YALE UNIVERSITY
ART LIBRARY

THE LIFE

MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI

VOLUME THE SECOND

Walter LXolldJai£ c

MADONNA AND CHILD -FLORENCE.

THE LIFE OF
Michelangelo Buonarroti
BASED ON STUDIES IN THE ARCHIVES OF THE BUONARROTI
FAMILY AT FLORENCE
BY
JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS
TKIlitb 3EtcbeD portrait ano 3Ftftg IReproouctfons of tbe
Worfcs of tbe faster
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOLUME THE SECOND

LONDON
J ( ) II N C. NI M M ( )
14, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND

MDCCCXCIII

V.OCKEP. CASg,

library

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
At the Ballantyne Press, Edinburgh

CHAPTER X.
ON MICHELANGELO AS ARCHITECT ..... I
CHAPTER XI.
final settlement in rome  paul iii.  the last
judgment and the paoline chapel — the tomb
of julius. 1535-1542 . . 37
CHAPTER XII.
VITTORIA COLON NA AND TOMMASO CAVALIERI  MICHEL
ANGELO AS POET AND MAN OF FEELING . 95
CHAPTER XIII.
MICHELANGELO APPOINTED ARCHITECT-IN-OHIEF AT THE
VATICAN  HISTORY OF S. PETER'S. 1542-1557 . l8c

CHAPTER XIV.
LAST YEARS OF LIFE — MICHELANGELO'S PORTRAITS  ILL
NESSES OF OLD AGE. 1557-1564 .... 245
VOL. II. b

vi CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XV.
PAGES
DEATH AT ROME  BURIAL AND OBSEQUIES AT FLORENCE 
ANECDOTES — ESTIMATE OF MICHELANGELO AS MAN AND
ARTIST. .... . . 317-374
PEDIGREES OF THE BUONARROTI SIMONI FAMILY, OF THE
MEDICI OF FLORENCE, AND OF THE DELLA ROVERE
FAMILY.

APPENDIX . . 375-408
INDEX . . . 409-443

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
VOLUME THE SECOND.

The blocks for these illustrations are made by Messrs. Walker and BouTALL,
and the photo-etched copper plates by W. L. Colls, London.

i. Statue of Madonna, now in the Sacristy of San Lorenzo,
Florence. Photo-etched plate . . . Frontispiece.
2. Tomb of Lorenzo dej Medici, in the Sacristy of San
Lorenzo, Florence .... . To face 16
3. Tomb of Giuliano de' Medici, in the Sacristy of San
Lorenzo, Florence .... .22
4. Whole Figure of Giuliano de' Medici, in the Sacristy of
San Lorenzo, Florence .  28
5. Hand of Giuliano, in the Sacristy of San Lorenzo, Florence 32
6. Left Hand of the Dawn, one of Michelangelo's statues for
the Sacristy of San Lorenzo, Florence ... 36
7. Group from the Last Judgment — " The Seven Deadly
Sins." A contemporary study made from Michelangelo's
great fresco ; in the possession of E. J. Poynter,.R.A.
Photo-etched plate . . . . .48
8. A Group of Three Figures from the Last Judgment ;
in the British Museum ... 64
9. Bound Captive. This marble statue, destined for the tomb
of Julius II., is now in the Louvre, Paris. Photo-etched
plate . .  .86
10. Victory. A marble statue now in the Bargello Palace, Flor
ence. Photo-etched plate . . .90

viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PAGE
n. Study of Two Nude Figures, for some mythological
subject. This drawing, attributed to Michelangelo, is
now in the possession of M. Bonnat, of Paris . To face 98
12. Study for Phaethon. This drawing in black chalk, made
for the artist's friend Tommaso Cavalieri, is in the Royal
Collection at Windsor Castle ... . . 140
13. Revel of Children, commonly known as the "Baccanale
di Putti." A red-chalk drawing in the Royal Collection
at Windsor Castle. Photo-etched plate . . 144
14. Fac-simile of a Sonnet by Michelangelo, taken by Prof.
Guido Biagi from the autograph in the Museo Buonarroti 160
15. Study for the Crucifixion. A drawing in the British
Museum .... . . 196
16. Sections Illustrating the Construction of the Dome
of S. Peter's  240
Fig. A shows the model as Michelangelo had this made,
with an inner flattened vault.
Fig. B shows the Cupola as it actually is. The coffering of
of the vault, and the style of the windows in the tambour,
differ from the model.
17. Leone Leoni's Model in Wax of Michelangelo's profile,
now in the possession of C. Drury E. Fortnum, Esq. . 260
The medal made from this model, obverse and reverse,
is one of three cast in silver, and now at South Ken
sington Museum. Photo-etched plate.
18. Bust of Michelangelo in Old Age, executed in bronze
by Daniele da Volterra, and now in the Capitol, Rome,
and reproduced here for the first time . .272

LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.

CHAPTER X.
The Church of S. Lorenzo at Florence. — Founded in part by a
Medici. — Members of that family buried there. — The Medicean
Popes, Leo and Clement, design its completion. The Facade, the
new Sacristy, the Library. — History of the Medicean monuments. —
2. Michelangelo's innovations in architecture. — Italian Gothic,
the early Italian Renaissance style. — Vitruvian influences leading
up to the Barocco manner and Palladian purism. — Michelangelo's
importance in this process. — 3. Vasari's account of his work at
S. Lorenzo. — The introduction of Barocco freedom. — 4. In these
works Michelangelo always contemplated architecture as a frame
work for statuary. — 5. He also studied picturesque effects. — The
structural importance of the building is sacrificed to plastic art and
superficial decoration. — Faults inherent in Italian Gothic, partly
overcome by fifteenth-century architects, revived by Michelangelo.
— In what sense he was an amateur of genius. — Only in the Cupola
of S. Peter's did he attack a great problem of the builder's art, and
solve it architecturally. — 6. Tlie Sacristy. — Its internal arrange
ment is a scheme for marble panelling to frame sculpture and
bronze, with vast fresco decoration for the dome and blank wall-
spaces. — Viewed in this way, it remains imperfect, but the part
performed is excellent. — Michelangelo left the whole in 1534 in
complete and unsettled. — Difficult points regarding his intentions
as to details. — Duke Cosimo's project of finishing the Sacristy in
the last year of Michelangelo's life. — 7. Vasari's letter explaining
the Duke's scheme. — Its failure. — 8. Criticism of the Sacristy as
it now exists.

The collegiate church of S. Lorenzo at Florence
had long been associated with the Medicean family,

2 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
who were its most distinguished benefactors. Gio
vanni d'Averardo dei Medici, together with the heads
of six other Florentine houses, caused it to be rebuilt
at the beginning of the fifteenth century. He took
upon himself the entire costs of the sacristy and
one chapel ; it was also owing to his suggestion
that Filippo Brunelleschi, in the year 142 1, designed
the church and cloister as they now appear. When
he died, Giovanni was buried in its precincts, while
his son Cosimo de' Medici, the father of his country,
continued these benevolences, and bestowed a capi
tal of 40,000 golden florins on the Chapter. He too
was buried in the church, a simple monument in the
sacristy being erected to his memory. Lorenzo the
Magnificent followed in due course, and found his
last resting-place at S. Lorenzo.
We have seen in a previous chapter how and
when Leo X. conceived the idea of adding a
chapel which should serve as mausoleum for several
members of the Medicean family at S. Lorenzo,
and how Clement determined to lodge the famous
Medicean library in a hall erected over the west side
of the cloister. Both of these undertakings, as well
as the construction of a facade for the front of the
church, were assigned to Michelangelo. The ground-
plan of the monumental chapel corresponds to
Brunelleschi's sacristy, and is generally known as
the Sagrestia Nuova. Internally Buonarroti altered
its decorative panellings, and elevated the vaulting
of the roof into a more ambitious cupola. This

THE MEDICEAN LIBRARY. 3
portion of the edifice was executed in the rough
during his residence at Florence. The facade was
never begun in earnest, and remains unfinished.
The library was constructed according to his designs,
and may be taken, on the whole, as a genuine speci
men of his style in architecture.
The books which Clement lodged there were the
priceless manuscripts brought together by Cosimo
de' Medici in the first enthusiasm of the Revival, at
that critical moment when the decay of the Eastern
Empire transferred the wrecks of Greek literature
from Constantinople to Italy. Cosimo built a room
to hold them in the Convent of S. Marco, which
Flavio Biondo styled the first library opened for the
use of scholars. Lorenzo the Magnificent enriched
the collection with treasures acquired during his life
time, buying autographs wherever it was possible to
find them, and causing copies to be made. In the
year 1508 the friars of S. Marco sold this inestim
able store of literary documents, in order to discharge
the debts contracted by them during their ill-consi
dered interference in the state affairs of the Republic.
It was purchased for the sum of 2652 ducats by the
Cardinal Giovanni de' Medici, second son of Lorenzo
the Magnificent, and afterwards Pope Leo X. He
transferred them to his Roman villa, where the
collection was still further enlarged by all the
rarities which a prince passionate for literature
.and reckless in expenditure could there assemble.
Leo's cousin and executor, Giulio de' Medici, Pope

4 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
Clement VII., fulfilled his last wishes by transfer
ring them to Florence, and providing the stately
receptacle in which they still repose.
The task assigned to Michelangelo, when he
planned the library, was not so simple as that of
the new sacristy. Some correspondence took place
before the west side of the cloister was finally
decided on. What is awkward in the approach to
the great staircase must be ascribed to the diffi
culty of fitting this building into the old edifice ;
and probably, if Michelangelo had carried out the
whole work, a worthier entrance from the piazza
into the loggia, and from the loggia into the vesti
bule, might have been devised.

II.
Vasari, in a well-known passage of his Life of
Michelangelo, reports the general opinion of his
age regarding the novelties introduced by Buon
arroti into Italian architecture. The art of building
was in a state of transition. Indeed, it cannot be
maintained that the Italians, after they abandoned
the traditions of the Romanesque manner, advanced
with certitude on any line of progress in this art.
Their work, beautiful as it often is, ingenious as
it almost always is, marked invariably by the indi
viduality of the district and the builder, seems to

EARLY RENAISSANCE ARCHITECTURE. 5
be tentative, experimental. The principles of the
Pointed Gothic style were never seized or under
stood by Italian architects. Even such cathe
drals as those of Orvieto and Siena are splendid
monuments of incapacity, when compared with
the Romanesque churches of Pisa, S. Miniato, S.
Zenone at Verona, the Cathedral of Parma. The
return from Teutonic to Roman standards of taste,
which marked the advent of humanism, introduced
a hybrid manner. This, in its first commencement,
was extremely charming. The buildings of Leo
Battista Alberti, of Brunelleschi, and of Bramante
are distinguished by an exquisite purity and grace
combined with picturesqueness. No edifice in any
style is more stately, and at the same time more
musical in linear proportions, than the Church of
S. Andrea at Mantua. The Cappella dei Pazzi and
the Church of S. Spirito at Florence are gems of
clear-cut and harmonious dignity. The courtyard
of the Cancelleria at Rome, the Duomo at Todi,
show with what supreme ability the great architect
of Casteldurante blended sublimity with suavity,
largeness and breadth with naivete" and delicately
studied detail. But these first endeavours of the
Romantic spirit to assimilate the Classic mannerism
— essays no less interesting than those of Boiardo
in poetry, of Botticelli in painting, of Donatello and
Omodei in sculpture — all of them alike, whether
buildings, poems, paintings, or statues, displaying
the genius of the Italic race, renascent, recalcitrant

6 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
against the Gothic style, while still to some extent
swayed by its influence (at one and the same time
both Christian and chivalrous, Pagan and precociously
cynical ; yet charmingly fresh, unspoiled by dogma,
uncontaminated by pedantry)— these first endeavours
of the Romantic spirit to assimilate the Classic
mannerism could not create a new style representa
tive of the national life. They had the fault inherent
in all hybrids, however fanciful and graceful. They
were sterile and unprocreative. The warring elements,
so deftly beautifully blent in them, began at once
to fall asunder. The San Galli attempted to follow
classical precedent with stricter severity. Some
buildings of their school may still be reckoned
among the purest which remain to prove the sin
cerity of the Revival of Learning. The Sansovini
exaggerated the naivete" of the earlier Renaissance
manner, and pushed its picturesqueness over into
florid luxuriance of decorative detail. Meanwhile,
humanists and scholars worked slowly but steadily
upon the text of Vitruvius, impressing the para
mount importance of his theoretical writings upon
practical builders. Neither students nor architects
reflected that they could not understand Vitruvius ;
that, if they could understand him, it was by no
means certain he was right ; and that, if he was
right for his own age, he would not be right for the
sixteenth century after Christ. It was just at this
moment, when Vitruvius began to dominate the
Italian imagination, that Michelangelo was called

HUMANISTIC PEDANTRY. 7
upon to build. The genial adaptation of classical
elements to modern sympathies and uses, which had
been practised by Alberti, Brunelleschi, Bramante,
yielded now to painful efforts after the appropriation
of pedantic principles. Instead of working upon
antique monuments with their senses and emotions,
men approached them through the medium of
scholastic erudition. Instead of seeing and feeling
for themselves, they sought by dissection to confirm
the written precepts of a defunct Roman writer. This
diversion of a great art from its natural line of
development supplies a striking instance of the
fascination which authority exercises at certain
periods of culture. Rather than trust their feeling
for what was beautiful and useful, convenient and
attractive, the Italians of the Renaissance surren
dered themselves to learning. Led by the spirit of
scholarship, they thought it their duty to master
the text of Vitruvius, to verify his principles by the
analysis of surviving antique edifices, and, having
formed their own conception of his theory, to apply
this, as well as they were able, to the requirements
of contemporary life.
Two exits from the false situation existed : one
was the picturesqueness of the Barocco style ; the
other was the specious vapid purity of the Palladian.
Michelangelo, who was essentially the genius of this
transition, can neither be ascribed to the Barocco
architects, although he called them into being, nor
yet can he be said to have arrived at the Palladian

8 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
solution. He held both types within himself in
embryo, arriving at a moment of profound and com
plicated difficulty for the practical architect ; without
technical education, but gifted with supreme genius,
bringing the imperious instincts of a sublime creative
amateur into every task appointed him. We need
not wonder if a man of his calibre left the powerful
impress of his personality upon an art in chaos,
luring lesser craftsmen into the Barocco mannerism,
while he provoked reaction in the stronger, who felt
more scientifically what was needed to secure firm
standing-ground. Bernini and the superb fountain
of Trevi derive from Michelangelo on one side ;
Vignola's cold classic profiles and Palladio's resus
citation of old Rome in the Palazzo della Ragione
at Vicenza emerge upon the other. It remained
Buonarroti's greatest glory that, lessoned by experi
ence and inspired for high creation by the vastness
of the undertaking, he imagined a world's wonder in
the cupola of S. Peter's.

III.
Writing in the mid-stream of this architectural
regurgitation, Vasari explains what contemporaries
thought about Michelangelo's innovations. "He
wished to build the new sacristy upon the same lines
as the older one by Brunelleschi, but at the same

MICHELANGELO'S NEW STYLE. 9
time to clothe the edifice with a different style of
decoration. Accordingly, he invented for the interior
a composite adornment, of the newest and most
varied manner which antique and modern masters
joined together could have used. The novelty of his
style consisted in those lovely cornices, capitals, base
ments, doors, niches, and sepulchres which trans
cended all that earlier builders, working by measure
ments, distribution of parts, and rule, had previously
effected, following Vitruvius and the ancient relics.
Such men were afraid to supplement tradition with
original invention. The license he introduced gave
great courage to those who studied his method, and
emboldened them to follow on his path. Since that
time, new freaks of fancy have been seen, resembling
the style of arabesque and grotesque more than was
consistent with tradition. For this emancipation
of the art, all craftsmen owe him an infinite and
ever-during debt of gratitude, since he at one blow
broke down the bands and chains which barred the
path they trod in common." 1
If I am right in thus interpreting an unusually
incoherent passage of Vasari's criticism, no words
could express more clearly the advent of Barocco
mannerism. But Vasari proceeds to explain his
meaning with still greater precision. " Afterwards
he made a plainer demonstration of his intention in
the library of S. Lorenzo, by the splendid distribu
tion of the windows, the arrangement of the upper
1 Vasari, xii. 205.

10 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
chamber, and the marvellous entrance-hall into that
enclosed building. The grace and charm of art
were never seen more perfectly displayed in the
whole and in the parts of any edifice than here. I
may refer in particular to the corbels, the recesses
for statues, and the cornices. The staircase, too,
deserves attention for its convenience, with the
eccentric breakage of its flights of steps ; the whole
construction being so altered from the common usage
of other architects as to excite astonishment in all
who see it."
What emerges with distinctness from Vasari's ac
count of Michelangelo's work at S. Lorenzo is that a
practical Italian architect, who had been engaged on
buildings of importance since this work was carried
out, believed it to have infused freedom and new
vigour into architecture. That freedom and new
vigour we now know to have implied the Barocco
style.

IV.
In estimating Michelangelo's work at S. Lorenzo,
we must not forget that at this period of his life he
contemplated statuary, bronze bas-relief, and paint
ing, as essential adjuncts to architecture. The
scheme is, therefore, not so much constructive as
decorative, and a great many of its most offensive
qualities may be ascribed to the fact that the pur-

PLASTIC DECORATION. n
poses for which it was designed have been omitted.
We know that the facade of S. Lorenzo was intended
to abound in bronze and marble carvings. Beside
the Medicean tombs, the sacristy ought to have con
tained a vast amount of sculpture, and its dome was
actually painted in fresco by Giovanni da Udine
under Michelangelo's own eyes. It appears that his
imagination still obeyed those leading principles
which he applied in the rough sketch for the first
sepulchre of Julius. The vestibule and staircase of
the library cannot therefore be judged fairly now ; for
if they had been finished according to their maker's
plan, the faults of their construction would have
been compensated by multitudes of plastic shapes.
M. Charles Gamier, in L'CEuvre et la Vie, speak
ing with the authority of a practical architect, says :
" Michelangelo was not, properly speaking, an
architect. He made architecture, which is quite
a different thing ; and most often it was the archi
tecture of a painter and a sculptor, which points to
colour, breadth, imagination, but also to insufficient
studies and incomplete education. The thought may
be great and strong, but the execution of it is always
feeble and naive. . . . He had not learned the lan
guage of the art. He has all the qualities of imagi
nation, invention, will, which form a great composer ;
but he does not know the grammar, and can hardly
write. ... In seeking the great, he has too often
found the tumid ; seeking the original, he has fallen
upon the strange, and also on bad taste."

12 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
There is much that is true in this critique, severe
though it may seem to be. The fact is that Michel
angelo aimed at picturesque effect in his buildings ;
not, as previous architects had done, by a lavish use
of loosely decorative details, but by the piling up and
massing together of otherwise dry orders, cornices,
pilasters, windows, all of which, in his conception,
were to serve as framework and pedestals for statuary.
He also strove to secure originality and to stimulate
astonishment by bizarre modulations of accepted
classic forms, by breaking the lines of architraves,
combining angularities with curves, adopting a vio
lently accented rhythm and a tortured multiplicity
of parts, wherever this was possible.

In this new style, so much belauded by Vasari,
the superficial design is often rich and grandiose,
making a strong pictorial appeal to the imagination.
Meanwhile, the organic laws of structure have been
sacrificed ; and that chaste beauty which emerges
from a perfectly harmonious distribution of parts,
embellished by surface decoration only when the
limbs and members of the building demand em
phasis, may be sought for everywhere in vain. The
substratum is a box, a barn, an inverted bottle ;
built up of rubble, brick, and concrete ; clothed with

WEAKNESS OF ITALIAN ARCHITECTURE. 13
learned details, which have been borrowed from the
pseudo-science of the humanists. There is nothing
here of divine Greek candour, of dominant Roman
vigour, of Gothic vitality, of fanciful invention
governed by a sincere sense of truth. Nothing
remains of the shy graces, the melodious simpli
cities, the pure seeking after musical proportion,
which marked the happier Italian effort of the early
Renaissance, through Brunelleschi and Alberti, Bra-
mante, Giuliano da Sangallo, and Peruzzi. Archi
tecture, in the highest sense of that word, has dis
appeared. A scenic scheme of panelling for empty
walls has superseded the conscientious striving to
construct a living and intelligible whole.
The fault inherent in Italian building after the
close of the Lombard period, reaches its climax here.
That fault was connected with the inability of the
Italians to assimilate the true spirit of the Gothic
style, while they attempted its imitation in practice.
The fabrication of imposing and lovely fagades at
Orvieto, at Siena, at Cremona, and at Crema, glorious
screens which masked the poverty of the edifice,
and corresponded in no point to the organism of the
structure, taught them to overrate mere surface-
beauty. Their wonderful creativeness in all the arts
which can be subordinated to architectural effect
seduced them further. Nothing, for instance, taken
by itself alone, can be more satisfactory than the
fagade of the Certosa at Pavia ; but it is not, like
the front of Chartres or Rheims or Amiens, a natural

14 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
introduction to the inner sanctuary. At the end
of the Gothic period architecture had thus come to
be conceived as the art of covering shapeless struc
tures with a wealth of arabesques in marble, fresco,
bronze, mosaic.
The revival of learning and a renewed interest in
the antique withdrew the Italians for a short period
from this false position. With more or less of
merit, successive builders, including those I have
above mentioned, worked in a pure style : pure
because it obeyed the laws of its own music,
because it was intelligible and self-consistent, aim
ing at construction as the main end, subordinating
decoration of richer luxuriance or of sterner seve
rity to the prime purpose of the total scheme. But
this style was too much the plaything of particular
minds to create a permanent tradition. It varied in
the several provinces of Italy, and mingled personal
caprice with the effort to assume a classic garb.
Meanwhile the study of Vitruvius advanced, and
that pedantry which infected all the learned move
ments of the Renaissance struck deep and venomous
roots into the art of building.
Michelangelo arrived at the moment I am attempt
ing to indicate. He protested that architecture was
not his trade. Over and over again he repeated
this to his Medicean patrons ; but they compelled
him to build, and he applied himself with the pre
dilections and prepossessions of a plastic artist to
the task. The result was a retrogression from the

SEEKING AFTER PICTURESQUENESS. 15
point reached by his immediate predecessors to the
vicious system followed by the pseudo-Gothic archi
tects in Italy. That is to say, he treated the struc
ture as an inert mass, to be made as substantial as
possible, and then to be covered with details agree
able to the eye. At the beginning of his career he
had a defective sense of the harmonic ratios upon
which a really musical building may be constructed
out of mere bricks and mortar — such, for example, as
the Church of S. Giustina at Padua. He was over
weighted with ill-assimilated erudition ; and all the
less desirable licenses of Brunelleschi' s school, espe
cially in the abuse of square recesses, he adopted with
out hesitation. It never seems to have occurred to
him that doors which were intended for ingress and
egress, windows which were meant to give light, and
attics which had a value as the means of illumination
from above, could not with any propriety be applied
to the covering of blank dead spaces in the interiors
of buildings.
The vestibule of the Laurentian Library illustrates
his method of procedure. It is a rectangular box
of about a cube and two thirds, set length-way up.
The outside of the building, left unfinished, exhibits
a mere blank space of bricks. The interior might
be compared to a temple in the grotesque-classic
style turned outside in : colossal orders, meaningless
consoles, heavy windows, square recesses, numerous
doors— the windows, doors, and attics having no
right to be there, since they lead to nothing, lend

1 6 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
view to nothing, clamour for bronze and sculpture
to explain their existence as niches and receptacles
for statuary. It is nevertheless indubitably true
that these incongruous and misplaced elements,
crowded together, leave a strong impression of
picturesque force upon the mind. From certain
points and angles, the effect of the whole, con
sidered as a piece of deception and insincerity, is
magnificent. It would be even finer than it is,
were not the Florentine pietra serena of the stone
work so repellent in its ashen dulness, the plaster
so white, and the false architectural system so pain
fully defrauded of the plastic forms for which it was
intended to subserve as setting.
We have here no masterpiece of sound, con
structive science, but a freak of inventive fancy
using studied details for the production of a pic
torial effect. The details employed to compose this
curious illusion are painfully dry and sterile ; partly
owing to the scholastic enthusiasm for Vitruvius,
partly to the decline of mediaeval delight in natural
istic decoration, but, what seems to me still more
apparent, through Michelangelo's own passionate
preoccupation with the human figure. He could
not tolerate any type of art which did not concede a
predominant position to the form of man. Accord
ingly, his work in architecture at this period seems
waiting for plastic illustration, demanding sculpture
and fresco for its illumination and justification.
It is easy, one would think, to make an appeal to

Tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici.

BAROCCO MANNERISM. 17
the eye by means of colossal orders, bold cornices,
enormous consoles, deeply indented niches. How
much more easy to construct a box, and then say,
" Come, let us cover its inside with an incongruous
and inappropriate but imposing parade of learning,"
than to lift some light and genial thing of beauty
aloft into the air, as did the modest builder of the
staircase to the hall at Christ Church, Oxford ! The
eye of the vulgar is entranced, the eye of the artist
bewildered. That the imagination which inspired
that decorative scheme was powerful, original, and
noble, will not be denied ; but this does not save
us from the desolating conviction that the scheme
itself is a specious and pretentious mask, devised to
hide a hideous waste of bricks and mortar.
Michelangelo's imagination, displayed in this dis
tressing piece of work, was indeed so masterful that,
as Vasari says, a new delightful style in architecture
seemed to be revealed by it. A new way of clothing-
surfaces, falsifying fagades, and dealing picturesquely
with the lifeless element of Vitruvian tradition had
been demonstrated by the genius of one who was a
mighty amateur in building. In other words, the
Barocco manner had begun ; the path was opened to
prank, caprice, and license. It required the finer
tact and taste of a Palladio to rectify the false line
here initiated, and to bring the world back to a sense
of seriousness in its effort to deal constructively
and rationally with the pseudo-classic mannerism.
The qualities of wilfulness and amateurishness
VOL. II. B

1 8 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
and seeking after picturesque effect, upon which I
am now insisting, spoiled Michelangelo's work as
architect, until he was forced by circumstance, and
after long practical experience, to confront a problem
of pure mathematical construction. In the cupola
of S. Peter's he rose to the stern requirements of his
task. There we find no evasion of the builder's duty
by mere surface-decoration, no subordination of the
edifice to plastic or pictorial uses. Such side-issues
were excluded by the very nature of the theme. An
immortal poem resulted, an aerial lyric of melodious
curves and solemn harmonies, a thought combin
ing grace and audacity translated into stone uplifted
to the skies. After being cabined in the vestibule to
the Laurentian Library, our soul escapes with gladness
to those airy spaces of the dome, that great cloud
on the verge of the Campagna, and feels thankful
that we can take our leave of Michelangelo as
architect elsewhere.

VI.
While seeking to characterise what proved per
nicious to contemporaries in Michelangelo's work as
architect, I have been led to concentrate attention
upon the Library at S. Lorenzo. This was logical ;
for, as we have seen, Vasari regarded that building
as the supreme manifestation of his manner. Vasari

THE SACRISTY OF S. LORENZO. 19
never saw the cupola of S. Peter's in all its glory,
and it may be doubted whether he was capable of
learning much from it.
The sacristy demands separate consideration. It
was an earlier work, produced under more favourable
conditions of place and space, and is in every way
a purer specimen of the master's style. As Vasari
observed, the Laurentian Library indicated a large
advance upon the sacristy in the development of
Michelanglo's new manner.
At this point it may not unprofitably be re
marked, that none of the problems offered for
solution at S. Lorenzo were in the strictest sense
of that word architectural. The fagade presented
a problem of pure panelling. The ground-plan of
the sacristy was fixed in correspondence with
Brunelleschi's ; and here again the problem resolved
itself chiefly into panelling. A builder of genius,
working on the library, might indeed have dis
played his science and his taste by some beauti
ful invention adapted to the awkward locality ; as
Baldassare Peruzzi, in the Palazzo Massimo at Rome,
converted the defects of the site into graces by the
exquisite turn he gave to the curved portion of the
edifice. Still, when the scheme was settled, even
the library became more a matter of panelling and
internal fittings than of structural design. Nowhere
at S. Lorenzo can we affirm that Michelangelo en
joyed the opportunity of showing what he could
achieve in the production of a building independent

20 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
in itself and planned throughout with a free hand.
Had he been a born architect, he would probably
have insisted upon constructing the Medicean mau
soleum after his own conception instead of repeating
Brunelleschi's ground-plan, and he would almost
certainly have discovered a more genial solution
for the difficulties of the library. But he protested
firmly against being considered an architect by in
clination or by education. Therefore he accepted
the most obvious conditions of each task, and de
voted himself to schemes of surface decoration.
The interior of the sacristy is planned with a
noble sense of unity. For the purpose of illuminat
ing a gallery of statues, the lighting may be praised
without reserve ; and there is no doubt whatever
that Michelangelo intended every tabernacle to be
filled with figures, and all the whitewashed spaces of
the walls to be encrusted with bas-reliefs in stucco or
painted in fresco. The recesses or niches, taking
the form of windows, are graduated in three degrees
of depth to suit three scales of sculptural importance.
The sepulchres of the Dukes had to emerge into
prominence ; the statues subordinate to these main
masses occupied shallower recesses ; the shallowest
of all, reserved for minor statuary, are adorned above
with garlands, which suggest the flatness of the
figures to be introduced. Architecturally speaking,
the building is complete ; but it sadly wants the
plastic decoration for which it was designed, together
with many finishing touches of importance. It is

SCHEME OF DECORATION. 21
clear, for instance, that the square pedestals above
the double pilasters flanking each of the two Dukes
were meant to carry statuettes or candelabra, which
would have connected the marble panelling with
the cornices and stucchi and frescoed semicircles
of the upper region. Our eyes are everywhere
defrauded of the effect calculated by Michelangelo
when he planned this chapel. Yet the total im
pression remains harmonious. Proportion has been
observed in all the parts, especially in the relation
of the larger to the smaller orders, and in the balance
of the doors and windows. Merely decorative carv
ings are used with parsimony, and designed in a
pure style, although they exhibit originality of in
vention. The alternation of white marble surfaces
and mouldings with pietra serena pilasters, cornices,
and arches, defines the structural design, and gives
a grave but agreeable sense of variety. Finally, the
recess behind the altar adds lightness and space to
what would otherwise have been a box. What I
have already observed when speaking of the vesti
bule to the library must be repeated here : the whole
scheme is that of an exterior turned outside in, and
its justification lies in the fact that it demanded
statuary and colour for its completion. Still the bold
projecting cornices, the deeper and shallower niches
resembling windows, have the merit of securing
broken lights and shadows under the strong vertical
illumination, all of which are eminently picturesque.
No doubt remains now that tradition is accurate

22 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
in identifying the helmeted Duke with Lorenzo de'
Medici, and the more graceful seated hero opposite
with Giuliano.1 The recumbent figures on the void
sepulchres beneath them are with equal truth desig
nated as Night and Day, Morning and Evening.
But Michelangelo condescended to no realistic por
traiture in the statues of the Dukes, and he also
meant undoubtedly to treat the phases of time which
rule man's daily life upon the planet as symbols for
far-reaching thoughts connected with our destiny.2
These monumental figures are not men, not women,
but vague and potent allegories of our mortal fate.
They remain as he left them, except that parts of
Giuliano' s statue, especially the hands, seem to have
been worked over by an assistant. The same is true
of the Madonna, which will ever be regarded, in her
imperfectly finished state, as one of the finest of his
sculptural conceptions. To Montelupo belongs the
execution of S. Damiano, and to Montorsoli that of
S. Cosimo. Vasari says that Tribolo was commis
sioned by Michelangelo to carve statues of Earth
weeping for the loss of Giuliano, and Heaven rejoic
ing over his spirit.8 The death of Pope Clement,
1 See Heath Wilson, pp. 563-566. He was present at the opening
of these sarcophagi in 1875, and saw the remains of Duke Alessandro
enclosed with those of his supposed father in the sepulchre of Lorenzo,
Duke of Urbino.
2 This view is confirmed by what Condivi writes about the statues
in question. He says that, taken together, they represent " Time, who
consumes all things," cap. xlv. p. 50.
3 Michelangelo even prepared clay models for them. See Lettere,
No. cdxix. ; Vasari, x. 250; Springer, ii. 384.

To.mi; of Giuliano.

THE SACRISTY UNFINISHED. 23
however, put a stop to these subordinate works,
which, had they been accomplished, might perhaps
have shown us how Buonarroti intended to fill the
empty niches on each side of the Dukes.
When Michelangelo left Florence for good at the
end of 1534, his statues had not been placed; but
we have reason to think that the Dukes and the
four allegorical figures were erected in his life
time. There is something singular in the malad
justment of the recumbent men and women to the
curves of the sarcophagi, and in the contrast between
the roughness of their bases and the smooth polish
of the chests they rest on. These discrepancies do
not, however, offend the eye, and they may even
have been deliberately adopted from a keen sense of
what the Greeks called asymmetreia as an adjunct
to effect. It is more difficult to understand what
he proposed to do with the Madonna and her two
attendant saints. Placed as they now are upon a
simple ledge, they strike one as being too near the
eye, and out of harmony with the architectural tone
of the building. It is also noticeable that the saints
are more than a head taller than the Dukes, while
the Madonna overtops the saints by more than
another head. We are here in a region of pure
conjecture ; and if I hazard an opinion, it is only
thrown out as a possible solution of a now impene
trable problem. I think, then, that Michelangelo
may have meant to pose these three figures where
they are, facing the altar ; to raise the Madonna

24 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
upon a slightly projecting bracket above the level
of SS. Damiano and Cosimo, and to paint the wall
behind them with a fresco of the Crucifixion. That
he had no intention of panelling that empty space
with marble may be taken for granted, considering
the high finish which has been given to every part
of this description of work in the chapel. Treated
as I have suggested, the statue of the Madonna, with
the patron saints of the House of Medici, over
shadowed by a picture of Christ's sacrifice, would
have confronted the mystery of the Mass during
every celebration at the altar. There are many
designs for the Crucifixion, made by Michelangelo
in later life, so lofty as almost to suggest a group
of figures in the foreground, cutting the middle
distance. At the close of Michelangelo's life the sacristy
was still unfinished. It contained the objects I have
described — the marble panelling, the altar with its
candelabra, the statues of the Dukes and their attend
ant figures, the Madonna and two Medicean patron
saints — in fact, all that we find there now, with the
addition of Giovanni da Udine's frescoes in the
cupola, the relics of which have since been buried
under cold Florentine whitewash.1
All the views I have advanced in the foregoing
1 I often wonder why people abuse the churchwardens of the last
century in England, while they withhold their censure from the men
of Florence, who have obliterated really great work, and rendered the
task of reconstructing it impossible, by a remorseless application of
mere whitewash to damaged frescoes.

VASARI'S LETTER ON THE SACRISTY. 25
paragraphs as to the point at which Michelangelo
abandoned this chapel, and his probable designs for
its completion, are in the last resort based upon an
important document penned at the instance of the
Duke of Florence by Vasari to Buonarroti, not long
before the old man's death in Rome. This epistle
has so weighty a bearing upon the matter in hand
that I shall here translate it. Careful study of its
fluent periods will convince an unprejudiced mind
that the sacristy, as we now see it, is even less repre
sentative of its maker's design than it was when
Vasari wrote. The frescoes of Giovanni da Udine
are gone. It will also show that the original project
involved a wealth of figurative decoration, statuary,
painting, stucco, which never arrived at realisation.

VII.
Vasari, writing in the spring of 1562, informs
Michelangelo concerning the Academy of Design
founded by Duke Cosimo de' Medici, and of the
Duke's earnest desire that he should return to
Florence in order that the sacristy at S. Lorenzo
may be finished.1 "Your reasons for not coming
are accepted as sufficient. He is therefore consider
ing—forasmuch as the place is being used now for
1 The despatch is printed in Bottari's Lett. Pitt, vol. iii. pp. 78-84.
It exists in manuscript in the Arch. Buon., Cod. xi. No. 765.

26 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
religious services by day and night, according to the
intention of Pope Clement — he is considering, I say,
a plan for erecting the statues which are missing
in the niches above the sepulchres and the taber
nacles above the doors. The Duke then wishes that
all the eminent sculptors of this academy, in com
petition man with man, should each of them make
one statue, and that the painters in like manner
should exercise their art upon the chapel. Designs
are to be prepared for the arches according to your
own project, including works of painting and of
stucco ; the other ornaments and the pavement are to
be provided ; in short, he intends that the new acade
micians shall complete the whole imperfect scheme,
in order that the world may see that, while so many
men of genius still exist among us, the noblest work
which was ever yet conceived on earth has not been
left unfinished. He has commissioned me to write
to you and unfold his views, begging you at the
same time to favour him by communicating to him
self or to me what your intentions were, or those of
the late Pope Clement, with regard to the name and
title of the chapel ; moreover, to inform us what
designs you made for the four tabernacles on each
side of the Dukes Lorenzo and Giuliano ; also what
you projected for the eight statues above the doors
and in the tabernacles of the corners ; and, finally,
what your idea was of the paintings to adorn the
flat walls and the semicircular spaces of the chapel.
He is particularly anxious that you should be assured

DUKE COSIMO'S PROJECT. 27
of his determination to alter nothing you have already
done or planned, but, on the contrary, to carry out
the whole work according to your own conception.
The academicians too are unanimous in their hearty
desire to abide by this decision. I am furthermore
instructed to tell you, that if you possess sketches,
working cartoons, or drawings made for this purpose,
the same would be of the greatest service in the
execution of his project ; and he promises to be a
good and faithful administrator, so that honour may
ensue. In case you do not feel inclined to do all
this, through the burden of old age or for any other
reason, he begs you at least to communicate with
some one who shall write upon the subject ; seeing
that he would be greatly grieved, as indeed would
the whole of our academy, to have no ray of light
from your own mind, and possibly to add things to
your masterpiece which were not according to your
designs and wishes. We all of us look forward to
being comforted by you, if not with actual work, at
least with words. His Excellency founds this
hope upon your former willingness to complete the
edifice by allotting statues to Tribolo, Montelupo,
and the Friar (Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli). The
last named of these masters is here, eagerly desirous
to have the opportunity of doing you honour. So
are Francesco Sangallo, Giovanni Bologna, Benvenuto
Cellini, Ammanato, Rossi and Vincenzio Danti of
Perugia, not to mention other sculptors of note.
The painters, headed by Bronzino, include many

28 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
talented young men, skilled in design, and colounsts,
quite capable of establishing an honourable reputa
tion. Of myself I need not speak. You know well
that in devotion, attachment, love, and loyalty (and
let me say this with prejudice to no one) I surpass
the rest of your admirers by far. Therefore, I en
treat you, of your goodness, to console his Excel
lency, and all these men of parts, and our city, as
well as to show this particular favour to myself,
who have been selected by the Duke to write to you,
under the impression that, being your familiar and
loving friend, I might obtain from you some assist
ance of sterling utility for the undertaking. His
Excellency is prepared to spend both substance and
labour on the task, in order to honour you. Pray
then, albeit age is irksome, endeavour to aid him
by unfolding your views ; for, in doing so, you will
confer benefits on countless persons, and will be the
cause of raising all these men of parts to higher
excellence, each one of whom has learned what he
already knows in the sacristy, or rather let me say
our school."
This eloquent despatch informs us very clearly
that the walls of the sacristy, above the tall Corin
thian order which encloses the part devoted to
sculpture, were intended to be covered with stucco
and fresco paintings, completing the polychromatic
decoration begun by Giovanni da Udine in the
cupola. Twelve statues had been designed for the
niches in the marble panelling ; and one word used

Fisuke of Giuliano.

FAILURE OF THE PLAN. 29
by Vasari, facciate, leaves the impression that the
blank walls round and opposite the altar were also
to be adorned with pictures. We remain uncertain
how Michelangelo originally meant to dispose of the
colossal Madonna with SS. Damian and Cosimo.
Unhappily, nothing came of the Duke's project.
Michelangelo was either unable or unwilling —
probably unable — to furnish the necessary plans
and drawings. In the eighth chapter of this book
I have discussed the hesitations with regard to the
interior of the sacristy which are revealed by some
of his extant designs for it. We also know that he
was not in the habit of preparing accurate working
cartoons for the whole of a large scheme, but that
he proceeded from point to point, trusting to slight
sketches and personal supervision of the work.1
Thus, when Vasari wrote to him from Rome about
the staircase of the library, he expressed a perfect
readiness to help, but could only remember its con
struction in a kind of dream.2 We may safely
assume, then, that he had not sufficient material
to communicate ; plans definite enough in general
scope and detailed incident to give a true concep
tion of his whole idea were lacking.
1 The cartoon for the Battle of Pisa, the cartoons for the Sistine, and
the model for the cupola of S. Peter do not invalidate this state
ment. In the case of the frescoes above mentioned, the work was
actually in hand and had to be got through ; the model was only made
at the urgent instance of friends, who were anxious lest he should die
and leave no record of his conception.
2 Lettere, No. cdlxxxv.

3o LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.

VIII.
Passing to sesthetical considerations, I am forced
to resume here what I published many years ago
about the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo, as it now exists.
Repeated visits to that shrine have only renewed
former impressions, which will not bear to be repro
duced in other language, and would lose some of
their freshness by the stylistic effort. No other course
remains then but to quote from my own writings,
indorsing them with such weight as my signature
may have acquired since they were first given to
the world.1
"The sacristy may be looked on either as the
masterpiece of a sculptor who required fit setting
for his statues, or of an architect who designed
statues to enhance the structure he had planned.
Both arts are used with equal ease, nor has the
genius of Michelangelo dealt more masterfully with
the human frame than with the forms of Roman
architecture in this chapel. He seems to have paid
no heed to classic precedent, and to have taken no
pains to adapt the parts to the structural purpose of
the building. It was enough for him to create a
wholly novel framework for the modern miracle of
sculpture it enshrines, attending to such rules of
composition as determine light and shade, and seek-
1 Renaissance in Italy, "Fine Arts," pp. 86, 87, 415-419.

CRITICISM OF THE SACRISTY. 31
ing by the relief of mouldings and pilasters to en
hance the terrible and massive forms that brood
above the Medicean tombs. The result is a product
of picturesque and plastic art as true to the Michel-
angelesque spirit as the Temple of the Wingless
Victory to that of Pheidias. But where Michel
angelo achieved a triumph of boldness, lesser natures
were betrayed into bizarrerie ; and this chapel of
the Medici, in spite of its grandiose simplicity,
proved a stumbling-block to subsequent architects
by encouraging them to despise propriety and violate
the laws of structure.
" We may assume then that the colossal statues of
Giuliano and Lorenzo were studied with a view to
their light and shadow as much as to their form ;
and this is a fact to be remembered by those who
visit the chapel where Buonarroti laboured both as
architect and sculptor. Of the two Medici, it is not
fanciful to say that the Duke of Urbino is the most
immovable of spectral shapes eternalised in marble ;
while the Duke of Nemours, more graceful and
elegant, seems intended to present a contrast to
this terrible thought-burdened form. The allegorical
figures, stretched on segments of ellipses beneath
the pedestals of the two Dukes, indicate phases of
darkness and of light, of death and life. They are
two women and two men ; tradition names them
Night and Day, Twilight and Dawning. Thus in
the statues themselves and in their attendant genii
we have a series of abstractions, symbolising the

32 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
sleep and waking of existence, action and thought,
the gloom of death, the lustre of life, and the inter
mediate states of sadness and of hope that form the
borderland of both. Life is a dream between two
slumbers ; sleep is death's twin-brother ; night is
the shadow of death ; death is the gate of life : —
such is the mysterious mythology wrought by the
sculptor of the modern world in marble. All these
figures, by the intensity of their expression, the
vagueness of their symbolism, force us to think and
question. What, for example, occupies Lorenzo's
brain? Bending forward, leaning his chin upon
his wrist, placing the other hand upon his knee, on
what does he for ever ponder ?
" The sight, as Rogers said well, ' fascinates and is
intolerable.' Michelangelo has shot the beaver of
the helmet forward on his forehead, and bowed his
head, so as to clothe the face in darkness. But
behind the gloom there lurks no fleshless skull, as
Rogers fancied. The whole frame of the powerful
man is instinct with some imperious thought. Has
he outlived his life and fallen upon everlasting con
templation ? Is he brooding, injured and indignant,
over his own doom and the extinction of his race 1
Is he condemned to witness in immortal immobility
the woes of Italy he helped to cause ? Or has the
sculptor symbolised in him the burden of that per
sonality we carry with us in this life, and bear for
ever when we wake into another world ? Beneath
this incarnation of oppressive thought there lie, full

Hand of Giuliano.

