CHAPTER I
IThe
Buonarroti Simoni, to whom Michelangelo belonged, were a Florentine
family of ancient burgher nobility. Their arms appear to have been
originally "azure two bends or." To this coat was added "a
label of four points gules inclosing three fleur-de-lys or."
That augmentation, adopted from the shield of Charles of Anjou,
occurs upon the scutcheons of many Guelf houses and cities. In the
case of the Florentine Simoni, it may be ascribed to the period when
Buonarrota di Simone Simoni held office as a captain of the Guelf
party (1392). Such, then, was the paternal coat borne by the subject
of this Memoir. His brother Buonarroto received a further
augmentation in 1515 from Leo X., to wit: "upon a chief or, a
pellet azure charged with fleur-de-lys or, between the capital
letters L. and X." At the same time he was created Count
Palatine. The old and simple bearing of the two bends was then
crowded down into the extreme base of the shield, while the Angevine
label found room beneath the chief.According
to a vague tradition, the Simoni drew their blood from the high and
puissant Counts of Canossa. Michelangelo himself believed in this
pedigree, for which there is, however, no foundation in fact, and no
heraldic corroboration. According to his friend and biographer
Condivi, the sculptor's first Florentine ancestor was a Messer Simone
dei Conti di Canossa, who came in 1250 as Podestà to Florence. "The
eminent qualities of this man gained for him admission into the
burghership of the city, and he was appointed captain of a Sestiere;
for Florence in those days was divided into Sestieri, instead of
Quartieri, as according to the present usage." Michelangelo's
contemporary, the Count Alessandro da Canossa, acknowledged this
relationship. Writing on the 9th of October 1520, he addresses the
then famous sculptor as "honoured kinsman," and gives the
following piece of information: "Turning over my old papers, I
have discovered that a Messere Simone da Canossa was Podestà of
Florence, as I have already mentioned to the above-named Giovanni da
Reggio." Nevertheless, it appears now certain that no Simone da
Canossa held the office of Podestà at Florence in the thirteenth
century. The family can be traced up to one Bernardo, who died before
the year 1228. His grandson was called Buonarrota, and the fourth in
descent was Simone. These names recur frequently in the next
generations. Michelangelo always addressed his father as "Lodovico
di Lionardo di Buonarrota Simoni," or "Louis, the son of
Leonard, son of Buonarrota Simoni;" and he used the family
surname of Simoni in writing to his brothers and his nephew Lionardo.
Yet he preferred to call himself Michelangelo Buonarroti; and after
his lifetime Buonarroti became fixed for the posterity of his younger
brother. "The reason," says Condivi, "why the family
in Florence changed its name from Canossa to Buonarroti was this:
Buonarroto continued for many generations to be repeated in their
house, down to the time of Michelangelo, who had a brother of that
name; and inasmuch as several of these Buonarroti held rank in the
supreme magistracy of the republic, especially the brother I have
just mentioned, who filled the office of Prior during Pope Leo's
visit to Florence, as may be read in the annals of that city, this
baptismal name, by force of frequent repetition, became the cognomen
of the whole family; the more easily, because it is the custom at
Florence, in elections and nominations of officers, to add the
Christian names of the father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and
sometimes even of remoter ancestors, to that of each citizen.
Consequently, through the many Buonarroti who followed one another,
and from the Simone who was the first founder of the house in
Florence, they gradually came to be called Buonarroti Simoni, which
is their present designation." Excluding the legend about Simone
da Canossa, this is a pretty accurate account of what really
happened. Italian patronymics were formed indeed upon the same rule
as those of many Norman families in Great Britain. When the use of Di
and Fitz expired, Simoni survived from Di Simone, as did my surname
Symonds from Fitz-Symond.On
the 6th of March 1475, according to our present computation, Lodovico
di Lionardo Buonarroti Simoni wrote as follows in his private
notebook: "I record that on this day, March 6, 1474, a male
child was born to me. I gave him the name of Michelangelo, and he was
born on a Monday morning four or five hours before daybreak, and he
was born while I was Podestà of Caprese, and he was born at Caprese;
and the godfathers were those I have named below. He was baptized on
the eighth of the same month in the Church of San Giovanni at
Caprese. These are the godfathers:—DON
DANIELLO DI SER BUONAGUIDA of Florence,Rector
of San Giovanni at Caprese; DON
ANDREA DI …. of Poppi, Rector of the Abbey of
Diasiano (i.e.,
Dicciano); JACOPO
DI FRANCESCO of Casurio (?); MARCO
DI GIORGIO of Caprese; GIOVANNI
DI BIAGIO of Caprese; ANDREA
DI BIAGIO of Caprese; FRANCESCO
DI JACOPO DEL ANDUINO (?) of Caprese; SER
BARTOLOMMEO DI SANTI DEL LANSE (?), Notary."Note
that the date is March 6, 1474, according to Florentine usage
ab incarnatione,
and according to the Roman usage,
a nativitate, it is
1475.Vasari
tells us that the planets were propitious at the moment of
Michelangelo's nativity: "Mercury and Venus having entered with
benign aspect into the house of Jupiter, which indicated that
marvellous and extraordinary works, both of manual art and intellect,
were to be expected from him."IICaprese,
from its beauty and remoteness, deserved to be the birthplace of a
great artist. It is not improbable that Lodovico Buonarroti and his
wife Francesca approached it from Pontassieve in Valdarno, crossing
the little pass of Consuma, descending on the famous battle-field of
Campaldino, and skirting the ancient castle of the Conti Guidi at
Poppi. Every step in the romantic journey leads over ground hallowed
