucifix in wood, a little under life size, which was placed over the high altar of the church of Santo Spirito, but which has since been lost.

Piero de' Medici, the Magnifico's son and successor, had inherited none of his father's brilliant qualities. He was proud and insolent, and his coarse tastes and manners soon lost him that popularity which had been Lorenzo's stepping-stone to greatness. Michelangelo, who had been his companion as a boy, and whom he persuaded to accept his hospitality, was ill at ease in the house of a Prince who could so far insult the sensitive artist as to boast that he had two remarkable men in his establishment, Michelangelo and a certain Spanish groom remarkable for his athletic prowess, thus placing both on the same level.

Too proud to tolerate such treatment, and foreseeing Piero's approaching fall, Michelangelo left Florence early in the year 1494 and went first to Venice, where he failed to find employment, and thence to Bologna. Here he was hospitably received by a gentleman named Messer Gian Francesco Aldovrandi, who not only paid a fine of fifty Bolognese lire to which the impecunious young sculptor had been condemned for having neglected to provide himself with a passport, but invited him to his house and honoured him highly, "delighting in his genius, and every evening he made him read something from Dante or from Petrarca, or now and then from Boccaccio, until he fell asleep."

While staying with Aldovrandi, and thanks to his recommendation, Michelangelo completed an unfinished statue of San Petronio in the church of San Domenico and carved a statuette of a kneeling angel holding a candlestick for the arca or shrine of the saint, begun by Nicolò di Bari. It is a beautiful and highly finished work, which was greatly admired and for which he received thirty ducats. His success aroused the fierce jealousy of the Bolognese sculptors, and it was under fear of personal violence from the native craftsmen, who accused him of taking the bread out of their mouths, that Michelangelo hastily left Bologna in the spring of 1495 and returned to Florence.

In November of the preceding year Piero de' Medici had had to fly from the city over whose destinies he was so unfit to preside, and when Michelangelo returned to Florence he found that Savonarola had established a popular government. The fiery Dominican, with his inspired eloquence, his ascetic fervour and an energy bordering upon violence, was exactly a man after Michelangelo's heart, and Savonarola's impassioned and gloomy appeals made an indelible impression upon him. The _Last Judgment_ in the Sistine Chapel might almost be regarded as a pictorial rendering of one of the terrible frate's sermons.

Although only twenty years of age, Michelangelo, of whom it has been said "that he was never young," was made a member of the General Council of Citizens. But his political duties did not take up much of his time, for to this period must be ascribed the statue of a youthful St. John the Baptist, executed for Lorenzo di Pier Francesco, a cousin of the exiled Medici, and now in the Berlin Museum. It is a charming but somewhat effeminate figure, differing strangely from the powerful and rugged style to which we are accustomed in Michelangelo's works. Lorenzo, however, was delighted with it and became a staunch friend and admirer of the young sculptor, whose studio he frequently visited. On one occasion he found Michelangelo at work on a _Sleeping Cupid_ so perfectly modelled and conceived in a spirit so truly Hellenic, as to appear a masterpiece of antique art. Lorenzo suggested that Michelangelo should make it look as if it had been buried under the earth for many centuries, so that the statue, being taken for a genuine antique, would sell much better, and the artist, more out of professional pride than in hopes of gain, followed his friend's suggestion. _The Sleeping Cupid_ was sent to Rome, where Raffaelo Riario, Cardinal di San Giorgio, bought it as an antique for two hundred ducats, an evidence not so much of the Cardinal's ignorance as of Michelangelo's careful study of classical art.

This work was indirectly the cause of Michelangelo's first coming to Rome, for the Cardinal having discovered that his Cupid had been made in Florence was at first very angry at having been fooled, and insisted on the dealer, Baldassare del Milanese, taking back the statue and refunding the two hundred ducats (of which sum, by the way, Michelangelo had only received thirty ducats), but when his anger had subsided, the prelate, who was a liberal patron of art, shrewdly concluded that a sculptor who could so well imitate the antique was worth encouraging, and he forthwith despatched one of his gentlemen to Florence for the express purpose of discovering the mysterious forger and bringing him to Rome.

The Cardinal's emissary, after much fruitless search, chanced upon Michelangelo in his studio, and was so struck with the masterful manner in which the young sculptor made a pen-drawing of a hand in his presence, that he began to cross-examine him discreetly about his other works, and gradually learned all the story of the Cupid. Michelangelo, who longed to see Rome, which his visitor extolled as the widest field for an artist to study and to show his genius in, readily consented to leave Florence. In fact it appears that he was not very popular among his fellow-citizens owing to his former intimacy with the exiled Medici, and so, towards the end of June, 1496, he set foot in Rome for the first time. As to the _Sleeping Cupid_, nothing is known about its fate beyond the fact that it fell into the hands of Cesare Borgia at the sack of Urbino in 1592, and was by him presented to the Marchioness of Mantua, who in acknowledging the gift describes it as "without a peer among the works of modern times."