THE DUKES AND THE ALLEGORIES. 33
length and naked, the figures of Dawn and Twilight,
Morn and Evening. So at least they are commonly
called, and these names are not inappropriate ; for
the breaking of the day and the approach of night
are metaphors for many transient conditions of the
soul. It is only as allegories in a large sense, com
prehending both the physical and intellectual order,
and capable of various interpretation, that any of
these statues can be understood. Even the Dukes
do not pretend to be portraits, and hence in part
perhaps the uncertainty that has gathered round
them. Very tranquil and noble is Twilight : a giant
in repose, he meditates, leaning upon his elbow,
looking down. But Dawn starts from her couch,
as though some painful summons had reached her,
sunk in dreamless sleep, and called her forth to
suffer. Her waking to consciousness is like that of
one who has been drowned, and who finds the return
to life agony. Before her eyes, seen even through
the mists of slumber, are the ruin and the shame of
Italy. Opposite lies Night, so sorrowful, so utterly
absorbed in darkness and the shade of death, that
to shake off that everlasting lethargy seems impos
sible. Yet she is not dead. If we raise our voices,
she too will stretch her limbs, and, like her sister,
shudder into sensibility with sighs. Only we must
not wake her ; for he who fashioned her has told
us that her sleep of stone is great good fortune.
Both of these women are large and brawny, unlike
the Fates of Pheidias, in their muscular maturity.
VOL. II. c

34 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
The burden of Michelangelo's thought was too
tremendous to be borne by virginal and graceful
beings. He had to make women no less cap
able of suffering, no less world -wearied, than his
country. " Standing before these statues, we do not cry, How
beautiful ! We murmur, How terrible, how grand !
Yet, after long gazing, we find them gifted with
beauty beyond grace. In each of them there is a
palpitating thought, torn from the artist's soul and
crystallised in marble. It has been said that archi
tecture is petrified music. In the Sacristy of S.
Lorenzo we feel impelled to remember phrases of
Beethoven. Each of these statues becomes for us a
passion, fit for musical expression, but turned like
Niobe to stone. They have the intellectual vague
ness, the emotional certainty, that belong to the
motives of a symphony. In their allegories, left
without a key, sculpture has passed beyond her old
domain of placid concrete form. The anguish of
intolerable emotion, the quickening of the conscious
ness to a sense of suffering, the acceptance of the
inevitable, the strife of the soul with destiny, the
burden and the passion of mankind : — that is what
they contain in their cold chisel-tortured marble. It
is open to critics of the school of Lessing to object
that here is the suicide of sculpture. It is easy to re
mark that those strained postures and writhen limbs
may have perverted the taste of lesser craftsmen.
Yet if Michelangelo was called to carve Medicean

PATRIOTIC ANXIETIES.

35

statues after the sack of Rome and the fall of
Florence — if he was obliged in sober sadness to
make sculpture a fit language for his sorrow-laden
heart — how could he have wrought more truthfully
than this ? To imitate him without sharing his
emotions or comprehending his thoughts, as the
soulless artists of the decadence attempted, was
without all doubt a grievous error. Surely also
we may regret, not without reason, that in the evil
days upon which he had fallen, the fair antique
Heiterheit and Allgemeinheit were beyond his
reach." That this regret is not wholly sentimental may
be proved, I think, by an exchange of verses, which
we owe to Vasari's literary sagacity.1 He tells
us that when the statue of the Night was opened
to the public view, it drew forth the following
quatrain from an author unknown to himself by
name : 2 —
The Night thou seest here, posed gracefully
In act of slumber, was by an Angel wrought
Out of this stone ; sleeping, with life she's fraught :
Wake her, incredulous wight ; she'll speak to thee.
Michelangelo would have none of these academi
cal conceits and compliments. He replied in four
verses, which show well enough what thoughts were
1 Vol. xii. p. 208. Compare what Condivi says about the statues
having been executed under an impulse of fear rather than of love,
p. 49.
2 The writer was Giovan Battista Strozzi.

36 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
in his brain when he composed the nightmare-
burdened, heavy-sleeping woman : 1 —
Dear is my sleep, but more to be mere stone,
So long as ruin and dishonour reign :
To hear naught, to feel naught, is my great gain ;
Then wake me not ; speak in an undertone.
1 There are numerous transcripts of the verses. The first word of
the quatrain was originally grato, but he changed it finally to caro.
See Guasti, Rime, p. 3. In the Codex Vaticanus, as I have seen, the
hand of a scribe wrote grato, and Michelangelo wrote over the word
caro.

Left Hand of the Dawn.

CHAPTER XL
i. From the beginning of 1535 to his death Michelangelo lived in
Rome. — Accession of Paul III. — He determines to engage the great
artist, and breaks the last contract for the Tomb of Julius. — The
statue of Moses is enough for one Pope's monument. — 2. Paul's
Brief appointing Michelangelo architect, sculptor, and painter-
in-chief, with a fixed salary. — The Last Judgment is ordered. —
3. Correspondence with Pietro Aretino on the theme of the Last
Judgment. — Aretino's demands for drawings. — His spiteful letter
when the fresco was finished and published in engravings. — Con
temporary objections to the indecent nudity of the vast painting. —
4. Michelangelo's illness. — The Last Judgment is exposed to view
on Christmas Day, 1541. — Criticism of the composition and its
style. — 5. Immediate fame of this great work. — Letter to Niccold
Martelli. — Further transactions about the Tomb of Julius. — Michel
angelo's friends and agents in Rome. — His petition to Pope Paul. —
Fresh annoyances about a new contract. The Duke of Urbino's
ratification is delayed. — Michelangelo meanwhile is already engaged
upon the painting of the Cappella Paolina. — His extreme exaspera
tion. — 6. The Tomb of Julius as it now exists at S. Pietro in
Vincoli. — Discrepancy between the lower and the upper parts
of the monument. — Michelangelo's and Montelupo's work. — The
Moses, and Zappi's sonnet on that statue. — 7. Critique of the more
or less finished statues which may be ascribed to the Tomb of
Julius. — The two Captives at the Louvre.— Four roughly blocked
figures in the Boboli Gardens. — The Victory. — The Adonis.

After the death of Clement VII., Michelangelo
never returned to reside for any length of time at
Florence. The rest of his life was spent in Rome,

38 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
and he fell almost immediately under the kind but
somewhat arbitrary patronage of Alessandro Farnese,
who succeeded to the Papal chair in October 1534,
with the title of Paul III.
One of the last acts of Clement's life had been to
superintend the second contract with the heirs of
Julius, by which Michelangelo undertook to finish
the tomb upon a reduced scale within the space
of three years. He was allowed to come to Rome
and work there during four months annually. Paul,
however, asserted his authority by upsetting these
arrangements and virtually cancelling the contract.
"In the meanwhile," writes Condivi,1 "Pope
Clement died, and Paul III. sent for him, and
requested him to enter his service. Michelangelo
saw at once that he would be interrupted in his
work upon the Tomb of Julius. So he told Paul
that he was not his own master, being bound to the
Duke of Urbino until the monument was finished.
The Pope grew angry, and exclaimed : ' It is
thirty years that I have cherished this desire, and
now that I am Pope, may I not indulge it ? Where
is the contract? I mean to tear it up.' Michel
angelo, finding himself reduced to these straits,
almost resolved to leave Rome and take refuge in
the Genoese, at an abbey held by the Bishop of
Aleria, who had been a creature of Julius, and was
much attached to him. He hoped that the neigh
bourhood of the Carrara quarries, and the facility
1 Condivi, p. 57.

PAUL III. 39
of transporting marbles by sea, would help him to
complete his engagements. He also thought of
settling at Urbino, which he had previously selected
as a tranquil retreat, and where he expected to be
well received for the sake of Pope Julius. Some
months earlier, he even sent a man of his to buy a
house and land there. Still he dreaded the great
ness of the Pontiff, as indeed he had good cause to
do ; and for this reason he abandoned the idea of
quitting Rome, hoping to pacify his Holiness with
fair words.
" The Pope, however, stuck to his opinion ; and
one day he visited Michelangelo at his house, at
tended by eight or ten Cardinals. He first of all
inspected the cartoon prepared in Clement's reign
for the great work of the Sistine ; then the statues
for the tomb, and everything in detail. The most
reverend Cardinal of Mantua, standing before the
statue of Moses, cried out : ' That piece alone is
sufficient to do honour to the monument of Julius.'
Pope Paul, having gone through the whole work
shop, renewed his request that Michelangelo should
enter his service ; and when the latter still resisted,
he clinched the matter by saying : ' I will provide
that the Duke of Urbino shall be satisfied with three
statues from your hand, and the remaining three
shall be assigned to some other sculptor.' Accord
ingly, he settled on the terms of a new contract
with the agents of the Duke, which were confirmed
by his Excellency, who did not care to displeasure

40 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
the Pope. Michelangelo, albeit he was now re
lieved from the obligation of paying for the three
statues, preferred to take this cost upon himself, and
deposited 1580 ducats for the purpose. And so
the Tragedy of the Tomb came at last to an end.
This may now be seen at S. Pietro ad Vincula;
and though, truth to tell, it is but a mutilated and
botched-up remnant of Michelangelo's original design,
the monument is still the finest to be found in Rome,
and perhaps elsewhere in the world, if only for the
three statues finished by the hand of the great
master."

II.
In this account, Condivi has condensed the events
of seven years. The third and last contract with
the heirs of Julius was not ratified until the autumn
of 1542, nor was the tomb erected much before the
year 1550. We shall see that the tragedy still cost
its hero many anxious days during this period.
Paul III., having obtained his object, issued a
brief, whereby he appointed Michelangelo chief
architect, sculptor, and painter at the Vatican. The
^instrument is dated September 1, 1535, and the
terms with which it describes the master's eminence
in the three arts are highly flattering.1 Allusion is
directly made to the fresco of the Last Judgment,
1 Gotti, ii. p. 123.

THE LAST JUDGMENT. 41
which may therefore have been begun about this
date. Michelangelo was enrolled as member of the
Pontifical household, with a permanent pension of
1200 golden crowns, to be raised in part on the
revenues accruing from a ferry across the Po at
Piacenza. He did not, however, obtain possession
of this ferry until 1537, and the benefice proved so
unremunerative that it was exchanged for a little
post in the Chancery at Rimini.1
When Michelangelo began to work again in the
Sistine Chapel, the wall above the altar was adorned
with three great sacred subjects by the hand of
Pietro Perugino. In the central fresco of the
Assumption Perugino introduced a portrait of Sixtus
IV. kneeling in adoration before the ascending
Madonna.2 The side panels were devoted to the
Nativity and the finding of Moses. In what condi
tion Michelangelo found these frescoes before the
painting of the Last Judgment we do not know.
Vasari says that he caused the wall to be rebuilt
with well-baked carefully selected bricks, and sloped
inwards so that the top projected half a cubit from
the bottom. This was intended to secure the picture
from dust.3 Vasari also relates that Sebastiano del
1 See Ricordo, January 2, 1537, in Lettere, p. 604, and Lettere, No.
cciii., date August 10, 1548. It appears that Michelangelo refused to
profit by the benefice at Rimini.
2 This must have resembled Pinturicchio's fine portrait of Alexander
VI. in a similar attitude, reproduced in Yriarte, Autour des Borgias,
at p. 72.
3 Vasari, xii. p. 219. The projection is not apparent now ; andifitkept
off dust, it would rather have increased the injury from rising smoke.

42 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
Piombo, acting on his own responsibility, prepared
this wall with a ground for oil-colours, hoping to be
employed by Michelangelo, but that the latter had
it removed, preferring the orthodox method of fresco-
painting.1 The story, as it stands, is not very prob
able ; yet we may perhaps conjecture that, before
deciding on the system to be adopted for his great
work, Buonarroti thought fit to make experiments
in several surfaces. The painters of 'that period, as
is proved by Sebastiano's practice, by Lionardo da
Vinci's unfortunate innovations at Florence, and by
the experiments of Raphael's pupils in the hall of
Constantine, not unfrequently invented methods for
mural decoration which should afford the glow and
richness of oil-colouring. Michelangelo may even
have proposed at one time to intrust a large portion
of his fresco to Sebastiano's executive skill, and
afterwards have found the same difficulties in colla
boration which reduced him to the necessity of
painting the Sistine vault in solitude.
Be that as it may, when the doors of the chapel
once closed behind the master, we hear nothing
whatsoever about his doings till they opened again
on Christmas Day in 1 54 1 . The reticence of Michel
angelo regarding his own works is one of the most
trying things about him. It is true indeed that
his correspondence between 1534 and 1541 almost
1 m* of Sebastiano del Piombo, vol. x. p. 135. Vasari refers to this
occasion Michelangelo's famous saying that oils were only meant for
women and lazy fellows. He also ascribes Michelangelo's rupture with
his old friend and gossip to the bad feeling caused by the incident.

GUIDOBALDO DELLA ROVERE. 43
entirely fails ; still, had it been abundant, we should
probably have possessed but dry and laconic refer
ences to matters connected with the business of
his art.
He must have been fully occupied on the Last
Judgment during 1536 and 1537. Paul III. was
still in correspondence with the Duke of Urbino,
who showed himself not only willing to meet the
Pope's wishes with regard to the Tomb of Julius,
but also very well disposed toward the sculptor.
In July 1537, Hieronimo Staccoli wrote to the
Duke of Camerino about a silver salt-cellar which
Michelangelo had designed at his request.1 This
prince, Guidobaldo della Rovere, when he after
wards succeeded to the Duchy of Urbino, sent
a really warm-hearted despatch to his " dearest
Messer Michelangelo." He begins by saying that,
though he still cherishes the strongest wish to see
the monument of his uncle completed, he does not
like to interrupt the fresco in the Sistine Chapel,
upon which his Holiness has set his heart. He
thoroughly trusts in Michelangelo's loyalty, and
is assured that his desire to finish the tomb, for
the honour of his former patron's memory, is keen
1 Gotti, ii. 125. Guidobaldo della Rovere, the son of the Duke of
Urbino, held the title of Duke of Camerino at this time, by right of
his marriage with the heiress of the Varani family. It is probable that
the compliance shown by the Della Roveres in the matter of the
tomb was due in some measure to their difficulties with the Papal
Curia in the matter of the fief of Camerino. See Dennistoun,
Dukes of Urbino, vol. iii. chaps. 41, 42.

44 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
and sincere. Therefore, he hopes that when the
picture of the Last Judgment is terminated, the
work will be resumed and carried to a prosperous
conclusion. In the meantime, let Buonarroti attend
to his health, and not put everything again to peril
by overstraining his energies.1
| Signor Gotti quotes a Papal brief, issued on the
1 8th of September 1537, in which the history of
[the Tomb of Julius up to date is set forth, and
Michelangelo's obligations toward the princes of
Urbino are recited. It then proceeds to declare
that Clement VII. ordered him to paint the great
wall of the Sistine, and that Paul desires this work
to be carried forward with all possible despatch.
He therefore lets it be publicly known that Michel
angelo has not failed to perform his engagements
in the matter of the tomb through any fault or
action of his own, but by the express command of
his Holiness. Finally, he discharges him and his
heirs from all liabilities, pecuniary or other, to which
he may appear exposed by the unfulfilled contracts.2
1 Gotti, i. 265. Francesco Maria della Rovere died in 1538. The
letter (preserved in the Arch. Buon., Cod. vii. No. 225) is dated
September 7, 1539. It is therefore written by Guidobaldo II. Gotti
seems to me to have confused the two Dukes.
2 Gotti, i. 263. The text of the brief is not published in his
Appendix. Milanesi (Vasari, xii. 388) seems to allude to it under the
date December 18, 1537.

PIETRO ARETINO.

III.

45

While thus engaged upon his fresco, Michel
angelo received a letter, dated Venice, September
15, 1537, from that rogue of genius, Pietro Aretino.1
It opens in the strain of hyperbolical compliment
and florid rhetoric which Aretino affected when he
chose to flatter. The man, however, was an ad
mirable stylist, the inventor of a new epistolary
manner. Like a volcano, his mind blazed with
wit, and buried sound sense beneath the scoriae
and ashes it belched forth. Gifted with a natural
feeling for rhetorical contrast, he knew the effect
of some simple and impressive sentence, placed like
a gem of value in the midst of gimcrack conceits.
Thus : "I should not venture to address you, had
not my name, accepted by the ears of every prince
in Europe, outworn much of its native indignity.
And it is but meet that I should approach you
with this reverence ; for the world has many kings,
and one only Michelangelo. Strange miracle, that
Nature, who cannot place aught so high but that
you explore it with your art, should be impotent to
stamp upon her works that majesty which she con
tains within herself, the immense power of your
style and your chisel ! Wherefore, when we gaze on
you, we regret no longer that we may not meet
with Pheidias, Apelles, or Vitruvius, whose spirits
1 Le Lettere di M. Pietro Aretino, Parigi, 1609, vol. i. p. 154.

46 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
were the shadow of your spirit." He piles the
panegyric up to its climax, by adding it is fortunate
for those great artists of antiquity that their master
pieces cannot be compared with Michelangelo's,
since, " being arraigned before the tribunal of our
eyes, we should perforce proclaim you unique as
sculptor, unique as painter, and as architect unique."
After the blare of this exordium, Aretino settles
down to the real business of his letter, and com
municates his own views regarding the Last Judg
ment, which he hears that the supreme master of
all arts is engaged in depicting. " Who would not
quake with terror while dipping his brush into the
dreadful theme? I behold Antichrist in the midst
of thronging multitudes, with an aspect such as only
you could limn. I behold affright upon the fore
head of the living ; I see the signs of the extinc
tion of the sun, the moon, the stars ; I see the
breath of life exhaling from the elements ; I see
Nature abandoned and apart, reduced to barrenness,
crouching in her decrepitude ; I see Time sapless
and trembling, for his end has come, and he is seated
on an arid throne ; and while I hear the trumpets of
the angels with their thunder shake the hearts of
all, I see both Life and Death convulsed with horrible
confusion, the one striving to resuscitate the dead,
the other using all his might to slay the living ; I
see Hope and Despair guiding the squadrons of
the good and the cohorts of the wicked ; I see the
theatre of clouds, blazing with rays that issue from

ARETINO'S DESCRIPTION OF DOOMSDAY. 47
the purest fires of heaven, upon which among his
hosts Christ sits, ringed round with splendours and
with terrors ; I see the radiance of his face, corus
cating flames of light both glad and awful, filling
the blest with joy, the damned with fear intolerable.
Then I behold the satellites of the abyss, who with
horrid gestures, to the glory of the saints and
martyrs, deride Caesar and the Alexanders ; for it is
one thing to have trampled on the world, but more
to have conquered self. I see Fame, with her
crowns and palms trodden under foot, cast out
among the wheels of her own chariots. And to
conclude all, I see the dread sentence issue from the
mouth of the Son of God. I see it in the form of
two darts, the one of salvation, the other of damna
tion ; and as they hustle down, I hear the fury of its
onset shock the elemental frame of things, and,
with the roar of thunderings and voices, smash the
universal scheme to fragments. I see the vault of
ether merged in gloom, illuminated only by the
lights of Paradise and the furnaces of hell. My
thoughts, excited by this vision of the Day of Doom,
whisper : ' If we quake in terror before the handi
work of Buonarroti, how shall we shake and shrink
affrighted when He who shall judge passes sentence
on our souls ? ' "
This description of the Last Day, in which it
is more than doubtful whether a man like Aretino
had any sincere faith, possesses considerable literary
interest. In the first place, it is curious as coming

48 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
from one who lived on terms of closest intimacy
with painters, and who certainly appreciated art ;
for this reason, that nothing less pictorial than the
images evoked could be invented. Then, again, in
the first half of the sixteenth century it anticipated
the rhetoric of the barocco period — the eloquence
of seventeenth-century divines, Dutch poets, Jesuit
pulpiteers. Aretino's originality consisted in his
precocious divination of a whole new age of taste
and style, which was destined to supersede the purer
graces of the Renaissance.
The letter ends with an assurance that if any
thing could persuade him to break a resolution he
had formed, and to revisit Rome, it would be his
great anxiety to view the Last Judgment of the
Sistine Chapel with his own eyes.1
Michelangelo sent an answer which may be cited
as an example of his peculiar irony. Under the
form of elaborate compliment it conceals the scorn
he must have conceived for Aretino and his insolent
advice. Yet he knew how dangerous the man could
be, and felt obliged to humour him.2
" Magnificent Messer Pietro, my lord and brother, —
The receipt of your letter gave me both joy and
1 If Aretino begged for drawings in this letter, he omitted the pas
sage when he sent the manuscript to press. Michelangelo's answer looks
as though he had. We know that G. Vasari sent a present of a head
modelled in wax and a sketch for S. Catherine by Michelangelo as a
present to Aretino, September 7, 1535. See Bottari, Lett. Pitt, vol.
iii. p. 190.
3 Lettere, No. cdxxi.

WJterlColls.PhSc.

CROUP FROMTME LA ST J U D G M E NT .

CORRESPONDENCE WITH ARETINO. 49
sorrow. I rejoiced exceedingly, since it came from
you, who are without peer in all the world for talent.
Yet at the same time I grieved, inasmuch as, having
finished a large part of the fresco, I cannot realise
your conception, which is so complete, that if the
Day of Judgment had come, and you had been
present and seen it with your eyes, your words could
not have described it better. Now, touching an
answer to my letter, I reply that I not only desire
it, but I entreat you to write one, seeing that kings
and emperors esteem it the highest favour to be
mentioned by your pen. Meanwhile, if I have any
thing that you would like, I offer it with all my
heart. In conclusion, do not break your resolve of
never revisiting Rome on account of the picture I
am painting, for this would be too much."
Aretino's real object was to wheedle some priceless
sketch or drawing out of the great master. This
appears from a second letter written by him on the
20th of January 1538.1 "Does not my devotion
deserve that I should receive from you, the prince
of sculpture and of painting, one of those cartoons
which you fling into the fire, to the end that during
life I may enjoy it, and in death carry it with me
to the tomb?" After all, we must give Aretino
credit for genuine feelings of admiration toward
illustrious artists like Titian, Sansovino, and Michel
angelo. Writing many years after the date of these
letters, when he has seen an engraving of the Last
1 Lettere di M. P. A., op. cit, vol. ii. p. 10.

VOL. 11.

50 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
Judgment, he uses terms, extravagant indeed, but
apparently sincere, about its grandeur of design.1
Then he repeats his request for a drawing. "Why
will you not repay my devotion to your divine
qualities by the gift of some scrap of a drawing,
the least valuable in your eyes ? I should certainly
esteem two strokes of the chalk upon a piece of
paper more than all the cups and chains which all
the kings and princes gave me."2 It seems that
Michelangelo continued to correspond with him, and
that Benvenuto Cellini took part in their exchange
of letters.3 But no drawings were sent ; and in
course of time the ruffian got the better of the
virtuoso in Aretino's rapacious nature. Without
ceasing to fawn and flatter Michelangelo, he sought
occasion to damage his reputation. Thus we find
him writing in January 1546 to the engraver Enea
Vico, bestowing high praise upon a copper-plate
which a certain Bazzacco had made from the Last
Judgment, but criticising the picture as "licentious
and likely to cause scandal with the Lutherans, by
1 Op. cit, vol. iii. p. 46, April 1544.
2 Guasti prints a manuscript sonnet from the Arch. Buon., which has
no author's name. He calls attention to the resemblance between this
passage in Aretino's letter and the following lines : —
Humil ti prega con voce suave,
Che la tua sancta man sovr'esso giri,
Se non con altro, eon carbone spento.
Due line' in eroee almen che tu vi tiri
Assai li fia. — Rime, p. Hi.
3 Op. cit, vol. iii. p. 123, date April 1545 ; vol. iv. p. 37, date April
1546.

ARETINO'S INVECTIVE. 51
reason of its immodest exposure of the nakedness of
persons of both sexes in heaven and hell." 1 It is
not clear what Aretino expected from Enea Vico.
A reference to the Duke of Florence seems to in
dicate that he wished to arouse suspicions among
great and influential persons regarding the religious
and moral quality of Michelangelo's work.
This malevolent, temper burst out at last in one of
the most remarkable letters we possess of his. It
was obviously intended to hurt and insult Michel
angelo as much as lay within his power of innuendo
and direct abuse. The invective offers so many
points of interest with regard to both men, that I
shall not hesitate to translate it here in full.2
" Sir, when I inspected the complete sketch of
the whole of your Last Judgment, I arrived at re
cognising the eminent graciousness of Raffaello in
its agreeable beauty of invention.
" Meanwhile, as a baptized Christian, I blush before
the license, so forbidden to man's intellect, which
you have used in expressing ideas connected with
the highest aims and final ends to which our faith
aspires. . So, then, that Michelangelo stupendous in
his fame, that Michelangelo renowned for prudence,
1 Op. cit., vol. iii. p. 328. Springer (ii. 268) has misconstrued, I think,
the allusion to the Lutherans.
2 Gaye, ii. 332. Gaye says : " It is original. The signature and
postscript are in Aretino's hand." The date of the document is Venice,
November 1565. Since Aretino died in 15 57 and Michelangelo in 1564,
this date is clearly wrong. Gaye conjectures the year may have been
1 545 ; but Aretino wrote one of his begging letters to Michelangelo in
1546, and published it in his Epistolarium.

52 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
that Michelangelo whom all admire, has chosen to
display to the whole world an impiety of irreligion
only equalled by the perfection of his painting ! Is
it possible that you, who, since you are divine, do
not condescend to consort with human beings, have
done this in the greatest temple built to God, upon
the highest altar raised to Christ, in the most sacred
chapel upon earth, where the mighty hinges of the
Church, the venerable priests of our religion, the
Vicar of Christ, with solemn ceremonies and holy
prayers, confess, contemplate, and adore his body,
his blood, and his flesh ?
"If it were not infamous to introduce the com
parison, I would plume myself upon my virtue
when I wrote La Nanna} I would demonstrate the
superiority of my reserve to your indiscretion, see
ing that I, while handling themes lascivious and im
modest, use language comely and decorous, speak in
terms beyond reproach and inoffensive to chaste ears.
You, on the contrary, presenting so awful a subject,
exhibit saints and angels, these without earthly
decency, and those without celestial honours.2
" The pagans, when they modelled a Diana, gave
her clothes ; when they made a naked Venus, hid
the parts which are not shown with the hand of
modesty. And here there comes a Christian, who,
because he rates art higher than the faith, deems it
1 Aretino's dialogue upon the art of prostitution.
2 All the figures in the Last Judgment were simple nudes, with the
exception (possibly) of Christ and the Madonna.

INDECENCY OF THE LAST JUDGMENT. 53
a royal spectacle to portray martyrs and virgins in im
proper attitudes, to show men dragged down by their
shame, before which things houses of ill-fame would
shut the eyes in order not to see them. Your art
would be at home in some voluptuous bagnio, certainly
not in the highest chapel of the world. Less criminal
were it if you were an infidel, than, being a believer,
thus to sap the faith of others. Up to the present
time the splendour of such audacious marvels hath
not gone unpunished ; for their very superexcel-
lence is the death of your good name. Restore them
to repute by turning the indecent parts of the
damned to flames, and those of the blessed to sun
beams ; or imitate the modesty of Florence, who
hides your David's shame beneath some gilded
leaves. And yet that statue is exposed upon a
public square, not in a consecrated chapel.
" As I wish that God may pardon you, I do not
write this out of any resentment for the things I
begged of you.1 In truth, if you had sent me what
you promised, you would only have been doing
what you ought to have desired most eagerly to do
in your own interest ; for this act of courtesy would
silence the envious tongues Avhich say that only
certain Gerards and Thomasses dispose of them.2
"Well, if the treasure bequeathed you by Pope
Julius, in order that you might deposit his ashes in
1 An allusion to his wish to have some of Michelangelo's drawings.
2 A malevolent allusion, as we shall see in the next chapter, to
Tommaso dei Cavalieri and Gherardo Perini.

54 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
an urn of your own carving, was not enough to make
you keep your plighted word, what can I expect
from you ? It is not your ingratitude, your avarice,
great painter, but the grace and merit of the
Supreme Shepherd, which decides his fame.1 God
wills that Julius should live renowned for ever in a
simple tomb, inurned in his own merits, and not in
some proud monument dependent on your genius.
Meantime, your failure to discharge your obligations
is reckoned to you as an act of thieving.
" Our souls need the tranquil emotions of piety
more than the lively impressions of plastic art.
May God, then, inspire his Holiness Paul with the
same thoughts as he instilled into Gregory of blessed
memory, who preferred to despoil Rome of the proud
statues of the Pagan deities than to let their magni
ficence deprive the humble images of the saints of
the devotion of the people.2
" Lastly, when you set about composing your pic
ture of the universe and hell and heaven, if you had
steeped your heart with those suggestions of glory,
of honour, and of terror proper to the theme, which I
sketched out and offered to you in the letter I wrote
you and the whole world reads, I venture to assert
that not only would nature and all kind influences
cease to regret the illustrious talents they endowed
you with, and which to-day render you, by virtue of
1 The Italian is obscure and defective here, perhaps because the
body of the letter was dictated.
2 That is, he hopes Paul will destroy the fresco.

ARETINO'S SPITE. 55
your art, an image of the marvellous : but Provi
dence, who sees all things, would herself continue
to watch over such a masterpiece, so long as order
lasts in her government of the hemispheres.
" Your servant, " The Aretine.
"Now that I have blown off some of the rage I
feel against you for the cruelty you used to my
devotion, and have taught you to see that, while
you may be divine, I am not made of water, I bid you
tear up this letter, for I have done the like,1 and do
not forget that I am one to whose epistles kings
and emperors reply.
"To the great Michelangelo Buonarroti in Rome."
The malignancy of this letter is only equalled by
its stylistic ingenuity. Aretino used every means
he could devise to wound and irritate a sensitive
nature. The allusion to Raffaello, the comparison
of his own pornographic dialogues with the Last
Judgment in the Sistine, the covert hint that folk
gossiped about Michelangelo's relations to young
men, his sneers at the great man's exclusiveness, his
cruel insinuations with regard to the Tomb of Julius,
his devout hope that Paul will destroy the fresco,
and the impudent eulogy of his precious letter on
the Last Day, were all nicely calculated to annoy.
1 Apparently a promise not to print it. It did in effect not appear
in Aretino's published edition of his letters.

56 ) LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.

Whether the missive was duly received by Buonarroti
we do not know. Gaye asserts that it appears to
have been sent through the post. He discovered it
in the Archives of the Strozzi Palace.
The virtuous Pietro Aretino was not the only one
to be scandalised by the nudities of the Last Judg
ment ; and indeed it must be allowed that when
Michelangelo treated such a subject in such a
manner, he was pushing the principle of art for art's
sake to its extremity.1 One of the most popular
stories told about this work shows that it early
began to create a scandal.2 When it was three
fourths finished, Pope Paul went to see the fresco,
1 Gaye (vol. ii. p. 500) prints a curious criticism written by some
Florentine when Nanni di Baccio Bigio's copy of the Madonna della
Febbre was erected at S. Spirito. It will serve to show that even before
the Tridentine Council a reaction was going on against the artistic
license of the Cinque Cento. After abusing "the filthy and disgusting"
statues of Adam and Eve which had been placed in the Duomo upon
the 19th of March 1549, the man proceeds: "In the same month a
Pieta was uncovered at S. Spirito, which a Florentine (probably Luigi
del Riccio) sent to that church. It is said that the original was the
work of that inventor of filthinesses, who cared more for art than for
devotion, Michelangelo. All the modern painters and sculptors, by
imitating Lutheran caprices of this kind, have brought matters to such
a pitch, that nowadays the only figures which are made for holy churches
seem intended to bury the faith and devotion of Christianity. I hope
that God will one day send His saints and dash to earth idolatrous
images like these.'' It was probably a Piagnone who wrote this in
vective. One hardly understands why he should have been so angry
with what is certainly Michelangelo's most religious work in marble.
It is also comic to talk of the neo-paganism of the Italian Renaissance
as Lutheran ; but Lutheran then meant only heretical or blasphemous.
Aretino came nearer to the point when he hinted that the Last Judg
ment would cause scandal among the Lutherans.
2 Vasari, xii. p. 220.

MESSER BIAGIO. 57
attended by Messer Biagio da Cesena, his Master of
the Ceremonies. On being asked his opinion of the
painting, Messer Biagio replied that he thought it
highly improper to expose so many naked figures in
a sacred picture, and that it was more fit for a place
of debauchery than for the Pope's chapel. Michel
angelo, nettled by this, drew the prelate's portrait to
the hfe, and placed him in hell with horns on his
head and a serpent twisted round his loins. Messer
Biagio, finding himself in this plight, and being no
doubt laughed at by his friends, complained to the
Pope, who answered that he could do nothing to
help him. " Had the painter sent you to Purgatory,
I would have used my best efforts to get you re
leased ; but I exercise no influence in hell ; ubi nulla
est redernptio." Before Michelangelo's death, his
follower, Daniele da Volterra, was employed to pro
vide draperies for the most obnoxious figures, and
won thereby the name of II Braghettone, or the
breeches-maker. Paul IV. gave the painter this
commission, having previously consulted Buonar
roti on the subject. The latter is said to have
replied to the Pope's messenger: "Tell his Holi
ness that this is a small matter, and can easily be
set straight. Let him look to setting the world in
order : to reform a picture costs no great trouble." 1
Later on, during the Pontificate of Pio V,, a master
named Girolamo da Fano continued the process
begun by Daniele da Volterra. As a necessary con-
1 Vasari, xii. p. 245.

58 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
sequence of this tribute to modesty, the scheme of
Michelangelo's colouring and the balance of his
masses have been irretrievably damaged.

IV
Vasari says that not very long before the Last
Judgment was finished, Michelangelo fell from the
scaffolding, and seriously hurt his leg. The pain he
suffered and his melancholy made him shut himself up
at home, where he refused to be treated by a doctor.
There was a Florentine physician in Rome, however,
of capricious humour, who admired the arts, and felt
a real affection for Buonarroti. This man contrived
to creep into the house by some privy entrance, and
roamed about it till he found the master. He then
insisted upon remaining there on watch and guard
until he had effected a complete cure. The name
of this excellent friend, famous for his skill and
science in those days, was Baccio Rontini.
After his recovery Michelangelo returned to work,
and finished the Last Judgment in a few months.
It was exposed to the public on Christmas Day in
i54i- Time, negligence, and outrage, the dust of cen
turies, the burned papers of successive conclaves,
the smoke of altar-candles, the hammers and the
hangings of upholsterers, the brush of the breeches-

SCHEME OF THE LAST JUDGMENT. 59
maker and restorer, have so dealt with the Last
Judgment that it is almost impossible to do it justice
now. What Michelangelo intended by his scheme
of colour is entirely lost. Not only did Daniele da
Volterra, an execrable colourist, dab vividly tinted
patches upon the modulated harmonies of flesh-tones
painted by the master; but the whole surface has
sunk into a bluish fog, deepening to something like
lamp-black around the altar. Nevertheless, in its
composition the fresco may still be studied ; and
after due inspection, aided by photographic repro
ductions of each portion, we are not unable to
understand the enthusiasm which so nobly and pro
foundly planned a work of art aroused among con
temporaries. It has sometimes been asserted that this enormous
painting, the largest and most comprehensive in the
world, is a tempest of contending forms, a hurly-
burly of floating, falling, soaring, and descending
figures. Nothing can be more opposed to the truth.
Michelangelo was sixty-six years of age when hei
laid his brush down at the end of the gigantic task:
He had long outlived the spontaneity of youthful
ardour. His experience through half a century in
the planning of monuments, the painting of the
Sistine vault, the designing of fagades and sacristies
and libraries, had developed the architectonic sense
which was always powerful in his conceptive faculty.
Consequently, we are not surprised to find that,
intricate and confused as the scheme may appear to

60 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
an unpractised eye, it is in reality a design of mathe
matical severity, divided into four bands or planes of
grouping. The wall, since it occupies one entire end
of a long high building, is naturally less broad than
lofty. The pictorial divisions are therefore horizontal
in the main, though so combined and varied as to
produce the effect of multiplied curves, balancing
and antiphonally inverting their lines of sinuosity.
The pendentive upon which the prophet Jonah sits,
descends and breaks the surface at the top, leaving
a semicircular compartment on each side of its
corbel. Michelangelo filled these upper spaces with
two groups of wrestling angels, the one bearing a
huge cross, the other a column, in the air. The
cross and whipping-post are the chief emblems of
Christ's Passion. The crown of thorns is also there,
the sponge, the ladder, and the nails. It is with no
merciful intent that these signs of our Lord's suffer
ing are thus exhibited. Demonic angels, tumbling
on clouds like Leviathans, hurl them to and fro in
brutal wrath above the crowd of souls, as though to
demonstrate the justice of damnation. In spite of
a God's pain and shameful death, mankind has gone
on sinning. The Judge is what the crimes of the
world and Italy have made him. Immediately below
the corbel, and well detached from the squadrons of
attendant saints, Christ rises from His throne. His
face is turned in the direction of the damned, His
right hand is lifted as though loaded with thunder
bolts for their annihilation. He is a ponderous

CRITICISM OF THE FRESCO. 61
young athlete ; rather say a mass of hypertrophied
muscles, with the features of a vulgarised Apollo.
The Virgin sits in a crouching attitude at His right
side, slightly averting her head, as though in pain
ful expectation of the coming sentence. The saints
and martyrs who surround Christ and His Mother,
while forming one of the chief planes in the com
position, are arranged in four unequal groups of
subtle and surprising intricacy. All bear the em
blems of their cruel deaths, and shake them in the
sight of Christ as though appealing to His judgment-
seat. It has been charitably suggested that they
intend to supplicate for mercy. I cannot, however,
resist the impression that they are really demanding
rigid justice. S. Bartholomew flourishes his flaying-
knife and dripping skin with a glare of menace.
S. Catherine struggles to raise her broken wheel.
S. Sebastian frowns down on hell with a sheaf of
arrows quivering in his stalwart arm. The saws, the
carding-combs, the crosses, and the gridirons, all
subserve the same purpose of reminding Christ that,
if He does not damn the wicked, confessors will
have died with Him in vain. It is singular that,
while Michelangelo depicted so many attitudes of
expectation, eagerness, anxiety, and astonishment in
the blest, he has given to none of them the expres
sion of gratitude, or love, or sympathy, or shrinking
awe. Men and women, old and young alike, are
human beings of Herculean build. Paradise, ac
cording to Buonarroti's conception, was not meant

62 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
for what is graceful, lovely, original, and tender.
The hosts of heaven are adult and over-developed
gymnasts. Yet, while we record these impressions,
it would be unfair to neglect the spiritual beauty of
some souls embracing after long separation in the
grave, with folding arms, and clasping hands, and
clinging lips. While painting these, Michelangelo
thought peradventure of his father and his brother.
The two planes which I have attempted to de
scribe occupy the upper and the larger portion of
the composition. The third in order is made up
of three masses. In the middle floats a band of
Titanic cherubs, blowing their long trumpets over
earth and sea to wake the dead. Dramatically,
nothing can be finer than the strained energy and
superhuman force of these superb creatures. Their
attitudes compel our imagination to hear the crash
ing thunders of the trump of doom. To the left of
the spectator are souls ascending to be judged,
some floating through vague ether, enwrapped with
graveclothes, others assisted by descending saints
and angels, who reach a hand, a rosary, to help the
still gross spirit in its flight. To the right are the
condemned, sinking downwards to their place of
torment, spurned by seraphs, cuffed by angelic
grooms, dragged by demons, hurling, howling,
huddled in a mass of horror. It is just here, and
still yet farther down, that Michelangelo put forth
all his power as a master of expression. While the
blessed display nothing which is truly proper to

HELL. 63
their state of holiness and everlasting peace, the/
damned appear in every realistic aspect of most/
stringent agony and terror. The colossal forms of
flesh with which the multitudes of saved and damned
are equally endowed, befit that extremity of physical
and mental anguish more than they suit the serenity
of bliss eternal. There is a wretch, twined round
with fiends, gazing straight before him as he sinks ;
one half of his face is buried in his hand, the other
fixed in a stony spasm of despair, foreshadowing
perpetuity of hell. Nothing could express with
sublimity of a higher order the sense of irreme
diable loss, eternal pain, a future endless without
hope, than the rigid dignity of this not ignoble
sinner's dread. Just below is the place to which
the doomed are sinking. Michelangelo reverted to
Dante for the symbolism chosen to portray hell.
Charon, the demon, with eyes of burning coal, com
pels a crowd of spirits in his ferryboat. They land
and are received by devils, who drag them before
Minos, judge of the infernal regions. He towers at
the extreme right end of the fresco, indicating that
the nether regions yawn infinitely deep, beyond our
ken ; just as the angels above Christ suggest a
region of light and glory, extending upward through
illimitable space. The scene of judgment on which
attention is concentrated forms but an episode in
the universal, sempiternal scheme of things. Balanc
ing hell, on the left hand of the spectator, is brute
earth, the grave, the forming and the swallowing

64 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
clay, out of which souls, not yet acquitted or con
demned, emerge with difficulty, in varied forms
of skeletons or corpses, slowly thawing into life
eternal. Vasari, in his description of the Last Judgment,
seized upon what after all endures as the most
salient aspect of this puzzling work, at once so
fascinating and so repellent.1 "It is obvious," he
says, " that the peerless painter did not aim at any
thing but the portrayal of the human body in perfect
proportions and most varied attitudes, together with
the passions and affections of the soul. That was
enough for him, and here he has no equal. He
wanted to exhibit the grand style : consummate
draughtsmanship in the nude, mastery over all
problems of design. He concentrated his power
upon the human form, attending to that alone, and
neglecting all subsidiary things, as charm of colour,
capricious inventions, delicate devices and novelties
of fancy." Vasari might have added that Michel
angelo also neglected what ought to have been a
main object of his art : convincing eloquence, the
solemnity proper to his theme, spirituality of earthly
grossness quit. As a collection of athletic nudes in
all conceivable postures of rest and action, of fore
shortening, of suggested movement, the Last Judg
ment remains a stupendous miracle. Nor has the
aged master lost his cunning for the portrayal of
divinely simple faces, superb limbs, masculine beauty,
1 Vasari, xii. 220.

Theee Figuees— Last Judgment.

VIOLENCE OF THE CONCEPTION. 65
in the ideal persons of young men. The picture,
when we dwell long enough upon its details, emerges
into prominence, moreover, as indubitably awe-
inspiring, terrifying, dreadful in its poignant ex
pression of wrath, retaliation, thirst for vengeance,
cruelty, and helpless horror. But the supreme point
even of Doomsday, of the Dies Iras, has not been
seized. We do not hear the still small voice of
pathos and of human hope which thrills through
Thomas a Celano's hymn : —
Quserens me sedisti lassus,
Redemisti cruoem passus :
Tantus labor non sit cassus.
The note is one of sustained menace and terror,
and the total scheme of congregated forms might
be compared to a sense-deafening solo on a trom
bone. While saying this, we must remember that
it was the constant impulse of Michelangelo to seize
one moment only, and what he deemed the most
decisive moment, in the theme he had to develop.
Having selected the instant of time at which
Christ, half risen from His judgment-seat of cloud,
raises an omnific hand to curse, the master caused
each fibre of his complex composition to thrill with
the tremendous passion of that coming sentence.
The long series of designs for Crucifixions, Deposi
tions from the Cross, and Piet&s which we possess,
all of them belonging to a period of his life not
much later than 1 541, prove that his nature was
VOL. II. E

6 6 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
quite as sensitive to pathos as to terror; only, it
was not in him to attempt a combination of terror
and pathos.
" He aimed at the portrayal of the human body.
He wanted to exhibit the grand style." So says
Vasari, and Vasari is partly right. But we must
not fall into the paradox, so perversely maintained
by Ruskin in his lecture on Tintoretto and Michel
angelo, that the latter was a cold and heartless
artist, caring chiefly for the display of technical skill
and anatomical science. Partial and painful as we
may find the meaning of the Last Judgment, that
meaning has been only too powerfully and personally
felt. The denunciations of the prophets, the woes
of the Apocalypse, the invectives of Savonarola, the
tragedies of Italian history, the sense of present
and indwelling sin, storm through and through it.
Technically, the masterpiece bears signs of fatigue
and discontent, in spite of its extraordinary vigour
of conception and execution. The man was old and
tired, thwarted in his wishes and oppressed with
troubles. His very science had become more formal,
his types more arid and schematic, than they used
to be. The thrilling life, the divine afflatus, of the
Sistine vault have passed out of the Last Judgment.
Wholly admirable, unrivalled, and unequalled by
any other human work upon a similar scale as this
fresco may be in its command over the varied re
sources of the human body, it does not strike our
mind as the production of a master glorying in

THE PAINTER'S FATIGUE. 67
carnal pride and mental insolence, but rather as that
of one discomfited and terrified, upon the point of
losing heart.
Henri Beyle, jotting down his impressions in the
Sistine Chapel, was reminded of the Grand Army's
flight after the burning of Moscow. " When, in our
disastrous retreat from Russia, it chanced that we
were suddenly awakened in the middle of the dark
night by an obstinate cannonading, which at each
moment seemed to gain in nearness, then all the
forces of a man's nature gathered close around his
heart ; he felt himself in the presence of fate, and
having no attention left for things of vulgar interest,
he made himself ready to dispute his life with
destiny. The sight of Michelangelo's picture has
brought back to my consciousness that almost for
gotten sensation." This is a piece of just and
sympathetic criticism, and upon its note I am fain
to close.

V.
It is probable that the fame of the Last Judgment
spread rapidly abroad through Italy, and that many
visits to Rome were made for the purpose of inspect
ing it.1 Complimentary sonnets must also have been
1 It was frequently copied in whole or in part. The finest reproduc
tion in oils is that which Marcello Venusti executed at Michelangelo's
orders for the Cardinal Farnese. The picture is now at Naples. Of
the numerous drawings ascribed to Michelangelo, many are obviously
studies by young painters. The Last Judgment was engraved over

68 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
addressed to the painter. I take it that Niccolb
Martelli sent some poems on the subject from Flor
ence, for Michelangelo replied upon the 20th of
January 1542 in the following letter of singular
modesty and urbane kindness : 1 —
"I received from Messer Vincenzo Perini your
letter with two sonnets and a madrigal. The letter
and the sonnet addressed to me are so marvellously
fine, that if a man should find in them anything to
castigate, it would be impossible to castigate him as
thoroughly as they are castigated. It is true they
praise me so much, that had I Paradise in my bosom,
less of praise would suffice. I perceive that you sup
pose me to be just what God wishes that I were. I
am a poor man and of little merit, who plod along
in the art which God gave me, to lengthen out my
life as far as possible. Such as I am, I remain your
servant and that of all the house of Martelli. I
thank you for your letter and the poems, but not as
much as duty bids, for I cannot soar to such heights
of courtesy."
When the Last Judgment was finished, Michel
angelo not unreasonably hoped that he might resume
his work upon the Tomb of Julius. But this was not
to be. Antonio da San Gallo had just completed the
Chapel of the Holy Sacrament in the Vatican, which
and over again. I have counted nineteen separate engravings before
the date 1700 in Passerini's Bibliografia di Michelangelo Buonarroti.
Firenze : Cellini, 1875. The finest was that of Martino Rota.
1 Lettere, No. cdxxii.