by old historic memories. From Poppi the road descends the Arno to a
richly cultivated district, out of which emerges on its hill the
prosperous little town of Bibbiena. High up to eastward springs the
broken crest of La Vernia, a mass of hard millstone rock (macigno)
jutting from desolate beds of lime and shale at the height of some
3500 feet above the sea. It was here, among the sombre groves of
beech and pine which wave along the ridge, that S. Francis came to
found his infant Order, composed the Hymn to the Sun, and received
the supreme honour of the stigmata. To this point Dante retired when
the death of Henry VII. extinguished his last hopes for Italy. At one
extremity of the wedge-like block which forms La Vernia, exactly on
the watershed between Arno and Tiber, stands the ruined castle of
Chiusi in Casentino. This was one of the two chief places of Lodovico
Buonarroti's podesteria. It may be said to crown the valley of the
Arno; for the waters gathered here flow downwards toward Arezzo, and
eventually wash the city walls of Florence. A few steps farther,
travelling south, we pass into the valley of the Tiber, and, after
traversing a barren upland region for a couple of hours, reach the
verge of the descent upon Caprese. Here the landscape assumes a
softer character. Far away stretch blue Apennines, ridge melting into
ridge above Perugia in the distance. Gigantic oaks begin to clothe
the stony hillsides, and little by little a fertile mountain district
of chestnut-woods and vineyards expands before our eyes, equal in
charm to those aërial hills and vales above Pontremoli. Caprese has
no central commune or head-village. It is an aggregate of scattered
hamlets and farmhouses, deeply embosomed in a sea of greenery. Where
the valley contracts and the infant Tiber breaks into a gorge, rises
a wooded rock crowned with the ruins of an ancient castle. It was
here, then, that Michelangelo first saw the light. When we discover
that he was a man of more than usually nervous temperament, very
different in quality from any of his relatives, we must not forget
what a fatiguing journey had been performed by his mother, who was
then awaiting her delivery. Even supposing that Lodovico Buonarroti
travelled from Florence by Arezzo to Caprese, many miles of rough
mountain-roads must have been traversed by her on horseback.IIILudovico,
who, as we have seen, was Podestà of Caprese and of Chiusi in the
Casentino, had already one son by his first wife, Francesca, the
daughter of Neri di Miniato del Sera and Bonda Rucellai. This elder
brother, Lionardo, grew to manhood, and become a devoted follower of
Savonarola. Under the influence of the Ferrarese friar, he determined
to abjure the world, and entered the Dominican Order in 1491. We know
very little about him, and he is only once mentioned in
Michelangelo's correspondence. Even this reference cannot be
considered certain. Writing to his father from Rome, July 1, 1497,
Michelangelo says: "I let you know that Fra Lionardo returned
hither to Rome. He says that he was forced to fly from Viterbo, and
that his frock had been taken from him, wherefore he wished to go
there (i.e.,
to Florence). So I gave him a golden ducat, which he asked for; and I
think you ought already to have learned this, for he should be there
by this time." When Lionardo died is uncertain. We only know
that he was in the convent of S. Mark at Florence in the year 1510.
Owing to this brother's adoption of the religious life, Michelangelo
became, early in his youth, the eldest son of Lodovico's family. It
will be seen that during the whole course of his long career he acted
as the mainstay of his father, and as father to his younger brothers.
The strength and the tenacity of his domestic affections are very
remarkable in a man who seems never to have thought of marrying.
"Art," he used to say, "is a sufficiently exacting
mistress." Instead of seeking to beget children for his own
solace, he devoted himself to the interests of his kinsmen.The
office of Podestà lasted only six months, and at the expiration of
this term Lodovico returned to Florence. He put the infant
Michelangelo out to nurse in the village of Settignano, where the
Buonarroti Simoni owned a farm. Most of the people of that district
gained their livelihood in the stone-quarries around Settignano and
Maiano on the hillside of Fiesole. Michelangelo's foster-mother was
the daughter and the wife of stone-cutters. "George," said
he in after-years to his friend Vasari, "if I possess anything
of good in my mental constitution, it comes from my having been born
in your keen climate of Arezzo; just as I drew the chisel and the
mallet with which I carve statues in together with my nurse's milk."When
Michelangelo was of age to go to school, his father put him under a
grammarian at Florence named Francesco da Urbino. It does not appear,
however, that he learned more than reading and writing in Italian,
for later on in life we find him complaining that he knew no Latin.
The boy's genius attracted him irresistibly to art. He spent all his
leisure time in drawing, and frequented the society of youths who
were apprenticed to masters in painting and sculpture. Among these he
contracted an intimate friendship with Francesco Granacci, at that
time in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandajo. Granacci used to lend
him drawings by Ghirlandajo, and inspired him with the resolution to
become a practical artist. Condivi says that "Francesco's
influence, combined with the continual craving of his nature, made
him at last abandon literary studies. This brought the boy into
disfavour with his father and uncles, who often used to beat him
severely; for, being insensible to the excellence and nobility of
Art, they thought it shameful to give her shelter in their house.
Nevertheless, albeit their opposition caused him the greatest sorrow,
it was not sufficient to deter him from his steady purpose. On the
contrary, growing even bolder he determined to work in colours."