FINAL ARRANGEMENTS FOR THE TOMB. 69
is known as the Cappella Paolina, and the Pope re
solved that its frescoes should be painted by Buon
arroti. The Duke of Urbino, yielding to his wishes,
wrote to Michelangelo upon the 6th of March 1542,
saying that he should be quite satisfied if the three
statues by his hand, including the Moses, were
assigned to the tomb, the execution of the rest being
left to competent workmen under his direction.1
In effect, we possess documents proving that the
tomb was consigned to several masters during this
year, 1542. The first is a contract dated February
27, whereby Raffaello da Montelupo undertakes to
finish three statues, two of these being the Active
Life and the Contemplative.2 The second is a con
tract dated May 16, in which Michelangelo assigns
the architectural and ornamental portion of the
monument conjointly to Giovanni de' Marchesi and
Francesco d' Amadore, called Urbino, providing that
differences which may arise between them shall be
referred to Donato Giannotti.3 There is a third con
tract, under date June 1, about the same work in
trusted to the same two craftsmen, prescribing details
with more exactitude.4 It turned out that the appre-
1 Gaye, ii. 289. This letter seems to have been the result of negotia
tions between Paul III. and the Duke during the winter. Gaye (ibid.,
p. 290) publishes a despatch from Cardinal Ascanio Parisani to the
Duke, dated November 23, 1541, in which he speaks of the Pope's
wishes with regard to the Cappella Paolina, and the assignment of the
tomb to other masters.
2 Lettere, p. 709. (All the documents here cited were collected by
Gaye, ii. pp. 289-309.)
3 Ibid., p. 710. * Ibid., p. 712.

70 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
hension of disagreement between the masters about
the division of their labour was not unfounded, for
Michelangelo wrote twice in July to his friend Luigi
del Riccio, complaining bitterly of their dissensions,
and saying that he has lost two months in these trifles.1
He adds that one of them is covetous, the other mad,
and he fears their quarrel may end in wounds or
murder. The matter disturbs his mind greatly,
chiefly on account of Urbino, because he has brought
him up, and also because of the time wasted over
"their ignorance and bestial stupidity." The dis
pute was finally settled by the intervention of three
master-masons (acting severally for Michelangelo,
Urbino, and Giovanni), who valued the respective
portions of the work.2
I must interrupt this narrative of the tomb to ex
plain who some of the persons just mentioned were,
and how they came to be connected with Buonarroti.
Donato Giannotti was the famous writer upon poli
tical and literary topics, who, after playing a con
spicuous part in the revolution of Florence against
the Medici, now lived in exile at Rome. His
dialogues on Dante, and Francesco d'Olanda's
account of the meetings at S. Silvestro, prove that
he formed a member of that little circle which in
cluded Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna. Luigi
del Riccio was a Florentine merchant, settled in the
1 Ibid., Lettere, Nos. cdxxxi., cdxxxii. Compare a letter from Del
Riccio to Michelangelo, Gaye, ii. 291, July 11, 1542.
2 Ibid., p. 714.

PETITION TO PAUL III. 71
banking-house of the Strozzi at Rome. For many
years he acted as Michelangelo's man of business ;
but their friendship was close and warm in many
other ways. They were drawn together by a common
love of poetry, and by the charm of a rarely gifted
youth called Cecchino dei Bracci. Urbino was the
great sculptor's servant and man of all work, the last
and best of that series, which included Stefano
Miniatore, Pietro Urbano, Antonio Mini. Michel
angelo made Urbino's fortune, mourned his death,
and undertook the guardianship of his children, as
will appear in due course. All through his life the
great sculptor was dependent upon some trusted
servant, to whom he became personally attached, and
who did not always repay his kindness with grati
tude. After Urbino's death, Ascanio Condivi filled
a similar post, and to this circumstance we owe the
most precious of our contemporary biographies.
Our most important document with regard to the
Tomb of Julius is an elaborate petition addressed by
Michelangelo to Paul III. upon the 20th of July.1
It begins by referring to the contract of April 18,
1532, and proceeds to state that the Pope's new
commission for the Cappella Paolina has interfered
once more with the fulfilment of the sculptor's en
gagements. Then it recites the terms suggested by
the Duke of Urbino in his letter of March 6, 1542,
according to which three of the statues of the tomb
may be assigned to capable craftsmen, while the
1 Ibid., Lettere, No. cdxxxiii.

72 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
other three, including the Moses, will have to be
finished by Michelangelo himself. Raffaello da
Montelupo has already undertaken the Madonna
and Child, a Prophet, and a Sibyl.1 Giovanni de'
Marchese and Francesco da Urbino are at work upon
the architecture. It remains for Michelangelo to
furnish the Moses and two Captives, all three of
which are nearly completed. The Captives, how
ever, were designed for a much larger monument,
and will not suit the present scheme. Accordingly,
he has blocked out two other figures, representing
the Active and Contemplative Life. But even these
he is unable fto finish, since the painting of the
chapel absorbs his time and energy. He therefore
prays the Pope to use his influence with the Duke
of Urbino, so that he may be henceforward wholly
and absolutely freed from all obligations in the
matter of the tomb. The Moses he can deliver in
a state of perfection, but he wishes to assign the
Active and Contemplative Life to Raffaello or to any
other sculptor who may be preferred by the Duke.
Finally, he is prepared to deposit a sum of 1200
crowns for the total costs, and to guarantee that the
work shall be efficiently executed in all its details.
It is curious that in this petition and elsewhere
no mention is made of what might be considered
the most important portion of the tomb — namely, the
portrait statue of Julius.
1 This shows that the contract with Raffaello quoted above had been
altered. See p. 69.

MICHELANGELO'S DISTRESS. 73
The 'document was presented to Messer Piero
Giovanni Aliotti, Bishop of Forll, and keeper of
the!wardrobe to Pope Paul. Accordingly, the final
contract regarding the tomb was drawn up and signed
upon the 20th of August.1 I need not recapitulate
its terms, for I have already printed a summary of
them in a former chapter of this work.2 Suffice it
to say that Michelangelo was at last released from
all active responsibility with regard to the tomb,
and that the vast design of his early manhood now
dwindled down to the Moses. To Raffaello da
Montelupo was left the completion of the remaining
five statues.3
This lamentable termination to the cherished
scheme of his lifetime must have preyed upon
Michelangelo's spirits. The letters in which he
alludes to it, after the contract had been signed,
breathe a spirit of more than usual fretfulness.
Moreover, the Duke of Urbino now delayed to send
his ratification, by which alone the deed could
become valid. In October, writing to Del Riccio,
Michelangelo complains that Messer Aliotti is urging
him to begin painting in the chapel ; 4 but the
plaster is not yet fit to work on. Meanwhile,
although he has deposited 1400 crowns, "which
would have kept him working for seven years, and
would have enabled him to finish two tombs," the
1 Lettere, p. 715. 2 Vol. i. ch. 4.
3 Eventually, as we shall see, he found time to finish the two Lives
and the Madonna.
4 Lettere, No. cdxxxiv.

74 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
Duke's ratification does not come. " It is easy enough
to see what that means without writing it in words !
Enough ; for the loyalty of thirty-six years, and for
having given myself of my own free will to others,
I deserve no better. Painting and sculpture, labour
and good faith, have been my ruin, and I go con
tinually from bad to worse. Better would it have
been for me if I had set myself to making matches
in my youth ! I should not be in such distress of
mind. ... I will not remain under this burden, nor
be vilified every day for a swindler by those who
have robbed my life and honour. Only death or
the Pope can extricate me." It appears that at this
time the Duke of Urbino's agents were accusing
him of having lent out moneys which he had received
on account for the execution of the monument. Then
follows, in the same month of October, that stormy
letter to some prelate, which is one of the most
weighty autobiographical documents from the hand
of Michelangelo in our possession.1
" Monsignore, — Your lordship sends to tell me
that I must begin to paint, and have no anxiety.
I answer that one paints with the brain and not
with the hands ; and he who has not his brains
at his command produces work that shames him.
Therefore, until my business is settled, I can do
nothing good. The ratification of the last contract
1 Lettere, No/ cdxxxv. It was first published by Sebastiano Ciampi,
Firenze, Passigli, 1834. People have disputed who the prelate was.
I should suggest the Bishop of Forli, that Messer P. F. Aliotti who
kept urging him to paint, and to whom he sent the petition in July.

HIS EXASPERATION. 75
does not come. On the strength of the other, made
before Clement, I am daily stoned as though I had
crucified Christ. . . . My whole youth and man
hood have been lost, tied down to this tomb. . . .
I see multitudes with incomes of 2000 or 3000
crowns lying in bed, while I with all my immense
labour toil to grow poor. ... I am not a thief and
usurer, but a citizen of Florence, noble, the son of
an honest man, and do not come from Cagli."
(These and similar outbursts of indignant passion,
scattered up and down the epistle, show to what
extent the sculptor's irritable nature had been ex
asperated by calumnious reports. As he openly
declares, he is being driven mad by pin-pricks.
Then follows the detailed history of his dealings
with Julius, which, as I have already made copious
use of it, may here be given in outline.) "In the
first year of his pontificate, Julius commissioned
me to make his tomb, and I stayed eight months
at Carrara quarrying marbles and sending them to
the Piazza of S. Peter's, where I had my lodgings
behind S. Caterina. Afterward the Pope decided not
to build his tomb during his lifetime, and set me
down to painting. Then he kept me two years at
Bologna casting his statue in bronze, which has
been destroyed. After that I returned to Rome
and stayed with him until his death, always keeping
my house open without post or pension, living on
the money for the tomb, since I had no other in
come. After the death of Julius, Aginensis wanted

76 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
me to go on with it, but on a larger scale. So I
brought the marbles to the Macello dei Corvi, and
got that part of the mural scheme finished which is
now walled in at S. Pietro in Vincoli, and made the
figures which I have at home still. Meanwhile, Leo,
not wishing me to work at the tomb, pretended that
he wanted to complete the fagade of S. Lorenzo at
Florence, and begged me of the Cardinal.
" To continue my history of the Tomb of Julius, I
say that when he changed his mind about building
it in his lifetime, some shiploads of marble came to
the Ripa, which I had ordered a short while before
from Carrara, and as I could not get money from
the Pope to pay the freightage, I had to borrow 150
or 200 ducats from Baldassare Balducci — that is, from
the bank of Jacopo Gallo. At the same time work
men came from Florence, some of whom are still
alive ; and I furnished the house which Julius gave
me behind S. Caterina with beds and other furniture
for the men, and what was wanted for the work of
the tomb. All this being done without money, I
was greatly embarrassed. Accordingly, I urged the
Pope with all my power to go forward with the
business, and he had me turned away by a groom
one morning when I came to speak upon the matter."
(Here intervenes the story of the flight to Florence,
which has been worked up in the course of Chapter
IV.) " Later on, while I was at Florence, Julius
sent" three briefs to the Signory. At last the latter
sent for me and said : ' We do not want to go to

THE CONTRACT NOT RATIFIED. 77
war with Pope Julius because of you. You must
return ; and if you do so, we will write you letters
of such authority that if he does you harm, he will
be doing it to this Signory.' Accordingly, I took
the letters, and went back to the Pope, and what
followed would be long to tell !
"All the dissensions between Pope Julius and me
arose from the envy of Bramante and Raffaello da
Urbino ; and this was the cause of my not finishing
the tomb in his lifetime. They wanted to ruin me.
Raffaello had indeed good reason, for all he had of
art, he had from me."
Twice again in October Michelangelo wrote to
Luigi del Riccio about the ratification of his con
tract.1 "I cannot live, far less paint." "I am re
solved to stop at home and finish the three figures,
as I agreed to do. This would be better for me
than to drag my limbs daily to the Vatican. Let
him who likes get angry. If the Pope wants me
to paint, he must send for the Duke's ambassador
and procure _the ratification."
What happened at this time about the tomb can
be understood by help of a letter written to Salvestro
da Montauto on the 3rd of February 1545.2 Michel
angelo refers to the last contract, and says that the
Duke of Urbino ratified the deed. Accordingly, five
1 Lettere, Nos. cdxxxvi., cdxxxvii.
2 Ibid., No. cdxlv. I will add here that the terminal figures on the
lower half of the tomb were carved by Giacomo del Duca, the coat of
arms of Della Rovere by Battista Benti of Pietrasanta, and the Pope
himself by Maso del Bosco.

78 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
statues were assigned to Raffaello da Montelupo.
" But while I was painting the new chapel for Pope
Paul III., his Holiness, at my earnest prayer, allowed
me a little time, during which I finished two of
them, namely, the Active and Contemplative Life,
with my own hand."
With all his good-will, however, Michelangelo
did not wholly extricate himself from the anxieties
of this miserable affair. As late as the year 1553,
Annibale Caro wrote to Antonio Gallo entreating
him to plead for the illustrious old man with the
Duke of Urbino.1 " I assure you that the extreme
distress caused him by being in disgrace with his
Excellency is sufficient to bring his grey hairs to the
grave before his time."

VI.
The Tomb of Julius, as it now appears in the
Church of S. Pietro in Vinculi in Rome, is a monu
ment composed of two discordant parts, by inspecting
which a sympathetic critic is enabled to read the
dreary history of its production. As Condivi allows, it
was a thing "rattoppata e rifatta," patched together
and hashed up.
The lower half represents what eventually sur-
1 Bottari, Lett Pitt, iii. 196. This letter contains an interesting
reference to Condivi's Life, which was on the point of coming out.

THE TOMB OF JULIUS. 79
vived from the grandiose original design for one
fagade of that vast mount of marble which was to
have been erected in the Tribune of St. Peter's.1 The
socles, upon which captive Arts and Sciences were
meant to stand, remain ; but instead of statues, inverted
consoles take their places, and lead lamely up to the
heads and busts of terminal old men. The pilasters
of these terms have been shortened. There are four of
them, enclosing two narrow niches, where beautiful
female figures, the Active Life and the Contemplative
Life, still testify to the enduring warmth and vigour
of the mighty sculptor's genius. As single statues
duly worked into a symmetrical scheme, these
figures would be admirable, since grace of line and
symbolical contrast of attitude render both charm
ing. In their present position they are reduced to
comparative insignificance by heavy architectural
surroundings. The space left free between the
niches and the terms is assigned to the seated
statue of Moses, which forms the main attraction
of the monument, and of which, as a masterpiece
of Michelangelo's best years, I shall have to speak
later on.
1 The different size and scale of the statues on this monument are
very striking. Moses, of course, overbalances the whole, and suffers
greatly from being hardly raised at all above the ground. Michelangelo
designed him to be seen at a considerable height above the eye. The
Sibyl looks larger and heavier than the Prophet ; is certainly bulkier
than the Madonna and the two Lives. Michelangelo and his school do
not appear to have been particular about keeping relative proportions in
their monuments. Leone Leoni's tomb for Gian Giacomo de' Medici
at Milan is extravagantly wilful and capricious in this respect.

80 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
The architectural plan and the surface decoration
of this lower half are conceived in a style belonging
to the earlier Italian Renaissance. Arabesques and
masks and foliated patterns adorn the flat slabs.
The recess of each niche is arched with a con
cave shell. The terminal busts are boldly modelled,
and impose upon the eye. The whole is rich in
detail, and though somewhat arid in fanciful inven
tion, it carries us back to the tradition of Floren
tine work by Mino da Fiesole and Desiderio da
Settignano. When we ascend to the upper portion, we seem
to have passed, as indeed we do pass, into the region
of the new manner created by Michelangelo at S.
Lorenzo. The orders of the pilasters are immensely
tall in proportion to the spaces they enclose. Two
of these spaces, those on the left and right side, are
filled in above with meaningless rectangular recesses,
while seated statues occupy less than a whole half in
altitude of the niches. The architectural design is
nondescript, corresponding to no recognised style,
unless it be a bastard Roman Doric. There is
absolutely no decorative element except four shallow
masks beneath the abaci of the pilasters. All is
cold and broad and dry, contrasting strangely with
the accumulated details of the lower portion. In
the central niche, immediately above the Moses,
stands a Madonna of fine sculptural quality, beneath
a shallow arch, which repeats the shell-pattern. At
her feet lies the extended figure of Pope Julius II.,

THE STATUES. 81
crowned with the tiara, raising himself in a half-
recumbent attitude upon his right arm.1
Of the statues in the upper portion, by far the
finest in artistic merit is the Madonna. This dig
nified and gracious lady, holding the Divine Child
in her arms, must be reckoned among Buonarroti's
triumphs in dealing with the female form. There is
more of softness and sweetness here than in the
Madonna of the Medicean sacristy, while the infant
playing with a captured bird is full of grace. Michel
angelo left little in this group for the chisel of Monte
lupo to deform by alteration. The seated female, a
Sibyl, on the left, bears equally the stamp of his
design. Executed by himself, this would have
been a masterpiece for grandeur of line and digni
fied repose. As it is, the style, while seeming to
aim at breadth, remains frigid and formal. The so-
called Prophet on the other side counts among the
signal failures of Italian sculpture. It has neither
beauty nor significance. Like a heavy Roman consul
of the Decadence, the man sits there, lumpy and
meaningless ; we might take it for a statue-portrait
erected by some provincial municipality to celebrate
a local magnate ; but of prophecy or inspiration
1 It has occurred to me that this awkward pose of Julius — " with his
hand under his cheek, as if he died of the toothache " — may have been
intentionally so ordered by the family, in reminiscence of the two fine
monuments by the hand of Andrea Sansovino, which the Pope himself
erected in S. Maria del Popolo to the memories of the Cardinals Ascanio
Sforza and Hieronymo Basso. These are remarkable for the adoption of
the half-recumbent pensive attitude I have described. ,
VOL. II. F

82 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
there is nothing to detect in this inert figure. We
wonder why he should be placed so near a Pope.
It is said that Michelangelo expressed dissatisfac
tion with Montelupo's execution of the two statues
finally committed to his charge, and we know from
documents that the man was ill when they were
finished. Still we can hardly excuse the master him
self for the cold and perfunctory performance of a
task which had such animated and heroic beginnings.
Competent judges, who have narrowly surveyed the
monument, say that the stones are badly put together,
and the workmanship is defective in important re
quirements of the sculptor-mason's craft.1 Those who
defend Buonarroti must fall back upon the theory
that weariness and disappointment made him at last
indifferent to the fate of a design which had cost
him so much anxiety, pecuniary difficulties, and
frustrated expectations in past years. He let the
Tomb of Julius, his first vast dream of art, be botched
up out of dregs and relics by ignoble hands, because
he was heart-sick and out of pocket.
As artist, Michelangelo might, one thinks, have
avoided the glaring discord of styles between the
upper and the lower portions of the tomb ; but
sensitiveness to harmony of manner lies not in the
nature of men who rapidly evolve new forms of
thought and feeling from some older phase. Prob
ably he felt the width and the depth of that gulf
which divided himself in 1505 from the same self
1 Heath Wilson, p. 449.

THE MOSES. 83
in 1545, less than we do. Forty years in a creative
nature introduce subtle changes, which react upon
the spirit of the age, and provoke subsequent criticism
to keen comments and comparisons. The individual
and his contemporaries are not so well aware of these
discrepancies as posterity.
The Moses, which Paul and his courtiers thought
sufficient to commemorate a single Pope, stands as
the eminent jewel of this defrauded tomb. We may
not be attracted by it. We may even be repelled
by the goat-like features, the enormous beard, the
ponderous muscles, and the grotesque garments of
the monstrous statue. In order to do it justice, let
us bear in mind that the Moses now remains detached
from a group of environing symbolic forms which
Michelangelo designed. Instead of taking its place
as one among eight corresponding and counter
balancing giants, it is isolated, thrust forward on
the eye ; whereas it was intended to be viewed from
below in concert with a scheme of balanced figures,
male and female, on the same colossal scale.
Condivi writes not amiss, in harmony with the
gusto of his age, and records what a gentle spirit
thought about the Moses then:1 "Worthy of all
admiration is the statue of Moses, duke and captain
of the Hebrews. He sits posed in the attitude of a
thinker and a sage, holding beneath his right arm
the tables of the law, and with the left hand giving
support to his chin, like one who is tired and full of
1 Condivi, p. 59.

84 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
anxious cares. From the fingers of this hand escape
long flowing lines of beard, which are very beautiful
in their effect upon the eye. The face is full of
vivid life and spiritual force, fit to inspire both love
and terror, as perhaps the man in truth did. He
bears, according to the customary wont of artists while
portraying Moses, two horns upon the head, not far
removed from the summit of the brows. He is
robed and girt about the legs with hosen, the arms
bare, and all the rest after the antique fashion. It
is a marvellous work, and full of art : mostly in this,
that underneath those subtleties of raiment one can
perceive the naked form, the garments detracting
nothing from the beauty of the body ; as was the
universal way of working with this master in all his
clothed figures, whether painted or sculptured."
Except that Condivi dwelt too much upon the
repose of this extraordinary statue, too little upon
its vivacity and agitating unrest, his description
serves our purpose as well as any other. He does
not seem to have felt the turbulence and carnal
insolence which break our sense of dignity and
beauty now.
Michelangelo left the Moses incomplete in many
details, after bringing the rest of the figure to a high
state of polish. Tooth-marks of the chisel are ob
servable upon the drapery, the back, both hands,
part of the neck, the hair, and the salient horns.
It seems to have been his habit, as Condivi and
Cellini report, to send a finished statue forth with

ZAPPI'S SONNET. 85
some sign-manual of roughness in the final touches.
That gave his work the signature of the sharp tools
he had employed upon it. And perhaps he loved
the marble so well that he did not like to quit the
good white stone without sparing a portion of its
clinging strength and stubbornness, as symbol of the
effort of his brain and hand to educe live thought
from inert matter.
In the century after Michelangelo's death a sonnet
was written by Giovanni Battista Felice Zappi upon
this Moses. It is famous in Italian literature, and
expresses adequately the ideas which occur to ordin
ary minds when they approach the Moses. For
this reason I think that it is worthy of being intro
duced in a translation here : —
Who is the man who, carved in this huge stone,
Sits giant, all renowned things of art
Transcending ? he whose living lips, that start,
Speak eager words ? I hear, and take their tone.
He sure is Moses. That the chin hath shown
By its dense honour, the brows' beam bipart :
'Tis Moses, when he left the Mount, with part,
A great part, of God's glory round him thrown.
Such was the prophet when those sounding vast
Waters he held suspense about him ; such
When he the sea barred, made it gulph his foe.
And you, his tribes, a vile calf did you cast ?
Why not an idol worth like this so much 1
To worship that had wrought you lesser woe.

86 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.

VII.
Before quitting the Tomb of Julius, I must discuss
the question of eight scattered statues, partly un
finished, which are supposed, on more or less good
grounds, to have been designed for this monument.1
About two of them, the bound Captives in the Louvre,
there is no doubt. Michelangelo mentions these in
his petition to Pope Paul, saying that the change of
scale implied by the last plan obliged him to abstain
from using them. We also know their history.
When the sculptor was ill at Rome in 1 544, Luigi
del Riccio nursed him in the palace of the Strozzi.
Gratitude for this hospitality induced him to make
a present of the statues to Ruberto degli Strozzi,
who took them to France and offered them to the
King. Francis gave them to the Constable de
Montmorenci ; and he placed them in his country-
house of Ecouen. In 1 793 the Republic offered
them for sale, when they were bought for the French
nation by M. Lenoir.
One of these Captives deserves to be called the
most fascinating creation of the master's genius.
Together with the Adam, it may be taken as fixing his
standard of masculine beauty. He is a young man,
1 There is an interesting pen-drawing at Oxford for six bound
Captives, none of which exactly correspond in attitude to the eight
statues above alluded to. It deserves to be studied attentively in
connection with the subject treated in this section. (Reproduced in
Springer's Raffael und Michelangelo, vol. ii. p. 25.)

THE CAPTIVE."

THE CAPTIVES OF THE LOUVRE. 87
with head thrown back, as though in swoon or
slumber; the left arm raised above the weight of
massy curls, the right hand resting on his broad full
bosom. There is a divine charm in the tranquil
face, tired but not fatigued, sad but not melancholy,
suggesting that the sleeping mind of the immortal
youth is musing upon solemn dreams. Praxiteles
might have so expressed the Genius of Eternal
Repose ; but no Greek sculptor would have given
that huge girth to the thorax, or have exaggerated
the mighty hand with such delight in sinewy force.
These qualities, peculiar to Buonarroti's sense of
form, do not detract from the languid pose and
supple rhythm of the figure, which flows down, a
sinuous line of beauty, through the slightly swelling
flanks, along the finely moulded thighs, to loveliest
feet emerging from the marble. It is impossible,
while gazing on this statue, not to hear a strain of
intellectual music. Indeed, like melody, it tells no
story, awakes no desire, but fills the soul with some
thing beyond thought or passion, subtler and more
penetrating than words.
The companion figure has not equal grace. Ath
letically muscular, though adolescent, the body of
this young man, whose hands are tied behind his
back, is writhed into an attitude of vehement pro
test and rebellion. He raises his face with ap
pealing pain to heaven. The head, which is only
blocked out, overweighs the form, proving that
Michelangelo, unlike the Greeks, did not observe

88 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
a fixed canon of proportion for the human frame.
This statue bears a strong resemblance in feeling
and conception to the Apollo designed for Baccio
Valori. There are four rough-hewn male figures, eccentric
ally wrought into the rock-work of a grotto in the
Boboli Gardens, which have been assigned to the
Tomb of Julius. This attribution involves consi
derable difficulties. In the first place, the scale is
different, and the stride of one of them, at any rate,
is too wide for the pedestals of that monument.
Then their violent contortions and ponderous adult
forms seem to be at variance with the spirit of the
Captives. Mr. Heath Wilson may perhaps be right
in his conjecture that Michelangelo began them
for the sculptural decoration on the fagade of S.
Lorenzo. Their incompleteness baffles criticism ;
yet we feel instinctively that they were meant for
the open air and for effect at a considerable dis
tance. They remind us of Deucalion's men grow
ing out of the stones he threw behind his back.
We could not wish them to be finished, or to lose
their wild attraction, as of primeval beings, the
remnants of dim generations nearer than ourselves
to elemental nature. No better specimens of Buon
arroti's way of working in the marble could be
chosen. Almost savage hatchings with the point
blend into finer touches from the toothed chisel;
and here and there the surface has been treated
with innumerable smoothing lines that round it into

BOBOLI FIGURES AND VICTORY. 89
skin and muscle. To a man who chiselled thus,
marble must have yielded like softest freestone
beneath his tools ; and how recklessly he wrought
is clear from the defective proportions of one old
man's figure, whose leg below the knee is short
beyond all excuse.
A group of two figures, sometimes called the
Victory, now in the Bargello Palace, was catalogued
without hesitation by Vasari among the statues for
the tomb. A young hero, of gigantic strength and
height, stands firmly poised upon one foot, while his
other leg, bent at the knee, crushes the back of an old
man doubled up beneath him. In the face of the
vanquished warrior critics have found a resemblance
to Michelangelo. The head of the victorious youth
seems too small for his stature, and the features are
almost brutally vacuous, though burning with an
insolent and carnal beauty. The whole forcible figure
expresses irresistible energy and superhuman lithe-
ness combined with massive strength. This group
cannot be called pleasing, and its great height renders
it almost inconceivable that it was meant to range
upon one monument with the Captives of the Louvre.
There are, however, so many puzzles and perplexities
connected with that design in its several stages, that
we dare affirm or deny nothing concerning it. M.
Guillaume, taking it for granted that the Victory
was intended for the tomb, makes the plausible
suggestion that some of the peculiarities which render
it in composition awkward, would have been justified

90 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
by the addition of bronze wings.1 Mr. Heath Wilson,
seeking after an allegory, is fain to believe that it
represents Michelangelo's own state of subjection
while employed upon the Serravezza quarries.2
Last comes the so-called Adonis of the Bargello
Palace, which not improbably was designed for one
of the figures prostrate below the feet of a victorious
Genius. It bears, indeed, much resemblance to a
roughly indicated nude at the extreme right of the
sketch for the tomb.3 Upon this supposition, Michel
angelo must have left it in a very unfinished state,
with an unshaped block beneath the raised right
thigh. This block has now been converted into a boar.
Extremely beautiful as the Adonis undoubtedly is,
the strained, distorted attitude seems to require some
explanation. That might have been given by the
trampling form and robes of a Genius. Stillfit'is
1 L'CEuvre et la Vie, p. 78. Michelangelo put wings to his Victories
in the first sketch for the tomb.
2 The group is in Serravezza marble. See Heath Wilson, p. 243.
We have no right to construct allegories in order to explain difficulties
in works of art. Yet, if I were to seek one here, and to recognise
Michelangelo's self in the old man, I should prefer to think that he had
heard the story of a Greek sculptor who, loving a beautiful young man,
depicted himself as the youth's captive, or the captive to eternal beauty
incarnated in him : —
Methought in dreams I wrestled yester-morn,
A greybeard with a youngster, I with thee :
I stumbled and was bound, a bruised man,
Thy captive, glorying in captivity.
This is a parable which I will plan,
For men of after-time to muse upon,
In Parian marble or Pentelican.
3 Just below the Moses.

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VICTORY — FLORENCE.
THE ADONIS. 91
difficult to comprehend why the left arm and hand,
finished, I feel almost sure, by Michelangelo, should
have been so carefully executed. The Genius, if
draped, would have hidden nearly the whole of that
part of the statue. The face of this Adonis dis
plays exactly the same type as that of the so-called
Victory and of Giuliano de' Medici. Here the type
assumes singular loveliness.

CHAPTER XII.
Early history of Vittoria Colonna. — Her marriage to the Marquis
of Pescara. — His career and death. — Her subsequent life in semi-
religious retirement. — Friendships with Catholic Reformers and
men of letters. — The points of contact between her and Michel
angelo. — Evangelical piety and love of poetry.- — Their exchange
of verses. — The drawings he made for her. — 2. Two letters from
Michelangelo to the Marchioness. — A Sonnet. — Four of her letters
addressed to him. — 3. Francis of Holland's Dialogues, with a
glimpse into Vittoria Colonna's circle, and an account of Michel
angelo's opinions about art and artists. — 4. The critique of this
friendship between Vittoria and Michelangelo. — Condi vi's narrative
of her death. — Sonnets written by Michelangelo on this event. —
Madrigals. — The nature of the friendship has been misinterpreted.
 5. Tommaso Cavalieri. — The drawings made for him by Michel
angelo. — Sonnets addressed to him. — The falsification of their
text by Michelangelo the younger. — Guasti's method of explaining
away their obvious intention. — Suspicions which had fallen upon
Michelangelo exaggerated by his grand-nephew. — Michelangelo's
susceptibility to personal beauty and accomplishments. — His letters
to Cavalieri. — Cavalieri's answers to these letters. — The designs in
chalk made for Cavalieri by Michelangelo. — 6. Light thrown upon
this friendship by Angelini's correspondence. — It continues to the
end of Michelangelo's life, and survives his death. — 8. Luigi del
Riccio and Cecchino dei Bracci. — Michelangelo's connection with
these two persons. — 9. Febo di Poggio. — Two letters exchanged
between this young man and Michelangelo. — 10. Michelangelo's
feeling about beauty in living persons illustrated by his poems. —
The purity of his life was undisputed by contemporaries. — Con-
divi's testimony as to his opinions and practice in affairs of the
emotions. — 1 1. Michelangelo as poet. — Obscurity and difficulty of
style. — Platonic ideas and Petrarchan imagery. — His abstract con
ception of woman. — Two widely separated strains of inspiration :
the one spontaneous and immediate, the other scholastic and

VITTORIA COLONNA. 93
painfully elaborated. — Michelangelo the younger's falsified edition
of the poems. — Specific qualities to be traced in them. — Varchi's
peroration to his Discourse upon a Sonnet of Michelangelo.

After the death of Clement VII. Michelango never
returned to reside at Florence. The rest of his life
was spent in Rome. In the year 1534 he had
reached the advanced age of fifty-nine, and it is
possible that he first became acquainted with the
noble lady Vittoria Colonna about 1538. Recent
students of his poetry and friendships have sug
gested that their famous intimacy began earlier,
during one of his not infrequent visits to Rome.
But we have no proof of this. On the contrary,
the only letters extant which he sent to her, two in
number, belong to the year 1545.1 It is certain that
anything like friendship between them grew up at
some considerable time after his final settlement in
Rome. Vittoria was the daughter of Fabrizio Colonna,
Grand Constable of Naples, by his marriage with
Agnesina di Montefeltro, daughter of Federigo, Duke
of Urbino. Blood more illustrious than hers could
not be found in Italy. When she was four years
old, her parents betrothed her to Ferrante Francesco
d'Avalos, a boy of the same age, the only son of the
Marchese di Pescara. In their nineteenth year the
'•*• 1 Since he was born in 1475, he must have been then about seventy
years of age.

94 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
affianced couple were married at Ischia, the fief and
residence of the house of D'Avalos. Ferrante had
succeeded to his father's title early in boyhood, and
was destined for a brilliant military career. On the
young bride's side at least it was a love-match. She
was tenderly attached to her handsome husband,
ignorant of his infidelities, and blind to his fatal
faults of character. Her happiness proved of short
duration. In 1 5 1 2 Pescara was wounded and made
prisoner at the battle of Ravenna, and, though he
returned to his wife for a short interval, duty called
him again to the field of war in Lombardy in 15 15.
After this date Vittoria saw him but seldom. The
last time they met was in October 1522. As general
of the Imperial forces, Pescara spent the next years
in perpetual military operations. Under his leader
ship the battle of Pavia was won in 1525, and
King Francis became his master's prisoner. So far,
nothing but honour, success, and glory waited on
the youthful hero. But now the tide turned. Pes
cara, when he again settled down at Milan, began
to plot with Girolamo Morone, Grand Chancellor
of Francesco Sforza's duchy. Morone had conceived
a plan for reinstating his former lord in Milan by
the help of an Italian coalition. He offered Pescara
the crown of Naples if he would turn against the
Emperor. The Marquis seems at first to have lent
a not unwilling ear to these proposals, but seeing
reason to doubt the success of the scheme, he finally
resolved to betray Morone to Charles V., and did

VITTORIA'S WIDOWHOOD. 95
this with cold-blooded ingenuity. A few months
afterwards, on November 25, 1525, he died, branded
as a traitor, accused of double treachery, both to
his sovereign and his friend.
If suspicions of her husband's guilt crossed
Vittoria's mind, as we have some reason to believe
they did, these were not able to destroy her loyalty
and love. Though left so young a widow and
childless, she determined to consecrate her whole
life to his memory and to religion. His nephew
and heir, the Marchese del Vasto, became her
adopted son. The Marchioness survived Pescara
two-and-twenty years, which were spent partly in
retirement at Ischia, partly in journeys, partly in
convents at Orvieto and Viterbo, and finally in a
semi-monastic seclusion at Rome. The time spared
from pious exercises she devoted to study, the com
position of poetry, correspondence with illustrious
men of letters, and the society of learned persons.
Her chief friends belonged to that group of earnest
thinkers who felt the influences of the Reformation
without ceasing to be loyal children of the Church.
With Vittoria's name are inseparably connected
those of Gasparo Contarini, Reginald Pole, Giovanni
Morone, Jacopo Sadoleto, Marcantonio Flaminio,
Pietro Carnesecchi, and Fra Bernardino Ochino.
The last of these avowed his Lutheran principles,
and was severly criticised by Vittoria Colonna for
doing so. Carnesecchi was burned for heresy.
Vittoria never adopted Protestantism, and died an

96 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
orthodox Catholic. Yet her intimacy with men of
liberal opinions exposed her to mistrust and censure
in old age. The movement of the Counter-Refor
mation had begun, and any kind of speculative
freedom aroused suspicion. This saintly princess
was accordingly placed under the supervision of
the Holy Office, and to be her friend was slightly
dangerous.1 It is obvious that Vittoria's religion
was of an evangelical type, inconsistent with the
dogmas developed by the Tridentine Council ; and
it is probable that, like her friend Contarini, she
advocated a widening rather than a narrowing of
Western Christendom. To bring the Church back
to purer morals and sincerity of faith was their aim.
They yearned for a reformation and regeneration
from within.
In all these matters, Michelangelo, the devout
student of the Bible and the disciple of Savonarola,
shared Vittoria's sentiments. His nature, profoundly
and simply religious from the outset, assumed a
tone of deeper piety and habitual devotion during
the advance of years. Vittoria Colonna's influence
at this period strengthened his Christian emotions,
which remained untainted by asceticism or super
stition.2 They were further united by another bond,
which was their common interest in poetry. The
1 See Ferrero and Mliller, op. cit, pp. 331-346, for extracts from
documents relating to Vittoria and the Roman Inquisition.
2 I may here call attention to a note in which Guasti brings together
a series of passages illustrating the religious bias of Buonarroti's char
acter. Rime, pp. xxxvi., xxxvii., note 4 to p. xxxvii.

VITTORIA'S POETRY. 97
Marchioness of Pescara was justly celebrated during
her Hfetime as one of the most natural writers of
Italian verse. Her poems consist principally of
sonnets consecrated to the memory of her husband, or
composed on sacred and moral subjects. Penetrated
by genuine feeling, and almost wholly free from
literary affectation, they have that dignity and sweet
ness which belong to the spontaneous utterances of
a noble heart. Whether she treats of love or of
religion, we find the same simplicity and sincerity of
style. There is nothing in her pious meditations that
a Christian of any communion may not read with
profit, as the heartfelt outpourings of a soul athirst
for God and nourished on the study of the gospel.
Michelangelo preserved a large number of her
sonnets, which he kept together in one volume.
Writing to his nephew Lionardo in 1554, he says:1
"Messer Giovan Francesco (Fattucci) asked me about
a month ago if I possessed any writings of the
Marchioness. I have a little book bound in parch
ment, which she gave me some ten years ago. It
has one hundred and three sonnets, not counting
another forty she afterwards sent on paper from
Viterbo. I had these bound into the same book,
and at that time I used to lend them about to many
persons, so that they are all of them now in print.
In addition to these poems I have many letters
which she wrote from Orvieto and Viterbo. These
1 Lettere, No. ccxliii. The first edition of Vittoria Colonna's verses
was that of Parma, 1 538.
VOL. II. G

98 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
then are the writings I possess of the Marchioness."
He composed several pieces, madrigals and sonnets,
under the genial influence of this exchange of
thoughts. It was a period at which his old love
of versifying revived with singular activity. Other
friends, like Tommaso Cavalieri, Luigi del Riccio,
and afterwards Vasari, enticed his Muse to frequent
utterance.1 Those he wrote for the Marchioness
were distributed in manuscript among his private
friends, and found their way into the first edition
of his collected poems.2 But it is a mistake to
suppose that she was the sole or even the chief
source of his poetical inspiration.
We shall see that it was his custom to mark his
feeling for particular friends by gifts of drawings
as well as of poems. He did this notably in the
case of both Vittoria Colonna and Tommaso dei
Cavalieri. For the latter he designed subjects from
Greek mythology; for the former, episodes in the
Passion of our Lord. " At the request of this lady,"
says Condivi, "he made a naked Christ, at the
moment when, taken from the cross, our Lord would
have fallen like an abandoned corpse at the feet of
his most holy Mother, if two angels did not support
him in their arms. She sits below the cross with a
face full of tears and sorrow, lifting both her wide
spread arms to heaven, while on the stem of the
1 See, for example, the series of quatrains poured forth to please Del
Riccio on the occasion of Cecchino de' Bracci's death.
2 See Lettere, No. cdlxvii., where he sends some of them to a friend in
Florence.

Stum of Two Xuuk Figuuei

DRAWINGS FOR VITTORIA.

99

tree above is written this legend, ' Non vi si pensa
quanto sangue costa.' The cross is of the same
kind as that which was carried in procession by the
White Friars at the time of the plague of 1 348, and
afterwards deposited in the Church of S. Croce at
Florence. He also made, for love of her, the design
of a Jesus Christ upon the cross, not with the aspect
of one dead, as is the common wont, but in a divine
attitude, with face raised to the Father, seeming to
exclaim, ' Eli ! Eli ! ' In this drawing the body does
not appear to fall, like an abandoned corpse, but
as though in life to writhe and quiver with the
agony it feels."
Of these two designs we have several more or less
satisfactory mementoes. The Pieta. was engraved
by Giulio Bonasoni and Tudius Bononiensis (date
1546), exactly as Condivi describes it. The Cruci
fixion survives in a great number of pencil-drawings,
together with one or two pictures painted by men
like Venusti, and many early engravings of the
drawings. One sketch in the Taylor Museum at
Oxford is generally supposed to represent the
original designed for Vittoria.

II.
What remains of the correspondence between
Michelangelo and the Marchioness opens with a
letter referring to their interchange of sonnets and

ioo LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
drawings. It is dated Rome, 1545.1 Vittoria had
evidently sent him poems, and he wishes to make
her a return in kind : "I desired, lady, before I
accepted the things which your ladyship has often
expressed the will to give me — I desired to produce
something for you with my own hand, in order to
be as little as possible unworthy of this kindness.
I have now come to recognise that the grace of God
is not to be bought, and that to keep it waiting is
a grievous sin. Therefore I acknowledge my error,
and willingly accept your favours. When I possess
them, not indeed because I shall have them in my
house, but for that I myself shall dwell in them, the
place will seem to encircle me with Paradise. For
which felicity I shall remain ever more obliged to
your ladyship than I am already, if that is possible,
"The bearer of this letter will be Urbino, who
lives in my service. Your ladyship may inform
him when you would like me to come and see the
head you promised to show me."
This letter is written under the autograph copy
of a sonnet which must have been sent with it, since
it expresses the same thought in its opening quatrain.
My translation of the poem runs thus : 2 —
Seeking at least to be not all unfit
For thy sublime and boundless courtesy,
My lowly thoughts at first were fain to try
What they could yield for grace so infinite.
1 Lettere, No. cdliv.
2 Sonnet, No. xiii. p. 43. It may be compared with Sonnet, No.
69, where the idea is not very different.

CORRESPONDENCE WITH VITTORIA. 101
But now I know my unassisted wit
Is all too weak to make me soar so high,
For pardon, lady, for this fault I cry,
And wiser still I grow, remembering it.
Yea, well I see what folly 'twere to think
That largess dropped from thee like dews from heaven
Could e'er be paid by work so frail as mine !
To nothingness my art and talent sink ;
He fails who from his mortal stores hath given
A thousandfold to match one gift divine.
Michelangelo's next letter refers to the design for
the Crucified Christ, described by Condivi. It is
pleasant to find that this was sent by the hand of
Cavalieri:1 "Lady Marchioness, — Being myself in
Rome, I thought it hardly fitting to give the Crucified
Christ to Messer Tommaso, and to make him an
intermediary between your ladyship and me, your
servant ; especially because it has been my ear
nest wish to perform more for you than for any
one I ever knew upon the world. But absorbing
occupations, which still engage me, have prevented
my informing your ladyship of this. Moreover,
knowing that you know that love needs no task-master,
and that he who loves doth not sleep, I thought the
1 Lettere, No. cdlv., date Rome 1545. I have read the original
autograph of this letter in the Codex Vaticanus, p. 99, a tergo. At the
foot of it is written a version of the Madrigal beginning —
destro )
" Ora in su l'uno )
manco) iede_„
Ora in sul altro )
Early in the same manuscript (p. 37) we find this madrigal copied out
with the superscription : " A la Marchesa di Pescara," in Michelangelo's
writing.

102 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
less of using go-betweens. And though I seemed
to have forgotten, I was doing what I did not talk
about in order to effect a thing that was not looked
for. My purpose has been spoiled : He sins who
faith like this so soon forgets."
A sonnet which may or may not have been written
at this time, but seems certainly intended for the
Marchioness, shall here be given as a pendant to
the letter : 1 —
Blest spirit, who with loving tenderness
Quickenest my heart, so old and near to die,
Who 'mid thy joys on me dost bend an eye,
Though many nobler men around thee press !
As thou wert erewhile wont my sight to bless,
So to console my mind thou now dost fly ;
Hope therefore stills the pangs of memory,
Which, coupled with desire, my soul distress.
So finding in thee grace to plead for me —
Thy thoughts for me sunk in so sad a case — ¦
He who now writes returns thee thanks for these.
Lo ! it were foul and monstrous usury
To send thee ugliest paintings in the place
Of thy fair spirit's living phantasies.
Unfortunately we possess no other document in
prose addressed immediately to Vittoria. But four of
her letters to him exist, and from these I will select
some specimens reflecting light upon the nature of
the famous intimacy.2 The Marchioness writes
1 Sonnets, No. xii. p. 42 of my translation.
2 Grimm, Guasti, and Campori (Lettere Artistiche Inedite, Modena,
Sogliani, 1866) have printed a few addressed to Michelangelo. The
Arch. Buon. (Cod. ix. 507-510) contains four without dates. Ferrero
and Mutter collect these four, and add one from the British Museum.

VITTORIA'S LETTERS. 103
always in the tone and style of a great princess,
adding that peculiar note of religious affectionate-
ness which the French call " onction" and marking
her strong admiration of the illustrious artist. The
letters are not dated ; but this matters little, since
they only turn on literary courtesies exchanged, draw
ings presented, and pious interests in common.
"Unique Master Michelangelo, and my most
singular friend, — I have received your letter, and
examined the crucifix, which truly hath crucified in
my memory every other picture I ever saw. No
where could one find another figure of our Lord so
well executed, so living, and so exquisitely finished.
Certes, I cannot express in words how subtly and
marvellously it is designed. Wherefore I am re
solved to take the work as coming from no other
hand but yours, and accordingly I beg you to assure
me whether this is really yours or another's. Excuse
the question. If it is yours, I must possess it under
any conditions. In case it is not yours, and you
want to have it carried out by your assistant, we will
talk the matter over first. I know how extremely
difficult it would be to copy it, and therefore I
would rather let him finish something else than this.
But if it be in fact yours, rest assured, and make the
best of it, that it will never come again into your
keeping. I have examined it minutely in full light
and by the lens and mirror, and never saw anything
more perfect. — Yours to command,
" The Marchioness of Pescara."

io4 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
Like many grand ladies of the highest rank, even
though they are poetesses, Vittoria Colonna did not
always write grammatically or coherently. I am not
therefore sure that I have seized the exact meaning
of this diplomatical and flattering letter. It would
appear, however, that Michelangelo had sent her the
drawing for a crucifix, intimating that, if she liked it,
he would intrust its execution to one of his workmen,
perhaps Urbino. This, as we know, was a common
practice adopted by him in old age, in order to avoid
commissions which interfered with his main life-work
at S. Peter's. The noble lady, fully aware that the
sketch is an original, affects some doubt upon the
subject, declines the intervention of a common crafts
man, and declares her firm resolve to keep it, leaving
an impression that she would gladly possess the
crucifix if executed by the same hand which had
supplied the masterly design.1
Another letter refers to the drawing of a Christ
upon the cross between two angels.
" Your works forcibly stimulate the judgment of
all who look at them. My study of them made me
speak of adding goodness to things perfect in them
selves, and I have seen now that ' all is possible to
him who believes.' I had the greatest faith in God
that He would bestow upon you supernatural grace
for the making of this Christ. When I came to
1 Grimm takes the same view as I do of Vittoria's meaning iu this
letter. Von Scheffler thinks she was not sure whether the crucifix had
not become the property of some third person.

DESIGN FOR THE CRUCIFIXION. 105
examine it, I found it so marvellous that it sur
passes all my expectations. Wherefore, emboldened
by your miracles, I conceived a great desire for that
which I now see marvellously accomplished : I
mean that the design is in all parts perfect and
consummate, and one could not desire more, nor
could desire attain to demanding so much. I tell
you that I am mighty pleased that the angel on the
right hand is by far the fairer, since Michael will
place you, Michelangelo, upon the right hand of
our Lord at that last day. Meanwhile, I do not
know how else to serve you than by making orisons
to this sweet Christ, whom you have drawn so well
and exquisitely, and praying you to hold me yours
to command as yours in all and for all."
The admiration and the good-will of the great
lady transpire in these somewhat incoherent and
studied paragraphs. Their verbiage leaves much
to be desired in the way of logic and simplicity.
It is pleasanter perhaps to read a familiar note,
sent probably by the hand of a servant to Buonarroti's
house in Rome.
"I beg you to let me have the crucifix a short
while in my keeping, even though it be unfinished.
I want to show it to some gentlemen who have
come from the Most Reverend the Cardinal of
Mantua. If you are not working, will you not come
to-day at your leisure and talk with me 1 — Yours to
command, " The Marchioness of Pescara."

106 . LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
It seems that Michelangelo's exchange of letters
and poems became at last too urgent. We know
it was his way (as in the case of Luigi del Riccio)
to carry on an almost daily correspondence for some
while, and then to drop it altogether when his
mood changed. Vittoria, writing from Viterbo,
gives him a gentle and humorous hint that he is
taking up too much of her time : a —
"Magnificent Messer Michelangelo, — I did not
reply earlier to your letter, because it was, as one
might say, an answer to my last : for I thought that
if you and I were to go on writing without inter
mission according to my obligation and your courtesy,
I should have to neglect the Chapel of S. Catherine
here, and be absent at the appointed hours for
company with my sisterhood, while you would have
to leave the Chapel of S. Paul, and be absent from
morning through the day from your sweet usual
colloquy with painted forms, the which with their
natural accents do not speak to you less clearly than
the living persons round me speak to me. Thus we
should both of us fail in our duty, I to the brides,
you to the vicar of Christ. For these reasons, inas
much as I am well assured of our steadfast friend
ship and firm affection, bound by knots of Christian
kindness, I do not think it necessary to obtain the
proof of your good-will in letters by writing on my
1 The superscription to this epistle, which exists in the Arch. Buon.,
Cod. ix. No. 510, is couched in very flattering terms : " AI mio pih
che magnifico e piu che carissimo M. Michelagnolo Buonarroti."

VITTORIA AT VITERBO. 107
side, but rather to await with well-prepared mind
some substantial occasion for serving you. Mean
while I address my prayers to that Lord of whom
you spoke to me with so fervent and humble a heart
when I left Rome, that when I return thither I may
find you with His image renewed and enlivened by
true faith in your soul, in like measure as you have
painted it with perfect art in my Samaritan. Believe
me to remain always yours and your Urbino's."
This letter must have been written when Michel
angelo was still working on the frescoes of the
Cappella Paolina, and therefore before 1549.1 The
check to his importunacy, given with genial tact
by the Marchioness, might be taken, by those who
believe their liaison to have had a touch of passion
in it, as an argument in favour of that view. The
great age which Buonarroti had now reached renders
this, however, improbable ; while the general tenor
of their correspondence is that of admiration for a
great artist on the lady's side, and of attraction to
a noble nature on the man's side, cemented by
religious sentiment and common interests in serious
topics.

III.
All students of Michelangelo's biography are well
acquainted with the Dialogues on Painting, com-
1 Before he had completed his seventy-fourth year.

108 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
posed by the Portuguese miniature artist, Francis
of Holland.1 Written in the quaint style of the
sixteenth century, which curiously blent actual cir
cumstance and fact with the author's speculation,
these essays present a vivid picture of Buonarroti's
conferences with Vittoria Colonna and her friends.
The dialogues are divided into four parts, three of
which profess to give a detailed account of three
several Sunday conversations in the Convent of S.
Silvestro on Monte Cavallo. After describing the
objects which brought him to Rome, Francis says :2
" Above all, Michelangelo inspired me with such
esteem, that when I met him in the palace of the
Pope or on the streets, I could not make my mind
up to leave him until the stars forced us to retire."
Indeed, it would seem from his frank admissions
in another place that the Portuguese painter had
become a little too attentive to the famous old man,
and that Buonarroti " did all he could to shun his
company, seeing that when they once came together,
they could not separate." 3 It happened one Sunday
that Francis paid a visit to his friend Lattanzio
Tolomei, who had gone abroad, leaving a message
that he would be found in the Church of S. Silvestro,
where he was hoping to hear a lecture by Brother
Ambrose of Siena on the Epistles of S. Paul, in
1 The original is inedited, but a French translation of the larger
part was published by Count A. Raczynski in his Les Arts en Portugal.
Paris : Renouard, 1 846. The manuscript is dated Lisbon, S. Luke's
Day, 1538.
2 Op. cit, p. 7. 3 Ibid., p. 9.

FRANCESCO D'OLANDA. 109
company with the Marchioness. Accordingly he
repaired to this place, and was graciously received
by the noble lady. She courteously remarked that
he would probably enjoy a conversation with Michel
angelo more than a sermon from Brother Ambrose,
and after an interval of compliments a servant was
sent to find him. It chanced that Buonarroti was
walking with the man whom Francis of Holland calls
"his old friend and colour-grinder," Urbino, in the
direction of the Thermae. So the lackey, having
the good chance to meet him, brought him at once
to the convent. The Marchioness made him sit be
tween her and Messer Tolomei, while Francis took
up his position at a little distance. The conversa
tion then began, but Vittoria Colonna had to use the
tact for which she was celebrated before she could
engage the wary old man on a serious treatment of
his own art.
He opened his discourse by defending painters
against the common charge of being "eccentric in
their habits, difficult to deal with, and unbear
able ; whereas, on the contrary, they are really most
humane." : Common people do not consider, he
remarked, that really zealous artists are bound to
abstain from the idle trivialities and current compli
ments of society, not because they are haughty or
intolerant by nature, but because their art imperi
ously claims the whole of their energies. "When
such a man shall have the same leisure as you
1 Op. cit, pp. 11, 12. I have condensed the argument.

no LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
enjoy, then I see no objection to your putting him
to death if he does not observe your rules of
etiquette and ceremony. You only seek his com
pany and praise him in order to obtain honour
through him for yourselves, nor do you really mind
what sort of man he is, so long as kings and
emperors converse with him. I dare affirm that any
artist who tries to satisfy the better vulgar rather
than men of his own craft, one who has nothing
singular, eccentric, or at least reputed to be so, in
his person, will never become a superior talent. For
my part, I am bound to confess that even his
Holiness sometimes annoys and wearies me by
begging for too much of my company. I am most
anxious to serve him, but, when there is nothing
important going forward, I think I can do so better
by studying at home than by dancing attendance
through a whole day on my legs in his reception-
rooms. He allows me to tell him so ; and I may
add that the serious occupations of my life have
won for me such liberty of action that, in talking to
the Pope, I often forget where I am, and place my
hat upon my head. He does not eat me up on that
account, but treats me with indulgence, knowing
that it is precisely at such times that I am working
hard to serve him. As for solitary habits, the world
is right in condemning a man who, out of pure
affectation or eccentricity, shuts himself up alone,
loses his friends, and sets society against him. Those,
however, who act in this way naturally, because

APOLOGY FOR THE ARTIST. in
their profession obliges them to lead a recluse life, or
because their character rebels against feigned polite
nesses and conventional usage, ought in common
justice to be tolerated. What claim by right have
you on him ? Why should you force him to take
part in those vain pastimes, which his love for a
quiet life induces him to shun 1 Do you not know
that there are sciences which demand the whole of
a man, without leaving the least portion of his spirit
free for your distractions?" This apology for his
own life, couched in a vindication of the artistic
temperament, breathes an accent of sincerity, and
paints Michelangelo as he really was, with his some
what haughty sense of personal dignity. What he
says about his absence of mind in the presence of
great princes might be illustrated by a remark attri
buted to Clement VII. "When Buonarroti comes
to see me, I always take a seat and bid him to be
seated, feeling sure that he will do so without leave
or license."
The conversation passed by natural degrees to
a consideration of the fine arts in general. In
the course of this discussion, Michelangelo uttered
several characteristic opinions, strongly maintaining
the superiority of the Italian to the Flemish and
German schools, and asserting his belief that, while
all objects are worthy of imitation by the artist, the
real touchstone of excellence lies in his power to
represent the human form.1 His theory of the arts
1 Op. cit, pp. 14-16. Compare p. 40.

ii2 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
in their reciprocal relations and affinities throws in
teresting light upon the qualities of his own genius
and his method in practice.1 " The science of design,
or of line-drawing, if you like to use this term, is
the source and very essence of painting, sculpture,
architecture, and of every form of representation, as
well too as of all the sciences. He who has made
himself a master in this art possesses a great trea
sure. Sometimes, when I meditate upon these topics,
it seems to me that I can discover but one art or
science, which is design, and that all the works of
the human brain and hand are either design itself,
or a branch of that art." This theme he develops
at some length, showing how a complete mastery of
drawing is necessary not only to the plastic arts of
painting and sculpture, but also to the constructive
and mechanical arts of architecture, fortification,
gun-foundry, and so forth, applying the same prin
ciple to the minutest industries.
With regard to the personal endowments of the
artist, he maintained that " a lofty style, grave and
decorous, was essential to great work.2 Few artists
understand this, and endeavour to appropriate these
qualities. Consequently we find many members of
the confraternity who are only artists in name. The
world encourages this confusion of ideas, since few
are capable of distinguishing between a fellow who
has nothing but his colour-box and brushes to make
1 Op. cit, pp. 39, 24, 31.
2 Ibid., pp. 36-38.

THE NATURE OF TRUE ARTISTS. 113
him a painter, and the really gifted natures who
appear only at wide intervals." He illustrates the
position that noble qualities in the artist are indis
pensable to nobility in the work of art, by a digres
sion on religious painting and sculpture. " In order
to represent in some degree the adored image of our
Lord, it is not enough that a master should be great
and able. I maintain that he must also be a man
of good conduct and morals, if possible a saint, in
order that the Holy Ghost may rain down inspiration
on his understanding.1 Ecclesiastical and secular
princes ought, therefore, to permit only the most
illustrious among the artists of their realm to paint
the benign sweetness of our Saviour, the purity of
our Lady, and the virtues of the saints. It often
happens that ill-executed images distract the minds
of worshippers and ruin their devotion, unless it be
firm and fervent. Those, on the contrary, which are
executed in the high style I have described, excite
the soul to contemplation and to tears, even among
the least devout, by inspiring reverence and fear
through the majesty of their aspect." This doctrine
is indubitably sound. To our minds, nevertheless,
it rings a little hollow on the lips of the great
1 Ammanati, in a letter addressed to the Florentine Academy of
Design, date August 22, 1582, says that "Michelangelo once spoke to
me as thus : ' Good Christians always make good and beautiful figures.' "
— Lettere Pittoriche, vol. iii. p. 539. The letter in itself is very interest
ing, since Ammanati vehemently attacks the indecency of the nude,
and expresses the strongest remorse for his own fountain of Neptune on
the Piazza della Signoria.
VOL. 11. H

ii4 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
master who modelled the Christ of the Minerva and
painted the Christ and Madonna of the Last Judg
ment. Yet we must remember that, at the exact
period when these dialogues took place, Buonarroti,
under the influence of his friendship with Vittoria
Colonna, was devoting his best energies to the
devout expression of the Passion of our Lord. It
is deeply to be regretted that, out of the numerous
designs which remain to us from this endeavour, all
of them breathing the purest piety, no monumental
work except the Piet^, at Florence emerged for per
petuity. Many curious points, both of minute criticism and
broad opinion, might still be gleaned from the
dialogues set down by Francis of Holland. It must
suffice here to resume what Michelangelo maintained
about the artist's method. One of the interlocutors
begged to be informed whether he thought that a
master ought to aim at working slowly or quickly.1
" I will tell you plainly what I feel about this matter.
It is both good and useful to be able to work with
promptitude and address. We must regard it as a
special gift from God to be able to do that in a few
hours which other men can only perform in many
days of labour. Consequently, artists who paint
rapidly, without falling in quality below those who
paint but slowly, deserve the highest commendatkin.
Should this rapidity of execution, however, cause a
man to transgress the limits of sound art, it would
1 Lettere Pittoriche, p. 41.

THE ARTIST'S AIMS AND METHODS. 115
have been better to have proceeded with more
tardiness and study. A good artist ought never to
allow the impetuosity of his nature to overcome his
sense of the main end of art, perfection. Therefore
we cannot call slowness of execution a defect, nor
yet the expenditure of much time and trouble, if
this be employed with the view of attaining greater
perfection. The one unpardonable fault is bad work.
And here I would remind you of a thing .essential to
our art, which you will certainly not ignore, and to
which I believe you attach the full importance it
deserves. In every kind of plastic work we ought
to strive with all our might at making what has
cost time and labour look as though it had been
produced with facility and swiftness. It sometimes
happens, but rarely, that a portion of our work turns
out excellent with little pains bestowed upon it.
Most frequently, however, it is the expenditure of
care and trouble which conceals our toil. Plutarch
relates that a bad painter showed Apelles a picture,
saying : ' This is from my hand ; I have just made
it in a moment.' The other replied : ' I should
have recognised the fact without your telling me ;
and I marvel that you do not make a multitude of
such things every day.' " Michelangelo is reported
to have made a similar remark to Vasari when the
latter took him to inspect some frescoes he had
painted, observing that they had been dashed off
quickly. We must be grateful to Francis of Holland for

116 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
this picture of the Sunday-morning interviews at
S. Silvestro. The place was cool and tranquil. The
great lady received her guests with urbanity, and led
the conversation with high-bred courtesy and tact.
Fra Ambrogio, having discoursed upon the spiritual
doctrines of S. Paul's Epistles, was at liberty to
turn an attentive ear to purely eesthetical specula
tions. The grave and elderly Lattanzio Tolomei
added the weight of philosophy and literary culture
to the dialogue. Michelangelo, expanding in the
genial atmosphere, spoke frankly on the arts which
he had mastered, not dictating ex cathedra rules,
but maintaining a note of modesty and common-
sense and deference to the opinion of others. Francis
engaged on equal terms in the discussion. His
veneration for Buonarroti, and the eagerness with
which he noted all the great man's utterances, did
not prevent him from delivering lectures at a some
what superfluous length. In short, we may fairly
accept his account of these famous conferences as
a truthful transcript from the refined and witty
social gatherings of which Vittoria Colonna formed
the centre.1
1 The Arch. Buon. has one letter written to Michelangelo from
Lisbon, August 15, 1553, by Francesco d'Olanda, Cod. x. No. 583.
It contains nothing of special interest, but displays a strong feeling of
affection and veneration for the great master in his old age. Gotti has
printed it, vol. i. p. 245.

MISTAKES ABOUT THIS FRIENDSHIP. 117

IV.
This friendship with Vittoria Colonna forms a very
charming episode in the history of Michelangelo's
career, and it was undoubtedly one of the consola
tions of his declining years. Yet too great stress
has hitherto been laid on it by his biographers. Not
content with exaggerating its importance in his life,
they have misinterpreted its nature. The world
seems unable to take interest in a man unless it can
contrive to discover a love-affair in his career. The
singular thing about Michelangelo is that, with the
exception of Vittoria Colonna, no woman is known
to have influenced his heart or head in any way. In
his correspondence he never mentions women, unless
they be aunts, cousins, grand-nieces, or servants.
About his mother he is silent. We have no tradition
regarding amours in youth or middle age ; and only
two words dropped by Condivi lead us to conjecture
that he was not wholly insensible to the physical
attractions of the female.1 Romancers and legend-
makers have, therefore, forced Vittoria Colonna to
play the rdle of Juliet in Michelangelo's life-drama.
It has not occurred to these critics that there is
something essentially disagreeable in the thought of
an aged couple entertaining an amorous correspond
ence. I use these words deliberately, because
poems which breathe obvious passion of no merely
1 " La continenza sua, tanto nel coito, quanto nel cibo." Condivi, p. 84.

118 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
spiritual character have been assigned to the number
he composed for Vittoria Colonna. This, as we
shall see, is chiefly the fault of his first editor, who
printed all the sonnets and madrigals as though they
were addressed to one woman or another. It is also
in part due to the impossibility of determining their
exact date in the majority of instances. Verses, then,
which were designed for several objects of his
affection, male or female, have been indiscriminately
referred to Vittoria Colonna, whereas we can only
attribute a few poems with certainty to her series.1
This mythus of Michelangelo's passion for the
Marchioness of Pescara has blossomed and brought
forth fruit abundantly from a single and pathetic
passage in Condivi.2 " In particular, he greatly loved
the Marchioness of Pescara, of whose divine spirit
he was enamoured, being in return dearly beloved
by her. He still preserves many of her letters,
breathing honourable and most tender affection, and
such as were wont to issue from a heart like hers.
He also wrote to her a great number of sonnets, full
of wit and sweet longing. She frequently removed
from Viterbo and other places, whither she had gone
for solace or to pass the summer, and came to Rome
with the sole object of seeing Michelangelo. He,
for his part, loved her so, that I remember to have
1 See above, p. 101, note, for the autograph dedication of one madrigal
to the Marchesa di Pescara.
2 Condivi, p. 77. It is rather singular that Vasari, who always steals
Condivi's best things, should have omitted the touching anecdote about
her deathbed. The rest he has incorporated in his second edition.

VITTORIA'S DEATH. 119
heard him say that he regretted nothing except that
when he went to visit her upon the moment of her
passage from this life, he did not kiss her forehead
or her face, as he did kiss her hand. Her death
was the cause that oftentimes he dwelt astonied,
thinking of it, even as a man bereft of sense."
Michelangelo himself, writing immediately after
Vittoria's death, speaks of her thus i1 " She felt
the warmest affection for me, and I not less for her.
Death has robbed me of a great friend." It is
curious that he here uses the masculine gender : " un
grande amico." He also composed two sonnets, which
were in all probability inspired by the keen pain of
this bereavement. To omit them here would be unjust
to the memory of their friendship : 2 —
1 Lettere, No. cdlxvii.
2 Rime, Sonnets Nos. lxi. and lxii. It must be said that, so far as
I know, we have no autograph authority for ascribing them to her.
The same must be said about No. lxiii., which Guasti also places among
sonnets written " In Morte di Vittoria Colonna." The autograph in
Cod. Vat., p. 85, has no superscription. The curious play upon the
words Febo and poggio in lines 2, 9, 10, might raise a suspicion that
this sonnet was composed after his rupture with Febo di Poggio, about
whom something will be said later on in this chapter. This suspicion
is confirmed by the fragment of a sonnet (No. xciii), which plays on
the name Febo di Poggio. In Guasti's Rime it is numbered xciii., and
seems to allude in covert language to Febo's preference for some other
friend. I will give the original and a translation, premising that the
person addressed as tu in the first quatrain is Febo, and is different
from the person addressed in the second (under the metaphor of an
eagle perhaps) asfelice uccello.
Ben fu, temprando il ciel tuo vivo raggio
Solo a du' occhi, a me di pieta voto,
Allor che con veloce eterno moto
A noi dette la luce, a te 1 viaggio.

LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
When my rude hammer to the stubborn stone
Gives human shape, now that, now this, at will,
Following his hand who wields and guides it still,
It moves upon another's feet alone :
But that which dwells in heaven, the world doth fill
With beauty by pure motions of its own ;
And since tools fashion tools which else were none,
Its life makes all that lives with living skill.
Now, for that every stroke excels the more
The higher at the forge it doth ascend,
Her soul that fashioned mine hath sought the skies ;
Wherefore unfinished I must meet my end,
If God, the great Artificer, denies
That aid which was unique on earth before.

When she who was the source of all my sighs
Fled from the world, herself, my straining sight,
Nature, who gave us that unique delight,
Was sunk in shame, and we had weeping eyes.
Yet shall not vauntful Death enjoy the prize,
This sun of suns which then he veiled in night ;
For Love hath triumphed, lifting up her light
On earth and 'mid the saints in Paradise.
Felice uccello, che con tai vantaggio
Da noi, t'e Febo e '1 suo bel viso noto,
E piii c' al gran veder t'e bene arroto
Volare al poggio, ond' io rovino e caggio.

Certes the heavens, by tempering thy live ray
For twain eyes only, proved toward me their spite ;
Then when, with swift eternal motion, light
Was given to us, to thee the path of day.
Happy the bird who with such vantage may,
Transcending ours, know Febo and his bright
Visage ! beyond that vision too may light,
Winged on the hill whence ruined I fall away.
It is significant that Michelangelo the younger made no use either of
Sonnet lxiii., or fragment xciii., in his version. Lastly, I may say that
the poets frequently used poggio as a metaphor for the bosom.

POEMS TO VITTORIA. 121
What though remorseless and impiteous doom
Deemed that the music of her deeds would die,
And that her splendour would be sunk in gloom ?
The poet's page exalts her to the sky
With life more living in the lifeless tomb,
And Death translates her soul to reign on high.
It will not, perhaps, be out of place here to offer
English versions of three madrigals, one of which was
certainly written for Vittoria Colonna in her life
time, while another may have been composed after
her death. I may introduce them by remarking that
when Michelangelo adopted this form of lyric, looser
than the sonnet, he was wont to indulge in even
more extravagant conceits. The first proves that
he regarded the Marchioness as his Egeria in the
spiritual life, and that the gathering clouds of old
age were making him reflect upon the final issues
of man's soul : 1 —
Now to the right, now to the left hand driven,
Wander my steps, seeking eternal weal.
Both vice and virtue make appeal
Unto my heart perplexed, which tires me still : —
Like one who sees not heaven,
But blunders on distraught o'er vale and hill.
I send you paper, beg you take a quill,
And with your sacred ink
Make love give light, and mercy truth impart ;
So that my soul, delivered, purged of ill,
Shall not be drawn to error's brink,
Through life's brief remnant, by a blinded heart.
I ask of thee, that goddess art,
Lady, if up in heaven doth lower dwell
A contrite sin than virtue, lord o'er hell.
1 Rime, Madrigal No. v. The autograph in Cod. Vat. has a super
scription to the Marchioness of Pescara. See p. 101, note.

122 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
The second is interesting for the light it seems
to throw upon Vittoria Colonna's influence. Michel
angelo describes her as a woman through whose lips
a man, or rather a god, speaks to him, causing a
complete change in his moral nature, and luring him
from previous emotions of which he now repents : 1 —
A man within a woman, nay, a god,
Speaks through her spoken word :
I therefore, who have heard,
Must suffer change, and shall be mine no more.
She lured me from the paths I whilom trod.
Borne from my former state by her away,
I stand aloof, and mine own self deplore.
Above all vain desire
The beauty of her face doth lift my clay ;
All lesser loveliness seems charnel mire.
0 lady, who through fire
And water leadest souls to joys eterne,
Let me no more unto myself return.
The third illustrates in a singular manner that
custom of sixteenth-century literature which Shake
speare followed in his sonnets, of weaving poetical
images out of thoughts borrowed from law and
business. It is also remarkable in this respect, that
Michelangelo has here employed precisely the same
conceit for Vittoria Colonna which he found service
able when at an earlier date he wished to deplore
the death of the Florentine, Cecchino dei Bracci.
For both of them he says that Heaven bestowed upon
the beloved object all its beauties, instead of scatter-
1 Rime, Madr. No. lvii. p. 94.

THREE MADRIGALS. 123
ing these broad-cast over the human race,1 which,
had it done so, would have entailed the bankruptcy
and death of all : —
So that high heaven should have not to distrain
From several that vast beauty ne'er yet shown,
To one exalted dame alone
The total sum was lent in her pure self : —
Heaven had made sorry gain,
Recovering from the crowd its scattered pelf.
Now in a puff of breath,
Nay, in one second, God
Hath ta'en her back through death,
Back from the senseless folk and from our eyes.
Yet earth's oblivious sod,
Albeit her body dies,
Will bury not her live words fair and holy.
Ah, cruel mercy ! Here thou showest solely
How, had heaven lent us ugly what she took, ¦
And death the debt reclaimed, all men were broke.
Without disputing the fact that a very sincere
emotion underlay these verses, it must be submitted
that, in the words of Samuel Johnson about
"Lycidas," "he who thus grieves will excite no
sympathy ; he who thus praises will confer no
honour." This conviction will be enforced when
we reflect that the thought upon which the madrigal
above translated has been woven (1547) had been
already used for Cecchino dei Bracci in 1544. It is
clear that, in dealing with Michelangelo's poetical
compositions, we have to accept a mass of conven-
1 Rime, Madrigal No. vi., compare in particular the epitaph on
Cecchino, No. viii.

124 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
tional utterances, penetrated with a few firmly
grasped Platonical ideas. It is only after long
familiarity with his work that a man may venture
to distinguish between the accents of the heart and
the head-notes in the case of so great a master
using an art he practised mainly as an amateur.
I shall have to return to these considerations when
I discuss the value of his poetiy taken as a whole.
The union of Michelangelo and Vittoria was beau
tiful and noble, based upon the sympathy of ardent
and high-feeling natures. Nevertheless we must
remember that when Michelangelo lost his old servant
Urbino, his letters and the sonnet written upon that
occasion express an even deeper passion of grief.
Love is an all-embracing word, and may well be
used to describe this exalted attachment, as also to
qualify the great sculptor's affection for a faithful
servant or for a charming friend. We ought not,
however, to distort the truth of biography or to
corrupt criticism, from a personal wish to make
more out of his feeling than fact and probability
warrant. This is what has been done by all who
approached the study of Michelangelo's life and
writings. Of late years, the determination to see
Vittoria Colonna through every line written by him
which bears the impress of strong emotion, and to
suppress other aspects of his sensibility, has been so
deliberate, that I am forced to embark upon a dis
cussion which might otherwise have not been brought
so prominently forward. For the understanding of

TOMMASO CAVALIERI. 125
his character, and for a proper estimate of his poetry,
it has become indispensable to do so.

V.
Michelangelo's best friend in Rome was a young
nobleman called Tommaso Cavalieri. Speaking of
his numerous allies and acquaintances, Vasari writes :
" Immeasurably more than all the rest, he loved
Tommaso dei Cavalieri, a Roman gentleman, for
whom, as he was young and devoted to the arts,
Michelangelo made many stupendous drawings of
superb heads in black and red chalk, wishing him
to learn the method of design. Moreover, he drew
for him a Ganymede carried up to heaven by Jove's
eagle, a Tityos with the vulture feeding on his heart,
the fall of Phaethon with the sun's chariot into the
river Po, and a Bacchanal of children ; all of them
things of the rarest quality, and drawings the like
of which were never seen. Michelangelo made a
cartoon portrait of Messer Tommaso, life-size, which
was the only portrait that he ever drew, since he
detested to imitate the living person, unless it was
one of incomparable beauty." x Several of Michel-
1 In the Louvre there is a fine study for the head of Minos (Last
Judgment), which looks like a faithful portrait of Messer Biagio da
Cesena. Chatsworth has a large drawing of Leo the Tenth's face,
attributed (but with insufficient reason, I think) to Michelangelo.

126 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
angelo's sonnets are addressed to Tommaso Cavalieri.
Benedetto Varchi, in his commentary, introduces two
of them with these words : x " The first I shall
present is one addressed to M. Tommaso Cavalieri,
a young Roman of very noble birth, in whom I
recognised, while I was sojourning at Rome, not
only incomparable physical beauty, but so much
elegance of manners, such excellent intelligence,
and such graceful behaviour, that he well deserved,
and still deserves, to win the more love the better he
is known." Then Varchi recites the sonnet : 2 —
Why should I seek to ease intense desire
With still more tears and windy words of grief,
When heaven, or late or soon, sends no relief
To souls whom love hath robed around with fire ?
Why need my aching heart to death aspire,
When all must die ? Nay, death beyond belief
Unto these eyes would be both sweet and brief, '
Since in my sum of woes all joys expire !
Therefore, because I cannot shun the blow
I rather seek, say who must rule my breast,
Gliding between her gladness and her woe ?
If only chains and bands can make me blest,
No marvel if alone and bare I go,
An armed knight's captive and slave confessed.
"The other shall be what follows, written perhaps
for the same person, and worthy, in my opinion, not
only of the ripest sage, but also of a poet not un
exercised in writing verse : —
1 Rime, p. cviii.
2 They are respectively Nos. xxxi. and xxx.

SONNETS TO CAVALIERI. 127
With your fair eyes a charming light I see,
For which my own blind eyes would peer in vain ;
Stayed by your feet, the burden I sustain
Which my lame feet find all too strong for me ;
Wingless upon your pinions forth I fly ;
Heavenward your spirit stirreth me to strain ;
E'en as you will, I blush and blanch again,
Freeze in the sun, burn 'neath a frosty sky.
Your will includes and is the lord of mine ;
Life to my thoughts within your heart is given ;
My words begin to breathe upon your breath :
Like to the moon am I, that cannot shine
Alone ; for, lo ! our eyes see naught in heaven
Save what the living sun illumineth."
The frank and hearty feeling for a youth of singu
lar distinction which is expressed in these sonnets,
gave no offence to society during the period of
the earlier Renaissance ; but after the Tridentine
Council social feeling altered upon this and similar
topics. While morals remained what they had been,
language and manners grew more nice and hypo
critical. It happened thus that grievous wrong was
done to the text of Michelangelo's poems, with the
best intentions, by their first editor. Grotesque mis
conceptions, fostered by the same mistaken zeal, are
still widely prevalent.
When Michelangelo the younger arranged his
granduncle's poems for the press, he was perplexed
by the first of the sonnets quoted by Varchi. The
last line, which runs in the Italian thus —
Resto prigion d'un Cavalier armato,

128 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
has an obvious play of words upon Cavalieri's sur
name. This he altered into
Resto prigion d'un cor di virtu armato.
The reason was that, if it stood unaltered, "the
ignorance of men would have occasion to murmur."
"Varchi," he adds, "did wrong in printing it accord
ing to the text." "Remember well," he observes,
" that this sonnet, as well as the preceding number
and some others, are concerned, as is manifest, with
a masculine love of the Platonic species." x Michel
angelo the younger's anxiety for his granduncle's
memory induced him thus to corrupt the text of his
poems. The same anxiety has led their latest editor
to explain away the obvious sense of certain words.
Signor Guasti approves of the first editor's pious
fraud, on the ground that morality has higher claims
than art ; but he adds that the expedient was not
necessary : "for these sonnets do not refer to mascu
line love, nor yet do any others. In the first (xxxi.)
the lady is compared to an armed knight, because
she carries the weapons of her sex and beauty ;
and while I think on it, an example occurs to my
mind from Messer Cino in support of the argument.
As regards the second (lxii.), those who read these
pages of mine will possibly remember that Michel
angelo, writing of the dead Vittoria Colonna, called
1 Rime, p. 45. I have read these autograph annotations to Michel
angelo the younger's transcript of the Rime in the Archivio Buonarroti.
He altered the word amid in No. Iii. into animi.

GUASTI'S PLAUSIBLE GLOSSES. 129
her amico ; and on reflection, this sounds better
than arnica, in the place where it occurs. Moreover,
there are not wanting in these poems instances of
the term signore, or lord, applied to the beloved
lady ; which is one of the many periphrastical ex
pressions used by the Romance poets to indicate their
mistress." It is true that Cino compares his lady
in one sonnet to a knight who has carried off the
prize of beauty in the lists of love and grace by her
elegant dancing.2 But he never calls a lady by the
name of cavaliere. It is also indubitable that the
Tuscans occasionally addressed the female or male
object of their adoration under the title of signore,
lord of my heart and soul.3 But such instances
weigh nothing against the direct testimony of a con
temporary like Varchi, into whose hands Michel
angelo's poems came at the time of their composition,
and who was well acquainted with the circumstances
of their composition. There is, moreover, a fact of
singular importance bearing on this question, to
which Signor Guasti has not attached the value it
deserves. In a letter belonging to the year 1549,
Michelangelo thanks Luca Martini for a copy of
Varchi's commentary on his sonnet, and begs him to
1 Rime, ibid. The reference to Cino is borrowed from a note of
Carducci's, which I shall refer to lower down.
2 Vita e Poesie di Messer Cino da Pistoja. Pisa : Capurro, 1813,
p. 115.
3 Carducci, in his edition of Poliziano's poems (Le Stanze, &c,
Firenze, Barbera, 1863, p. 204), gives a note upon this use of the word
Signore in love-poetry, of which Guasti availed himself, as appears by
the context. But that Michelangelo by the Signore always or frequently
VOL. II. I

130 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
express his affectionate regards and hearty thanks to
that eminent scholar for the honour paid him.1 In a
second letter addressed to G. F. Fattucci, under date
October 1549, he conveys "the thanks of Messer
Tomao de' Cavalieri to Varchi for a certain little
book of his which has been printed, and in which
he speaks very honourably of himself, and not less
so of me." 2 In neither of these letters does Michel
angelo take exception to Varchi's interpretation of
Sonnet xxxi. Indeed, the second proves that both he
and Cavalieri were much pleased with it. Michel
angelo even proceeds to inform Fattucci that Cavalieri
" has given me a sonnet which I made for him in
those same years, begging me to send it on as a
proof and witness that he really is the man intended.
meant a woman can be disproved in many ways. I will only adduce
the fragment of one sonnet (No. lxxxiii.)
Oltre qui fu dove '1 Signior mi tolse,
Suo meree, il core, e vie piu. la vita :
Qui co' begli occhi mi promisse aita,
E co' medesmi qui tor me la volse.
Quince oltre mi legb, quivi mi sciolse ;
Per me qui piansi, e con doglia infinita
Da questo sasso vidi far partita
Colui, c' a me mi tolse, e non mi volse.

Hereby was where my Master from me took
By grace my heart, nay more, the life of me ;
Here with his beauteous eyes he swore to be
My help, and with those eyes that promise broke.
Just there he found me, here aside me shook ;
Here I bewept my fate, most miserably
From this stone saw him take departure, he
Who robbed me from myself, me would not brook/
x Lettere, No. cdlxiii. p. 524. - Ibid., No. cdlxvi. p. 527.

PROOFS OF THE TRUTH. 131
This I will enclose in my present letter." Further
more, we possess an insolent letter of Pietro Aretino,
which makes us imagine that the " ignorance of the
vulgar" had already begun to "murmur."1 After
complaining bitterly that Michelangelo refused to
send him any of his drawings, he goes on to remark
that it would be better for the artist if he did so,
" inasmuch as such an act of courtesy would quiet
the insidious rumours which assert that only Gerards
and Thomases can dispose of them." We have
seen from Vasari that Michelangelo executed some
famous designs for Tommaso Cavalieri. The same
authority asserts that he presented " Gherardo Perini,
a Florentine gentleman, and his very dear friend,"
with three splendid drawings in black chalk.2
Tommaso Cavalieri and Gherardo Perini were, there
fore, the " Gerards and Thomases " alluded to by
Aretino.3 Michelangelo the younger's and Cesare Guasti's
method of defending Buonarroti from a malevolence
which was only too well justified by the vicious
1 Gaye, vol. ii. p. 332. Its date is November 1565 ; see above, p. 51,
a mistake possibly for 1545. Aretino died in 1557. It may be added
here that Condivi tells us expressly that Michelangelo in his lifetime
was calumniated because of his friendships. This makes Condivi's
treatment of Michelangelo's emotions and of the Vittoria Colonna
episode apologetical. See Condivi, pp. 79, 80.
2 Vasari, xii. p. 277. One of these was the famous "Damned Soul"
of the Uffizi, as is proved by Michelangelo's inscription on it.
3 There is one letter by Michelangelo to Perini couched in terms of
warm affection. Lettere, No. ccclxxvi. p. 418. Compare the terms
in which Michelangelo writes about Pier Francesco Borgherini to his
brother. Lettere, No. cix.

1 32 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
manners of the time, seems to me so really injurious
to his character, that I feel bound to carry this in
vestigation further. First of all, we ought to bear
in mind what Buonarroti admitted concerning his
own temperament.1 " You must know that I am, of
all men who were ever born, the most inclined to
love persons. Whenever I behold some one who
possesses any talent or displays any dexterity of
mind, who can do or say something more appro
priately than the rest of the world, I am compelled
to fall in love with him ; and then I give myself
up to him so entirely that I am no longer my own
property, but wholly his." He mentions this as a
reason for not going to dine with Luigi del Riccio
in company with Donato Giannotti and Antonio
Petrejo. " If I were to do so, as all of you are
adorned with talents and agreeable graces, each of
you would take from me a portion of myself, and
so would the dancer, and so would the lute-player,
if men with distinguished gifts in those arts were
present. Each person would filch away a part of
me, and instead of being refreshed and restored to
health and gladness, as you said, I should be utterly
bewildered and distraught, in such wise that for
many days to come I should not know in what
world I was moving." This passage serves to ex
plain the extreme sensitiveness of the great artist to
personal charm, grace, accomplishments, and throws
light upon the self-abandonment with which he
1 In Donato Giannotti's Dialogue. See Guasti, Rime, p. xxxi.

LETTERS TO CAVALIERI. 133
sometimes yielded to the attractions of delightful
people.1 We possess a series of Michelangelo's letters ad
dressed to or concerned with Tommaso Cavalieri,
the tone of which is certainly extravagant.2 His
biographer, Aurelio Gotti, moved by the same
anxiety as Michelangelo the younger and Guasti,
adopted the extraordinary theory that they were
really directed to Vittoria Colonna, and were meant
to be shown to her by the common friend of both,
Cavalieri.3 "There is an epistle to this young
man," he says, " so studied in its phrases, so devoid
of all naturalness, that we cannot extract any rational
sense from it without supposing that Cavalieri was
himself a friend of the Marchioness, and that
Michelangelo, while writing to him, intended rather
to address his words to the Colonna." Of this
letter, which bears the date January 1, 1533, three
drafts exist, proving the great pains taken by
Michelangelo in its composition,4
1 Among the inedited correspondence of the Arch. Buon. (Cod. x.
Nos. 610-612) are to be found three letters from a certain Pier Antonio,
who describes himself as " familiare di Mssere Revsmo di Ridolfi." They
have no great biographical importance, except that they seem to point
at an acquaintance, formed in this light-hearted and irreflective manner,
with a youth distinguished for some special accomplishment.
2 Lettere, Nos. cdxi.-cdxviii.
3 Gotti, vol. i. pp. 231-234. That Cavalieri was a member of Vittoria
Colonna's circle appears from Lettere No. cdlv. Milanesi either
started or adopted the above hypothesis in a note appended to p. 468
of the Lettere.
4 Lettere, Nos. cdxi., cdxii., cdxiii. pp. 462-464. It is extremely
difficult to translate the involved and laboured conceits of the text.

i34 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
" Without due consideration, Messer Tomao, my
very dear lord, I was moved to write to your lord
ship, not by way of answer to any letter received
from you, but being myself the first to make ad
vances, as though I felt bound to cross a little
stream with dry feet, or a ford made manifest by
paucity of water. But now that I have left the
shore, instead of the trifling river I expected, the
ocean with its towering waves appears before me,
so that, if it were possible, in order to avoid drown
ing, I would gladly retrace my steps to the dry land
whence I started. Still, as I am here, I will e'en
make of my heart a rock, and proceed farther ; and
if I shall not display the art of sailing on the sea of
your powerful genius, that genius itself will excuse
me, nor will be disdainful of my inferiority in parts,
nor desire from me that which I do not possess,
inasmuch as he who is unique in all things can have
peers in none. Therefore your lordship, the light
of our century without paragon upon this world, is
unable to be satisfied with the productions of other
men, having no match or equal to yourself.1 And
if, peradventure, something of mine, such as I hope
and promise to perform, give pleasure to your mind,
I shall esteem it more fortunate than excellent ; and
should I be ever sure of pleasing your lordship, as
1 He calls young Cavalieri luce here, as he calls Febo di Poggio by
the same title. " Light," I think, with Michelangelo was a favourite
image when he wished to express the radiance of an amiable nature
shining through a specially attractive form.

GOTTI'S PREPOSTEROUS THEORY. 135
is said, in any particular, I will devote the present
time and all my future to your service ; indeed, it
will grieve me much that I cannot regain the past,
in order to devote a longer space to you than the
future only will allow, seeing I am now too old. I
have no more to say. Read the heart, and not the
letter, because ' the pen toils after man's good-will
in vain.'
"I have to make excuses for expressing in my
first letter a marvellous astonishment at your rare
genius ; and thus I do so, having recognised the
error I was in ; for it is much the same to wonder
at God's working miracles as to wonder at Rome
producing divine men. Of this the universe con
firms us in our faith."
It is clear that Michelangelo alludes in this letter
to the designs which he is known to have made for
Cavalieri, and the last paragraph has no point except
as an elaborate compliment addressed to a Roman
gentleman. It would be quite out of place if
applied to Vittoria Colonna. Gotti finds the lan
guage strained and unnatural. We cannot deny
that it differs greatly from the simple diction of the
writer's ordinary correspondence. But Michelangelo
did sometimes seek to heighten his style, when he
felt that the occasion demanded a special effort ; and
then he had recourse to the laboured images in
vogue at that period, employing them with some
thing of the ceremonious cumbrousness displayed in
his poetry. The letters to Pietro Aretino, Niccolb

136 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
Martelli, Vittoria Colonna, Francis I., Luca Martini,
and Giorgio Vasari might be quoted as examples.1
As a postscript to this letter, in the two drafts
which were finally rejected, the following enigmatical
sentence is added : —
" It would be permissible to give the name of the
things a man presents, to him who receives them ;
but proper sense of what is fitting prevents it being
done in this letter."
Probably Michelangelo meant that he should have
liked to call Cavalieri his friend, since he had already
given him friendship. The next letter, July 28,
1533, begins thus : —
" My dear Lord, — Had I not believed that I had
made you certain of the very great, nay, measureless
love I bear you, it would not have seemed strange
to me nor have roused astonishment to observe the
great uneasiness you show in your last letter, lest,
through my not having written, I should have for
gotten you. Still it is nothing new or marvellous
when so many other things go counter, that this
also should be topsy-turvy. For what your lordship
says to me, I could say to yourself : nevertheless,
you do this perhaps to try me, or to light a new and
stronger flame, if that indeed were possible : but be
it as it wills : I know well that, at this hour, I
could as easily forget your name as the food by
which I live ; nay, it were easier to forget the food,
which only nourishes my body miserably, than your
1 Lettere, Nos. cdxxi., cdxxii., cdlvi., cdlix., cdlxiii., cdlxviii.