Condivi, whose narrative preserves for us Michelangelo's own
recollections of his youthful years, refers to this period the
painted copy made by the young draughtsman from a copper-plate of
Martin Schöngauer. We should probably be right in supposing that the
anecdote is slightly antedated. I give it, however, as nearly as
possible in the biographer's own words. "Granacci happened to
show him a print of S. Antonio tormented by the devils. This was the
work of Martino d'Olanda, a good artist for the times in which he
lived; and Michelangelo transferred the composition to a panel.
Assisted by the same friend with colours and brushes, he treated his
subject in so masterly a way that it excited surprise in all who saw
it, and even envy, as some say, in Domenico, the greatest painter of
his age. In order to diminish the extraordinary impression produced
by this picture, Ghirlandajo went about saying that it came out of
his own workshop, as though he had some part in the performance.
While engaged on this piece, which, beside the figure of the saint,
contained many strange forms and diabolical monstrosities,
Michelangelo coloured no particular without going first to Nature and
comparing her truth with his fancies. Thus he used to frequent the
fish-market, and study the shape and hues of fishes' fins, the colour
of their eyes, and so forth in the case of every part belonging to
them; all of which details he reproduced with the utmost diligence in
his painting." Whether this transcript from Schöngauer was made
as early as Condivi reports may, as I have said, be reasonably
doubted. The anecdote is interesting, however, as showing in what a
naturalistic spirit Michelangelo began to work. The unlimited mastery
which he acquired over form, and which certainly seduced him at the
close of his career into a stylistic mannerism, was based in the
first instance upon profound and patient interrogation of reality.IVLodovico
perceived at length that it was useless to oppose his son's natural
bent. Accordingly, he sent him into Ghirlandajo's workshop. A minute
from Ghirlandajo's ledger, under the date 1488, gives information
regarding the terms of the apprenticeship. "I record this first
of April how I, Lodovico di Lionardo di Buonarrota, bind my son
Michelangelo to Domenico and Davit di Tommaso di Currado for the next
three ensuing years, under these conditions and contracts: to wit,
that the said Michelangelo shall stay with the above-named masters
during this time, to learn the art of painting, and to practise the
same, and to be at the orders of the above-named; and they, for their
part, shall give to him in the course of these three years
twenty-four florins (fiorini
di suggello): to
wit, six florins in the first year, eight in the second, ten in the
third; making in all the sum of ninety-six pounds (lire)."
A postscript, dated April 16th of the same year, 1488, records that
two florins were paid to Michelangelo upon that day.It
seems that Michelangelo retained no very pleasant memory of his
sojourn with the Ghirlandajo brothers. Condivi, in the passage
translated above, hints that Domenico was jealous of him. He proceeds
as follows: "This jealousy betrayed itself still more when
Michelangelo once begged the loan of a certain sketch-book, wherein
Domenico had portrayed shepherds with their flocks and watchdogs,
landscapes, buildings, ruins, and such-like things. The master
refused to lend it; and indeed he had the fame of being somewhat
envious; for not only showed he thus scant courtesy toward
Michelangelo, but he also treated his brother likewise, sending him
into France when he saw that he was making progress and putting forth
great promise; and doing this not so much for any profit to David, as
that he might himself remain the first of Florentine painters. I have
thought fit to mention these things, because I have been told that
Domenico's son is wont to ascribe the genius and divinity of
Michelangelo in great part to his father's teaching, whereas the
truth is that he received no assistance from that master. I ought,
however, to add that Michelangelo does not complain: on the contrary,
he praises Domenico both as artist and as man."This
passage irritated Vasari beyond measure. He had written his first
Life of Michelangelo in 1550. Condivi published his own modest
biography in 1553, with the expressed intention of correcting errors
and supplying deficiencies made by "others," under which
vague word he pointed probably at Vasari. Michelangelo, who furnished
Condivi with materials, died in 1564; and Vasari, in 1568, issued a
second enlarged edition of the Life, into which he cynically
incorporated what he chose to steal from Condivi's sources. The
supreme Florentine sculptor being dead and buried, Vasari felt that
he was safe in giving the lie direct to this humble rival biographer.
Accordingly, he spoke as follows about Michelangelo's relations with
Domenico Ghirlandajo: "He was fourteen years of age when he
entered that master's service, and inasmuch as one (Condivi), who
composed his biography after 1550, when I had published these Lives
for the first time, declares that certain persons, from want of
familiarity with Michelangelo, have recorded things that did not
happen, and have omitted others worthy of relation; and in particular
has touched upon the point at issue, accusing Domenico of envy, and
saying that he never rendered Michelangelo assistance."—Here
Vasari, out of breath with indignation, appeals to the record of
Lodovico's contract with the Ghirlandajo brothers. "These
minutes," he goes on to say, "I copied from the ledger, in
order to show that everything I formerly published, or which will be
published at the present time, is truth. Nor am I acquainted with any
one who had greater familiarity with Michelangelo than I had, or who
served him more faithfully in friendly offices; nor do I believe that
a single man could exhibit a larger number of letters written with
his own hand, or evincing greater personal affection, than I can."This
contention between Condivi and Vasari, our two contemporary
authorities upon the facts of Michelangelo's life, may not seem to be
a matter of great moment for his biographer after the lapse of four
centuries. Yet the first steps in the art-career of so exceptional a
genius possess peculiar interest. It is not insignificant to
ascertain, so far as now is possible, what Michelangelo owed to his
teachers. In equity, we acknowledge that Lodovico's record on the
ledger of the Ghirlandajo brothers proves their willingness to take
him as a prentice, and their payment to him of two florins in
advance; but the same record does not disprove Condivi's statement,
derived from his old master's reminiscences, to the effect that
Domenico Ghirlandajo was in no way greatly serviceable to him as an
instructor. The fault, in all probability, did not lie with
Ghirlandajo alone. Michelangelo, as we shall have occasions in plenty
to observe, was difficult to live with; frank in speech to the point
of rudeness, ready with criticism, incapable of governing his temper,
and at no time apt to work harmoniously with fellow-craftsmen. His
extraordinary force and originality of genius made themselves felt,
undoubtedly, at the very outset of his career; and Ghirlandajo may be
excused if, without being positively jealous of the young eagle
settled in his homely nest, he failed to do the utmost for this
gifted and rough-natured child of promise. Beethoven's discontent
with Haydn as a teacher offers a parallel; and sympathetic students
of psychology will perceive that Ghirlandajo and Haydn were almost
superfluous in the training of phenomenal natures like Michelangelo
and Beethoven.Vasari,
passing from controversy to the gossip of the studio, has sketched a
pleasant picture of the young Buonarroti in his master's employ. "The
artistic and personal qualities of Michelangelo developed so rapidly
that Domenico was astounded by signs of power in him beyond the
ordinary scope of youth. He perceived, in short, that he not only
surpassed the other students, of whom Ghirlandajo had a large number
under his tuition, but also that he often competed on an equality
with the master. One of the lads who worked there made a pen-drawing
of some women, clothed, from a design of Ghirlandajo. Michelangelo
took up the paper, and with a broader nib corrected the outline of a
female figure, so as to bring it into perfect truth to life.
Wonderful it was to see the difference of the two styles, and to note
the judgment and ability of a mere boy, so spirited and bold, who had
the courage to chastise his master's handiwork! This drawing I now
preserve as a precious relique, since it was given me by Granacci,
that it might take a place in my Book of Original Designs, together
with others presented to me by Michelangelo. In the year 1550, when I
was in Rome, I Giorgio showed it to Michelangelo, who recognised it
immediately, and was pleased to see it again, observing modestly that
he knew more about the art when he was a child than now in his old
age."It
happened then that Domenico was engaged upon the great Chapel of S.
Maria Novella; and being absent one day, Michelangelo set himself to
draw from nature the whole scaffolding, with some easels and all the
appurtenances of the art, and a few of the young men at work there.
When Domenico returned and saw the drawing, he exclaimed: 'This
fellow knows more about it than I do,' and remained quite stupefied
by the new style and the new method of imitation, which a boy of
years so tender had received as a gift from heaven."Both
Condivi and Vasari relate that, during his apprenticeship to
Ghirlandajo, Michelangelo demonstrated his technical ability by
producing perfect copies of ancient drawings, executing the facsimile
with consummate truth of line, and then dirtying the paper so as to
pass it off as the original of some old master. "His only
object," adds Vasari, "was to keep the originals, by giving
copies in exchange; seeing that he admired them as specimens of art,
and sought to surpass them by his own handling; and in doing this he
acquired great renown." We may pause to doubt whether at the
present time—in the case, for instance, of Shelley letters or
Rossetti drawings—clever forgeries would be accepted as so virtuous
and laudable. But it ought to be remembered that a Florentine
workshop at that period contained masses of accumulated designs, all
of which were more or less the common property of the painting firm.
No single specimen possessed a high market value. It was, in fact,
only when art began to expire in Italy, when Vasari published his
extensive necrology and formed his famous collection of drawings,
that property in a sketch became a topic for moral casuistry.Of
Michelangelo's own work at this early period we possess probably
nothing except a rough scrawl on the plaster of a wall at Settignano.
Even this does not exist in its original state. The Satyr which is
still shown there may, according to Mr. Heath Wilson's suggestion, be
a rifacimento
from the master's hand at a subsequent period of his career.VCondivi
and Vasari differ considerably in their accounts of Michelangelo's
departure from Ghirlandajo's workshop. The former writes as follows:
"So then the boy, now drawing one thing and now another, without
fixed place or steady line of study, happened one day to be taken by
Granacci into the garden of the Medici at San Marco, which garden the
magnificent Lorenzo, father of Pope Leo, and a man of the first
intellectual distinction, had adorned with antique statues and other
reliques of plastic art. When Michelangelo saw these things and felt
their beauty, he no longer frequented Domenico's shop, nor did he go
elsewhere, but, judging the Medicean gardens to be the best school,
spent all his time and faculties in working there." Vasari
reports that it was Lorenzo's wish to raise the art of sculpture in
Florence to the same level as that of painting; and for this reason
he placed Bertoldo, a pupil and follower of Donatello, over his
collections, with a special commission to aid and instruct the young
men who used them. With the same intention of forming an academy or
school of art, Lorenzo went to Ghirlandajo, and begged him to select
from his pupils those whom he considered the most promising.
Ghirlandajo accordingly drafted off Francesco Granacci and
Michelangelo Buonarroti. Since Michelangelo had been formally
articled by his father to Ghirlandajo in 1488, he can hardly have
left that master in 1489 as unceremoniously as Condivi asserts.