CAVALIERI'S ANSWERS. 137
name, which nourishes both body and soul, filling
the one and the other with such sweetness that
neither weariness nor fear of death is felt by me
while memory preserves you to my mind. Think,
if the eyes could also enjoy their portion, in what
condition I should find myself."
This second letter has also been extremely laboured ;
for we have three other turns given in its drafts to
the image of food and memory. That these two
documents were really addressed to Cavalieri, with
out any thought of Vittoria Colonna, is proved by
three letters sent to Michelangelo by the young man
in question. One is dated August 2, 1533, another
September 2, and the third bears no date. The two
which I have mentioned first belong to the summer
of 1533 ; the third seems to be the earliest. It was
clearly written on some occasion when both men
were in Rome together, and at the very beginning
of their friendship.1 I will translate them in their
order.2 The first undated letter was sent to Michel
angelo in Rome, in answer to some writing of the
illustrious sculptor which we do not possess : —
1 It is much to be regretted that this letter is undated, since it would
fix the exact period when Michelangelo first met Cavalieri. I conjec
ture that this happened in the spring or summer of 1532, when the
sculptor was on a visit to Rome. The splendid sonnet (No. xxxii.)
which opens on the words " Se un casto amor " is written at the foot of
a letter addressed by Giuliano Bugiardini to Michelangelo in Rome,
and dated the 5th of August 1532. The sonnet can be referred with
strong probability to the Cavalieri series.
2 Extracted from the Archivio Buonarroti, Cod. vii. 141 et sea. See
the originals in the Appendix.

138 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
" I have received from you a letter, which is the
more acceptable because it was so wholly unex
pected. I say unexpected, because I hold myself
unworthy of such condescension in a man of your
eminence. With regard to what Pierantonio spoke
to you in my praise, and those things of mine
which you have seen, and which you say have
aroused in you no small affection for me,1 I answer
that they were insufficient to impel a man of such
transcendent genius, without a second, not to speak
of a peer, upon this earth, to address a youth who
was born but yesterday, and therefore is as ignorant
as it is possible to be. At the same time I cannot
call you a liar. I rather think then, nay, am certain,
that the love you bear me is due to this, that you,
being a man most excellent in art, nay, art itself,
are forced to love those who follow it and love it,
among whom am I ; and in this, according to my
capacity, I yield to few. I promise you truly that
you shall receive from me for your kindness affec
tion equal, and perhaps greater, in exchange ; for I
never loved a man more than I do you, nor desired
a friendship more than I do yours. About this,
though my judgment may fail in other things, it is
unerring ; and you shall see the proof, except only
1 Cavalieri studied the arts of design, and lived to carry on Michel
angelo's work at the Capitol of Rome after his friend's death in 1564.
I do not know who this Pierantonio is, unless it be the young man
mentioned in a note to p. 133 above. He was certainly a member of
Cavalieri's circle, for he mentions him very particularly in a letter
without date. Arch. Buon., Cod. x. No. 610. This letter will be quoted
in full lower down.

LETTERS TO FLORENCE. 139
that fortune is adverse to me in that now, when I
might enjoy you, I am far from well. I hope, how
ever, if she does not begin to trouble me again, that
within a few days I shall be cured, and shall come
to pay you my respects in person. Meanwhile I
shall spend at least two hours a day in studying two
of your drawings, which Pierantonio brought me :
the more I look at them, the more they delight me ;
and I shall soothe my complaint by cherishing the
hope which Pierantonio gave me, of letting me see
other things of yours. In order not to be trouble
some, I will write no more. Only I beg you re
member, on occasion, to make use of me ; and
recommend myself in perpetuity to you. — Your most
affectionate servant, " Thomao Cavaliere."
The next letters were addressed to Michelangelo
in Florence : —
" Unique, my Lord, — I have received from you a
letter, very acceptable, from which I gather that you
are not a little saddened at my having written to
you about forgetting. I answer that I did not write
this for either of the following reasons : to wit,
because you have not sent me anything, or in order
to fan the flame of your affection. I only wrote to
jest with you, as certainly I think I may do. There
fore, do not be saddened, for I am quite sure you
will not be able to forget me.1 Regarding what you
1 Springer, Raffael und Michelangelo, vol. ii. p. 300, calls special
attention to this phrase, " not be able to forget me."

140 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
write to me about that young Nerli, he is much my
friend, and having to leave Rome, he came to ask
whether I needed anything from Florence. I said
no, and he begged me to allow him to go in my
name to pay you my respects, merely on account of
his own desire to speak with you. I have nothing
more to write, except that I beg you to return
quickly. When you come you will deliver me from
prison, because I wish to avoid bad companions ;
and having this desire, I cannot converse with any
one but you. I recommend myself to you a thou
sand times. — -Yours more than his own,
"Thomao Cavaliere.
"Rome, August 2, 1533."
It appears from the third letter, also sent to
Florence, that during the course of the month
Michelangelo had despatched some of the draw
ings he made expressly for his friend : —
" Unique, my Lord, — Some days ago I received
a letter from you, which was very welcome, both
because I learned from it that you were well, and
also because I can now be sure that you will soon
return. I was very sorry not to be able to answer
at once. However, it consoles me to think that,
when you know the cause, you will hold me ex
cused. On the day your letter reached me, I was
attacked with vomiting and such high fever that
I was on the point of death ; and certainly I should
have died, if it (i.e., the letter) had not somewhat

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DRAWINGS FOR CAVALIERI. 141
revived me. Since then, thank God, I have been
always well. Messer Bartolomeo (Angiolini) has now
brought me a sonnet sent by you, which has made
me feel it my duty to write. Some three days since
I received my Phaethon, which is exceedingly well
done. The Pope, the Cardinal de' Medici, and
every one, have seen it ; I do not know what made
them want to do so. The Cardinal expressed a wish
to inspect all your drawings, and they pleased him
so much that he said he should like to have the
Tityos and Ganymede done in crystal. I could not
manage to prevent him from using the Tityos, and it
is now being executed by Maestro Giovanni. Hard
I struggled to save the Ganymede. The other day
I went, as you requested, to Fra Sebastiano. Pie
sends a thousand messages, but only to pray you to
come back. — Your affectionate, " Thomao Cavaliere.
" Rome, September 6."
All the drawings mentioned by Vasari as having
been made for Cavalieri are alluded to here, except
the Bacchanal of Children. Of the Phaethon we have
two splendid examples in existence, one at Windsor,
the other in the collection of M. Emile Galichon.1
They differ considerably in details, but have the
same almost mathematical exactitude of pyramidal
composition. That belonging to M. Galichon must
1 Engraved in L'QSuvre et la Vie, p. 266. It is said that all Michel
angelo's drawings in the possession of Cavalieri passed for the sum of 500
crowns into the hands of Cardinal Farnese. Vasari, xii. p. 272, note 4.

142 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
have been made in Rome, for it has this rough
scrawl in Michelangelo's hand at the bottom,
"Tomao, se questo scizzo non vi piace, ditelo a
Urbino." He then promises to make another. Per
haps Cavalieri sent word back that he did not like
something in the sketch — possibly the women
writhing into trees — and that to this circumstance
we owe the Windsor drawing, which is purer in
style. There is a fine Tityos with the vulture
at Windsor, so exquisitely finished and perfectly
preserved that one can scarcely believe it passed
through the hands of Maestro Giovanni. Windsor,
too, possesses a very delicate Ganymede, which
seems intended for an intaglio.1 The subject is
repeated in an unfinished pen-design at the Uffizi,
incorrectly attributed to Michelangelo, and is repre
sented by several old engravings. The Infant
Bacchanals again exist at Windsor, and fragmentary
jottings upon the margin of other sketches in
tended for the same theme survive.

VI.
A correspondence between Bartolommeo Angelini
in Rome and Michelangelo in Florence during the
1 There is another pen-and-ink sketch of Jupiter, embracing Cupid,
at Oxford, which Mr. Fagan, in his Catalogue of Drawings in Great
Britain, identifies with the one designed for Cavalieri. But, as Vasari
distinctly talks of a Rape of Ganymede in black or red chalk, preference
must be given to the Windsor drawing.

ANGELINI'S CORRESPONDENCE. 143
summers of 1532 and 1533 throws some light upon
the latter's movements, and also upon his friendship
for Tommaso Cavalieri.1 The first letter of this
series, written on the 21st of August 1532, shows
that Michelangelo was^ then expected in Rome.
" Fra Sebastiano says that you wish to dismount
at your own house. Knowing then .that there is
nothing but the walls, I hunted up a small amount
of furniture, which I have had sent thither, in order
that you may be able to sleep and sit down and
enjoy some other conveniences. For eating, you
will be able to provide yourself to your own liking
in the neighbourhood." 2 From the next letter
(September 18, 1532) it appears that Michelangelo
was then in Rome.3 There ensues a gap in the
1 There are eleven autograph letters from Angelini belonging to this
epoch in the Museo Buonarroti. Unfortunately, we possess only the
fragment of one of Michelangelo's in reply. In the Appendix I shall
print all Angelini's letters, which were transcribed for me by the great
kindness of my friend Cavaliere Biagi.
2 Compare the amusing letter from Sebastiano del Piombo (Les
Correspondants, p. 102) about Michelangelo's empty house at Rome. It
appears that a sbirro was put in charge of it, just as we put in a policeman
as caretaker. Pierantonio also, in one of his inedited letters, speaks of
having mellowed this sbirro's heart with wine, in order to get something
carried out about the marbles in the workshop.
3 I gather this because the autograph is neither dated nor addressed
as though to be sent through the post. This is almost a sure sign that
it was composed by its writer in Rome to Michelangelo in Rome, and
sent by a messenger. Guasti refers to a letter from Bugiardini to
Michelangelo in Rome, dated August 5, 1532, on the back of which is
written the Sonnet " Se un casto amor," Rime, p. 190. This date,
which is, however, correct, hardly agrees with Angelini's letter above
quoted, and is at variance with Sebastiano's above quoted, which is
dated August 13, 1532. Michelangelo was in Florence then, and his
house in Rome empty.

144 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
correspondence, which is not resumed until July
12, 1533. It now appears that Buonarroti had
recently left Rome at the close of another of his
visits. Angelini immediately begins to speak of
Tommaso Cavalieri. " I gave that soul you wot of
to M. Tommao, who sends you his very best regards,
and begs me to communicate any letters I may re
ceive from you to him. Your house is watched
continually every night, and I often go to visit it by
day. The hens and master cock are in fine feather,
and the cats complain greatly over your absence,
albeit they have plenty to eat." Angelini never
writes now without mentioning Cavalieri. Since
this name does not occur in the correspondence
before the date of July 12, 1533, it is possible that
Michelangelo made the acquaintance during his resi
dence at Rome in the preceding winter. His letters
to Angelini must have conveyed frequent expres
sions of anxiety concerning Cavalieri's affection ; for
the replies invariably contain some reassuring words
(July 26) : "Yours makes me understand how great
is the love you bear him ; and in truth, so far as I
have seen, he does not love you less than you love
him." Again (August 1 1, 1533) : " I gave your letter
to M. Thomao, who sends you his kindest remem
brances, and shows the very strongest desire for
your return, saying that when he is with you, then
he is really happy, because he possesses all that he
wishes for upon this world. So then, it seems to
me that, while you are fretting to return, he is burn-

"THE REVELOF CHILDREN^'

MICHELANGELO TO ANGELINI. 145
ing with desire for you to do so. Why do you not
begin in earnest to make plans for leaving Florence ?
It would give peace to yourself and all of us, if you
were here. I have seen your soul, which is in good
health and under good guardianship. The body
waits for your arrival."
This mysterious reference to the soul, which
Angelini gave, at Buonarroti's request, to young
Cavalieri, and which he now describes as prospering,
throws some light upon the passionate phrases of
the following mutilated letter, addressed to Angelini
by Michelangelo upon the nth of October.1 The
writer, alluding to Messer Tommao, says that, having
given him his heart, he can hardly go on living in
his absence : " And so, if I yearn day and night
without intermission to be in Rome, it is only in
order to return again to life, which I cannot enjoy
without the soul." This conceit is carried on for
some time, and the letter winds up with the follow
ing sentence : " My dear Bartolommeo, although you
may think that I am joking with you, this is not the
case. I am talking sober sense, for I have grown
twenty years older and twenty pounds lighter since
I have been here." This epistle, as we shall see in
due course, was acknowledged. All Michelangelo's
intimates in Rome became acquainted with the
details of this friendship. Writing to Sebastiano
from Florence in this year, he says : 2 " I beg you, if
you see Messer T. Cavalieri, to recommend me to him
1 Lettere, No. cdxviii. p. 469. 2 Ibid., No. cdxv.
VOL. II. K

146 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
infinitely ; and when you write, tell me something
about him to keep him in my memory ; for if I were
to lose him from my mind, I believe that I should
fall down dead straightway." In Sebastiano's letters
there is one allusion to Cavalieri, who had come to
visit him in the company of Bartolommeo Angelini,
when he was ill.1
It is not necessary to follow all the references to
Tommaso Cavalieri contained in Angelini's letters.2
They amount to little more than kind messages and
warm wishes for Michelangelo's return. Soon, how
ever, Michelangelo began to send poems, which
Angelini acknowledges (September 6) : "I have
received the very welcome letter you wrote me,
together with your graceful and beautiful sonnet,
of which I kept a copy, and then sent it on to
M. Thomao. He was delighted to possess it, being
thereby assured that God has deigned to bestow upon
him the friendship of a man endowed with so many
noble gifts as you are." Again he writes (October
18): "Yours of the 12th is to hand, together with
M. Thomao's letter and the most beautiful sonnets.
I have kept copies, and sent them on to him for
whom they were intended, because I know with
what affection he regards all things that pertain to
you. He promised to send an answer which shall be
enclosed in this I now am writing. He is counting
not the days merely, but the hours, till you return."
In another letter, without date, Angelini says, "I
1 Les Correspondants, p. 114. " Dates, August 21, 23, 30, 1533.

FRIENDSHIP FOR CAVALIERI. 147
gave your messages to M. Thomao, who replied that
your presence would be dearer to him than your
writing, and that if it seems to you a thousand years,
to him it seems ten thousand, till you come. I
received your gallant (galante) and beautiful sonnet ;
and though you said nothing about it, I saw at once
for whom it was intended, and gave it to him. Like
everything of yours, it delighted him. The tenor of
the sonnet shows that love keeps you perpetually
restless. I do not think this ought to be the effect
of love, and so I send you one of my poor perform
ances to prove the contrary opinion." We may per
haps assume that this sonnet was the famous No.
xxxi., from the last line of which every one could
perceive that Michelangelo meant it for Tommaso
Cavalieri.

VII.
It is significant that, while Michelangelo's affection
for the young Roman was thus acquiring force,
another friendship, which must have once been very
dear to him, sprang up and then declined, but not
apparently through his own fault or coldness. We
hear of Febo di Poggio in the following autumn for
the first and last time. Before proceeding to speak
of him, I will wind up what has to be said about
Tommaso Cavalieri. Not long after the date of the
last letter quoted above, Michelangelo returned to

1 48 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
Rome, and settled there for the rest of his life. He
continued to the end of his days in close friendship
with Cavalieri, who helped to nurse him during his
last illness, who took charge of his effects after his
death, and who carried on the architectural work he
had begun at the Capitol.
Their friendship seems to have been uninterrupted
by any disagreement, except on one occasion when
Michelangelo gave way to his suspicious irritability,
quite at the close of his long life. This drew forth
from Cavalieri the following manly and touching
letter : —
" Very magnificent, my Lord, — I have noticed dur
ing several days past that you have some grievance —
what, I do not know — against me. Yesterday I be
came certain of it when I went to your house. As I
cannot imagine the cause, I have thought it best to
write this, in order that, if you like, you may inform
me. I am more than positive that I never offended
you. But you lend easy credence to those whom
perhaps you ought least to trust ; and some one has
possibly told you some lie, for fear I should one day
reveal the many knaveries done under your name,
the which do you little honour ; and if you desire
to know about them, you shall. Only I cannot,
nor, if I could, should I wish to force myself — but
I tell you frankly that if you do not want me for
a friend, you can do as you like, but you cannot
compel me not to be a friend to you. I shall always
try to do you' service ; and only yesterday I came to

A TEMPORARY MISUNDERSTANDING. 149
show you a letter written by the Duke of Florence,
and to lighten your burdens, as I have ever done
until now. Be sure you have no better friend than
me ; but on this I will not dwell. Still, if you think
otherwise, I hope that in a short time you will
explain matters ; and I know that you know I have
always been your friend without the least interest
of my own. Now I will say no more, lest I should
seem to be excusing myself for something which
does not exist, and which I am utterly unable to
imagine. I pray and conjure you, by the love you
bear to God, that you tell me what you have against
me, in order that I may disabuse you. Not having
more to write, I remain your servant,
"Thomao de' Cavalieri.
"From my house, November 15, 1561."1
It is clear from this letter, and from the relations
which subsisted between Michelangelo and Cavalieri
up to the day of his death, that the latter was a
gentleman of good repute and honour, whose affec
tion did credit to his friend. I am unable to see
that anything but an injury to both is done by
explaining away the obvious meaning of the letters
and the sonnets I have quoted. The supposition
that Michelangelo intended the Cavalieri letters to
reach Vittoria Colonna through that friend's hands
does not, indeed, deserve the complete refutation
1 See Appendix for the original.

150 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
which I have given it. I am glad, however, to be
able to adduce the opinion of a caustic Florentine
scholar upon this topic, which agrees with my own,
and which was formed without access to the original
documents which I have been enabled to make use
of.1 Fanfani says : "I have searched, but in vain,
for documentary proofs of the passion which Michel
angelo is supposed to have felt for Vittoria Colonna,
and which she returned with ardour according to the
assertion of some critics. My own belief, concurring
with that of better judges than myself, is that we
have here to deal with one of the many baseless
stories told about him. Omitting the difficulties
presented by his advanced age, it is wholly contrary
to all we know about the Marchioness, and not a
little damaging to her reputation for austerity, to
suppose that this admirable matron, who, after the
death of her husband, gave herself up to God, and
abjured the commerce of the world, should, later in
life, have carried on an intrigue, as the saying is,
upon the sly, particularly when a third person is
imposed on our credulity, acting the part of go-
between and cloak in the transaction, as certain
biographers of the great artist, and certain commen
tators of his poetry, are pleased to assert, with how
much common-sense and what seriousness I will
not ask."
1 Spigolatura Michelangiolesca, P. Fanfani. Pistoja : Tip. Cino, 1876,
p. x.

CECCHINO DEI BRACCI. 151

VIII.

The history of Luigi del Riccio's affection for a lad
of Florence called Cecchino dei Bracci, since this is
interwoven with Michelangelo's own biography and
the criticism of his poems, may be adduced in support
of the argument I am developing. Cecchino was a
youth of singular promise and personal charm. His
relative, the Florentine merchant, Luigi del Riccio,
one of Buonarroti's most intimate friends and
advisers, became devotedly attached to the boy.
Michelangelo, after his return to Rome in 1534,
shared this friend Luigi's admiration for Cecchino ;
and the close intimacy into which the two elder
men were drawn, at a somewhat later period of
Buonarroti's life, seems to have been cemented by
their common interest in poetry, and their common
feeling for a charming personality. We have a letter
of uncertain date, in which Michelangelo tells Del
Riccio that he has sent him a madrigal, begging
him, if he thinks fit, to commit the verses "to the
fire — that is, to what consumes me." 1 Then he asks
him to resolve a certain problem which has occurred
to his mind during the night, "for while I was
saluting our idol in a dream, it seemed to me that
he laughed, and in the same instant threatened me ;
and not knowing which of these two moods I have
to abide by, I beg you to find out from him ; and on
1 Lettere, cdxxiii. p. 474.

152 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
Sunday, when we meet again, you will inform me."
Cecchino, who is probably alluded to in this letter,1
died at Rome on the 8th of January 1542, and was
buried in the Church of Araceli.2 Luigi felt the
blow acutely. Upon the 12th of January he wrote
to his friend Donato Giannotti, then at Vicenza, in
the following words : —
"Alas, my friend Donato ! Our Cecchino is dead.
All Rome weeps. Michelangelo is making for me
the design of a decent sepulture in marble ; and I
pray you to write me the epitaph, and to send it to
me with a consolatory letter, if time permits, for my
grief has distraught me. Patience ! I live with a
thousand and a thousand deaths each hour. O
God ! How has Fortune changed her aspect ! " 3
Giannotti replied, enclosing three fine sonnets, the
second of which, beginning —
Messer Luigi mio, di noi che fia
Che sian restati senza il nostro sole 1
seems to have taken Michelangelo's fancy.4 Many
good pens in Italy poured forth laments on this
occasion. We have verses written by Giovanni Aldo-
1 In a sonnet of lamentation written after Cecchino's death, Luigi
addressed him as " Idol mio."
2 " D.O.M. Francisco Braccio Florentino, nobili adolescenti, imina-
tura morte praerepto, annos agenti xvi., die viii. Jan. mdlxiv. M.M.V.
Aloysius del Riccio affini et alumno dulcissimo D.
Invida fata, puer, mihi te rapuere ; sed ipse
Do tumulum et lacrymas, quae dare debueras.''
— Op. di Donato Giannotti, Firenze : Le Monnier, vol. i. p. 1.
3 D. Giannotti, ibid., p. 382.
4 Lettere, cdxliv. The manuscript is in the Arch. Buon., Cod. xiii. 187.

CECCHINO'S DEATH. 153
brandini, Carlo Gondi, Fra Paolo del Rosso, and
Anton Francesco Grazzini, called II Lasca.1 Not
the least touching is Luigi's own threnody, which
starts upon this note : —
Idol mio, che la tua leggiadra spoglia
Mi lasciasti anzi tempo.
Michelangelo, seeking to indulge his own grief and
to soothe that of his friend Luigi, composed no less
than forty-two epigrams of four lines each, in which
he celebrated the beauty and rare personal sweet
ness of Cecchino in laboured philosophical conceits.
They rank but low among his poems, having too
much of scholastic trifling and too little of the
accent of strong feeling in them. Certainly these
pieces did not deserve the pains which Michelangelo
the younger bestowed, when he altered the text of
a selection from them so as to adapt their Platonic
compliments to some female.2 Far superior is a
sonnet written to Del Riccio upon the death of the
youth, showing how recent had been Michelangelo's
acquaintance with Cecchino, and containing an un
fulfilled promise to carve his portrait : 3 —
Scarce had I seen for the first time his eyes,
Which to your living eyes were life and light,
When, closed at last in death's injurious night,
He opened them on God in Paradise.
1 Lettere, cdxliv. pp. 385-387.
Rime di Michelangelo Buonarroti, ed. Barbera, p. 342.
3 My version, Sonnet viii. There is an autograph copy of the sonnet
in the Cod. Vat., p. 33. Underneath it is written, " Cechin Bracci amato
da luigi del riccio.''

154 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
I know it, and I weep — too late made wise :
Yet was the fault not mine ; for death's fell spite
Robbed my desire of that supreme delight
Which in your better memory never dies.
Therefore, Luigi, if the task be mine
To make unique Cecchino smile in stone
For ever, now that earth hath made him dim,
If the beloved within the lover shine,
Since art without him cannot work alone,
You must I carve to tell the world of him.
The strange blending of artificial conceits with
spontaneous feeling in these poetical effusions, the
deep interest taken in a mere lad like Cecchino by
so many eminent personages, and the frank publicity
given to a friendship based apparently upon the
beauty of its object, strike us now as almost unin
telligible. Yet we have the history of Shakespeare's
Sonnets, and the letters addressed by Languet to
young Sidney, in evidence that fashion at the end
of the sixteenth century differed widely from that
which prevails at the close of the nineteenth.

IX.
Some further light may here be thrown upon
Michelangelo's intimacy with young men by two
fragments extracted independently from the Buon
arroti Archives by Milanesi and Guasti. In the
collection of the letters we find the following sorrow-

LETTER TO FEBO DI POGGIO. 155
ful epistle, written in December 1533, upon the eve
of Michelangelo's departure from Florence. It is
addressed to a certain Febo : 1 —
" Febo, — Albeit you bear the greatest hatred to
ward my person — I know not why — I scarcely believe,
because of the love I cherish for you, but probably
through the words of others, to which you ought to
give no credence, having proved me — yet I cannot
do otherwise than write to you this letter. I am
leaving Florence to-morrow, and am going to Pescia
to meet the Cardinal di Cesis and Messer Baldassare.
I shall journey with them to Pisa, and thence to
Rome, and I shall never return again to Florence.
I wish you to understand that, so long as I live,
wherever I may be, I shall always remain at your
service with loyalty and love, in a measure un
equalled by any other friend whom you may have
upon this world.
" I pray God to open your eyes from some other
quarter, in order that you may come to comprehend
that he who desires your good more than his own
welfare, is able to love, not to hate like an enemy."
Milanesi prints no more of the manuscript in his edi
tion of the Letters. But Guasti, conscientiously col
lecting fragments of Michelangelo's verses, gives six
lines, which he found at the foot of the epistle : 2 —
1 Lettere, cdxx. p. 471.
2 Rime, p. 309. Surprised by the tone of these verses and the letter,
Guasti suggests that, under Febo, Michelangelo may have intended to
address Florence. Ibid., p. xix. Of course we must suppose that Guasti
had not seen Febo's answer to the letter, dated January 14, 1534, which

156 , LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
Vo' sol del mie morir contento veggio :
La terra piange, e '1 ciel per me si muove ;
E vo' men pieta stringe ov' io sto peggio.
0 sol che scaldi il mondo in ogni dove,
O Febo, o luce eterna de' mortali,
Perche a me sol ti scuri e non altrove 1

Naught comforts you, I see, unless I die :
Earth weeps, the heavens for me are moved to woe ;
You feel of grief the less, the more grieve I.
O sun that warms the world where'er you go,
0 Febo, light eterne for mortal eyes !
Why dark to me alone, elsewhere not so 1
These verses seem to have been written as part
of a long Capitolo which Michelangelo himself,
the elder, used indifferently in addressing Febo and
his abstract " donna." l Who Febo was, we do not
will be cited below. W. Lang, the German exponent of Michelangelo's
poetry, adopted the hypothesis. Von Schemer, who also had no access
to the Arch. Buon., thinks that Cavalieri was here addressed under the
alias of Febo. These evasions of a difficulty which does not really
exist are even more grotesque than the hypothesis about the Cavalieri
correspondence, which I have exploded.
1 In the autograph collection of Michelangelo's poems (Arch. Buon.)
we have three separate handlings of the opening stanzas. One is ad
dressed directly to Febo di Poggio, and begins, as above —
" Vo' sol del mie morir contento veggio."
Another preserves five rhymes out of the first six, with this alteration —
" Contenta del mie mal te sola veggio."
It is written on the back of a letter from II Topolino, April 4, 1524,
Arch. Buon., Cod. vii. No. 205, and may possibly be the earliest draft.
I may add here that the Cod. Vat. (p. 4) contains the same first line,
" Te sola del mio male contenta veggio," at the beginning of a madrigal.
The third runs thus : —
" Te sola del mie mal contenta veggio."
Michelangelo junior, in his copy of the third variant, writes upon the

FEBO DI POGGIO'S ANSWER. 157
know. But the sincere accent of the letter and
the lyric cry of the rough lines leave us to imagine
that he was some one for whom Michelangelo felt
very tenderly in Florence.
Milanesi prints this letter to Febo with the follow
ing title, " A Febo (di Poggio)." This proves that he
at any rate knew it had been answered by some one
signing "Febo di Poggio." The autograph, in an
illiterate hand and badly spelt, is preserved among
the Buonarroti Archives, and bears date January 14,
1534.1 Febo excuses himself for not having been
able to call on Michelangelo the night before he
left Florence, and professes to have come the next
day and found him already gone. He adds that
he is in want of money, both to buy clothes and
to go to see the games upon the Monte. He prays
for a gratuity, and winds up : " Vostro da figliuolo
(yours like a son), Febo di Poggio." I will add a
full translation here, and print the original in the
Appendix : —
" Magnificent M. Michelangelo, to be honoured as
margin the lines to Febo, with this comment, "Altrimente e peggio."
His own rifacimento of the Capitolo starts with a new line and rhyme : —
" Poi che d' ogni mi a speme il verde e spento."
Accepted in its latest and altered fashion, it has of course been assigned
to the Vittoria Colonna series. Michelangelo's own habit of changing
the sex occasionally in his poems makes their criticism, as regards this
point, difficult. The stanzas, for instance, entitled " Alia sua Donna "
(Rime, p. 329) start, according to all appearance, as an address to a
man, and then change.
1 Codex, viii. c. 303. The date, according to Florentine reckoning,
corresponds to our Jan. 14, 1535.

158 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
a father, — I came back yesterday from Pisa, whither
I had gone to see my father. Immediately upon
my arrival, that friend of yours at the bank put a
letter from you into my hands, which I received
with the greatest pleasure, having heard of your
well-being. God be praised, I may say the same
about myself. Afterwards I learned what you say
about my being angry with you. You know well
I could not be angry with you, since I regard you
in the place of a father. Besides, your conduct
toward me has not been of the sort to cause in
me any such effect. That evening when you left
Florence, in the morning I could not get away from
M. Vincenzo, though I had the greatest desire to
speak with you.1 Next morning I came to your
house, and you were already gone, and great was
my disappointment at your leaving Florence without
my seeing you.
" I am here in Florence ; and when you left, you
told me that if I wanted anything, I might ask it
of that friend of yours ; and now that M. Vincenzo
is away, I am in want of money, both to clothe
myself, and also to go to the Monte, to see those
people fighting, for M. Vincenzo is there. Accord
ingly, I went to visit that friend at the bank, and
he told me that he had no commission whatsoever
from you ; but that a messenger was starting to
night for Rome, and that an answer could come
back within five days. So then, if you give him
1 We may perhaps conjecture that this was Vincenzo Perini.

MICHELANGELO'S ATTITUDE. 159
orders, he will not fail. I beseech you, then, to
provide and assist me with any sum you think fit,
and do not fail to answer.
" I will not write more, except that with all my
heart and power I recommend myself to you, praying
God to keep you from harm. — Yours in the place of
a son, " Febo di Poggio.
"Florence, January 4, 1534."

X.
In all the compositions I have quoted as illus
trative of Michelangelo's relations with young men,
there is a singular humility which gives umbrage to
his editors. The one epistle to Gerardo Perini, cited
above, contains the following phrases : "I do not
feel myself of force enough to correspond to your
kind letter ; " " Your most faithful and poor friend." 2
Yet there was nothing extraordinary in Cavalieri,
Cecchino, Febo, or Perini, except their singularity
of youth and grace, good parts and beauty. The
vulgar are offended when an illustrious man pays
homage to these qualities, forgetful of -Shake
speare's self-abasement before Mr. W. H. and of
Languet's prostration at the feet of Sidney. In
1 See above, p. 119, note 2, for the poems which seem to have been
addressed to this Febo.
2 Lettere, No. ccclxxvi. p. 418.

160 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
the case of Michelangelo, we may find a solution
of this problem, I think, in one of his sonnets.
He says, writing a poem belonging very probably to
the series which inspired Michelangelo the younger
with alarm : 1 —
As one who will re-seek her home of light,
Thy form immortal to this prison-house
Descended, like an angel piteous,
To heal all hearts and make the whole world bright.
'Tis this that thralls my soul in love's delight,
Not thy clear face of beauty glorious ;
For he who harbours virtue still will choose
To love what neither years nor death can blight.
So fares it ever with things high and rare
Wrought in the sweat of nature ; heaven above
Showers on their birth the blessings of her prime :
Nor hath God deigned to show Himself elsewhere
More clearly than in human forms sublime,
Which, since they image Him, alone I love.
It was not, then, to this or that young man, to this
or that woman, that Michelangelo paid homage, but
to the eternal beauty revealed in the mortal image
of divinity before his eyes. The attitude of the
mind, the quality of passion, implied in these poems,
and conveyed more clumsily through the prose of
the letters, may be difficult to comprehend. But
until we have arrived at seizing them we shall fail
to understand the psychology of natures like Michel-
1 No. lvi. in my version of the sonnets ; this and the four which
precede it, and those which follow down to Ixi., ought to be carefully
studied by those who do not comprehend the reverent sense of physical
beauty felt by men like Michelangelo.

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ADORATION OF IDEAL BEAUTY. 161
angelo. No language of admiration is too strong,
no self-humiliation too complete, for a soul which
has recognised deity made manifest in one of its
main attributes, beauty. In the sight of a philo
sopher, a poet, and an artist, what are kings, popes,
people of importance, compared with a really perfect
piece of God's handiwork ?
From thy fair face I learn, O my loved lord,
That which no mortal tongue can rightly say ;
The soul imprisoned in her house of clay,
Holpen by thee, to God hath often soared.
And though the vulgar, vain, malignant horde
Attribute what their grosser wills obey,
Yet shall this fervent homage that I pay,
This love, this faith, pure joys for us afford.
Lo, all the lovely things we find on earth,
Resemble for the soul that rightly sees
That source of bliss divine which gave us birth :
Nor have we first-fruits or remembrances
Of heaven elsewhere. Thus, loving loyally,
I rise to God, and make death sweet by thee.
We know that, in some way or other, perhaps
during those early years at Florence among the
members of the Platonic Academy, Michelangelo
absorbed the doctrines of the Phcedrus and Sympo
sium. His poems abound in references to the con
trast between Uranian and Pandemic, celestial and
vulgar, Eros. We have even one sonnet in which
he distinctly states the Greek opinion that the love
of women is unworthy of a soul bent upon high
thoughts and virile actions. It reads like a verse

162 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
transcript from the main argument of the Sym
posium : 1 —
Love is not always harsh and deadly sin,
When love for boundless beauty makes us pine ;
The heart, by love left soft and infantine,
Will let the shafts of God's grace enter in.
Love wings and wakes the soul, stirs her to win
Her flight aloft, nor e'er to earth decline ;
'Tis the first step that leads her to the shrine
Of Him who slakes the thirst that burns within.
The love of that whereof I speak ascends :
Woman is different far ; the love of her
But ill befits a heart manly and wise.
The one love soars, the other earthward tends ;
The soul lights this, while that the senses stir ;
And still lust's arrow at base quarry flies.
The same exalted Platonism finds obscure but
impassioned expression in this fragment of a sonnet
(No. lxxix.) : —
For Love's fierce wound, and for the shafts that harm,
True medicine 'twould have been to pierce my heart ;
But my soul's Lord owns only one strong charm,
Which makes life grow where grows life's mortal smart.
My Lord dealt death, when with his powerful arm
He bent Love's bow. Winged with that shaft, from Love
An angel flew, cried, "Love, nay Burn ! Who dies,
Hath but Love's plumes whereby to soar above !
1 Rime, Sonnet liii. The terzets in the Italian are as follows : —
L'amor di quel ch' io parlo in alto aspira ;
Donna e dissimil troppo, e mal conviensi
Arder di quella al cor saggio e virile.
L'un tira al cielo, e l'altro in terra tira ;
Nell' alma l'un, l'altro abita ne' sensi,
E l'arco tira a cose basse e vile.

PLATONIC IMAGERY. 163
Lo, I am He who from thine earliest years
Toward heaven-born Beauty raised thy faltering eyes.
Beauty alone lifts live man to heaven's spheres."
Feeling like this, Michelangelo would have been
justly indignant with officious relatives and critics,
who turned his amid into animi, redirected his
Cavalieri letters to the address of Vittoria Colonna,
discovered Florence in Febo di Poggio, and ascribed
all his emotional poems to some woman.
There is no doubt that both the actions and the
writings of contemporaries justified a considerable
amount of scepticism regarding the purity of pla-
tonic affections. The words and lives of many illus
trious persons gave colour to what Segni stated in
his History of Florence, and what Savonarola found
it necessary to urge upon the people from his pulpit.1
But we have every reason to feel certain that, in a
malicious age, surrounded by jealous rivals, with the
fierce light of his transcendent glory beating round
his throne, Buonarroti suffered from no scandalous
reports, and maintained an untarnished character
for sobriety of conduct and purity of morals.
The general opinion regarding him may be gathered
1 See my Renaissance in Italy, vol. i. p. 435, vol. v. p. 365. A
singular example of Italian sentiment and custom might be quoted
from one of Michelangelo's own letters, addressed in 15 18 to his friend
Niccold Quarantesi, Lettere, No. cccliii. It refers to a man who was very
anxious that his son should be taken into the great sculptor's service.
He did not want him, and told the father so : "E lui non la intese, ma
rispose, che se io lo vedessi, che non che in casa, io me lo caccerei nel
letto. Io vi dico che rinunzio a questa consolazione, e non la voglio
torre a lui."

1 64 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
from Scipione Ammirati's History (under the year
1564). This annalist records the fact that "Buon
arroti having lived for ninety years, there was never
found through all that length of time, and with
all that liberty to sin, any one who could with right
and justice impute to him a stain or any ugliness of
manners." How he appeared to one who lived and worked
with him for a long period of intimacy, could not be
better set forth than in the warm and ingenuous
words of Condivi : " He has loved the beauty of
the human body with particular devotion, as is
natural with one who knows that beauty so com
pletely ; and has loved it in such wise that certain
carnally minded men, who do not comprehend the
love of beauty, except it be lascivious and indecorous,
have been led thereby to think and to speak evil of
him : just as though Alcibiades, that comeliest young
man, had not been loved in all purity by Socrates,
from whose side, when they reposed together, he was
wont to say that he arose not otherwise than from
the side of his own father. Oftentimes have I
heard Michelangelo discoursing and expounding on
the theme of love, and have afterwards gathered
from those who were present upon these occasions
that he spoke precisely as Plato wrote, and as we
may read in Plato's works upon this subject. I, for
myself, do not know what Plato says ; but I know
full well that, having so long and so intimately con
versed with Michelangelo, I never once heard issue

CONDIVI'S TESTIMONY. 165
from that mouth words that were not of the truest
honesty, and such as had virtue to extinguish in the
heart of youth any disordered and uncurbed desire
which might assail it. I am sure, too, that no vile
thoughts were born in him, by this token, that he
loved not only the beauty of human beings, but in
general all fair things, as a beautiful horse, a beautiful
dog, a beautiful piece of country, a beautiful plant,
a beautiful mountain, a beautiful wood, and every
site or thing in its kind fair and rare, admiring them
with marvellous affection. This was his way ; to
choose what is beautiful from nature, as bees collect
the honey from flowers, and use it for their purpose
in their workings: which indeed was always the
method of those masters who have acquired any fame
in painting. That old Greek artist, when he wanted
to depict a Venus, was not satisfied with the sight
of one maiden only. On the contrary, he sought to
study many ; and culling from each the particular
in which she was most perfect, to make use of these
details in his Venus. Of a truth, he who imagines
to arrive at any excellence without following this
system (which is the source of a true theory in the
arts), shoots very wide indeed of his mark." 1
Condivi perhaps exaggerated the influence of
lovely nature, horses, dogs, flowers, hills, woods,
&c, on Michelangelo's genius. His work, as we
know, is singularly deficient in motives drawn from
any province but human beauty ; and his poems
1 Condivi, lxiv. pp. 79-81.

166 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
and letters contain hardly a trace of sympathy with
the external world. Yet, in the main contention,
Condivi told the truth. Michelangelo's poems and
letters, and the whole series of his works in fresco
and marble, suggest no single detail which is
sensuous, seductive, enfeebling to the moral prin
ciples. Their tone may be passionate ; it is indeed
often red-hot with a passion like that of Lucretius
and Beethoven; but the genius of the man trans
ports the mind to spiritual altitudes, where the lust
of the eye and the longings of the flesh are left
behind us in a lower region. Only a soul attuned
to the same chord of intellectual rapture can
breathe in that fiery atmosphere and feel the vibra
tions of its electricity.1
1 The views which I have expressed in this chapter regarding the
real nature of Michelangelo's friendship with Vittoria Colonna, his
emotion for Tommaso Cavalieri, and other topics bearing on these ques
tions, were formed quite independently. My study of the original
documents made me feel it a duty to dispose of the theories advanced by
Guasti, Milanesi, and Gotti. But when the manuscript of my book was
already in the printer's hands, I further investigated the whole problem.
The fanciful hypotheses of W. Lang, the false interpretations of Anton
Springer, had to be considered. Then I obtained by accident a little
book by Parlagreco, which Lombroso has adopted and condensed, and in
which Michelangelo's peculiar erotic temperament is considered as the
distinct sign of neurotic disease. Finally there fell into my hands a
very subtle and scientific treatise by Ludwig von Scheffler, published
this year in Germany, which strongly corroborates my own opinions.
It would have been ridiculous, in the face of all these writers, to refuse
the examination of the problem discussed in this chapter. In conclusion,
I request those readers who may desire further information to study
the separate essay or excursus which will be printed in the Appendix
immediately before the series of Angelini's, Cavalieri's, and Febo di
Poggio's original letters.

MICHELANGELO'S POETRY. 167

XL
I have used Michelangelo's poems freely through
out this work as documents illustrative of his opin
ions and sentiments, and also in their bearing on
the events of his life. I have made them reveal
the man in his personal relations to Pope Julius II.,
to Vittoria Colonna, to Tommaso dei Cavalieri, to
Luigi del Riccio, to Febo di Poggio. I have let
them tell their own tale, when sorrow came upon
him in the death of his father and Urbino, and when
old age shook his lofty spirit with the thought of
approaching death. I have appealed to them for
lighter incidents : matters of courtesy, the comple
tion of the Sistine vault, the statue of Night at S.
Lorenzo, the subjection of Florence to the Medici,
his heart-felt admiration for Dante's genius. Ex
amples of his poetic work, so far as these can be
applied to the explanation of his psychology, his
theory of art, his sympathies, his feeling under
several moods of passion, will consequently be found
scattered up and down my volumes. Translation,
indeed, is difficult to the writer, and unsatisfactory
to the reader. But I have been at pains to direct
an honest student to the original sources, so that
he may, if he wishes, compare my versions with the
text. Therefore I do not think it necessary to load
this chapter with voluminous citations. Still, there
remains something to be said about Michelangelo as

1 68 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
poet, and about the place he occupies as poet in
Italian literature.
The value of Michelangelo's poetry is rather psy
chological than purely literary. He never claimed
to be more than an amateur, writing to amuse him
self. His style is obscure, crabbed, ungrammatical.
Expression only finds a smooth and flowing outlet
when the man's nature is profoundly stirred by
some powerful emotion, as in the sonnets to Cava
lieri, or the sonnets on the deaths of Vittoria
Colonna and Urbino, or the sonnets on the thought
of his own death. For the most part, it is clear
that he found great difficulty in mastering his
thoughts and images. This we discover from the
innumerable variants of the same madrigal or
sonnet which he made, and his habit of returning
to them at intervals long after their composition.
A good fourth of the Codex Vaticanus consists of
repetitions and rifacimenti. He was also wont to
submit what he wrote to the judgment of his friends,
requesting them to alter and improve. He often
had recourse to Luigi del Riccio's assistance in such
matters.1 I may here adduce an inedited letter
from two friends in Rome, Giovanni Francesco
Bini and Giovanni Francesco Stella, who returned
a poem they had handled in this manner : 2 " We
1 See the notes to the madrigals in Guasti's Rime.
2 Arch. Buon., Cod. vi. No. 93. "Noi ci siamo ingegnati di mutare
alcune cose del vostro sonetto ma non di acconciarlo, peroche non ne
avera molto bisogno. Hora ch' egli sia mutato o pur acconcio bene
come per vostra humanity ricercate, questo sar& piu giuditio vostro, che

THOUGHT AND IMAGERY. 169
have done our best to alter some things in your
sonnet, but not to set it all to rights, since there
was not much wanting. Now that it is changed
or put in order, according as the kindness of your
nature wished, the result will be more due to your
own judgment than to ours, since you have the true
conception of the subject in your mind. We shall
be greatly pleased if you find yourself as well served
as we earnestly desire that you should command us."
It was the custom of amateur poets to have recourse
to literary craftsmen before they ventured to circulate
their compositions. An amusing instance of this
will be found in Professor Biagi's monograph upon
Tullia d'Aragona, all of whose verses passed through
the crucible of Benedetto Varchi's revision.1
The thoughts and images out of which Michel
angelo's poetry is woven are characteristically ab
stract and arid. He borrows no illustrations from
external nature. The beauty of the world and all
that lives in it might have been non-existent so far
as he was concerned. Nor do his octave stanzas in
praise of rural life form an exception to this state
ment ; for these are imitated from Poliziano, so far
as they attempt pictures of the country, and their
chief poetical feature is the masque of vices belong
ing to human nature in the city.2 His stock-in-
ne havete il vero soggetto nella mente. Ci sara ben gran piacere che
voi restiate tanto servito quanto noi desideriamo che ci comandiate."
1 " Un' Etera Romana, Tullia d'Aragona." Nuova Antologia, vol. iv.,
August 1886.
2 Rime, pp. 317-328.

170 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
trade consists of a few Platonic notions and a few
Petrarchan antitheses. In the very large number of
compositions which are devoted to love, this one
idea predominates : that physical beauty is a direct
beam sent from the eternal source of all reality, in
order to elevate the lover's soul and lead him on
the upward path toward heaven. Carnal passion he
regards with the aversion of an ascetic. It is im
possible to say for certain to whom these mystical
love-poems were addressed. Whether a man or a
woman is in the case (for both were probably the
objects of his eesthetical admiration), the tone of
feeling, the language, and the philosophy do not
vary. He uses the same imagery, the same conceits,
the same abstract ideas for both sexes, and adapts
the leading motive which he had invented for a person
of one sex to a person of the other when it suits
his purpose. In our absolute incapacity to fix any
amative connection upon Michelangelo, or to link his
name with that of any contemporary beauty, we arrive
at the conclusion, strange as this may be, that the
greater part of his love-poetry is a scholastic exer
cise upon emotions transmuted into metaphysical
and mystical conceptions. Only two pieces in the
long series break this monotony by a touch of
realism. They are divided by a period of more
than thirty years. The first seems to date from an
early epoch of his life : 1 —
1 Rime, SonnettiNos. xx.,xxi. Compare the " Stanze alia sua Donna,"
ibid., pp. 329-336. Von Scheffler points out that Sonnet xx. was written

TWO REALISTIC SONNETS. 171
What joy hath yon glad wreath of flowers that is
Around her golden hair so deftly twined,
Each blossom pressing forward from behind,
As though to be the first her brows to kiss !
The livelong day her dress hath perfect bliss,
That now reveals her breast, now seems to bind :
And that fair woven net of gold refined
Rests on her cheek and throat in happiness !
Yet still more blissful seems to me the band,
Gilt at the tips, so sweetly doth it ring,
And clasp the bosom that it serves to lace :
Yea, and the belt, to such as understand,
Bound round her waist, saith : Here I 'd ever cling !
What would my arms do in that girdle's place 1
The second can be ascribed with probability to the
year 1534 or 1535. It is written upon the back of
a rather singular letter addressed to him by a
certain Pierantonio, when both men were in Rome
together : 1 —
at Bologna, where Michelangelo used to read Petrarch and the other
Tuscan poets to his host Aldovrandi. He regards it as a stylistic
exercise, not indicative of the author's real emotion.
1 The conceit of this poem is taken from the silkworm. The letter
which I have alluded to above, though it bears no date, having been
sent by hand, must be assigned to the first or second year of Michel
angelo's final residence in Rome. Pierantonio writes as follows : " Io
sono istato il gorno pasato in grandissimo diletto fra quantita di giovani,
e o mandato uno pedagogo al magnifico Messer Tomao (Cavalieri) per
intendere chome ista, che risposegli mi dicessi istava meglio : del che si
si pare una bona nova ; et anchora m'a pregato quello de peruschi che
io vadia a vedere certe sua pinture, onde io gli risposi che domane dopo
magniare m'aspetasi, che averd charo servirlo in altro non che in quello :
che se a voi piacera venire chome gia pensamo, avremo un poco di baia
che nesuno se ne potra accorgere, e vedrete in fatti quello che piii volte
v'o deto in parole : io vero domattina alia Mca Signoria Vostra e faremo
quanto quella avik choncurso. — Vostro minor servitore Pierantonio."

172 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
Kind to the world, but to itself unkind,
A worm is born, that, dying noiselessly,
Despoils itself to clothe fair limbs, and be
In its true worth alone by death divined.
Would I might die for my dear lord to find
Raiment in my outworn mortality :
That, changing like the snake, I might be free
To cast the slough wherein I dwell confined !
Nay, were it mine, that shaggy fleece that stays,
Woven and wrought into a vestment fair,
Around yon breast so beauteous in such bliss !
All through the day thou'd have me ! Would I were
The shoes that bear that burden ! when the ways
Were wet with rain, thy feet I then should kiss !
I have already alluded to the fact that we can
trace two widely different styles of writing in Michel
angelo's poetry. Some of his sonnets, like the two
just quoted, and those we can refer with certainty
to the Cavalieri series, together with occasional com
positions upon the deaths of Cecchino and Urbino,
seem to come straight from the heart, and their
manuscripts offer few variants to the editor. Others,
Arch. Buon., Cod. x. No. 612. I have already referred to this Pierantonio,
p. 133, note 1, above. The sonnet is composed with more than Michel
angelo's usual spontaneity, and rings like those he wrote for Tommaso
Cavalieri. But who inspired it, and whether it has any reference to
Pierantonio himself, cannot be decided. The word gonna, which I have
translated into vestment, probably must be taken in the sense in which
it is twice used by Ariosto (Orl. Fur., xvii. 49 and 51), for a doublet of
furry skin. The context of the " shaggy fleece," irsuta pelle, seems to
prove this. In old Italian gonna was applied to the tight-fitting jerkin
worn by men next the skin. Rimanere in gonna, says the Delia Crusca
dictionary, is equivalent to being stripped to the shirt, restare infarsetto,
essere spogliato. I am informed on good authority that gonna is still
used by the Tuscan peasants for a skin pelisse worn by men.

METAPHYSICAL LOVE VERSES. 173
of a different quality, where he is dealing with
Platonic subtleties or Petrarchan conceits, have been
twisted into so many forms, and tortured by such
frequent re-handlings, that it is difficult now to settle
a final text. The Codex Vaticanus is peculiarly rich
in examples of these compositions. Madrigal lvii.
and Sonnet lx., for example, recur with wearisome
reiteration. These laboured and scholastic exercises,
unlike the more spontaneous utterances of his feel
ings, are worked up into different forms, and the
same conceits are not seldom used for various per
sons and on divers occasions.1
One of the great difficulties under which a critic
labours in discussing these personal poems is that
their chronology cannot be ascertained in the majority
of instances. Another is that we are continually
hampered by the false traditions invented by Michel
angelo the younger. Books like Lannan Rolland's
" Michel- Ange et Vittoria Colonna " have no value
whatsoever, because they are based upon that un
lucky grand-nephew's deliberately corrupted text.2
Even Wordsworth's translations, fine as they are,
have lost a large portion of their interest since the
publication of the autographs by Cesare Guasti in
1863. It is certain that the younger Michelangelo
meant well to his illustrious ancestor. He was
1 See the instances given above regarding Cecchino dei Braccio and
Vittoria Colonna (p. 123), Febo di Poggio and the abstract "donna"
(p. 156).
2 Yet this now superseded book was reprinted in 1875, Pa-™) Didier
et Cie.

174 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
anxious to give his rugged compositions the elegance
and suavity of academical versification. He wished
also to defend his character from the imputation
of immorality. Therefore he rearranged the order
of stanzas in the longer poems, pieced fragments
together, changed whole lines, ideas, images, ampli
fied and mutilated, altered phrases which seemed
to him suspicious. Only one who has examined the
manuscripts of the Buonarroti Archives knows what
pains he bestowed upon this ungrateful and disastrous
task. But the net result of his meddlesome bene
volence is that now for nearly three centuries the
greatest genius of the Italian Renaissance has worn
a mask concealing the real nature of his emotion,
and that a false legend concerning his relations to
Vittoria Colonna has become inextricably interwoven
with the story of his life.
The extraordinary importance attached by Michel
angelo in old age to the passions of his youth is
almost sufficient to justify those psychological inves
tigators who regard him as the subject of a nervous
disorder. It does not seem to be accounted for
by anything known to us regarding his stern and
solitary life, his aloofness from the vulgar, and his
self-dedication to study. In addition to the splendid
devotional sonnets addressed to Vasari, which will
appear in their proper place, I may corroborate
these remarks by the translation of a set of three
madrigals bearing on the topic.1
1 Rime, Canzoni iii. pp. 347-349.

POEMS IN OLD AGE. 175
Ah me, ah me ! how have I been betrayed
By my swift-flitting years, and by the glass,
Which yet tells truth to those who firmly gaz;e !
Thus happens it when one too long delays,
As I have done, nor feels time fleet and fade : —
One morn he finds himself grown old, alas !
To gird my loins, repent, my path repass,
Sound counsel take, I cannot, now death 's near ;
Foe to myself, each tear,
Each sigh, is idly to the light wind sent,
For there's no loss to equal time ill-spent.
Ah me, ah me ! I wander telling o'er
Past years, and yet in all I cannot view
One day that might be rightly reckoned mine.
Delusive hopes and vain desires entwine
My soul that loves, weeps, burns, and sighs full sore.
Too well I know and prove that this is true,
Since of man's passions none to me are new.
Far from the truth my steps have gone astray,
In peril now I stay,
For, lo ! the brief span of my life is o'er.
Yet, were it lengthened, I should love once more.
Ah me ! I wander tired, and know not whither :
I fear to sight my goal, the years gone by
Point it too plain ; nor will closed eyes avail.
Now Time hath changed and gnawed this mortal veil,
Death and the soul in conflict strive together
About my future fate that looms so nigh.
Unless my judgment greatly goes awry,
Which God in mercy grant, I can but see
Eternal penalty
Waiting my wasted will, my misused mind,
And know not, Lord, where health and hope to find.
After reading these lamentations, it is well to
remember that Michelangelo at times indulged a

176 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
sense of humour. As examples of his lighter vein,
we might allude to the sonnet on the Sistine and
the capitolo in answer to Francesco Bemi, written
in the name of Fra Sebastiano.1 Sometimes his
satire becomes malignant, as in the sonnet against
the people of Pistoja, which breathes the spirit of
Dantesque invective.2 Sometimes the fierceness of
it is turned against himself, as in the capitolo upon
old age and its infirmities.3 The grotesqueness of
this lurid descant on senility and death is marked
by something rather Teutonic than Italian, a "Danse
Macabre " intensity of loathing ; and it winds up
with the bitter reflections, peculiar to him in his
latest years, upon the vanity of art. " My much-
prized art, on which I relied and which brought me
fame, has now reduced me to this. I am poor and
old, the slave of others. To the dogs I must go,
unless I die quickly."
A proper conclusion to this chapter may be
borrowed from the peroration of Varchi's discourse
upon the philosophical love-poetry of Michelangelo.
This time he chooses for his text the second of
those sonnets (No. Iii.) which caused the poet's
grand-nephew so much perplexity, inducing him to
alter the word amid in the last line into animi.
It runs as follows 4 : —

1 Rime, Sonnet v., and Capitolo i.
2 Rime, Sonnet vi., p. 160.
3 Rime, Capitolo ii., p. 294.
4 Rime, p. cxi. Varchi's text is our only authority for the sonnet.

VARCHI'S PANEGYRIC. 177
I saw no mortal beauty with these eyes
When perfect peace in thy fair eyes I found ;
But far within, where all is holy ground,
My soul felt Love, her comrade of the skies :
For she was born with God in Paradise ;
Else should we still to transient love be bound ;
But, finding these so false, we pass beyond
Unto the Love of loves that never dies.
Nay, things that die cannot assuage the thirst
Of souls undying ; nor Eternity
Serves Time, where all must fade that flourisheth.
Sense is not love, but lawlessness accurst :
This kills the soul ; while our love lifts on high
Our friends on earth — higher in heaven through death.
" From this sonnet," says Varchi, " I think that
any man possessed of judgment will be able to dis
cern to what extent this angel, or rather archangel,
in addition to his three first and most noble pro
fessions of architecture, sculpture, and painting,
wherein without dispute he not only eclipses all the
moderns, but even surpasses the ancients, proves
himself also excellent, nay singular, in poetry, and
in the true art of loving ; the which art is neither
less fair nor less difficult, albeit it be more necessary
and more profitable than the other four. Whereof
no one ought to wonder : for this reason ; that,
over and above what is manifest to everybody,
namely that nature, desirous of exhibiting her
utmost power, chose to fashion a complete man,
and (as the Latins say) one furnished in all proper
parts ; he, in addition to the gifts of nature, of such
sort and so liberally scattered, added such study
VOL. II. M

178 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
and a diligence so great that, even had he been by
birth most rugged, he might through these means
have become consummate in all virtue : and sup
posing he were born, I do not say in Florence and
of a very noble family, in the time too of Lorenzo
the Magnificent, who recognised, willed, knew, and
had the power to elevate so vast a genius ; but in
Scythia, of any stock or stem you like, under some
commonplace barbarian chief, a fellow not disdain
ful merely, but furiously hostile to all intellectual
ability ; still, in all circumstances, under any star,
he would have been Michelangelo, that is to say,
the unique painter, the singular sculptor, the most
perfect architect, the most excellent poet, and a
lover of the most divinest. For the which reasons
I (it is now many years ago), holding his name not
only in admiration, but also in veneration, before I
knew that he was architect already, made a sonnet ;
with which (although it be as much below the
supreme greatness of his worth as it is unworthy
of your most refined and chastened ears) I mean
to close this present conference ; reserving the dis
cussion on the arts (in obedience to our Consul's
orders) for another lecture.
Illustrious sculptor, 'twas enough and more,
Not with the chisel and bruised bronze alone,
But also with brush, colour, pencil, tone,
To rival, nay, surpass that fame of yore.
But now, transcending what those laurels bore
Of pride and beauty for our age and zone,

SCULPTOR, PAINTER, BUILDER, POET. 179
You climb of poetry the third high throne,
Singing love's strife and peace, love's sweet and sore.
0 wise, and dear to God, old man well born,
Who in so many, so fair ways, make fair
This world, how shall your dues be duly paid 1
Doomed by eternal charters to adorn
Nature and art, yourself their mirror are ;
None, first before, nor second after, made."
In the above translation of Varchi's peroration
I have endeavoured to sustain those long-winded
periods of which he was so perfect and professed a
master. We must remember that he actually read
this dissertation before the Florentine Academy on
the second Sunday in Lent, in the year 1546, when
Michelangelo was still alive and hearty. He after
wards sent it to the press ; and the studied trumpet-
tones of eulogy, conferring upon Michelangelo the
quintuple crown of pre-eminence in painting, sculp
ture, architecture, poetry, and loving, sounded from
Venice down to Naples. The style of the oration
may strike us as rococo now, but the accent of
praise and appreciation is surely genuine. Varchi's
enthusiastic comment on the sonnets xxx., xxxi., and
Iii., published to men of letters, taste, and learning
in Florence and all Italy, is the strongest vindication
of their innocence against editors and scholars who
in various ways have attempted to disfigure or to
misconstrue them.

CHAPTER XIII.
Frescoes in the Cappella Paolina carried on for seven years after the
autumn of 1542. — A caretaker appointed by the Pope to keep
them and the Sistine in good order. — Michelangelo's severe illness
in the rooms of Del Riccio at the Casa Strozzi. — Relations with the
House of Medici. — A second illness. — 2. Correspondence with Del
Riccio. — Luigi del Riccio goes to Lyons. — A quarrel with Luigi. —
Francis I. writes asking for some masterpiece from Michelangelo's
hand. — His answer. — 3. He is diverted to architecture in this late
period of his life. — The plastic power fails. — The mathematical
sense of form emerges. — Designs for the Passion. — The Deposition
from the Cross in the Florentine Duomo. — Various stories regard
ing its imperfect execution. — A smaller Pieta belonging to this
period. — The doubtful medallion of a Pieta at Genoa. — 4. The
Palazzo Farnese. — Michelangelo's warfare with Antonio da Sangallo.
— His report upon Sangallo's model for S. Peter's. — 5. Fortification
of the Leonine City. — Michelangelo's opposition to Sangallo's
plans. — 6. Sangallo's death in 1546. — Michelangelo succeeds to all
Sangallo's appointments as architect and engineer at Rome. — He
undertakes to superintend the building of S. Peter's without pay.
— Short history of this church since the time of Bramante. —
Raffaello, Peruzzi, Antonio da Sangallo. — 7. Michelangelo's aim as
an architect at this epoch of his life. — His plan for the continuation
of the edifice. — Sangallo's men and pupils work against him. —
Nanni di Baccio Bigio. — Michelangelo continues to resist an ob
stinate opposition during the pontificates of Julius III., Marcellus
II., Paul IV., and Pius IV. — 8. Value of Vasari's evidence for this
period of his life. — Julius III. proves himself a friend and admirer
of Michelangelo. — The Duke of Florence invites him to come
home. — Michelangelo feels that he must spend his life upon S.
Peter's. — A model for the cupola is made in 1557. — Petty squabbles
and annoyances connected with the building of S. Peter's. — 9. It
is impossible to connect S. Peter's as it now exists with Michel-

THE PAULINE CHAPEL. 181
angelo's design, except only in the cupola. — That is not finished in
all points as he wished it. — The rest of the church has been altered
wilfully.— Such vast undertakings in the art of building are fore
doomed to incomplete accomplishment.

The correspondence which I used in the eleventh
chapter, while describing Michelangelo's difficulties
regarding the final contract with the Duke of
Urbino, proves that he had not begun to paint the
frescoes of the Cappella Paolina in October 1542.
They were carried on with interruptions during the
next seven years. These pictures, the last on which
his talents were employed, are two large subjects :
the Conversion of S. Paul, and the Martyrdom of
S. Peter. They have suffered from smoke and
other injuries of time even more than the frescoes
of the Sistine, and can now be scarcely appreciated
owing to discoloration. Nevertheless, at no period,
even when fresh from the master's hand, can they
have been typical of his style. It is true that
contemporaries were not of this opinion. Condivi
calls both of them " stupendous not only in the
general exposition of the histories but also in the
details of each figure." * It is also true that the
technical finish of these large compositions shows
a perfect mastery of painting, and that the great
designer has not lost his power of dealing at will
1 Condivi, p. 64. Cf. Vasari, xii. p. 224.

1 82 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
with the human body. But the frigidity of old age
had fallen on his feeling and imagination. The
faces of his saints and angels here are more inex
pressive than those of the Last Judgment. The
type of form has become still more rigidly schematic.
All those figures in violent attitudes have been
invented in the artist's brain without reference to
nature; and the activity of movement which he
means to suggest, is frozen, petrified, suspended.
The suppleness, the elasticity, the sympathy with
which Michelangelo handled the nude, when he
began to paint in the Sistine Chapel, have dis
appeared. We cannot refrain from regretting that
seven years of his energetic old age should have
been devoted to work so obviously indicative of
decaying faculties.
The Cappella Paolina ran a risk of destruction
by fire during the course of his operations there.
Michelangelo wrote to Del Riccio in 1545, remind
ing him that part of the roof had been consumed,
and that it would be necessary to cover it in roughly
at once, since the rain was damaging the frescoes
and weakening the walls.1 When they were finished,
Paul III. appointed an official guardian with a fixed
salary, whose sole business it should be "to clean the
frescoes well and keep them in a state of cleanliness,
free from dust and other impurities, as also from
the smoke of candles lighted in both chapels during
divine service." This man had charge of the Sis-
1 Lettere, No. cdliii.

ILLNESS IN THE CAS A STROZZI. 183
tine as well as the Pauline Chapel ; but his office
does not seem to have been continued after the
death of the Farnese. The first guardian nominated
was Buonarroti's favourite servant Urbino.1
Vasari, after describing these frescoes in some
detail, but without his customary enthusiasm, goes
on to observe : " Michelangelo attended only, as
I have elsewhere said, to the perfection of art.
There are no landscapes, nor trees, nor houses ; nor
again do we find in his work that variety of move
ment and prettiness which may be noticed in the
pictures of other men. He always neglected such
decoration, being unwilling to lower his lofty genius
to these details." That is indeed true of the arid
desert of the Pauline frescoes. Then he adds :
" They were his last productions in painting. He
was seventy-five years old when he carried them to
completion ; and, as he informed me, he did so with
great effort and fatigue — painting, after a certain
age, and especially fresco-painting, not being in
truth fit work for old men." 2
The first of two acute illnesses, which showed
that Michelangelo's constitution was beginning to
give way, happened in the summer of 1544. On
this occasion Luigi del Riccio took him into his
own apartments at the Casa Strozzi ; and here he
nursed him with such personal devotion that the
old man afterwards regarded Del Riccio as the
1 Bottari, Lett. Pitt, vol. vi. p. 37. No date.
2 Vasari, xii. 225.

184 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
saviour of his life. We learn this from the follow
ing pathetic sonnet : l —
It happens that the sweet unfathomed sea
Of seeming courtesy sometimes doth hide
Offence to life and honour. This descried,
I hold less dear the health restored to me.
He who lends wings of hope, while secretly
He spreads a traitorous snare by the wayside,
Hath dulled the flame of love, and mortified
Friendship where friendship burns most fervently.
Keep then, my dear Luigi, clear and pure,
That ancient love to which my life I owe,
That neither wind nor storm its calm may mar.
For wrath and pain our gratitude obscure ;
And if the truest truth of love I know,
One pang outweighs a thousand pleasures far.
Ruberto Strozzi, who was then in France, wrote
anxiously inquiring after his health. In reply,
Michelangelo sent Strozzi a singular message by
Luigi del Riccio, to the effect that "if the king
of France restored Florence to liberty, he was
ready to make his statue on horseback out of
bronze at his own cost, and set it up in the
Piazza." 2 This throws some light upon a passage
in a letter addressed subsequently to Lionardo
1 No. vii. I feel inclined to refer this sonnet to a period of mis
understanding between the two old friends, which will be duly noticed
in its proper place. It carries the tone of sought and accepted recon
ciliation after the author's deepest feelings had been sharply wounded
by an apparent slight from his benefactor. See Lettere, No. cdlx., and
what I have said about the incident in this chapter, p. 192, below.
e, ii. 296. July 1544.

RELATIONS TO THE MEDICI. 185
Buonarroti, when the tyrannous law, termed " La
Polverina," enacted against malcontents by the Duke
Cosimo de' Medici, was disturbing the minds of
Florentine citizens.1 Michelangelo then wrote as
follows : "I am glad that you gave me news of the
edict ; because, if I have been careful up to this
date in my conversation with exiles, I shall take
more precautions for the future. As to my having
been laid up with an illness in the house of the
Strozzi, I do not hold that I was in their house,
but in the apartment of Messer Luigi del Riccio,
who was my intimate friend ; and after the death of
Bartolommeo Angelini, I found no one better able
to transact my affairs, or more faithfully, than he
did. When he died, I ceased to frequent the house,
as all Rome can bear me witness ; as they can
also with regard to the general tenour of my life,
inasmuch as I am always alone, go little around,
and talk to no one, least of all to Florentines.
When I am saluted on the open street, I cannot
do less than respond with fair words and pass upon
my way. Had I knowledge of the exiles, who they
are, I would not reply to them in any manner. As
I have said, I shall henceforward protect myself
with diligence, the more that I have so much else
to think about that I find it difficult to live."
This letter of 1548, taken in connection with the
1 The law bore date March 11, 1548, and weighed heavily upon con
spirators, rebels, and their heirs, who had sought to dislodge the Medici
from power. It owed its name to the man who drafted it, Jacopo
Polverini of Prato. The letter I refer to is No. cxcv.

1 86 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
circumstances of Michelangelo's illness in 1544, his
exchange of messages with Ruberto degli Strozzi,
his gift of the two Captives to that gentleman, and
his presence in the house of the Strozzi during his
recovery, shows the delicacy of the political situation
at Florence under Cosimo's rule.1 Slight indications
of a reactionary spirit in the aged artist exposed his
family to peril. Living in Rome, Michelangelo risked
nothing with the Florentine government. But " La
Polverina " attacked the heirs of exiles in their pro
perty and persons. It was therefore of importance
to establish his non-complicity in revolutionary in
trigues. Luckily for himself and his nephew, he
could make out a good case and defend his conduct.
Though Buonarroti's sympathies and sentiments
inclined him to prefer a republic in his native city,
and though he threw his weight into that scale at
the crisis of the siege, he did not forget his early
obligations to the House of Medici. Clement VII.
accepted his allegiance when the siege was over,
and set him immediately to work at the tasks he
wished him to perform. What is more, the Pope
took pains and trouble to settle the differences
between him and the Duke of Urbino. The man
had been no conspirator. The architect and sculptor
was coveted by every pope and prince in Italy.
Still there remained a discord between his political
1 The Strozzi, under their chieftain Filippo, whose plans failed at
Montemurlo, and who died a prisoner at Florence, did all they could to
upset the dukedom. There is no doubt, I think, that Michelangelo
sympathised with their revolutionary ambition.

LIONARDO'S UNTIMELY VISIT. 187
instincts, however prudently and privately indulged,
and his sense of personal loyalty to the family at
whose board he sat in youth, and to whom he owed
his advancement in life. Accordingly, we shall find
that, though the Duke of Tuscany made advances to
win him back to Florence, Michelangelo always pre
ferred to live and die on neutral ground in Rome.
Like the wise man that he was, he seems to have
felt through these troublous times that his own duty,
the service laid on him by God and nature, was to
keep his force and mental faculties for art ; obliging
old patrons in all kindly offices, suppressing re
publican aspirations — in one word, " sticking to his
last," and steering clear of shoals on which the main
raft of his life might founder.
From this digression, which was needful to explain
his attitude toward Florence and part of his psycho
logy, I return to the incidents of Michelangelo's
illness at Rome in 1544. Lionardo, having news of
his uncle's danger, came post-haste to Rome. This
was his simple duty, as a loving relative. But the
old man, rendered suspicious by previous transactions
with his family, did not take the action in its proper
light. We have a letter, indorsed by Lionardo in
Rome as received upon the nth of July, to this
effect : x " Lionardo, I have been ill ; and you, at the
instance of Ser Giovan Francesco (probably Fattucci),
have come to make me dead, and to see what I have
left. Is there not enough of mine at Florence to
1 Lettere, No. cxlix.

188 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
content you? You cannot deny that you are the
image of your father, who turned me out of my own
house in Florence. Know that I have made a will
of such tenour that you need not trouble your head
about what I possess at Rome. Go then with God,
and do not present yourself before me ; and do not
write to me again, and act like the priest in the fable."
The correspondence between uncle and nephew
during the next months proves that this furious letter
wrought no diminution of mutual regard and affec
tion. Before the end of the year he must have
recovered, for we find him writing to Del Riccio : 1
"I am well again now, and hope to live yet some
years, seeing that God has placed my health under
the care of Maestro Baccio Rontini and the trebbian
wine of the Ulivieri." This letter is referred to
January 1545, and on the 9th of that month he
dictated a letter to his friend Del Riccio, in which
he tells Lionardo Buonarroti : 2 "I do not feel well,
and cannot write. Nevertheless I have recovered
from my illness, and suffer no pain now." We
have reason to think that Michelangelo fell gravely
ill again toward the close of 1545. News came
to Florence that he was dying ; and Lionardo, not
intimidated by his experience on the last occasion,
set out to visit him. His ricordo of the journey
runs as follows:3 "I note how on the 15th of
1 Lettere, No. cdxlii. 2 Ibid., No. clx.
3 Lettere, p. 605. See Gotti, i. 299, for the second acute illness of
Michelangelo. Also compare the letter written to Lionardo on the 9th

SECOND ILLNESS. 189
January 1545 (Flor. style, i.e. 1546) I went to Rome
by post to see Michelangelo, who was ill, and returned
to-day, the 26th."
It is not quite easy to separate the records of these
two acute illnesses of Michelangelo, falling between
the summer of 1544 and the early spring of 1546.
Still, there is no doubt that they signalised his
passage from robust old age into a period of physical
decline. Much of life survived in the hero yet ; he
had still to mould S. Peter's after his own mind,
and to invent the cupola. Intellectually he suffered
no diminution, but he became subject to a chronic
disease of the bladder, and adopted habits suited to
decaying faculty.

II.
We have seen that Michelangelo regarded Luigi
del Riccio as his most trusty friend and adviser. The
letters which he wrote to him during these years
turn mainly upon business or poetical compositions.
Some, however, throw light upon the private life of
both men, and on the nature of their intimacy. I
will select a few for special comment here. The
following has no date ; but it is interesting, because
of January 1545 (Flor. style ?) by Michelangelo from Rome. Lettere,
No. clx. The dates, owing to the differences of style used in Rome and
Florence, make it difficult to know whether we are dealing with January
1546 or not. But it seems clear that Michelangelo had two illnesses
between 1544 and 1546, on both of which occasions Lionardo came to
Rome to visit him.

1 90 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
we may connect the feeling expressed in it with one
of Michelangelo's familiar sonnets.1 "Dear Messer
Luigi, since I know you are as great a master of
ceremonies as I am unfit for that trade, I beg you
to help me in a little matter. Monsignor di Todi
(Federigo Cesi, afterwards Cardinal of S. Pancrazio)
has made me a present, which Urbino will describe
to you. I think you are a friend of his lordship :
will you then thank him in my name, when you find
a suitable occasion, and do so with those compli
ments which come easily to you, and to me are very
hard ? Make me too your debtor for some tartlet." 2
The sonnet is No. ix. of Signor Guasti's edition.
I have translated it thus : 3 —
The sugar, candles, and the saddled mule,
Together with your cask of malvoisie,
So far exceed all my necessity
That Michael and not I my debt must rule.
In such a glassy calm the breezes fool
My sinking sails, so that amid the sea
My bark hath missed her way, and seems to be
A wisp of straw whirled on a weltering pool.
To yield thee gift for gift and grace for grace,
For food and drink and carriage to and fro,
For all my need in every time and place,
O my dear lord, matched with the much I owe,
All that I am were no real recompense :
Paying a debt is not munificence.
1 Lettere, No. cdxxxix. Milanesi assigns it to 1543. But he gives
no reason for this date. The sonnet belongs to about 1554.
2 Berlingozzo. Michelangelo used to call his madrigals and sonnets
by this name. He is asking here for some verses by his friend.
3 Sonnets of Michelangelo and Campanella, p. 39.

DEL RICCIO AT LYONS. 191
In the chapter upon Michelangelo's poetry I
dwelt at length upon Luigi del Riccio's passionate
affection for his cousin, Cecchino dei Bracci. This
youth died at the age of sixteen, on January 8, 1545.
Michelangelo undertook to design " the modest
sepulchre of marble " erected to his memory by Del
Riccio in the church of Araceli. He also began to
write sonnets, madrigals, and epitaphs, which were
sent from day to day. One of his letters gives an
explanation of the eighth epitaph:1 "Our dead
friend speaks and says : if the heavens robbed all
beauty from all other men on earth to make me only,
as indeed they made me, beautiful ; and if by the
divine decree I must return at doomsday to the
shape I bore in life, it follows that I cannot give
back the beauty robbed from others and bestowed
on me, but that I must remain for ever more beauti
ful than the rest, and they be ugly. This is just
the opposite of the conceit you expressed to me
yesterday ; the one is a fable, the other is the truth."
Some time in 1545 Luigi went to Lyons on a visit
to Ruberto Strozzi and Giuliano de' Medici.2 This
seems to have happened toward the end of the year ;
for we possess a letter indorsed by him, " sent to
Lyons, and returned upon the 22nd of December."
This document contains several interesting details.
1 Lettere, No. cdxlvii. The poem, Rime, p. 7, begins, Non pud per
morte gid.
2 Lettere, No. cdl. This de' Medici was a brother of Lorenzino, the
murderer of Duke Alessandro.
3 Lettere, No. cdlvii.

192 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
" All your friends are extremely grieved to hear about
your illness, the more so that we cannot help you ;
especially Messer Donato (Giannotti) and myself.
However, we hope that it may turn out to be no
serious affair, God willing. In another letter I told
you that, if you stayed away long, I meant to come
to see you. This I repeat ; for now that I have
lost the Piacenza ferry, and cannot live at Rome
without income, I would rather spend the little that
I have in hostelries, than crawl about here, cramped
up like a penniless cripple. So, if nothing happens,
I have a mind to go to S. James of Compostella after
Easter ; : and if you have not returned, I should like
to travel through any place where I shall hear that
you are staying. Urbino has spoken to Messer
Aurelio, and will speak again. From what he tells
me, I think that you will get the site you wanted
for the tomb of Cecchino. It is nearly finished, and
will turn out handsome."
Michelangelo's project of going upon pilgrimage
to Galicia shows that his health was then good.
But we know that he soon afterwards had another
serious illness ; and the scheme was abandoned.
This long and close friendship with Luigi comes
to a sudden termination in one of those stormy out
bursts of petulant rage which form a special feature
of Michelangelo's psychology. Some angry words
passed between them about an engraving, possibly
of the Last Judgment, which Buonarroti wanted to
1 Pasqua d'Agnello.

ANGRY LETTER TO DEL RICCIO. 193
destroy, while Del Riccio refused to obliterate the
plate : x —
" Messer Luigi, — You seem to think I shall reply
according to your wishes, when the case is quite
the contrary. You give me what I have refused,
and refuse me what I begged. And it is not ignor
ance which makes you send it me through Ercole,
when you are ashamed to give it me yourself.
" One who saved my life has certainly the power
to disgrace me ; but I do not know which is the
heavier to bear, disgrace or death. Therefore I beg
and entreat you, by the true friendship which exists
between us, to spoil that print (stampa), and to burn
the copies that are already printed off. And if you
choose to buy and sell me, do not so to others. If
you hack me into a thousand pieces, I will do the
same, not indeed to yourself, but to what belongs
to you. " Michelangelo Buonarroti.
" Not painter, nor sculptor, nor architect, but what
you will, but not a drunkard, as you said at your
house." Unfortunately, this is the last of the Del Riccio's
letters. It is very probable that the irascible artist
speedily recovered his usual tone, and returned to
1 Lettere, No. cdlx. date 1546 (?) Von Scheffler is of opinion that
the stampa in question was an imprint of certain poems by Michelangelo.
See op. cit, p. 178.
VOL. 11. N

194 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
amity with his old friend.1 But Del Riccio departed
this life toward the close of this year, 1546.
Before resuming the narrative of Michelangelo's
art-work at this period, I must refer to the corre
spondence which passed between him and King
Francis I. The King wrote an epistle in the spring
of 1546, requesting some fine monument from the
illustrious master's hand.2 Michelangelo replied
upon the 26th of April, in language of simple and
respectful dignity, fine, as coming from an aged
artist to a monarch on the eve of death : 3 —
" Sacred Majesty, — I know not which is greater,
the favour, or the astonishment it stirs in me, that
your Majesty should have deigned to write to a man
of my sort, and still more to ask him for things of
his which are all unworthy of the name of your
Majesty. But be they what they may, I beg your
Majesty to know that for a long while since I have
desired to serve you ; but not having had an oppor
tunity, owing to your not being in Italy, I have
been unable to do so. Now I am old, and have
been occupied these many months with the affairs
of Pope Paul. But if some space of time is still
1 Michelangelo's last letter to his father, and Tommaso Cavalieri's
last letter to himself, show him in similar fits of temper. Yet before
the final parting came, he loved and trusted and respected both again.
Arch. Buon., Cod. viii. No. 341. It is not autograph, but written
in good Italian by Del Anbespine, and signed by the King. In
addition to some original work, he begs for copies of the Pieta della
Febbre and the Christ of the Minerva, to put up in one of his chapels.
The autograph is said to be at Lille.
3 Lettere, No. cdlix.

LETTER TO KING FRANCIS. 195
granted to me after these engagements, I will do
my utmost to fulfil the desire which, as I have said
above, has long inspired me : that is, to make for
your Majesty one work in marble, one in bronze,
and one in painting. And if death prevents my
carrying out this wish, should it be possible to
make statues or pictures in the other world, I shall
not fail to do so there, where there is no more grow
ing old. And I pray God that He grant your
Majesty a long and a happy life."
Francis died in 1547; and we do not know that
any of Michelangelo's works passed directly into his
hands, with the exception of the Leda, purchased
through the agency of Luigi Alamanni, and the two
Captives, presented by Roberto Strozzi.

III.
The absorbing tasks imposed upon Buonarroti's
energies by Paul III., which are mentioned in this
epistle to the French king, were not merely the
frescoes of the Cappella Paolina, but also various
architectural and engineering schemes of some im
portance. It is clear, I think, that at this period of
his hale old age, Michelangelo preferred to use what
still survived in him of vigour and creative genius
for things requiring calculation, or the exercise of

1 96 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
meditative fancy. The time had gone by when he
could wield the brush and chisel with effective force.
He was tired of expressing his sense of beauty and
the deep thoughts of his brain in sculptured marble
or on frescoed surfaces. He had exhausted the
human form as a symbol of artistic utterance. But
the extraordinary richness of his vein enabled him
still to deal with abstract mathematical proportions
in the art of building, and with rhythms in the art
of writing. His best work, both as architect and
poet, belongs to the period when he had lost power
as sculptor and painter. This fact is psychologically
interesting. Up to the age of seventy, he had been
working in the plastic and the concrete. The lan
guage he had learned, and used with overwhelming
mastery, was man : physical mankind, converted into
spiritual vehicle by art. His grasp upon this region
failed him now. Perhaps there was not the old sym
pathy with lovely shapes. Perhaps he knew that he
had played on every gamut of that lyre. Emerging
from the sphere of the sensuous, where ideas take
plastic embodiment, he grappled, in this final stage
of his career with harmonical ratios and direct verbal
expression, where ideas are disengaged from figura
tive form. The men and women, loved by him so
long, so wonderfully wrought into imperishable
shapes, " nurslings of immortality," recede. In their
room arise, above the horizon of his intellect, the
cupola of S. Peter's and a few imperishable poems,
which will live as long as Italian claims a place

Study for the Crucifixion.

LAST PHASE OF HIS GENIUS. 197
among the languages. There is no comparison to
be instituted between his actual achievements as a
builder and a versifier. The whole tenor of his
life made him more competent to deal with archi
tecture than with literature. Nevertheless, it is
significant that the versatile genius of the man was
henceforth restricted to these two channels of ex
pression, and that in both of them his last twenty
years of existence produced bloom and fruit of
unexpected rarity.
After writing this paragraph, and before I engage
in the narrative of what is certainly the final mani
festation of Michelangelo's genius as a creative artist,
I ought perhaps to pause, and to give some account
of those survivals from his plastic impulse, which
occupied the old man's energies for several years.
They were entirely the outcome of religious feeling ;
and it is curious to notice that he never approached
so nearly to true Christian sentiment as in the frag
mentary designs which we may still abundantly
collect from this late autumn of his artist's life.
There are countless drawings for some great picture
of the Crucifixion, which was never finished : ex
quisite in delicacy of touch, sublime in conception,
dignified in breadth and grand repose of style.
Condivi tells us that some of these were made for
the Marchioness of Pescara. But Michelangelo
must have gone on producing them long after her
death. With these phantoms of stupendous works
to be, the Museums of Europe abound. We cannot

1 98 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
bring them together, or condense them into a single
centralised conception.1 Their interest consists in
their divergence and variety, showing the continuous
poring of the master's mind upon a theme he could
not definitely grasp. For those who love his work,
and are in sympathy with his manner, these draw
ings, mostly in chalk, and very finely handled, have
a supreme interest. They show him, in one sense,
at his highest and his best, not only as a man of
tender feeling, but also as a mighty draughtsman.
Their incompleteness testifies to something pathetic
— the humility of the imperious man before a theme
he found to be beyond the reach of human faculty.
The tone, the Stimmung, of these designs corre
sponds so exactly to the sonnets of the same late
period, that I feel impelled at this point to make
his poetry take up the tale. But, as I cannot bring
the cloud of witnesses of all those drawings into this
small book, so am I unwilling to load its pages with
poems which may be found elsewhere. Those who
care to learn the heart of Michelangelo, when he
felt near to God and face to face with death, will
easily find access to the originals.2
Concerning the Deposition from the Cross, which
now stands behind the high altar of the Florentine
1 There is a complicated Crucifixion, or rather Deposition from the
Cross, at the Bargello, Michelangelesque in style, which possesses con
siderable interest, as indicating an attempt, on the part of some follower,
to carry out and combine a number of these scattered motives.
3 Rime, Sonnets Nos. lxv., lxxvii. Translated by me under the same
numbers in my Sonnets of Michelangelo and Campanella, op. cit.

THE PIETA AT FLORENCE. 199
Duomo, Condivi writes as follows : x "At the present
time he has in hand a work in marble, which he
carries on for his pleasure, as being one who, teem
ing with conceptions, must needs give birth each
day to some of them. It is a group of four figures
larger than life. A Christ taken from the cross,
sustained in death by his Mother, who is represented
in an attitude of marvellous pathos, leaning up
against the corpse with breast, with arms, and lifted
knee. Nicodemus from above assists her, standing
erect and firmly planted, propping the dead Christ
with a sturdy effort ; while one of the Maries, on
the left side, though plunged in sorrow, does all she
can to assist the afflicted Mother, failing under the
attempt to raise her Son. It would be quite im
possible to describe the beauty of style displayed in
this group, or the sublime emotions expressed in
those woe-stricken countenances. I am confident
that the Pietst is one of his rarest and most difficult
masterpieces ; particularly because the figures are
kept apart distinctly, nor does the drapery of the
one intermingle with that of the others." 2
This panegyric is by no means pitched too high.
1 Condivi, p. 65.
2 Condivi speaks in the present tense, as though Michelangelo was
still working on the Pieta when he wrote. Since he published his
Life in 1553, it is probable that the group had not been abandoned
much before that date. The fact that it was given to Antonio del
Franzese, and not to Urbino, seems to indicate that Michelangelo tried
to break it up after 1556, the date of Urbino's death. It may finally
be mentioned that Vasari, in his first edition of 1550, describes it as a
marvellous but incomplete piece of sculpture.

200 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
Justice has hardly been done in recent times to the
noble conception, the intense feeling, and the broad
manner of this Deposition. That may be due in
part to the dull twilight in which the group is
plunged, depriving all its lines of salience and relief.
It is also true that in certain respects the composi
tion is fairly open to adverse criticism. The torso of
Christ overweighs the total scheme ; and his legs are
unnaturally attenuated. The kneeling woman on the
left side is slender, and appears too small in propor
tion to the other figures ; though, if she stood erect,
it is probable that her height would be sufficient.
The best way to study Michelangelo's last work
in marble is to take the admirable photograph pro
duced under artificial illumination by Alinari. No
sympathetic mind will fail to feel that we are in
immediate contact with the sculptor's very soul, at
the close of his life, when all his thoughts were
weaned from earthly beauty, and he cried —
Painting nor sculpture now can lull to rest
My soul, that turns to his great love on high,
Whose arms to clasp us on the cross were spread.
As a French critic has observed: "It is the most
intimately personal and the most pathetic of his
works. The idea of penitence exhales from it. The
marble preaches the sufferings of the Passion ; it
makes us listen to an act of bitter contrition and an
act of sorrowing love."
Michelangelo is said to have designed the Pieta

HISTORY OF THIS PIETA. 201
for his own monument. In the person of Nicodemus,
it is he who sustains his dead Lord in the gloom of
the sombre Duomo. His old sad face, surrounded
by the heavy cowl, looks down for ever with a tender
ness beyond expression, repeating mutely through
the years how much of anguish and of blood divine
the redemption of man's soul hath cost.
The history of this great poem in marble, aban
doned by its maker in some mood of deep dejection,
is not without interest. We are told that the stone
selected was a capital from one of the eight huge
columns of the Temple of Peace.1 Besides being
hard and difficult to handle, the material betrayed
flaws in working. This circumstance annoyed the
master ; also, as he informed Vasari, Urbino kept
continually urging him to finish it.2 One of his
reasons for attacking the block had been to keep
himself in health by exercise. Accordingly he hewed
away with fury, and bit so deep into the marble that
he injured one of the Madonna's elbows. When
this happened, it was his invariable practice to
abandon the piece he had begun upon, feeling that
an incomplete performance was preferable to a lame
conclusion. In his old age he suffered from sleepless
ness ; and it was his habit to rise from bed and work
upon the Pietk, wearing a thick paper cap, in which
he placed a lighted candle made of goat's tallow.
This method of chiselling by the light of one candle
must have complicated the technical difficulties of
1 Gotti, i. 328. " Vasari, xii. 248.

202 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
his labour. But what we may perhaps surmise to
have been his final motive for the rejection of the
work, was a sense of his inability, with diminished
powers of execution, and a still more vivid sense of
the importance of the motive, to accomplish what the
brain conceived. The hand failed. The imagina
tion of the subject grew more intimate and energetic.
Losing patience then at last, he took a hammer and
began to break the group up. Indeed, the right arm
of the Mary shows a fracture. The left arm of the
Christ is mutilated in several places. One of the
nipples has been repaired, and the hand of the
Madonna resting on the breast above it is cracked
across. It would have been difficult to reduce the
whole huge block to fragments ; and when the work
of destruction had advanced so far, Michelangelo's
servant Antonio, the successor to Urbino, begged the
remnants from his master. Tiberio Calcagni was a
good friend of Buonarroti's at this time. He heard
that Francesco Bandini, a Florentine settled in exile
at Rome, earnestly desired some relic of the master's
work. Accordingly, Calcagni, with Michelangelo's
consent, bought the broken marble from Antonio
for 200 crowns, pieced it together, and began to
mend it. Fortunately, he does not seem to have
elaborated the surface in any important particular ;
for both the finished and unfinished parts bear in
dubitable marks of Michelangelo's own handling.
After the death of Calcagni and Bandini, the Pieta
remained for some time in the garden of Antonio,

PIETAS AT ROME AND GENOA. 203
Bandini's heir, at Montecavallo. It was transferred
to Florence, and placed among the marbles used in
erecting the new Medicean Chapel, until at last, in
1722, the Grand Duke Cosimo III. finally set it
up behind the altar of the Duomo.
Vasari adds that Michelangelo began another Pieta
in marble on a much smaller scale.1 It is possible
that this may have been the unfinished group of two
figures (a dead Christ sustained by a bending man),
of which there is a cast in the Accademia at Florence.2
In some respects the composition of this fragment
bears a strong resemblance to the puzzling Deposi
tion from the Cross in our National Gallery. The
trailing languor of the dead Christ's limbs is almost
identical in the marble and the painting.
While speaking of these several Pietas, I must
not forget the medallion in high relief of the Madonna
clasping her dead Son, which adorns the Albergo dei
Poveri at Genoa. It is ascribed to Michelangelo,
was early believed to be his, and is still accepted
without hesitation by competent judges. In spite
of its strongly marked Michelangelesque mannerism,
both as regards feeling, facial type, and design, I
cannot regard the bas-relief, in its present condition
at least, as a genuine work, but rather as the pro
duction of some imitator, or the rifacimento of a
restorer. A similar impression may here be recorded
1 Vasari, xii. 249.
2 See Heath Wilson, p. 453. He says it is in the court of the Palazzo
Rondanini in the Corso at Rome.