Therefore we may, I think, assume that Vasari upon this point has
preserved the genuine tradition.Having
first studied the art of design and learned to work in colours under
the supervision of Ghirlandajo, Michelangelo now had his native
genius directed to sculpture. He began with the rudiments of
stone-hewing, blocking out marbles designed for the Library of San
Lorenzo, and acquiring that practical skill in the manipulation of
the chisel which he exercised all through his life. Condivi and
Vasari agree in relating that a copy he made for his own amusement
from an antique Faun first brought him into favourable notice with
Lorenzo. The boy had begged a piece of refuse marble, and carved a
grinning mask, which he was polishing when the Medici passed by. The
great man stopped to examine the work, and recognised its merit. At
the same time he observed with characteristic geniality: "Oh,
you have made this Faun quite old, and yet have left him all his
teeth! Do you not know that men of that great age are always wanting
in one or two?" Michelangelo took the hint, and knocked a tooth
out from the upper jaw. When Lorenzo saw how cleverly he had
performed the task, he resolved to provide for the boy's future and
to take him into his own household. So, having heard whose son he
was, "Go," he said, "and tell your father that I wish
to speak with him."A
mask of a grinning Faun may still be seen in the sculpture-gallery of
the Bargello at Florence, and the marble is traditionally assigned to
Michelangelo. It does not exactly correspond to the account given by
Condivi and Vasari; for the mouth shows only two large tusk-like
teeth, with the tip of the tongue protruding between them. Still,
there is no reason to feel certain that we may not have here
Michelangelo's first extant work in marble."Michelangelo
accordingly went home, and delivered the message of the Magnificent.
His father, guessing probably what he was wanted for, could only be
persuaded by the urgent prayers of Granacci and other friends to obey
the summons. Indeed, he complained loudly that Lorenzo wanted to lead
his son astray, abiding firmly by the principle that he would never
permit a son of his to be a stonecutter. Vainly did Granacci explain
the difference between a sculptor and a stone-cutter: all his
arguments seemed thrown away. Nevertheless, when Lodovico appeared
before the Magnificent, and was asked if he would consent to give his
son up to the great man's guardianship, he did not know how to
refuse. 'In faith,' he added, 'not Michelangelo alone, but all of us,
with our lives and all our abilities, are at the pleasure of your
Magnificence!' When Lorenzo asked what he desired as a favour to
himself, he answered: 'I have never practised any art or trade, but
have lived thus far upon my modest income, attending to the little
property in land which has come down from my ancestors; and it has
been my care not only to preserve these estates, but to increase them
so far as I was able by my industry.' The Magnificent then added:
'Well, look about, and see if there be anything in Florence which
will suit you. Make use of me, for I will do the utmost that I can
for you.' It so happened that a place in the Customs, which could
only be filled by a Florentine citizen, fell vacant shortly
afterwards. Upon this Lodovico returned to the Magnificent, and
begged for it in these words: 'Lorenzo, I am good for nothing but
reading and writing. Now, the mate of Marco Pucci in the Customs
having died, I should like to enter into this office, feeling myself
able to fulfil its duties decently.' The Magnificent laid his hand
upon his shoulder, and said with a smile: 'You will always be a poor
man;' for he expected him to ask for something far more valuable.
Then he added: 'If you care to be the mate of Marco, you can take the
post, until such time as a better becomes vacant.' It was worth eight
crowns the month, a little more or a little less." A document is
extant which shows that Lodovico continued to fill this office at the
Customs till 1494, when the heirs of Lorenzo were exiled; for in the
year 1512, after the Medici returned to Florence, he applied to
Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, to be reinstated in the same.If
it is true, as Vasari asserts, that Michelangelo quitted Ghirlandajo
in 1489, and if Condivi is right in saying that he only lived in the
Casa Medici for about two years before the death of Lorenzo, April
1492, then he must have spent some twelve months working in the
gardens at San Marco before the Faun's mask called attention to his
talents. His whole connection with Lorenzo, from the spring of 1489
to the spring of 1492, lasted three years; and, since he was born in
March 1475, the space of his life covered by this patronage extended
from the commencement of his fifteenth to the commencement of his
eighteenth year.These
three years were decisive for the development of his mental faculties
and special artistic genius. It is not necessary to enlarge here upon
Lorenzo de' Medici's merits and demerits, either as the ruler of
Florence or as the central figure in the history of the Italian
Renaissance. These have supplied stock topics for discussion by all
writers who have devoted their attention to that period of culture.
Still we must remember that Michelangelo enjoyed singular privileges
under the roof of one who was not only great as diplomatist and
politician, and princely in his patronage, but was also a man of
original genius in literature, of fine taste in criticism, and of
civil urbanity in manners. The palace of the Medici formed a museum,
at that period unique, considering the number and value of its art
treasures—bas-reliefs, vases, coins, engraved stones, paintings by
the best contemporary masters, statues in bronze and marble by
Verocchio and Donatello. Its library contained the costliest
manuscripts, collected from all quarters of Europe and the Levant.
The guests who assembled in its halls were leaders in that
intellectual movement which was destined to spread a new type of
culture far and wide over the globe. The young sculptor sat at the
same board as Marsilio Ficino, interpreter of Plato; Pico della
Mirandola, the phoenix of Oriental erudition; Angelo Poliziano, the
unrivalled humanist and melodious Italian poet; Luigi Pulci, the
humorous inventor of burlesque romance—with artists, scholars,
students innumerable, all in their own departments capable of
satisfying a youth's curiosity, by explaining to him the particular
virtues of books discussed, or of antique works of art inspected.