204 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
regarding the noble portrait-bust in marble of Pope
Paul III. at Naples. This too has been attributed
to Michelangelo. But there is no external evidence
to support the tradition, while the internal evidence
from style and technical manipulation weighs strongly
against it. The medallions introduced upon the
heavily embroidered cope are not in his style. The
treatment of the adolescent female form in particular
indicates a different temperament. Were the ascrip
tion made to Benvenuto Cellini, we might have more
easily accepted it. But Cellini would certainly have
enlarged upon so important a piece of sculpture in
his Memoirs. If then we are left to mere conjecture,
it would be convenient to suggest Guglielmo della
Porta, who executed the Farnese monument in S.
Peter's.

IV
While still a Cardinal, Paul III. began to rebuild
the old palace of the Farnesi on the Tiber shore. It
closes one end of the great open space called the
Campo di Fiore, and stands opposite to the Villa
Farnesina, on the right bank of the river.1 Antonio
da Sangallo was the architect employed upon this
1 It is said that Michelangelo, acting under Pier Luigi Farnese's
orders, produced plans for connecting the palace and the villa by a
bridge.

THE PALAZZO FARNESE. 205
work, which advanced slowly until Alessandro
Farnese's elevation to the Papacy. He then de
termined to push the building forward, and to com
plete it on a scale of magnificence befitting the
supreme Pontiff. Sangallo had carried the walls
up to the second story. The third remained to be
accomplished, and the cornice had to be constructed.
Paul was not satisfied with Sangallo's design, and
referred it to Michelangelo for criticism — possibly
in 1544. The result was a report, which we still
possess, in which Buonarroti, basing his opinion
on principles derived from Vitruvius, severely blames
Sangallo's plan under six separate heads.1 He does
not leave a single merit, as regards either harmony
of proportion, or purity of style, or elegance of com
position, or practical convenience, or decorative
beauty, or distribution of parts. He calls the
cornice barbarous, confused, bastard in style, dis
cordant with the rest of the building, and so ill
suited to the palace as, if carried out, to threaten
the walls with destruction. This document has
considerable interest, partly as illustrating Michel-
1 Lettere, No. cdxli. The document is in Michelangelo's well-known
handwriting ; it also contains some details regarding the state of his
health and his inability to wait upon the Pope in person, which are
confirmed by Vasari's graphic account of his interview with Paul (x.
20). Still Milanesi doubts whether he composed it, on the ground that
the style differs from his own (with which opinion I agree), and also
that the language is not purely Tuscan. By adopting and transcribing
the report, Michelangelo made himself responsible for its contents.
Its chief interest lies in the acceptance of the Vitruvian tradition, as
magisterial and decisive.

206 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
angelo's views on architecture in general, and dis
playing a pedantry of which he was never elsewhere
guilty, partly as explaining the bitter hostility aroused
against him in Sangallo and the whole tribe of that
great architect's adherents. We do not, unfortun
ately, possess the design upon which the report
was made. But, even granting that it must have
been defective, Michelangelo, who professed that
architecture was not his art, might, one thinks,
have spared his rival such extremity of adverse
criticism. It exposed him to the taunts of rivals
and ill-wishers ; justified them in calling him pre
sumptuous, and gave them a plausible excuse when
they accused him of jealousy. What made it worse
was, that his own large building, the Laurentian
Library, glaringly exhibits all the defects he dis
covered in Sangallo's cornice.
I find it difficult to resist the impression that
Michelangelo was responsible, to a large extent, for
the ill-will of those artists whom Vasari calls " la
setta Sangallesca." His life became embittered by
their animosity, and his industry as Papal architect
continued to be hampered for many years by their
intrigues. But he alone was to blame at the be
ginning, not so much for expressing an honest
opinion, as for doing so with insulting severity.
That Michelangelo may have been right in his
condemnation of Sangallo's cornice is of course
possible. Paul himself was dissatisfied, and eventu
ally threw that portion of the building open to com-

MICHELANGELO AND SANGALLO. 207
petition. Perino del Vaga, Sebastiano del Piombo,
and the young Giorgio Vasari are said to have
furnished designs.1 Michelangelo did so also ; and
his plan was not only accepted, but eventually
carried out. Nevertheless Sangallo, one of the
most illustrious professional architects then alive,
could not but have felt deeply wounded by the
treatment he received. It was natural for his
followers to exclaim that Buonarroti had contrived
to oust their aged master, and to get a valuable
commission into his own grasp, by the discourteous
exercise of his commanding prestige in the world
of art.
In order to be just to Michelangelo, we must
remember that he was always singularly modest in
regard to his own performances, and severe in self-
criticism. Neither in his letters nor in his poems
does a single word of self-complacency escape his
pen. He sincerely felt himself to be an unprofit
able servant : that was part of his constitutional
depression. We know, too, that he allowed strong
temporary feelings to control his utterance. The
cruel criticism of Sangallo may therefore have been
quite devoid of malice ; and if it was as well founded
as the criticism of that builder's plan for S. Peter's,
then Michelangelo stands acquitted. Sangallo's
model exists ; it is so large that you can walk inside
1 See Vasari, x. 20, for an interesting account of his waiting with
the other artists above-named upon Pope Paul III. with their designs.
Michelangelo alone was prevented by ill-health from attending, and
sent his drawing by the hand of Vasari.

208 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
it, and compare your own impressions with the
following judgment : J —
" It cannot be denied that Bramante's talent as an
architect was equal to that of any one from the times
of the ancients until now. He laid the first plan of
S. Peter, not confused, but clear and simple, full of
light and detached from surrounding buildings, so
that it interfered with no part of the palace. It
was considered a very fine design, and indeed any
one can see now that it is so. All the architects
who departed from Bramante's scheme, as Sangallo
has done, have departed from the truth ; and those
who have unprejudiced eyes can observe this in his
model. Sangallo's ring of chapels takes light from
the interior as Bramante planned it ; and not only
this, but he has provided no other means of lighting,
and there are so many hiding-places, above and
below, all dark, which lend themselves to innumer
able knaveries, that the church would become a
secret den for harbouring bandits, false coiners, for
debauching nuns, and doing all sorts of rascality ;
and when it was shut up at night, twenty-five men
would be needed to search the building for rogues
hidden there, and it would be difficult enough to find
them. There is, besides, another inconvenience : the
interior circle of buildings added to Bramante's plan
would necessitate the destruction of the Paoline
1 Lettere, No. cdlxxiv., written in 1 5 5 5 to Bartolommeo Ferrantino (2 )
Inside the model left by Sangallo, any one is able to perceive that
Michelangelo was justified, when he blamed its defective lighting and
the superfluous room in the chapels round the building.

SEVERE CRITICISM OF SANGALLO. 209
Chapel, the offices of the Piombo and the Ruota, and
more besides. I do not think that even the Sistine
would escape."
After this Michelangelo adds that to remove the
outworks and foundations begun upon Sangallo's
plan would not cost 100,000 crowns, as the sect
alleged, but only 16,000. The material would be
infinitely useful, the foundations important for the
building, and the whole fabric would profit in
something like 200,000 crowns and 300 years of
time. " This is my dispassionate opinion ; and I
say this in truth, for to gain a victory here would
be my own incalculable loss." Michelangelo means
that, at the time when he wrote the letter in ques
tion, it was still in doubt whether Sangallo's design
should be carried out or his own adopted ; and, as
usual, he looked forward with dread to undertaking
a colossal architectural task.
Returning to the Palazzo Farnese, it only remains
to be said that Michelangelo lived to complete the
edifice. His genius was responsible for the inhar
monious window above the main entrance. Accord
ing to Vasari, he not only finished the exterior from
the second story upwards, but designed the whole of
the central courtyard above the first story, " making-
it the finest thing of its sort in Europe." 1 The interior,
with the halls painted by Annibale Caracci, owed its
disposition into chambers and galleries to his inven
tion. The cornice has always been reckoned among
1 Vasari, xii. 231.
VOL. 11. o

210 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
his indubitable successes, combining as it does
salience and audacity with a grand heroic air of
grace. It has been criticised for disproportionate
projection ; and Michelangelo seems to have felt un
easy on this score, since he caused a wooden model
of the right size to be made and placed upon the
wall, in order to judge of its effect.
Taken as a whole, the Palazzo Farnese remains
the most splendid of the noble Roman houses, sur
passing all the rest in pomp and pride, though
falling short of Peruzzi's Palazzo Massimo in beauty.

V.
The catastrophe of 1527, when Rome was taken
by assault on the side of the Borgo without effective
resistance being possible, rendered the fortification
of the city absolutely necessary. Paul III. deter
mined to secure a position of such vital importance
to the Vatican by bastions. Accordingly he convened
a diet of notables, including his architect-in-chief,
Antonio da Sangallo. He also wished to profit by
Michelangelo's experience, remembering the stout
resistance offered to the Prince of Orange by his
outworks at S. Miniato. Vasari tells an anecdote
regarding this meeting which illustrates the mutual
bad feeling of the two illustrious artists.1 " After
1 Vasari, xii. 225.

FORTIFICATION OF THE VATICAN. 211
much discussion, the opinion of Buonarroti was re
quested. He had conceived views widely differing
from those of Sangallo and several others, and these
he expressed frankly. Whereupon Sangallo told him
that sculpture and painting were his trade, not forti
fication. He replied that about them he knew but
little, whereas the anxious thought he had given to
city defences, the time he had spent, and the experi
ence he had practically gained in constructing them,
made him superior in that art to Sangallo and all the
masters of his family. He proceeded to point out
before all present numerous errors in the works.
Heated words passed on both sides, and the Pope
had to reduce the men to silence. Before long he
brought a plan for the fortification of the whole
Borgo, which opened the eyes of those in power
to the scheme which was finally adopted. Owing to
changes he suggested, the great gate of Santo Spirito,
designed by Sangallo and nearly finished, was left
incomplete." It is not clear what changes were introduced into
Sangallo's scheme. They certainly involved draw
ing the line of defence much closer to the city
than he intended. This approved itself to Pier
Luigi Farnese, then Duke of Castro, who presided
over the meetings of the military committee. It
was customary in carrying out works of fortification
to associate a practical engineer with the architect
who provided designs ; and one of these men, Gian
Francesco Montemellino, a trusted servant of the

212 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
Farnesi, strongly supported the alteration. That
Michelangelo agreed with Montemellino, and felt
that they could work together, appears from a letter
addressed to the Castellano of S. Angelo.1 It seems
to have been written soon after the dispute recorded
by Vasari. In it he states, that although he differs
in many respects from the persons who had hitherto
controlled the works, yet he thinks it better not to
abandon them altogether, but to correct them, alter
the superintendence, and put Montemellino at the
head of the direction. This would prevent the
Pope from becoming disgusted with such frequent
changes. " If affairs took the course he indicated,
he was ready to offer his assistance, not in the
capacity of colleague, but as a servant to command
in all things." Nothing is here said openly about
Sangallo, who remained architect-in-chief until his
death. Still the covert wish expressed that the
superintendence might be altered, shows a spirit of
hostility against him ; and a new plan for the lines
must soon have been adopted. A despatch written
to the Duke of Parma in September 1545 informs
him that the old works were being abandoned, with
the exception of the grand Doric gateway of S.
Spirito. This is described at some length in another
despatch of January 1546. Later on, in 1557, we
find Michelangelo working as architect - in - chief
with Jacopo Meleghino under his direction, but
1 Lettere, No. cdxl. The date, as printed by Milanesi, is February
26, 1544. Gotti refers it to the same month in 1545.

ARCHITECT-IN-CHIEF AT S. PIETRO. 213
the fortifications were eventually carried through by
a more competent engineer, one Jacopo Fusto Cas-
triotto of Urbino.1

VI.
Antonio da Sangallo died on October 3, 1546, at
Terni, while engaged in engineering works intended
to drain the Lake Velino. Michelangelo immedi
ately succeeded to the offices and employments he
had held at Rome. Of these, the most important
was the post of architect-in-chief at S. Peter's. Paul
III. conferred it upon him for life by a brief dated
January 1, 1547.2 He is there named "commissary,
prefect, surveyor of the works, and architect, with
full authority to change the model, form, and struc
ture of the church at pleasure, and to dismiss and
remove the working-men and foremen employed
upon the same." The Pope intended to attach a
special stipend to the onerous charge, but Michel
angelo declined this honorarium, declaring that he
meant to labour without recompense, for the love of
God and the reverence he felt for the Prince of the
Apostles. Although he might have had money for
the asking, and sums were actually sent as presents
by his Papal master, he persisted in this resolution,
working steadily at S. Peter's without pay, until
death gave him rest.
1 See Gotti, i. 295-299, for the despatches. ' Vasari, xii. 393.

214 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
Michelangelo's career as servant to a Pope began
with the design of that tomb which led Julius II. to
destroy the old S. Peter's. He was now entering,
after forty-two years, upon the last stage of his long
life. Before the end came, he gave final form to
the main features of the great basilica, raising the
dome which dominates the Roman landscape like
a stationary cloud upon the sky-line. What had
happened to the edifice in the interval between 1 505
and 1547 must be briefly narrated, although it is
not within the scope of this work to give a complete
history of the building.1
Bramante's original design had been to construct
the church in the form of a Greek cross, with four
large semicircular apses. The four angles made by
the projecting arms of the cross were to be filled in
with a complex but well-ordered scheme of shrines
and chapels, so that externally the edifice would
have presented the aspect of a square. The central
piers, at the point of junction between the arms of
the cross, supported a broad shallow dome, modelled
upon that of the Pantheon. Similar domes of lesser
dimensions crowned the out-buildings.2 He began
by erecting the piers which were intended to support
the central dome ; but working hastily and without
1 The main source of information is Sebastiano Serlio's Trattato
d' Architettura, Yaiezia,, 1 537-1 547. But I may here refer my readers to
the useful series of ground-plans and elevations published in Harford's
Illustrations of the Genius of Michelangelo, and also to Burckhardt's
Geschichte der Renaissance in Italien, pp. 106-111.
2 See fig. 4 in Harford, and fig. 48 in Burckhardt.

HISTORY OF S. PETER'S. 215
due regard to solid strength, Bramante made these
piers too weak to sustain the ponderous mass they
had to carry. How he would have rectified this
error cannot be conjectured. Death cut his labours
short in 15 14, and only a small portion of his work
remains embedded at the present day within the
mightier masses raised beneath Buonarroti's cupola.
Leo X. commissioned Raffaello da Urbino to con
tinue his kinsman's work, and appointed Antonio
da Sangallo to assist him in the month of January
151 7.1 Whether it was judged impossible to carry
out Bramante's project of the central dome, or for
some other reason unknown to us, Raffaello altered
the plan so essentially as to design a basilica upon
the conventional ground-plan of such churches. He
abandoned the Greek cross, and adopted the Latin
form bv adding an elongated nave. The central
piers were left in their places ; the three terminal
apses of the choir and transepts were strengthened,
simplified, reduced to commonplace. Bramante's
ground-plan is lucid, luminous, and exquisitely
ordered in its intricacy. The true creation of a
builder-poet's brain, it illustrates Leo Battista
Alberti's definition of the charm of architecture, tutta
quella musica, that melody and music of a graceful
edifice. We are able to understand what Michel
angelo meant when he remarked that all subsequent
designers, by departing from it, had gone wrong.
1 See Vasari, .\. 9, note 1. It appears that Sangallo continued to
act as one of the architects of S. Peter's till his death in 1 546.

216 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
Raffaello' s plan, if carried out, would have been
monotonous and tame inside and out.
After the death of Raffaello in 1520, Baldassare
Peruzzi was appointed to be Sangallo's colleague.
This genial architect, in whose style all the graces
were combined with dignity and strength, prepared
a new design at Leo's request. Vasari, referring
to this period of Peruzzi's life, says:1 "The Pope,
thinking Bramante's scheme too large and not likely
to be in keeping, obtained a new model from Bal
dassare ; magnificent and truly full of fine invention,
also so wisely constructed that certain portions have
been adopted by subsequent builders." He reverted
to Bramante's main conception of the Greek cross,
but altered the details in so many important points,
both by thickening the piers and walls, and also by
complicating the internal disposition of the chapels,
that the effect would have been quite different.
The ground-plan, which is all I know of Peruzzi's
project, has always seemed to me by far the most
beautiful and interesting of those laid down for S.
Peter's. It is richer, more imaginative and sug
gestive, than Bramante's. The style of Bramante,
in spite of its serene simplicity, had something
which might be described as shallow clearness. In
comparison with Peruzzi's style, it is what Gluck's
melody is to Mozart's. The course of public events
prevented this scheme from being carried out. First
came the pontificate of Adrian VI., so sluggish in
1 Vasari, viii. 227.

SANGALLO'S MODEL. 217
art-industry; then the pontificate of Clement VII.,
so disastrous for Italy and Rome. Many years
elapsed before art and literature recovered from the
terror and the torpor of 1527. Peruzzi indeed re
turned to his office at S. Peter's in 1535, but his
death followed in 1537, when Antonio da Sangallo
remained master of the situation.
Sangallo had the good sense to preserve many
of Peruzzi's constructive features, especially in the
apses of the choir and transepts ; but he added
a vast vestibule, which gave the church a length
equal to that of Raffaello's plan. Externally, he
designed a lofty central cupola and two flanking
spires, curiously combining the Gothic spirit with
Classical elements of style.1 In order to fill in the
huge spaces of this edifice, he superimposed tiers of
orders one above the other. Church, cupola, and
spires are built up by a succession of Vitruvian
temples, ascending from the ground into the air.
The total impression produced by the mass, as we
behold it now in the great wooden model at S.
Peter's, is one of bewildering complexity.2 Of archi
tectural repose it possesses little, except what belongs
to a very original and vast conception on a colossal
1 These spires in the model at S. Peter's strike an Englishman by
their singular resemblance to some of Wren's experiments in the same
hybrid style.
2 In his Life of Sangallo, Vasari (x. 17) has given an account of his
model, which was made under the master's direction by Antonio
Labacco. The woodwork alone cost 4184 crowns. It is 28 feet long
by 18 feet wide, and about 15 feet high, so that any one can enter it
and move around freelv.

218 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
scale. The extent of the structure is frittered by its
multiplicity of parts.1 Internally, as Michelangelo
pointed out, the church would have been dark,
inconvenient, and dangerous to public morals

VII.
Whatever we may think of Michelangelo's fail
ings as an architect, there is no doubt that at this
period of his life he aimed at something broad and
heroic in style. He sought to attain grandeur by
greatness in the masses and by economy of the con
stituent parts. His method of securing amplitude
was exactly opposite to that of Sangallo, who relied
upon the multiplication rather than the simplifica
tion of details. A kind of organic unity was what
Michelangelo desired. For this reason, he employed
in the construction of S. Peter's those stupendous
orders which out-soar the columns of Baalbec, and
those grandiose curves which make the cupola ma
jestic. A letter written to the Cardinal Ridolfo Pio
of Carpi contains this explanation of his principles.2
The last two sentences are highly significant : —
" Most Reverend Monsignor, — If a plan has
divers parts, those which are of one type in respect
to quality and quantity have to be decorated in the
1 See Harford, op. cit, plate 4.
2 Lettere, No. cdxc, under date 1560.

MICHELANGELO'S PRINCIPLES. 219
same way and the same fashion. The like is true
of their counterparts. But when the plan changes
form entirely, it is not only allowable, but necessary,
to change the decorative appurtenances, as also with
their counterparts. The intermediate parts are
always free, left to their own bent. The nose, which
stands in the middle of the forehead, is not bound
to correspond with either of the eyes ; but one hand
must balance the other, and one eye be like its
fellow. Therefore it may be assumed as certain
that the members of an architectural structure
follow the laws exemplified in the human body.
He who has not been or is not a good master of the
nude, and especially of anatomy, cannot understand
the principles of architecture."
It followed that Michelangelo's first object, when
he became Papal architect-in-chief, was to introduce
order into the anarchy of previous plans, and to
return, so far as this was now possible, to Bramante's
simpler scheme. He adopted the Greek cross, and
substituted a stately portico for the long vestibule
invented by Sangallo. It was not, however, in his
nature, nor did the changed taste of the times per
mit him to reproduce Bramante's manner. So far
as S. Peter's bears the mark of Michelangelo at all,
it represents his own peculiar genius. "The Pope,"
says Vasari, " approved his model, which reduced
the cathedral to smaller dimensions, but also to a
more essential greatness. He discovered that four
principal piers, erected by Bramante and left stand-

220 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
ing by Antonio da Sangallo, which had to bear the
weight of the tribune, were feeble. These he forti
fied in part, constructing two winding staircases at
the side, with gently sloping steps, up which beasts
of burden ascend with building material, and one
can ride on horseback to the level above the arches.
He carried the first cornice, made of travertine,
round the arches : a wonderful piece of work, full
of grace, and very different from the others ; nor
could anything be better done in its kind. He
began the two great apses of the transept ; and
whereas Bramante, Raffaello, and Peruzzi had de
signed eight tabernacles toward the Campo Santo,
which arrangement Sangallo adhered to, he reduced
them to three, with three chapels inside. Suffice
it to say that he began at once to work with dili
gence and accuracy at all points where the edifice
required alteration, to the end that its main features
might be fixed, and that no one might be able to
change what he had planned."1 Vasari adds that
this was the provision of a wise and prudent mind.
So it was ; but it did not prevent Michelangelo's
successors from defeating his intentions in almost
every detail, except the general effect of the cupola.
This will appear in the sequel.
Antonio da Sangallo had controlled the building
of S. Peter's for nearly thirty years before Michel
angelo succeeded to his office. During that long
space of time he formed a body of architects and
1 Vasari, xii. 229.

SANGALLO'S WORKPEOPLE. 221
workmen who were attached to his person and
interested in the execution of his plans. There is
good reason to believe that in Sangallo's days, as
earlier in Bramante's, much money of the Church
had been misappropriated by a gang of fraudulent
and mutually indulgent craftsmen. It was not to
be expected that these people should tamely submit
to the intruder who put their master's cherished
model on the shelf, and set about, in his high
handed way, to refashion the whole building from
the bottom to the top. During Sangallo's lifetime
no love had been lost between him and Buonarroti,
and after his death it is probable that the latter
dealt severely with the creatures of his predecessor.
The Pope had given him unlimited powers of ap
pointing and dismissing subordinates, controlling-
operations, and regulating expenditure. He was a
man who abhorred jobs and corruption. A letter
written near the close of his life, when he was deal
ing only with persons nominated by himself, proves
this. He addressed the Superintendents of the
Fabric of S. Peter's as follows : " You know that
I told Balduccio not to send his lime unless it were
good. He has sent bad quality, and does not seem
to think he will be forced to take it back ; which
proves that he is in collusion with the person who
accepted it. This gives great encouragement to the
men I have dismissed for similar transactions. One
who accepts bad goods needed for the fabric, when
1 Lettere, No. cdxci., under date 1560.

222 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
I have forbidden them, is doing nothing else but
making friends of people whom I have turned into
enemies against myself. I believe there will be a
new conspiracy. Promises, fees, presents corrupt
justice. Therefore I beg you from this time for
ward, by the authority I hold from the Pope, not to
accept anything which is not suitable, even though
it comes to you from heaven. I must not be made
to appear, what I am not, partial in my dealings."
This fiery despatch, indicating not only Michel
angelo's probity, but also his attention to minute
details at the advanced age of eighty-six, makes it
evident that he must have been a stern overseer
in the first years of his office, terrible to the " sect
of Sangallo," who were bent, on their part, to dis
credit him.
The sect began to plot and form conspiracies,
feeling the violent old man's bit and bridle on their
mouths, and seeing the firm seat he took upon the
saddle. For some reason, which is not apparent,
they had the Superintendents of the Fabric (a com
mittee, including cardinals, appointed by the Pope)
on their side. Probably these officials, accustomed
to Sangallo and the previous course of things, dis
liked to be stirred up and sent about their business
by the masterful new-comer. Michelangelo's sup
port lay, as we shall see, in the four Popes who
followed Paul III. They, with the doubtful ex
ception of Marcello II., accepted him on trust
as a thoroughly honest servant, and the only artist

ANIMOSITY OF THE SETTA SANGALLESCA. 223
capable of conducting the great work to its con
clusion. In the last resort, when he was driven to
bay, he offered to resign, and was invariably coaxed
back by the final arbiter. The disinterested spirit
in which he fulfilled his duties, accepting no pay
while he gave his time and energy to their perform
ance, stood him in good stead.1 Nothing speaks
better for his perfect probity than that his enemies
were unable to bring the slightest charge of pecu
lation or of partiality against him. Michelangelo's
conduct of affairs at S. Peter's reflects a splendid
light upon the tenor of his life, and confutes those
detractors who have accused him of avarice.
The duel between Michelangelo and the sect
opened in 1547. A letter written by a friend in
Florence on the 14th of May proves that his
antagonists had then good hopes of crushing him.2
Giovan Francesco Ughi begins by saying that he
has been silent because he had nothing special to
report. " But now Jacopo del Conte has come here
with the wife of Nanni di Baccio Bigio, alleging that
he has brought her because Nanni is so occupied at
S. Peter's. Among other things, he says that Nanni
means to make a model for the building which will
knock yours to nothing. He declares that what you
are about is mad and babyish. He means to fling
it all down, since he has quite as much credit with
the Pope as you have. You throw oceans of money
away and work by night, so that nobody may see
1 See Vasari, xii. 228. 2 Gotti, i. 309.

224 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
what you are doing. You follow in the footsteps of
a Spaniard, having no knowledge of your own about
the art of building, and he less than nothing. Nanni
stays there in your despite : you did everything to
get him removed; but the Pope keeps him, being
convinced that nothing good can be done without
him."1 After this Ughi goes on to relate how
Michelangelo's enemies are spreading all kinds of
reports against his honour and good fame, criticising
the cornice of the Palazzo Farnese, and hoping that
its weight will drag the walls down. At the end
he adds, that although he knows one ought not to
write about such matters, yet the man's "insolence and
blackguardly shamelessness of speech " compel him
to put his friend on his guard against such calumnies.
After the receipt of this letter, Michelangelo sent
it to one of the Superintendents of the Fabric, on
whose sympathy he could reckon, with the following
indorsement in his own handwriting : " Messer
Bartolommeo (Ferrantino), please read this letter, and
take thought who the two rascals are who, lying
thus about what I did at the Palazzo Farnese, are
now lying in the matter of the information they are
laying before the deputies of S. Peter's. It comes
upon me in return for the kindness I have shown
them. But what else can one expect from a couple
of the basest scoundrelly villains ? "
1 It is worth mentioning that this Nanni, who proved so hostile to
Michelangelo, made a bronze copy of his Madonna della Febbre (for
Luigi del Riccio, according to Vasari), which now adorns the Church of
S. Spirito at Florence. It is an excellent piece of work.

JULIUS III. SUCCEEDS PAUL III. 225
Nanni di Baccio Bigio had, as it seems, good
friends at court in Rome. He was an open enemy
of Michelangelo, who, nevertheless, found it difficult
to shake him off. In the history of S. Peter's the
man's name will frequently occur.
Three years elapsed. Paul III. died, and Michel
angelo wrote to his nephew Lionardo on the occa
sion : x " It is true that I have suffered great sorrow,
and not less loss, by the Pope's death. I received
benefits from his Holiness, and hoped for more and
better. God willed it so, and we must have patience.
His passage from this life was beautiful, in full pos
session of his faculties up to the last word. God
have mercy on his soul." The Cardinal Giovan
Maria Ciocchi, of Monte San Savino, was elected to
succeed Paul, and took the title of Julius III. This
change of masters was duly noted by Michelangelo
in a letter to his " dearest friend," Giovan Francesco
Fattucci at Florence.2 It breathes so pleasant and
comradely a spirit, that I will translate more than
bears immediately on the present topic: "Dear
friend, although we have not exchanged letters for
many months past, still our long and excellent friend
ship has not been forgotten. I wish you well, as I
have always done, and love you with all my heart,
for your own sake, and for the numberless pleasant
things in life you have afforded me. As regards old
age, which weighs upon us both alike, I should be
1 Lettere, No. ccxxxi., December 21, 1549.
2 Ibid., No. cdlxvi., October 1549.
VOL. 11. P

226 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
glad to know how yours affects you ; mine, I must
say, does not make me very happy. I beg you,
then, to write me something about this. You know,
doubtless, that we have a new Pope, and who
he is. All Rome is delighted, God be thanked ;
and everybody expects the greatest good from his
reign, especially for the poor, his generosity being
so notorious."
Michelangelo had good reason to rejoice over this
event, for Julius III. felt a real attachment to his
person, and thoroughly appreciated both his character
and his genius. Nevertheless, the enemies he had
in Rome now made a strong effort to dislodge
Buonarroti from his official position at S. Peter's.
It was probably about this time that the Superintend
ents of the Fabric drew up a memorial expressive
of their grievances against him. We possess a
document in Latin setting forth a statement of
accounts in rough.1 "From the year 1540, when
expenditures began to be made regularly and in
order, from the very commencement as it were, up
to the year 1547, when Michelangelo, at his own
will and pleasure, undertook partly to build and
partly to destroy, 162,624 ducats were expended.
Since the latter date on to the present, during which
time the deputies have served like the pie at the
organ,2 knowing nothing, nor what, nor how moneys
were spent, but only at the orders of the said Michel-
1 Gotti, i. 311.
2 " In quo deputati servierunt tanquam pica ad organum."

MEMORIAL FROM THE DEPUTIES. 227
angelo, such being the will of Paul III. of blessed
memory, and also of the reigning Pontiff, 136,881
ducats have been paid out, as can be seen from our
books. With regard to the edifice, what it is going
to be, the deputies can make no statement, all things
being hidden from them, as though they were out
siders. They have only been able to protest at
several times, and do now again protest, for the
easement of their conscience, that they do not like
the ways used by Michelangelo, especially in what
he keeps on pulling down. The demolition has
been, and to-day is so great, that all who witness
it are moved to an extremity of pity. Nevertheless,
if his Holiness be satisfied, we, his deputies, shall
have no reason to complain." It is clear that
Michelangelo was carrying on with a high hand at
S. Peter's.
Although the date of this document is uncertain,
I think it may be taken in connection with a general
meeting called by Julius III., the incidents of which
are recorded by Vasari. Michelangelo must have
demonstrated his integrity, for he came out of the
affair victorious, and obtained from the Pope a
brief confirming him in his office of architect-in-
chief, with even fuller powers than had been
granted by Paul III.1
1 Gotti, ii. 133. The brief is dated January 23, 1551.

228 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.

VIII.
Vasari at this epoch becomes one of our most
reliable authorities regarding the life of Michel
angelo. He corresponded and conversed with him
continuously, and enjoyed the master's confidence.
We may therefore accept the following narrative
as accurate i1 "It was some little while before the
beginning of 155 1, when Vasari, on his return from
Florence to Rome, found that the sect of Sangallo
were plotting against Michelangelo ; they induced
the Pope to hold a meeting in S. Peter's, where all
the overseers and workmen connected with the
building should attend, and his Holiness should be
persuaded by false insinuations that Michelangelo
had spoiled the fabric. He had already walled in
the apse of the King where the three chapels are,
and carried out the three upper windows.2 But it
was not known what he meant to do with the vault.
They then, misled by their shallow judgment, made
Cardinal Salviati the elder, and Marcello Cervini,
who was afterwards Pope, believe that S. Peter's
would be badly lighted. When all were assembled,
the Pope told Michelangelo that the deputies were
of opinion the apse would have but little light.
He answered : ' I should like to hear these deputies
1 Vasari, xii. 238.
2 See Lettere, Nos. cdlxxxiii., cdlxxxiv., to Vasari on the difficulties
he had with the building of this apse.

VICTORY OVER THE DEPUTIES. 229
speak.' The Cardinal Marcello rejoined: 'Here we
are.' Michelangelo then remarked : ' My lord,
above these three windows there will be other three
in the vault, which is to be built of travertine.'
' You never told us anything about this,' said the
Cardinal. Michelangelo responded : ' I am not,
nor do I mean to be obliged to tell your lordship
or anybody what I ought or wish to do. It is your
business to provide money, and to see that it is not
stolen. As regards the plans of the building, you
have to leave those to me.' Then he turned to the
Pope and said : ' Holy Father, behold what gains
are mine ! Unless the hardships I endure prove
beneficial to my soul, I am losing time and labour.'
The Pope, who loved him, laid his hands upon his
shoulders and exclaimed : ' You are gaining both
for soul and body, have no fear ! ' Michelangelo's
spirited self-defence increased the Pope's love, and
he ordered him to repair next day with Vasari to
the Vigna Giulia, where they held long discourses
upon art." It is here that Vasari relates how Julius
III. was in the habit of seating Michelangelo by
his side while they talked together.
Julius then maintained the cause of Michelangelo
against the deputies. It was during his pontificate
that a piece of engineering work committed to
Buonarroti's charge by Paul III. fell into the hands
of Nanni di Baccio Bigio.1 The old bridge of Santa
Maria had long shown signs of giving way, and
1 Vasari, xii. 240.

230 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
materials had been collected for rebuilding it.
Nanni's friends managed to transfer the execution
of this work to him from Michelangelo. The man
laid bad foundations, and Buonarroti riding over
the new bridge one day with Vasari, cried out :
" George, the bridge is quivering beneath us ; let
us spur on, before it gives way with us upon it."
Eventually, the bridge did fall to pieces, at the time
of a great inundation. Its ruins have long been
known as the Ponte Rotto.
On the death of Julius III. in 1555, Cardinal
Cervini was made Pope, with the title of Marcellus
II. This event revived the hopes of the sect, who
once more began to machinate against Michelangelo.
The Duke of Tuscany at this time was exceedingly
anxious that he should take up his final abode at
Florence ; and Buonarroti, feeling he had now no
strong support in Rome, seems to have entertained
these proposals with alacrity. The death of Mar
cellus after a few weeks, and the election of Paul
IV., who besought the great architect not to desert
S. Peter's, made him change his mind. Several
letters written to Vasari and the Grand Duke in
this and the next two years show that his heart
was set on finishing S. Peter's, however much he
wished to please his friends and longed to end his
days in peace at home.1 "I was set to work upon
S. Peter's against my will, and I have served now
eight years gratis, and with the utmost injury and
1 Lettere, Nos. cdlxxv.-vi., cdlxxxi.-ii.

INVITATIONS FROM DUKE OF FLORENCE. 231
discomfort to myself. Now that the fabric has
been pushed forward and there is money to spend,
and I am just upon the point of vaulting in the
cupola, my departure from Rome would be the
ruin of the edifice, and for me a great disgrace
throughout all Christendom, and to my soul a
grievous sin. Pray ask his lordship to give me
leave of absence till S. Peter's has reached a point
at which it cannot be altered in its main features.
Should I leave Rome earlier, I should be the cause
of a great ruin, a great disgrace, and a great sin."
To the Duke he writes in 1557 that his special
reasons for not wishing to abandon S. Peter's were,
first, that the work would fall into the hands of
thieves and rogues ; secondly, that it might pro
bably be suspended altogether ; thirdly, that he
owned property in Rome to the amount of several
thousand crowns, which, if he left without per
mission, would be lost ; fourthly, that he was
suffering from several ailments. He also observed
that the work had just reached its most critical
stage (i.e., the erection of the cupola), and that
to desert it at the present moment would be a
great disgrace.
The vaulting of the cupola had now indeed become
the main preoccupation of Michelangelo's life. Early
in 1557 a serious illness threatened his health, and
several friends, including the Cardinal of Carpi,
Donato Giannotti, Tommaso Cavalieri, Francesco
Bandini, and Lottino, persuaded him that he ought

23 2 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
to construct a large model, so that the execution of
this most important feature of the edifice might not
be impeded in the event of his death. It appears
certain that up to this date no models of his on
anything like a large intelligible scale had been
provided for S. Peter's ; and the only extant model
attributable to Michelangelo's own period is that of
the cupola. This may help to account for the fact
that, while the cupola was finished much as he
intended, the rest of his scheme suffered a thorough
and injurious remodelling.
He wrote to his nephew Lionardo on the 1 3th of
February 1557 about the impossibility of meeting
the Grand Duke's wishes and leaving Rome : 1 "I
told his Lordship that I was obliged to attend to
S. Peter's until I could leave the work there at such
a point that my plans would not be subsequently
altered. This point has not been reached ; and in
addition, I am now obliged to construct a large
wooden model for the cupola and lantern, in order
that I may secure its being finished as it was meant
to be. The whole of Rome, and especially the
Cardinal of Carpi, puts great pressure on me to do
this. Accordingly, I reckon that I shall have to
remain here not less than a year ; and so much time
I beg the Duke to allow me for the love of Christ
and S. Peter, so that I may not come home to
Florence with a pricking conscience, but a mind
easy about Rome." The model took about a year
1 Lettere, No. cccii.

THE MODEL FOR THE CUPOLA. 233
to make. It was executed by a French master
named Jean.1
All this while Michelangelo's enemies, headed by
Nanni di Baccio Bigio, continued to calumniate and
backbite. In the end they poisoned the mind of
his old friend the Cardinal of Carpi. We gather
this from a haughty letter written on the 13th of
February 1560 :2 "Messer Francesco Bandini in
formed me yesterday that your most illustrious and
reverend lordship told him that the building of S.
Peter's could not possibly go on worse than it is
doing. This has grieved me deeply, partly because
you have not been informed of the truth, and also
because I, as my duty is, desire more than all men
living that it should proceed well. Unless I am
much deceived, I think I can assure you that it
could not possibly go on better than it now is doing.
It may, however, happen that my own interests and
old age expose me to self-deception, and conse
quently expose the fabric of S. Peter's to harm or
injury against my will. I therefore intend to ask
permission on the first occasion from his Holiness
to resign my office. Or rather, to save time, I wish
to request your most illustrious and reverend lord
ship by these present to relieve me of the annoyance
to which I have been subject seventeen years, at the
orders of the Popes, working without remuneration.
It is easy enough to see what has been accomplished
by my industry during this period. I conclude by
1 Vasari, xii. 252, 253. 2 Lettere, No. cdxciii.

234 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
repeating my request that you will accept my resig
nation. You could not confer on me a more dis
tinguished favour."
Giovanni Angelo Medici, of an obscure Milanese
family, had succeeded to Paul IV. in 1559. Pius
IV. felt a true admiration for Michelangelo. He
confirmed the aged artist in his office by a brief
which granted him the fullest authority in life,
and strictly forbade any departure from his designs
for S. Peter's after death. Notwithstanding this
powerful support, Nanni di Baccio Bigio kept trying
to eject him from his post. He wrote to the Grand
Duke in 1562, arguing that Buonarroti was in his
dotage, and begging Cosimo to use his influence to
obtain the place for himself. In reply the Grand
Duke firmly told Nanni that he could not think of
doing such a thing during Michelangelo's lifetime,
but that after his death he would render what aid
was in his power.1 An incident happened in 1563
which enabled Nanni to give his enemy some real
annoyance. Michelangelo was now so old that he
-felt obliged to leave the personal superintendence of
the operations at S. Peter's to a clerk of the works.
The man employed at this time was a certain Cesare
da Castel Durante, who was murdered in August
under the following circumstances, communicated by
Tiberio Calcagni to Lionardo Buonarroti on the 14th
of that month:2 "I have only further to speak
1 Gaye, iii. p. 66.
2 Gotti, i. 321. Calcagni first mentions the murder in a letter of
August 8. See Daelli, Carte Mich. Ined., p. 39.

PIUS IV. SUPPORTS MICHELANGELO. 235
about the death of Cesare, clerk of the works, who
was found by the cook of the Bishop of Forll with
his wife. The man gave Cesare thirteen stabs
with his poignard, and four to his wife. The old
man (i.e., Michelangelo) is in much distress, seeing
that he wished to give the post to that Pier Luigi,
and has been unable to do so owing to the refusal
of the deputies." This Pier Luigi, surnamed Gaeta,
had been working since November 1 56 1 as subordi
nate to Cesare ; and we have a letter from Michel
angelo to the deputies recommending him very
warmly in that capacity.1 He was also the house-
servant and personal attendant of the old master,
running errands for him and transacting ordinary
business, like Pietro Urbano and Stefano in former
years.2 The deputies would not consent to nominate
Pier Luigi as clerk of the works. They judged him
to be too young, and were, moreover, persuaded that
Michelangelo's men injured the work at S. Peter's.
Accordingly they appointed Nanni di Baccio Bigio,
and sent in a report, inspired by him, which severely
blamed Buonarroti.3 Pius IV., after the receipt of
this report, had an interview with Michelangelo,
which ended in his sending his own relative, Gabrio
Serbelloni, to inspect the works at S. Peter's.4 It
1 Lettere, No. cdxciv. It is the last of the Lettere a Diversi.
2 See a curious story about his being put into prison on a charge
of robbery when Michelangelo sent him to change six old ducats.
Daelli, op. cit, p. 38.
3 See Tiberio Calcagni's letter of September 2, 1563. Gotti, i. 321.
1 Tib. Calcagni, in Daelli, op. cit. p. 40.

236 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
was decided that Nanni had been calumniating the
great old man. Accordingly he was dismissed with
indignity.1 Immediately after the death of Michel
angelo, however, Nanni renewed his applications to
the Grand Duke. He claimed nothing less than
the post of architect-in-chief. His petition was sent
to Florence under cover of a despatch from the Duke's
envoy, Averardo Serristori. The ambassador related
the events of Michelangelo's death, and supported
Nanni as "a worthy man, your vassal and true
servant." 2

IX.
Down to the last days of his life, Michelangelo
was thus worried with the jealousies excited by his
superintendence of the building at S. Peter's ; and
when he passed to the majority, he had not secured
his heart's desire, to wit, that the fabric should be
forced to retain the form he had designed for it.
This was his own fault. Popes might issue briefs
to the effect that his plans should be followed ; but
when it was discovered that, during his lifetime, he
kept the builders in ignorance of his intentions, and
that he left no working models fit for use, except
in the case of the cupola, a free course was opened
for every kind of innovation. So it came to pass
that subsequent architects changed the essential
1 Vasari, xii. 267, 268. 2 Gaye, iii. 127-129.

ALTERATIONS IN PLAN OF S. PETER'S. 237
features of his design by adding what might be
called a nave, or, in other words, by substituting the
Latin for the Greek cross in the ground-plan. He
intended to front the mass of the edifice with a
majestic colonnade, giving externally to one limb
of the Greek cross a rectangular salience corre
sponding to its three semicircular apses. From this
decastyle colonnade projected a tetrastyle portico,
which introduced the people ascending from a flight
of steps to a gigantic portal. The portal opened on
the church, and all the glory of the dome was visible
when they approached the sanctuary. Externally,
according to his conception, the cupola dominated
and crowned the edifice when viewed from a
moderate or a greater distance. The cupola was
the integral and vital feature, of the structure. By
producing one limb of the cross into a nave, destroy
ing the colonnade and portico, and erecting a huge
facade of barocco design, his followers threw the
interior effect of the cupola into a subordinate
position, and externally crushed it out of view,
except at a great distance.1 In like manner they
dealt with every particular of his plan. As an old
writer has remarked : " The cross which Michel
angelo made Greek is now Latin ; and if it be thus
with the essential form, judge ye of the details ! "
It was not exactly their fault, but rather that of the
master, who chose to work by drawings and small
1 Harford's Illustrations, plate 7, supply a fair basis for the com
parison of the original design and the existing church.

238 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
clay models, from which no accurate conception of
his thought could be derived by lesser craftsmen.
We cannot, therefore, regard S. Peter's in its pre
sent state as the creation of Buonarroti's genius.
As a building, it is open to criticism at every point.
In spite of its richness and overwhelming size, no
architect of merit gives it approbation. It is vast
without being really great, magnificent without
touching the heart, proudly but not harmoniously
ordered. The one redeeming feature in the struc
ture is the cupola ; and that is the one thing which
Michelangelo bequeathed to the intelligence of his
successors. The curve which it describes finds no
phrase of language to express its grace. It is neither
ellipse nor parabola nor section of the circle, but an
inspiration of creative fancy. It outsoars in vital
force, in elegance of form, the dome of the Pantheon
and the dome of Brunelleschi, upon which it was
actually modelled. As a French architect, adverse
to Michelangelo, has remarked : a " This portion is
simple, noble, grand. It is an unparalleled idea,
and the author of this marvellous cupola had the
right to be proud of the thought which controlled
his pencil when he traced it." An English critic,
no less adverse to the Italian style, is forced to

1 L'CEuvre et la Vie, p. 200. M. Garnier, however, calls attention to
his belief that the curve of the cupola, as it now exists, is really due to
Giacomo della Porta's divergence from the model. Ibid., p. 202. It
will be seen by the sections published in Dr. Josef Durm's book, quoted
below, that M. Garnier is in error.