During those halcyon years, before the invasion of Charles VIII., it
seemed as though the peace of Italy might last unbroken. No one
foresaw the apocalyptic vials of wrath which were about to be poured
forth upon her plains and cities through the next half-century.
Rarely, at any period of the world's history, perhaps only in Athens
between the Persian and the Peloponnesian wars, has culture, in the
highest and best sense of that word, prospered more intelligently and
pacifically than it did in the Florence of Lorenzo, through the
co-operation and mutual zeal of men of eminence, inspired by common
enthusiasms, and labouring in diverse though cognate fields of study
and production.Michelangelo's
position in the house was that of an honoured guest or adopted son.
Lorenzo not only allowed him five ducats a month by way of
pocket-money, together with clothes befitting his station, but he
also, says Condivi, "appointed him a good room in the palace,
together with all the conveniences he desired, treating him in every
respect, as also at his table, precisely like one of his own sons. It
was the custom of this household, where men of the noblest birth and
highest public rank assembled round the daily board, for the guests
to take their places next the master in the order of their arrival;
those who were present at the beginning of the meal sat, each
according to his degree, next the Magnificent, not moving afterwards
for any one who might appear. So it happened that Michelangelo found
himself frequently seated above Lorenzo's children and other persons
of great consequence, with whom that house continually flourished and
abounded. All these illustrious men paid him particular attention,
and encouraged him in the honourable art which he had chosen. But the
chief to do so was the Magnificent himself, who sent for him
oftentimes in a day, in order that he might show him jewels,
cornelians, medals, and such-like objects of great rarity, as knowing
him to be of excellent parts and judgment in these things." It
does not appear that Michelangelo had any duties to perform or
services to render. Probably his patron employed him upon some useful
work of the kind suggested by Condivi. But the main business of his
life in the Casa Medici was to make himself a valiant sculptor, who
in after years should confer lustre on the city of the lily and her
Medicean masters. What he produced during this period seems to have
become his own property, for two pieces of statuary, presently to be
described, remained in the possession of his family, and now form a
part of the collection in the Casa Buonarroti.VIAngelo
Poliziano, who was certainly the chief scholar of his age in the new
learning, and no less certainly one of its truest poets in the vulgar
language, lived as tutor to Lorenzo's children in the palace of the
Medici at Florence. Benozzo Gozzoli introduced his portrait, together
with the portraits of his noble pupils, in a fresco of the Pisan
Campo Santo. This prince of humanists recommended Michelangelo to
treat in bas-relief an antique fable, involving the strife of young
heroes for some woman's person. Probably he was also able to point
out classical examples by which the boyish sculptor might be guided
in the undertaking. The subject made enormous demands upon his
knowledge of the nude. Adult and youthful figures, in attitudes of
vehement attack and resistance, had to be modelled; and the
conditions of the myth required that one at least of them should be
brought into harmony with equine forms. Michelangelo wrestled
vigorously with these difficulties. He produced a work which, though
it is imperfect and immature, brings to light the specific qualities
of his inherent art-capacity. The bas-relief, still preserved in the
Casa Buonarroti at Florence, is, so to speak, in fermentation with
powerful half-realised conceptions, audacities of foreshortening,
attempts at intricate grouping, violent dramatic action and
expression. No previous tradition, unless it was the genius of Greek
or Greco-Roman antiquity, supplied Michelangelo with the motive force
for this prentice-piece in sculpture. Donatello and other Florentines
worked under different sympathies for form, affecting angularity in
their treatment of the nude, adhering to literal transcripts from the
model or to conventional stylistic schemes. Michelangelo discarded
these limitations, and showed himself an ardent student of reality in
the service of some lofty intellectual ideal. Following and closely
observing Nature, he was also sensitive to the light and guidance of
the classic genius. Yet, at the same time, he violated the aesthetic
laws obeyed by that genius, displaying his Tuscan proclivities by
violent dramatic suggestions, and in loaded, overcomplicated
composition. Thus, in this highly interesting essay, the horoscope of
the mightiest Florentine artist was already cast. Nature leads him,
and he follows Nature as his own star bids. But that star is double,
blending classic influence with Tuscan instinct. The roof of the
Sistine was destined to exhibit to an awe-struck world what wealths
of originality lay in the artist thus gifted, and thus swayed by
rival forces. For the present, it may be enough to remark that, in
the geometrical proportions of this bas-relief, which is too high for
its length, Michelangelo revealed imperfect feeling for antique
principles; while, in the grouping of the figures, which is more
pictorial than sculpturesque, he already betrayed, what remained with
him a defect through life, a certain want of organic or symmetrical
design in compositions which are not rigidly subordinated to
architectural framework or limited to the sphere of an
intaglio.Vasari
mentions another bas-relief in marble as belonging to this period,
which, from its style, we may, I think, believe to have been designed
earlier than the Centaurs. It is a seated Madonna with the Infant
Jesus, conceived in the manner of Donatello, but without that
master's force and power over the lines of drapery. Except for the
interest attaching to it as an early work of Michelangelo, this piece
would not attract much attention. Vasari praises it for grace and
composition above the scope of Donatello; and certainly we may trace
here the first germ of that sweet and winning majesty which
Buonarroti was destined to develop in his Pietà of S. Peter, the
Madonna at Bruges, and the even more glorious Madonna of S. Lorenzo.
It is also interesting for the realistic introduction of a Tuscan
cottage staircase into the background. This bas-relief was presented
to Cosimo de' Medici, first Grand Duke of Tuscany, by Michelangelo's
nephew Lionardo. It afterwards came back into the possession of the
Buonarroti family, and forms at present an ornament of their house at
Florence.VIIWe
are accustomed to think of Michelangelo as a self-withdrawn and
solitary worker, living for his art, avoiding the conflict of
society, immersed in sublime imaginings. On the whole, this is a
correct conception of the man. Many passages of his biography will
show how little he actively shared the passions and contentions of
the stirring times through which he moved. Yet his temperament
exposed him to sudden outbursts of scorn and anger, which brought him
now and then into violent collision with his neighbours. An incident
of this sort happened while he was studying under the patronage of
Lorenzo de' Medici, and its consequences marked him physically for
life. The young artists whom the Magnificent gathered round him used
to practise drawing in the Brancacci Chapel of the Carmine. There
Masaccio and his followers bequeathed to us noble examples of the
grand style upon the frescoed panels of the chapel walls. It was the
custom of industrious lads to make transcripts from those broad
designs, some of which Raphael deigned in his latest years to repeat,
with altered manner, for the Stanze of the Vatican and the Cartoons.
Michelangelo went one day into the Carmine with Piero Torrigiano and
other comrades. What ensued may best be reported in the narration
which Torrigiano at a later time made to Benvenuto Cellini."This
Buonarroti and I used, when we were boys, to go into the Church of
the Carmine to learn drawing from the chapel of Masaccio. It was
Buonarroti's habit to banter all who were drawing there; and one day,
when he was annoying me, I got more angry than usual, and, clenching
my fist, I gave him such a blow on the nose that I felt bone and
cartilage go down like biscuit beneath my knuckles; and this mark of
mine he will carry with him to the grave." The portraits of
Michelangelo prove that Torrigiano's boast was not a vain one. They
show a nose broken in the bridge. But Torrigiano, for this act of
violence, came to be regarded by the youth of Florence with aversion,
as one who had laid sacrilegious hands upon the sacred ark. Cellini
himself would have wiped out the insult with blood. Still Cellini
knew that personal violence was not in the line of Michelangelo's
character; for Michelangelo, according to his friend and best
biographer, Condivi, was by nature, "as is usual with men of
sedentary and contemplative habits, rather timorous than otherwise,
except when he is roused by righteous anger to resent unjust injuries
or wrongs done to himself or others, in which case he plucks up more
spirit than those who are esteemed brave; but, for the rest, he is
most patient and enduring." Cellini, then, knowing the quality
of Michelangelo's temper, and respecting him as a deity of art, adds
to his report of Torrigiano's conversation: "These words begat
in me such hatred of the man, since I was always gazing at the
masterpieces of the divine Michelangelo, that, although I felt a wish
to go with him to England, I now could never bear the sight of him."VIIIThe
years Michelangelo spent in the Casa Medici were probably the
blithest and most joyous of his lifetime. The men of wit and learning
who surrounded the Magnificent were not remarkable for piety or moral
austerity. Lorenzo himself found it politically useful "to
occupy the Florentines with shows and festivals, in order that they
might think of their own pastimes and not of his designs, and,
growing unused to the conduct of the commonwealth, might leave the
reins of government in his hands." Accordingly he devised those
Carnival triumphs and processions which filled the sombre streets of
Florence with Bacchanalian revellers, and the ears of her grave
citizens with ill-disguised obscenity. Lorenzo took part in them
himself, and composed several choruses of high literary merit to be
sung by the masqueraders. One of these carries a refrain which might
be chosen as a motto for the spirit of that age upon the brink of
ruin:—Youths
and maids, enjoy to-day: Naught ye know about to-morrow!He
caused the triumphs to be carefully prepared by the best artists, the
dresses of the masquers to be accurately studied, and their chariots
to be adorned with illustrative paintings. Michelangelo's old friend
Granacci dedicated his talents to these shows, which also employed
the wayward fancy of Piero di Cosimo and Pontormo's power as a
colourist. "It was their wont," says Il Lasca, "to go
forth after dinner; and often the processions paraded through the
streets till three or four hours into the night, with a multitude of
masked men on horseback following, richly dressed, exceeding
sometimes three hundred in number, and as many on foot with lighted
torches. Thus they traversed the city, singing to the accompaniment
of music arranged for four, eight, twelve, or even fifteen voices,
and supported by various instruments." Lorenzo represented the
worst as well as the best qualities of his age. If he knew how to
enslave Florence, it was because his own temperament inclined him to
share the amusements of the crowd, while his genius enabled him to
invest corruption with charm. His friend Poliziano entered with the
zest of a poet and a pleasure-seeker into these diversions. He helped
Lorenzo to revive the Tuscan Mayday games, and wrote exquisite lyrics
to be sung by girls in summer evenings on the public squares. This
giant of learning, who filled the lecture-rooms of Florence with
Students of all nations, and whose critical and rhetorical labours
marked an epoch in the history of scholarship, was by nature a
versifier, and a versifier of the people. He found nothing' easier
than to throw aside his professor's mantle and to improvise
ballate for women
to chant as they danced their rounds upon the Piazza di S. Trinità.
The frontispiece to an old edition of such lyrics represents Lorenzo
surrounded with masquers in quaint dresses, leading the revel beneath
the walls of the Palazzo. Another woodcut shows an angle of the Casa
Medici in Via Larga, girls dancing the
carola upon the
street below, one with a wreath and thyrsus kneeling, another
presenting the Magnificent with a book of loveditties. The burden of
all this poetry was: "Gather ye roses while ye may, cast
prudence to the winds, obey your instincts." There is little
doubt that Michelangelo took part in these pastimes; for we know that
he was devoted to poetry, not always of the gravest kind. An anecdote
related by Cellini may here be introduced, since it illustrates the
Florentine customs I have been describing. "Luigi Pulci was a
young man who possessed extraordinary gifts for poetry, together with
sound Latin scholarship. He wrote well, was graceful in manners, and
of surpassing personal beauty. While he was yet a lad and living in
Florence, it was the habit of folk in certain places of the city to
meet together during the nights of summer on the open streets, and
he, ranking among the best of the improvisatori, sang there. His
recitations were so admirable that the divine Michelangelo, that
prince of sculptors and of painters, went, wherever he heard that he
would be, with the greatest eagerness and delight to listen to him.
There was a man called Piloto, a goldsmith, very able in his art,
who, together with myself, joined Buonarroti upon these occasions."
In like manner, the young Michelangelo probably attended those
nocturnal gatherings upon the steps of the Duomo which have been so
graphically described by Doni: "The Florentines seem to me to
take more pleasure in summer airings than any other folk; for they
have, in the square of S. Liberata, between the antique temple of
Mars, now the Baptistery, and that marvellous work of modern
architecture, the Duomo: they have, I say, certain steps of marble,
rising to a broad flat space, upon which the youth of the city come
and lay themselves full length during the season of extreme heat. The
place is fitted for its purpose, because a fresh breeze is always
blowing, with the blandest of all air, and the flags of white marble
usually retain a certain coolness. There then I seek my chiefest
solace, when, taking my aërial flights, I sail invisibly above them;
see and hear their doings and discourses: and forasmuch as they are
endowed with keen and elevated understanding, they always have a
thousand charming things to relate; as novels, intrigues, fables;
they discuss duels, practical jokes, old stories, tricks played off
by men and women on each other: things, each and all, rare, witty,
noble, decent and in proper taste. I can swear that during all the
hours I spent in listening to their nightly dialogues, I never heard
a word that was not comely and of good repute. Indeed, it seemed to
me very remarkable, among such crowds of young men, to overhear
nothing but virtuous conversation."At
the same period, Michelangelo fell under very different influences;
and these left a far more lasting impression on his character than
the gay festivals and witty word-combats of the lords of Florence. In
1491 Savonarola, the terrible prophet of coming woes, the searcher of
men's hearts, and the remorseless denouncer of pleasant vices, began
that Florentine career which ended with his martyrdom in 1498. He had
preached in Florence eight years earlier, but on that occasion he
passed unnoticed through the crowd. Now he took the whole city by
storm. Obeying the magic of his eloquence and the magnetism of his
personality, her citizens accepted this Dominican friar as their
political leader and moral reformer, when events brought about the
expulsion of the Medici in 1494. Michelangelo was one of his constant
listeners at S. Marco and in the Duomo. He witnessed those stormy
scenes of religious revival and passionate fanaticism which
contemporaries have impressively described. The shorthand-writer to
whom we owe the text of Savonarola's sermons at times breaks off with
words like these: "Here I was so overcome with weeping that I
could not go on." Pico della Mirandola tells that the mere sound
of the monk's voice, startling the stillness of the Duomo, thronged
through all its space with people, was like a clap of doom; a cold
shiver ran through the marrow of his bones the hairs of his head
stood on end while he listened. Another witness reports: "Those
sermons caused such terror, alarm, sobbing, and tears, that every one
passed through the streets without speaking, more dead than alive."One
of the earliest extant letters of Michelangelo, written from Rome in
1497 to his brother Buonarroto, reveals a vivid interest in
Savonarola. He relates the evil rumours spread about the city
regarding his heretical opinions, and alludes to the hostility of Fra
Mariano da Genezzano; adding this ironical sentence: "Therefore
he ought by all means to come and prophesy a little in Rome, when
afterwards he will be canonised; and so let all his party be of good
cheer." In later years, it is said that the great sculptor read
and meditated Savonarola's writings together with the Bible. The
apocalyptic thunderings and voices of the Sistine Chapel owe much of
their soul-thrilling impressiveness to those studies. Michelet says,
not without justice, that the spirit of Savonarola lives again in the
frescoes of that vault.On
the 8th of April 1492, Michelangelo lost his friend and patron.
Lorenzo died in his villa at Careggi, aged little more than
forty-four years. Guicciardini implies that his health and strength
had been prematurely broken by sensual indulgences. About the
circumstances of his last hours there are some doubts and
difficulties; but it seems clear that he expired as a Christian,
after a final interview with Savonarola. His death cast a gloom over
Italy. Princes and people were growing uneasy with the presentiment
of impending disaster; and now the only man who by his diplomatical
sagacity could maintain the balance of power had been taken from
them. To his friends and dependants in Florence the loss appeared
irreparable. Poliziano poured forth his sorrow in a Latin threnody of
touching and simple beauty. Two years later both he and Pico della
Mirandola followed their master to the grave. Marsilio Ficino passed
away in 1499; and a friend of his asserted that the sage's ghost
appeared to him. The atmosphere was full of rumours, portents,
strange premonitions of revolution and doom. The true golden age of
the Italian Renaissance may almost be said to have ended with Lorenzo
de' Medici's life.