,THE CUPOLA. 239
admit that architecture "has seldom produced a
more magnificent object" than the cupola, "if its
bad connection with the building is overlooked." 1
He also adds that, internally, "the sublime con
cave" of this immense dome is the one redeeming
feature of S. Peter's.
Michelangelo's reputation, not only as an imagi
native builder, but also as a practical engineer in
architecture, depends in a very large measure upon
the cupola of S. Peter's. It is, therefore, of great
importance to ascertain exactly how far the dome in
its present form belongs to his conception. Fortun
ately for his reputation, we still possess the wooden
model constructed under his inspection by a man
called Giovanni Franzese. It shows that subsequent
architects, especially Giacomo della Porta, upon
whom the task fell of raising the vaults and lantern
from the point where Michelangelo left the building,
that is, from the summit of the drum, departed in
no essential particular from his design. Della Porta
omitted one feature, however, of Michelangelo's plan,
which would have added greatly to the dignity and
elegance of the exterior. The model shows that
the entablature of the drum broke into projections
above each of the buttresses. Upon these projec
tions or consoles Buonarroti intended to place
statues of saints. He also connected their pedestals
with the spring - of the vault by a series of inverted
1 Encyclopaedia Britannica, 9th edition : Art. " Architecture," vol. ii.
P- 483-

240 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
curves sweeping upwards along the height of the
shallow attic. The omission of these details not
only weakened the support given to the arches of
the dome, but it also lent a stilted effect to the
cupola by abruptly separating the perpendicular
lines of the drum and attic from the segment
of the vaulting. This is an error which could
even now be repaired, if any enterprising Pope
undertook to complete the plan of the model. It
may, indeed, be questioned whether the omission
was not due to the difficulty of getting so many
colossal statues adequately finished at a period
when the fabric still remained imperfect in more
essential parts.
Vasari, who lived in close intimacy with Michel
angelo, and undoubtedly was familiar with the model,
gives a confused but very minute description of the
building. It is clear from this that the dome was
designed with two shells, both of which were to be
made of carefully selected bricks, the space between
them being applied to the purpose of an interior
staircase. The dormer windows in the outer sheath
not only broke the surface of the vault, but also
served to light this passage to the lantern. Vasari's
description squares with the model, now preserved
in a chamber of the Vatican basilica, and also with
the present fabric.
It would not have been necessary to dwell at
greater length upon the vaulting here but for diffi
culties which still surround the criticism of this salient

QUESTION OF CUPOLA'S CONSTRUCTION. 241
feature of S. Peter's. Gotti published two plans of
the cupola, which were made for him, he says, from
accurate measurements of the model taken by Cava-
liere Cesare Castelli, Lieut.-Col. of Engineers.1 The
section drawing shows three shells instead of two, the
innermost or lowest being flattened out like the vault
of the Pantheon. Professor Josef Durm, in his essay
upon the Domes of Florence and S. Peter's, gives a
minute description of the model for the latter, and
prints a carefully executed copperplate engraving of its
section.2 It is clear from this work that at some time or
other a third semi-spherical vault, corresponding to that
of the Pantheon, had been contemplated. This would
have been structurally of no value, and would have
masked the two upper shells, which at present crown
the edifice. The model shows that the dome itself
was from the first intended to be composed of two
solid vaults of masonry, in the space between which
ran the staircase leading to the lantern. The lower
and flatter shell, which appears also in the model,
had no connection with the substantial portions of
the edifice. It was an addition, perhaps an after
thought, designed possibly to serve as a ground
for surface-decoration, or to provide an alternative
scheme for the completion of the dome. Had
Michelangelo really planned this innermost sheath,
we could not credit him with the soaring sweep
1 Gotti, ii. p. 136.
2 Die Dom Kuppel in Florenz und die Kuppel der Petruskirche in Rom.
Berlin : Ernst and Korn, 1887.
VOL. 11. Q

242 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
upwards of the mighty dome, its height and
lightness, luminosity and space. The roof that
met the eye internally would have been considerably
lower and tamer, superfluous in the construction of
the church, and bearing no right relation to the ex
ternal curves of the vaulting. There would, more
over, have been a long dark funnel leading to the
lantern. Heath Wilson would then have been justi
fied in certain critical conclusions which may here be
stated in his own words.1 " According to Michel
angelo's idea, the cupola was formed of three vaults
over each other. Apparently the inner one was in
tended to repeat the curves of the Pantheon, whilst
the outer one was destined to give height and majesty
to the building externally. The central vault, more
pyramidal in form, was constructed to bear the weight
of the lantern, and approached in form the dome of
the Cathedral at Florence by Brunelleschi. Judging
by the model, he meant the outer dome to be of
wood, thus anticipating the construction of Sir
Christopher Wren." 2 Farther on, he adds that the
architects who carried out the work " omitted en
tirely the inner lower vault, evidently to give
height internally, and made the external cupola
of brick as well as the internal ; and, to prevent
1 Heath Wilson, pp. 531-533.
2 This is in abrupt collision with what Vasari says : " Alle due volte
della cupola ; " "da ordine ch' ella si muri tutta di mattoni ; " " Lascia
accanto un vano, il quale ha a servire per la salita delle scale," Vasari,
xii. 256, 257. It is clear throughout that Vasari only knew of two
shells, both to be of brick.

IMPERFECTION OF GREAT ART WORKS. 243
it expanding, had recourse to encircling chains of
iron, which bind it at the weakest parts of the
curve." These chains, it may be mentioned paren
thetically, were strengthened by Poleni, after the
lapse of some years, when the second of the two
shells showed some signs of cracking.1
From Dr. Durm's minute description of the cupola,
there seems to be no doubt about the existence of this
third vault in Michelangelo's wooden model. He
says that the two outer shells are carved out of one
piece of wood, while the third or innermost is made
of another piece, which has been inserted. The sunk
or hollow compartments, which form the laquear of
this depressed vault, differ considerably in shape and
arrangement from those which were adopted when it
was finally rejected. The question now remains,
whether the semi-spherical shell was abandoned dur
ing Michelangelo's lifetime and with his approval.
There is good reason to believe that this may have
been the case : first, because the tambour, which he
executed, differs from the model in the arching of its
windows ; secondly, because Fontana and other early
writers on the cupola insist strongly on the fact that
Michelangelo's own plans were strictly followed,
although they never allude to the third or innermost
vault. It is almost incredible that if Delia Porta
departed in so vital a point from Michelangelo's
design, no notice should have been taken of the fact.
1 Memorie Istoriche della Gran Cupola del Tempio Vaticano, &c.
Giovanni Poleni. In Padova, 1 747.

244 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
On the other hand, the tradition that Della Porta
improved the curve of the cupola by making the
spring upward from the attic more abrupt, is due
probably to the discrepancy between the internal
aspects of the model and the dome itself. The actual
truth is that the cupola in its curve and its dimen
sions corresponds accurately to the proportions of
the double outer vaulting of the model.
Taking, then, Vasari's statement in conjunction
with the silence of Fontana, Poleni, and other early
writers, and duly observing the care with which the
proportions of the dome have been preserved, I think
we may safely conclude that Michelanglo himself
abandoned the third or semi-spherical vault, and that
the cupola, as it exists, ought to be ascribed entirely
to his conception. It is, in fact, the only portion of
the basilica which remains as he designed it.

CHAPTER XIV.
To arrange Michelangelo's doings in the last twenty years of his life
chronologically is almost impossible. — The reconstruction of the
Capitol. — Michelangelo provides the general design. — Its partial
execution. — Plans for the Church of S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini at
Rome. — Tiberio Calcagni. — The help he gave to Michelangelo at
this period, and the charm of his personality. — The bust of Brutus.
— 2. Correspondence with Vasari and Ammanati about the com
pletion of the Laurentian Library. — Michelangelo's defective
method of building without working plans prepared beforehand.
— The Porta Pia, and designs for other gates in Rome. S. Maria
degli Angeli, or the Baths of Diocletian, remodelled. — Catherine
de' Medici, Queen-mother of France, requests the drawing for an
equestrian statue to her late husband, Henri II. — Daniele da
Volterra is to execute it in bronze. — History of its failure. — 3.
Leone Leoni's medal of Michelangelo. — The original wax model
in Mr. Fortnum's collection. — Critique of Michelangelo's portraits
in oils by Bugiardini, in fresco by Daniele da Volterra, in bronze
by the same master, in painting by Venusti, in engraving by
Bonasoni. — Details illustrating the existing copies of Volterra's
bronze head. — 4. Correspondence with Lionardo Buonarroti. —
Projects for his marriage. — Advice upon the choice of a wife. —
Purchase of a house in Florence and lands outside it. — Lionardo's
abominable handwriting. — Death of Gian Simone. — 5. Corre
spondence with Varchi about the rival claims of sculpture and
painting, also concerning his discourse on Buonarroti's poems. —
Cellini's portrait of Bindo Altoviti. — 6. Lionardo's marriage to
Cassandra Ridolfi. — Michelangelo's joy in the thought that his
family will now be propagated. — Birth of a male heir, Buonarroto.
— Michelangelo's reflections on the christening. — Intimate rela
tions with Vasari. —The Duke of Florence sends Cellini as an
envoy to Rome, in hopes of bringing Michelangelo back to his
native city. — Michelangelo refuses to leave S. Peter's, and keeps
the good grace of the Medicean princes. — Vasari, the Duke, and

246 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
the Prince of Florence visit him in Rome.— 7. Gismondo Buon
arroti's illness and death.— Urbino, Michelangelo's old friend and
servant, falls ill and dies. — His acute grief on this occasion.—
Letters and a sonnet.— His trusteeship of Urbino's widow and
children.— The details of this trust.— 8. A journey to Loreto.—
Rome menaced by the troops of Spain under the Duke of Alva. —
Michelangelo in the mountains of Spoleto. — Letters from the
Bishop of Ragusa.— 9. Michelangelo's physical afflictions in old
age. — Dysuria and calculus. — Preparations for death. — Meditates
a will. — Poems written with the thought of death before him.
— His mode of life in Rome. — Natural anxiety on the part of his
friends. — His suspicions. — 10. Instances of his irritable temper and
rough treatment of friends.

There is great difficulty in dealing chronologically
with the last twenty years of Michelangelo's life.
This is due in some measure to the multiplicity of
his engagements, but more to the tardy rate at
which his work, now almost wholly architectural,
advanced. I therefore judged it best to carry the
history of his doings at S. Peter's down to the
latest date ; and I shall take the same course now
with regard to the lesser schemes which occupied his
mind between 1545 and 1564, reserving for the last
the treatment of his private life during this period.
A society of gentlemen and artists, to which Buon
arroti belonged, conceived the plan of erecting
buildings of suitable size and grandeur on the
Campidoglio. This hill had always been dear to
the Romans, as the central point of urban life since
the foundation of their city, through the days of the
Republic and the Empire, down to the latest Middle

THE CAPITOL. 247
Ages. But it was distinguished only by its ancient
name and fame. No splendid edifices and majestic
squares reminded the spectator that here once stood
the shrine of Jupiter Capitolinus, to which conquer
ing generals rode in triumph with the spoils and
captives of the habitable world behind their laurelled
chariots. Paul III. approved of the design, and
Michelangelo, who had received the citizenship of
Rome on March 20, 1546, undertook to provide a
scheme for its accomplishment. We are justified in
believing that the disposition of the parts which now
compose the Capitol is due to his conception : the
long steep flight of steps leading up from the Piazza
Araceli ; the irregular open square, flanked on the
left hand by the Museum of Sculpture, on the right
by the Palazzo dei Conservatori, and closed at its far
ther end by the Palazzo del Senatore. He also placed
the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
on its noble pedestal, and suggested the introduc
tion of other antique specimens of sculpture into
various portions of the architectural plan. «• The
splendid double staircase leading to the entrance
hall of the Palazzo del Senatore, and part of the
Palazzo dei Conservatori, were completed during
Michelangelo's lifetime. When Vasari wrote in 1 568,
the dead sculptor's friend, Tommaso dei Cavalieri,
was proceeding with the work.1 There is every
reason, therefore, to assume that the latter build
ing, at any rate, fairly corresponds to his intention.
1 Vasari, xii. p. 230.

248 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
Vignola and Giacomo della Porta, both of them
excellent architects, carried out the scheme, which
must have been nearly finished in the pontificate
of Innocent X. (1644-1655).1
Like the cupola of S. Peter's, the campidoglio
has always been regarded as one of Michelangelo's
most meritorious performances in architecture. His
severe critic, M. Charles Garnier, says of the
Capitol:2 "The general composition of the edifice
is certainly worthy of Buonarroti's powerful concep
tion. The balustrade which crowns the facade is
indeed bad and vulgar ; the great pilasters are very
poor in invention, and the windows of the first
story are extremely mediocre in style. Neverthe
less, there is a great simplicity of lines in these
palaces ; and the porticoes of the ground-floor
might be selected for the beauty of their leading
motive. The opposition of the great pilasters to the
little columns is an idea at once felicitous and
original. The whole has a fine effect ; and though
I hold the proportions of the ground-floor too low
in relation to the first story, I consider this facade
of the Capitol not only one of Michelangelo's best
works, but also one of the best specimens of the
building of that period. Deduction must, of course,
be made for heaviness and improprieties of taste,
which are not rare."
1 The two side palaces correspond in their general design ; but the
facade of the Palazzo del Senatore has been wholly remodelled.
2 L'CEuvre et la Vie, p. 198.

THE CHURCH OF THE FLORENTINES. 249
Next to these designs for the Capitol, the most
important architectural work of Michelangelo's old
age was the plan he made of a new church to be
erected by the Florentines in Rome to the honour
of their patron, S. Giovanni. We find him writing
to his nephew on the 15th of July 1 559 : x "The
Florentines are minded to erect a great edifice — that
is to say, their church ; and all of them with one
accord put pressure on me to attend to this. I have
answered that I am living here by the Duke's per
mission for the fabric of S. Peter's, and that unless
he gives me leave, they can get nothing from me."
The consul and counsellors of the Florentine nation
in Rome wrote upon this to the Duke, who entered
with enthusiasm into their scheme, not only sending
a favourable reply, but also communicating personally
upon the subject with Buonarroti.2 Three of Michel
angelo's letters on the subject to the Duke have been
preserved.3 After giving a short history of the pro
ject, and alluding to the fact that Leo X. began the
church, he says that the Florentines had appointed
a building committee of five men, at whose request
he made several designs. One of these they selected,
and according to his own opinion it was the best.
" This I will have copied and drawn out more clearly

1 Lettere, No. cccxiv.
2 See the correspondence of October 19 to December 22, 1559, in
Gaye, iii. 16-23.
3 Lettere, No. cdlxxxvii.-ix., November 1, 1559 ; March 5, April 25,
1560.

250 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
than I have been able to do it, on account of old age,
and will send it to your Most Illustrious Lordship."
The drawings were executed and carried to Florence
by the hand of Tiberio Calcagni.1 Vasari, who has
given a long account of this design, says that Calcagni
not only drew the plans, but that he also completed
a clay model of the whole church within the space
of two days, from which the Florentines caused a
larger wooden model to be constructed.2 Michel
angelo must have been satisfied with his conception,
for he told the building-committee that "if they
carried it out, neither the Romans nor the Greeks
ever erected so fine an edifice in any of their temples.
Words the like of which neither before nor after
wards issued from his lips ; for he was exceedingly
modest." Vasari, who had good opportunities for
studying the model, pronounced it to be " superior
in beauty, richness and variety of invention to any
temple which was ever seen." The building was
begun, and 5000 crowns were spent upon it. Then
money or will failed. The model and drawings
perished.3 Nothing remains for certain to show
what Michelangelo's intentions were. The pre-

1 The only letter of Calcagni's to Michelangelo preserved in the Arch.
Buon. (Cod. vii. No. 130, date Pisa, April 8, 1560) refers to these draw
ings, which, he says, have given great satisfaction to the Duke. It is
written in a beautiful clear hand, and breathes a charming spirit of
affection and modesty.
2 Vasari, xii. 263-265.
3 Some designs for architecture have been connected with this church.
But their critique is uncertain.

THE BRUTUS AND CALCAGNI. 251
sent church of S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini in Strada
Giulia is the work of Giacomo della Porta, with a
facade by Alessandro Galilei.
Of Tiberio Calcagni, the young Florentine sculptor
and architect, who acted like a kind of secretary or
clerk to Michelangelo, something may here be said.
The correspondence of this artist with Lionardo
Buonarroti shows him to have been what Vasari
calls him, " of gentle manners and discreet be
haviour." 1 He felt both veneration and attach
ment for the aged master, and was one of the small
group of intimate friends who cheered his last years.
We have seen that Michelangelo consigned the
shattered Piet& to his care ; and Vasari tells us that
he also wished him to complete the bust of Brutus,
which had been begun, at Donato Giannotti's re
quest, for the Cardinal Ridolfi.2 This bust is said
to have been modelled from an ancient cornelian
in the possession of a certain Giuliano Ceserino.
Michelangelo not only blocked the marble out, but
brought it nearly to completion, working the surface
with very fine-toothed chisels. The sweetness of
Tiberio Calcagni' s nature is proved by the fact that
he would not set his own hand to this masterpiece
of sculpture. As in the case of the Piet&, he left
Buonarroti's work untouched, where mere repairs
were not required. Accordingly we still can trace
1 Several of his letters are reproduced in Daelli's Carte Mich.
Inedite. See above, p. 250, note, for a reference to the only letter written
by him to his master.
2 Vasari, xii. 264.

252 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
the fine-toothed marks of the chisel alluded to by
Vasari, hatched and cross-hatched with right and
left handed strokes in the style peculiar to Michel
angelo. The Brutus remains one of the finest
specimens of his creative genius. It must have
been conceived and executed in the plenitude of
his vigour, probably at the time when Florence
fell beneath the yoke of Alessandro de' Medici, or
rather when his murderer Lorenzino gained the
name of Brutus from the exiles (1539). Though
Vasari may be right in saying that a Roman intaglio
suggested the stamp of face and feature, yet we must
regard this Brutus as an ideal portrait, intended to
express the artist's conception of resolution and un
compromising energy in a patriot eager to sacrifice
personal feelings and to dare the utmost for his
country's welfare. Nothing can exceed the spirit
with which a violent temperament, habitually re
pressed, but capable of leaping forth like sudden
lightning, has been rendered. We must be grateful
to Calcagni for leaving it in its suggestively un
finished state.1
1 The Brutus stands now in one of the halls of the Palazzo Bargello
at Florence. On its pedestal is inscribed a distich, which has been
erroneously attributed to Bembo : —
Dura Bruto effigiem sculptor de marmore ducit,
In mentem sceleris venit et abstinuit.
The Earl of Sandwich altered the sentiment thus : —
Brutum efiecisset sculptor ; sed mente recursat
Tanta viri virtus : sistit et abstinuit.

LAURENTIAN LIBRARY AGAIN. 253

II.
During these same years Michelangelo carried
on a correspondence with Ammanati and Vasari
about the completion of the Laurentian Library.1
His letters illustrate what I have more than once
observed regarding his unpractical method of
commencing great works, without more than the
roughest sketches, intelligible to himself alone, and
useless to an ordinary craftsman. The Florentine
artists employed upon the fabric wanted very much
to know how he meant to introduce the grand stair
case into the vestibule. Michelangelo had forgotten
all about it. " With regard to the staircase of the
library, about which so much has been said to me,
you may believe that if I could remember how I
had arranged it, I should not need to be begged
and prayed for information. There comes into my
mind, as in a dream, the image of a certain stair
case ; but I do not think this can be the one I then
designed, for it seems so stupid. However, I will
describe it." Later on he sends a little clay model
of a staircase, just enough to indicate his general
conception, but not to determine details. He
suggests that the work would look better if carried
out in walnut. We have every reason to suppose
that the present stone flight of steps is far from
being representative of his idea.
1 Lettere, Nos. cdlxxxv., cdlxxxvi.

254 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
He was now too old to do more than furnish
drawings when asked to design some monument.
Accordingly, when Pius IV. resolved to erect a
tomb in Milan Cathedral to the memory of his
brother, Giangiacomo de' Medici, Marquis of Mar-
ignano, commonly called II Medeghino, he requested
Michelangelo to supply the bronze-sculptor Leone
Leoni of Menaggio with a design.1 This must have
been insufficient for the sculptor's purpose — a mere
hand-sketch not drawn to scale. The monument,
though imposing in general effect, is very defective
in its details and proportions. The architectural
scheme has not been comprehended by the sculptor,
who enriched it with a great variety of figures,
excellently wrought in bronze, and faintly suggest
ing Michelangelo's manner.
The grotesque barocco style of the Porta Pia,
strong in its total outline, but whimsical and weak
in decorative detail, may probably be ascribed to
the same cause.2 It was sketched out by Michel
angelo during the pontificate of Pius IV., and can
hardly have been erected under his personal super
vision. Vasari says : 3 " He made three sketches,
extravagant in style and most beautiful, of which
1 This man is always called " II Cavaliere Aretino." But he was a
native of Menaggio on the Lake of Como, and for this reason was well
chosen to execute the great pirate's tomb.
2 I allude to the design, an engraving of which will be found in
L'CEuvre et la Vie, p. 201. In its present state the only part of the
gate which can be referred to Michelangelo is the noble portal with the
bold architrave.
3 Vasari, xii. 263.

GATES OF ROME: S. MARIA DEGLI ANGELI. 255
the Pope selected the least costly ; this was executed
much to his credit, as may now be seen." To what
extent he was responsible for the other sixteenth-
century gates of Rome, including the Porta del
Popolo, which is commonly ascribed to him, cannot
be determined ; though Vasari asserts that Michel
angelo supplied the Pope with " many other
models" for the restoration of the gates. Indeed
it may be said of all his later work that we are
dealing with uncertain material, the original idea
emanating perhaps from Buonarroti's mind, but the
execution having devolved upon journeymen.
Pius IV. charged Michelangelo with another
great undertaking, which was the restoration of
the Baths of Diocletian in the form of a Christian
church. Criticism is reduced to silence upon his
work in this place, because S. Maria degli Angeli
underwent a complete remodelling by the architect
Vanvitelli in 1749. This man altered the ground-
plan from the Latin to the Greek type, and adopted
the decorative style in vogue at the beginning of
the eighteenth century. All that appears certain
is that Michelangelo had very considerable remains
of the Roman building to make use of. We may
also perhaps credit tradition, when it tells us that
the vast Carthusian cloister belongs to him, and
that the three great cypress-trees were planted by
his hand.
Henri the Second's death occurred in 1559; and
his widow, Catherine de' Medici, resolved to erect an

256 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
equestrian statue to his memory. She bethought
her of the aged sculptor, who had been bred in the
palace of her great-grandfather, who had served
two Pontiffs of her family, and who had placed the
mournful image of her father on the tomb at
San Lorenzo. Accordingly she wrote a letter on
the 14th of November in that year, informing
Michelangelo of her intention, and begging him
to supply at least a design upon which the best
masters in the realm of France might work.1 The
statue was destined for the courtyard of the royal
chateau at Blois, and was to be in bronze. Ruberto
degli Strozzi, the Queen's cousin, happened about
this time to visit Rome. Michelangelo having
agreed to furnish a sketch, it was decided between
them that the execution should be assigned to
Daniele da Volterra. After nearly a year's interval,
Catherine wrote again, informing Michelangelo that
she had deposited a sum of 6000 golden crowns
at the bank of Gianbattista Gondi for the work,
adding : 2 " Consequently, since on my side nothing
remains to be done, I entreat you by the affection
you have always shown to my family, to our
Florence, and lastly to art, that you will use all
diligence and assiduity, so far as your years permit,
in pushing forward this noble work, and making
it a living likeness of my lord, as well as worthy
of your own unrivalled genius. It is true that this
will add nothing to the fame you now enjoy ; yet
1 Gotti, i. 349. 2 Gotti, i. 351.

THE STATUE OF HENRI II. 257
it will at least augment your reputation for most
acceptable and affectionate devotion toward myself
and my ancestors, and prolong through centuries
the memory of my lawful and sole love ; for the
which I shall be eager and liberal to reward you."
It is probable that by this time (October 30, 1560)
Michelangelo had forwarded his sketch to France,
for the Queen criticised some details relating to the
portrait of her husband. She may have remembered
with what idealistic freedom the statues of the
Dukes of Nemours and Urbino had been treated
in the Medicean Sacristy. Anyhow, she sent a pic
ture, and made her agent, Baccio del Bene, write a
postscript to her letter, ordering Michelangelo to
model the King's head without curls, and to adopt
the rich modern style for his armour and the trap
pings of his charger. She particularly insisted upon
the likeness being carefully brought out.1
Michelangelo died before the equestrian statue
of Henri II. was finished. Cellini, in his Memoirs,
relates that Daniele da Volterra worked slowly, and
caused much annoyance to the Queen-mother of
France. In 1562 her agent, Baccio del Bene, came
to Florence on financial business with the Duke.
He then proposed that Cellini should return to Paris
and undertake the ornamental details of the tomb.

1 See Gotti, ii. 145. The first of Catherine's letters is dated Blois,
November 18, 1559. The second, Orleans, October 30, 1560. Both
written by a secretary, and signed by the Queen-mother. Del Bene's
letter bears the latter date. Arch. Buon., Cod. vii. Nos. 139, 140, 155.
VOL. II. E

258 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
The Duke would not consent, and Catherine de'
Medici did not choose to quarrel with her cousin
about an artist.1 So this arrangement, which might
have secured the completion of the statue on a
splendid scale, fell through. When Daniele died
in 1566, only the horse was cast;2 and this part
served finally for Biard's statue of Louis XIII.

III.
The sculptor Leone Leoni, who was employed
upon the statue of Giangiacomo de' Medici in
Milan, wrote frequently to Michelangelo, showing
by his letters that a warm friendship subsisted
between them, which was also shared by Tommaso
Cavalieri. In the year 1560, according to Vasari,
Leoni modelled a profile portrait of the great master,
which he afterwards cast in medal form.3 This is
almost the most interesting, and it is probably the
most genuine contemporary record which we possess
regarding Michelangelo's appearance in the body.
I may therefore take it as my basis for inquiring
into the relative value of the many portraits said
to have been modelled, painted, or sketched from
1 Memoirs, lib. ii. cap. cxii.
2 See Vasari's Life of Daniele da Volterra, xii. 100.
3 This date is determined by Vasari's saying that the medal was
made in the year of Giovanni de' Medici's visit to Rome to receive the
Cardinal's hat. It is confirmed by a letter of Leoni's I shall quote
below.

LEONI'S MEDAL OF MICHELANGELO. 259
the hero in his lifetime. So far as I am hitherto
aware, no claim has been put in for the authen
ticity of any likeness, except Bonasoni's engraving,
anterior to the date we have arrived at. While
making this statement, I pass over the prostrate
old man in the Victory, and the Nicodemus of the
Florentine Pietk, both of which, with more or less
reason, have been accepted as efforts after self-
portraiture. After making due allowance for Vasari's too
notorious inaccuracies, deliberate misstatements, and
random jumpings at conclusions, we have the right
to accept him here as a first-rate authority. He was
living at this time in close intimacy with Buonarroti,
enjoyed his confidence, plumed himself upon their
friendship, and had no reason to distort truth, which
must have been accessible to one in his position.
He says, then i1 "At this time the Cavaliere Leoni
made a very lively portrait of Michelangelo upon a
medal, and to meet his wishes, modelled on the
reverse a blind man led by a dog, with this legend
round the rim : Docebo iniquos vias tuas, et imph
ad te convertentur. It pleased Michelangelo so
much that he gave him a wax model of a Hercules
throttling Antseus, by his own hand, together with
some drawings. Of Michelangelo there exist no
other portraits, except two in painting — one by
Bugiardini, the other by Jacopo del Conte ; and
one in bronze, in full relief, made by Daniele da
1 Vasari, xii. 260.

260 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
Volterra : these, and Leoni's medal, from which (in
the plural) many copies have been made, and a great
number of them have been seen by me in several
parts of Italy and abroad."
Leoni's medal, on the obverse, shows the old
artist's head in profile, with strong lines of drapery
rising to the neck and gathering around the shoulders.
It carries this legend : Michelangelus Buonar-
rotus, Flo. R. A.E.T.S. 88, and is signed Leo.
Leoni then assumed that Michelangelo was eighty-
eight years of age when he cast the die. But if
this was done in 1560, the age he had then attained
was eighty-five. We possess a letter from Leoni in
Milan to Buonarroti in Rome, dated March 14, 1561.1
In it he says: "I am sending to your lordship, by
the favour of Lord Carlo Visconti, a great man in
this city, and beloved by his Holiness, four medals
of your portrait : two in silver, and two in bronze.
I should have done so earlier but for my occupation
with the monument (of Medeghino), and for the
certainty I feel that you will excuse my tardiness,
if not a sin of ingratitude in me. The one enclosed
within the little box has been worked up to the
finest polish. I beg you to accept and keep this for
the love of me. With the other three you will do
as you think best. I say this because ambition has
prompted me to send copies into Spain and Flanders,
as I have also done to Rome and other places. I
call it ambition, forasmuch as I have gained an over-
1 Gotti, i. 346.

LEONI'S WAX CAMEO. 261
plus of benefits by acquiring the goodwill of your
lordship, whom I esteem so highly.1 Have I not
received in little less than three months two letters
written to me by you, divine man ; and couched not
in terms fit for a servant of good heart and will, but
for one beloved as a son'? I pray you to go on
loving me, and when occasion serves, to favour me ;
and to Signor Tomao dei Cavalieri say that I shall
never be unmindful of him."
It is clear, then, I think, that Leoni's model was
made at Rome in 1560, cast at Milan, and sent
early in the spring of 1561 to Michelangelo. The
wide distribution of the medals, two of which exist
still in silver,2 while several in bronze may be found
in different collections, is accounted for by what
Leoni says about his having given them away to
various parts of Europe. We are bound to suppose
that aet. 88 in the legend on the obverse is due to
a misconception concerning Michelangelo's age. Old
men are often ignorant or careless about the exact
tale of years they have performed.
There is reason to believe that Leoni's original
model of the profile, the likeness he shaped from life,
and which he afterwards used for the medallion, is
extant and in excellent preservation. Mr. C. Drury
E. Fortnum (to whose monographs upon Michel
angelo's portraits, kindly communicated by himself,
1 Leoni means to intimate that he was acquiring fame by the dif
fusion of these portraits.
2 One at Florence, the other at South Kensington.

262 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
I am deeply indebted at this portion of my work),
tells us how he came into possession of an exquisite
cameo, in flesh-coloured wax upon a black oval
ground.1 This fragile work of art is framed in gilt
metal and glazed, carrying upon its back an Italian
inscription, which may be translated : " Portrait of
Michelangiolo Buonarroti, taken from the life, by
Leone Aretino, his friend." Comparing the relief
in wax with the medal, we cannot doubt that both
represent the same man ; and only cavillers will raise
the question whether both were fashioned by one
hand. Such discrepancies as occur between them
are just what we should expect in the work of a
craftsman who sought first to obtain an accurate
likeness of his subject, and then treated the same
subject on the lines of numismatic art.2 The wax
shows a lean and subtly moulded face — the face of
a delicate old man, wiry and worn with years of deep
experience. The hair on head and beard is singu
larly natural ; one feels it to be characteristic of the
person. Transferring this portrait to bronze necessi
tated a general broadening of the masses, with a
coarsening of outline to obtain bold relief. Some-
1 " On the Original Portrait of Michelangelo, by Leo Leone," a paper
published in the Archaeological Journal (vol. xxxii.) ; " On the Bronze
Portrait Busts of Michelangelo, etc.," published later in the same
journal. I shall refer to these essays respectively as Fortnum i and
Fortnum 2.
2 If we possessed the original model Cellini made for his medal of
Bembo, and were able to compare it with the bronze, I believe we
should observe the same qualities of realism in the former, and of
numismatic style in the latter.

THE WAX AND BRONZE MEDALLIONS. 263
thing of the purest truth has been sacrificed to plastic
effect by thickening the shrunken throat ; and this
induced a corresponding enlargement of the occiput
for balance. Writing with photographs of these two
models before me, I feel convinced that in the wax we
have a portrait from the life of the aged Buonarroti
as Leoni knew him, and in the bronze a handling of
that portrait as the craftsman felt his art of metal-
work required its execution. There was a grand
manner of medallion-portraiture in Italy, deriving
from the times of Pisanello ; and Leoni's bronze is
worthy of that excellent tradition. He preserved
the salient features of Buonarroti in old age. But
having to send down to posterity a monumental
record of the man, he added, insensibly or wilfully,
both bulk and mass to the head he had so keenly
studied. What confirms me in the opinion that
Mr. Fortnum's cameo is the most veracious portrait
we possess of Michelangelo in old age, is that its
fragility of structure, the tenuity of life vigorous but
infinitely refined, reappears in the weak drawing
made by Francesco d'Olanda of Buonarroti in hat
and mantle.1 This is a comparatively poor and
dreamy sketch. Yet it has an air of veracity ; and
what the Flemish painter seized in the divine man
he so much admired, was a certain slender grace
and dignity of person — exactly the quality which
Mr. Fortnum's cameo possesses.
1 Reproduced in Yriarte's Florence, p. 295 (French edition ; p. 280
English edition).

264 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
Before leaving this interesting subject, I ought
to add that the blind man on the reverse of Leoni's
medal is clearly a rough and ready sketch of Michel
angelo, not treated like a portrait, but with in
dications sufficient to connect the figure with the
highly wrought profile on the obverse.
Returning now to the passage cited from Vasari,
we find that he reckons only two authentic portraits
in painting of Michelangelo, one by Bugiardini, the
other by Jacopo del Conte. He has neglected to
mention two which are undoubtedly attempts to
reproduce the features of the master by scholars he
had formed. Probably Vasari overlooked them,
because they did not exist as easel-pictures, but
were introduced into great compositions as sub
ordinate adjuncts. One of them is the head painted
by Daniele da Volterra in his picture of the Assump
tion at the church of the Trinita de' Monti in Rome.
It belongs to an apostle, draped in red, stretching arms
aloft, close to a column, on the right hand of the
painting as we look at it. This must be reckoned
among the genuine likenesses of the great man by
one who lived with him and knew him intimately.
The other is a portrait placed by Marcello Venusti in
the left-hand corner of his copy of the Last Judgment,
executed, under Michelangelo's direction, for the
Cardinal Farnese.1 It has value for the same reasons
as those which make us dwell upon Daniele da
Volterra' s picture. Moreover, it connects itself with
1 Now in the Picture Gallery at Naples.

PORTRAITS IN OIL. 265
a series of easel-paintings. One of these, ascribed
to Venusti, is preserved in the Museo Buonarroti at
Florence ; another at the Capitol in Rome. Several
repetitions of this type exist : they look like studies
taken by the pupil from his master, and reproduced
to order when death closed the scene, making friends
wish for mementoes of the genius who had passed
away. The critique of such works will always remain
obscure. What has become of the portrait of Del Conte
mentioned by Vasari cannot now be ascertained.
We have no external evidence to guide us.
On the other hand, certain peculiarities about the
portrait in the Uffizi, especially the exaggeration of
one eye, lend some colouring to the belief that we here
possess the picture ascribed by Vasari to Bugiardini.1
Michelangelo's type of face was well accentuated,
and all the more or less contemporary portraits of
him reproduce it. Time is wasted in the effort to
assign to little men their special part in the creation
of a prevalent tradition. It seems to me, therefore,
the function of sane criticism not to be particular
about the easel-pictures ascribed to Venusti, Del
Conte, and Bugiardini.
The case is different with a superb engraving by
Giulio Bonasoni, a profile in a circle, dated 1546,
and giving Buonarroti's age as seventy-two. This
1 Life of Bugiardini, Vasari, x. 350. It is noticeable that this
peculiarity about the right eye repeats itself in a large number of the
doubtful portraits, pointing to a common origin.

266 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
shows the man in fuller vigour than the portraits we
have hitherto been dealing with. From other prints
which bear the signature of Bonasoni, we see that
he was interested in faithfully reproducing Michel
angelo's work. What the relations between the
two men were remains uncertain, but Bonasoni
may have had opportunities of studying the master's
person. At any rate, as a product of the burin, this
profile is comparable for fidelity and veracity with
Leoni's model, and is executed in the same medallion
spirit. So far, then, as I have yet pursued the analysis of
Michelangelo's portraits, I take Bonasoni's engraving
to be decisive for Michelangelo's appearance at the
age of seventy ; Leoni's model as of equal or of greater
value at the age of eighty ; Venusti's and Da Volterra's
paintings as of some importance for this later period ;
while I leave the attribution of minor easel-pictures
to Del Conte or to Bugiardini open.
It remains to speak of that " full relief in bronze
made by Daniele da Volterra," which Vasari men
tions among the four genuine portraits of Buonarroti.
From the context we should gather that this head
was executed during the lifetime of Michelangelo,
and the conclusion is supported by the fact that
only a few pages later on Vasari mentions two other
busts modelled after his death. Describing the
catafalque erected to his honour in S. Lorenzo, he
says that the pyramid which crowned the structure
exhibited within two ovals (one turned toward the

DA VOLTERRA'S BRONZE HEAD. 267
chief door, and the other toward the high altar)
" the head of Michelangelo in relief, taken from
nature, and very excellently carried out by Santi
Buglioni." 1 The words ritratta dal naturale do not,
I think, necessarily imply that it was modelled from
the life. Owing to the circumstances under which
Michelangelo's obsequies were prepared, there was
not time to finish it in bronze or stone ; it may
therefore have been one of those Florentine terra
cotta effigies which artists elaborated from a cast
taken after death. That there existed such a cast
is proved by what we know about the monument
designed by Vasari in S. Croce.2 " One of the
statues was assigned to Battista Lorenzi, an able
sculptor, together with the head of Michelangelo."
We learn from another source that this bust in
marble " was taken from the mask cast after his
death." The custom of taking plaster casts from the faces
of the illustrious dead, in order to perpetuate their
features, was so universal in Italy, that it could
hardly have been omitted in the case of Michel
angelo. The question now arises whether the
bronze head ascribed by Vasari to Daniele da Vol
terra was executed during Michelangelo's lifetime or
after his decease, and whether we possess it. There
are eight heads of this species known to students of
Michelangelo, which correspond so nicely in their
measurements and general features as to force the
1 Vasari, xii. 301. 2 Ibid., 310, and Fortnum 1, p. 4.

268 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
conclusion that they were all derived from an
original moulded by one masterly hand.1 Three of
these heads are unmounted, namely, those at Milan,
Oxford, and M. Piot's 2 house in Paris. One, that
of the Capitoline Museum, is fixed upon a bust
of bigio morato marble.3 The remaining four
examples are executed throughout in bronze as
busts, agreeing in the main as to the head, but
differing in minor details of drapery. They exist
respectively in the Museo Buonarroti, the Accademia,
and the Bargello at Florence, and in the private
collection of M. Cottier of Paris. It is clear, then,
that we are dealing with bronze heads cast from
a common mould, worked up afterwards according
to the fancy of the artist. That this original head
was the portrait ascribed to Daniele da Volterra will
be conceded by all who care to trace the history
of the bust ; but whether he modelled it after
Michelangelo's death cannot be decided. Pro
fessional critics are of the opinion that a mask
was followed by the master ; * and this may have
1 See Fortnum 2, pp. 7-10. Mr. Fortnum has given minute par
ticulars concerning all the heads.
2 Bequeathed by M. Piot to the Louvre, where it now is.
3 A close inspection of this bronze shows that it was only carried
down to the collar, which is that of a linen shirt, and quite realistic.
This part of the portrait is joined very negligently to the marble. The
skull is less massive behind the ears than in Leoni's medal, and has
a peculiarly Florentine want of volume in the occiput. The workman
ship of the bronze is rude, the surface smooth. The right eye looks a
little away from the face. Have we here perhaps the parent mask of
all the masks which issued from Daniele's workshop ?
4 Fortnum 2, p. 10.

REPRODUCTIONS OF VOLTERRA'S MODEL. 269
been the case. Michelangelo died upon the 17th
of February 1564. His face was probably cast in
the usual course of things, and copies may have
been distributed among his friends in Rome and
Florence. Lionardo Buonarroti showed at once
a great anxiety to obtain his uncle's bust from
Daniele da Volterra. Possibly he ordered it while
resident in Rome, engaged in winding up Michel
angelo's affairs. At any rate, Daniele wrote on
June 11 to this effect:1 "As regards the portraits
in metal, I have already completed a model in wax,
and the work is going on as fast as circumstances
permit : you may rely upon its being completed
with due despatch and all the care I can bestow
upon it." Nearly four months had elapsed since
Michelangelo's decease, and this was quite enough
time for the wax model to be made. The work of
casting was begun, but Daniele's health at this
time became so wretched that he found it impos
sible to work steadily at any of his undertakings.
He sank slowly, and expired in the early spring
of 1566.
What happened to the bronze heads in the interval
between June 1564 and April 1566 maybe partly
understood from Diomede Leoni's correspondence.
This man, a native of San Quirico, was Daniele's
scholar, and an intimate friend of theBuonarroti family.
On the 9th of September 1564 he wrote to Lionardo : 2
" Your two heads of that sainted man are coming to
1 Daelli, Cart. Mich. Ined., p. 58. 2 Ibid., op. cit, 60.

270 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
a good result, and I am sure you will be satisfied
with them." It appears, then, that Lionardo had
ordered two copies from Daniele. On the 21st of
April 1565 Diomede writes again:1 "I delivered
your messages to Messer Daniele, who replies that
you are always in his mind, as also the two heads
of your lamented uncle. They will soon be cast,
as also will my copy, which I mean to keep by me
for my honour." The casting must have taken place
in the summer of 1565, for Diomede writes upon
the 6th of October : 2 "I will remind him (Daniele)
of your two heads ; and he will find mine well
finished, which will make him wish to have yours
chased without further delay." The three heads
had then been cast ; Diomede was polishing his up
with the file ; Daniele had not yet begun to do this
for Lionardo's. We hear nothing more until the
death of Daniele da Volterra. After this event
occurred, Lionardo Buonarroti received a letter from
Jacopo del Duca, a Sicilian bronze-caster of high
merit, who had enjoyed Michelangelo's confidence
and friendship.3 He was at present employed upon
the metal-work for Buonarroti's monument in the
Church of the SS. Apostoli in Rome, and on the
1 8th of April he sent important information respect
ing the two heads left by Daniele.4 " Messer Danielo
had cast them, but they are in such a state as to
require working over afresh with chisels and files.
1 Daelli, op. cit, p. 66. 2 Gotti, i. 372.
3 Vasari, xii. 263. 4 Gotti, i. 373.

LIONARDO'S TWO COPIES. 271
I am not sure, then, whether they will suit your
purpose ; but that is your affair. I, for my part,
should have liked you to have the portrait from the
hand of the lamented master himself, and not from
any other. Your lordship must decide : appeal to
some one who can inform you better than I do. I
know that I am speaking from the love I bear you ;
and perhaps, if Danielo had been alive, he would
have had them brought to proper finish. As for those
men of his, I do not know what they will do." On
the same day, a certain Michele Alberti wrote as
follows : 1 " Messer Jacopo, your gossip, has told me
that your lordship wished to know in what condition
are the heads of the late lamented Michelangelo.
I inform you that they are cast, and will be chased
within the space of a month, or rather more. So
your lordship will be able to have them ; and you
may rest assured that you will be well and quickly
served." Alberti, we may conjecture, was one of
Daniele's men alluded to by Jacopo del Duca. It
is probable that just at this time they were making
several replicas from their deceased master's model,
in order to dispose of them at an advantage while
Michelangelo's memory was still fresh. Lionardo
grew more and more impatient. He appealed again
to Diomede Leoni, who replied from San Quirico
upon the 4th of June : 2 " The two heads were in
existence when I left Rome, but not finished up. I
imagine you have given orders to have them delivered
1 Gotti, i. 373. 2 Daelli, op. cit., p. 72.

272 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
over to yourself. As for the work of chasing them,
if you can wait till my return, we might intrust
them to a man who succeeded very well with my
own copy." Three years later, on September 17,
1569, Diomede wrote once again about his copy of
Da Volterra' s model:1 "I enjoy the continual con
templation of his effigy in bronze, which is now
perfectly finished and set up in my garden, where
you will see it, if good fortune favours me with
a visit from you."
The net result of this correspondence seems to
be that certainly three bronze heads, and probably
more, remained unfinished in Daniele da Volterra's
workshop after his death, and that these were
gradually cleaned and polished by different crafts
men, according to the pleasure of their purchasers.
The strong resemblance of the eight bronze heads
at present known to us, in combination with their
different states of surface-finish, correspond entirely
to this conclusion. Mr. Fortnum, in his classi
fication, describes four as being not chased, one
as "rudely and broadly chased," three as "more or
less chased." 2
Of these variants upon the model common to
them all, we can only trace one with relative
certainty. It is the bust at present in the Bargello
Palace, whither it came from the Grand Ducal
villa of Poggio Imperiale. By the marriage of the
heiress of the ducal house of Della Rovere with
1 Daelli, op. cit, p. 79. 2 Fortnum 2, p. 10.

Bust of JIichelaxgf.lu.

REVIEW OF THE PORTRAITS. 273
a Duke of Tuscany, this work of art passed, with
other art treasures, notably with a statuette of
Michelangelo's Moses, into the possession of the
Medici. A letter written in 1570 to the Duke of
Urbino by Buonarroti's house-servant, Antonio del
Franzese of Castel Durante, throws light upon the
matter.1 He begins by saying that he is glad to
hear the Duke will accept the little Moses, though
the object is too slight in value to deserve his
notice. Then he adds : " The head of which your
Excellency spoke in the very kind letter addressed
to me at your command is the true likeness of
Michelangelo Buonarroti, my old master ; and it is
of bronze, designed by himself. I keep it here in
Rome, and now present it to your Excellency."
Antonio then, in all probability, obtained one of
the Daniele da Volterra bronzes ; for it is wholly
incredible that what he writes about its having been
made by Michelangelo should be the truth.2 Had
Michelangelo really modelled his own portrait and
cast it in bronze, we must have heard of this from
other sources. Moreover, the Medicean bust of
Michelangelo which is now placed in the Bargello,
and which we believe to have come from Urbino,
belongs indubitably to the series of portraits made
from Daniele da Volterra's model.
To sum up this question of Michelangelo's authentic
Gotti, i. 373.
2 His words may perhaps only imply that Michelangelo meant it to
be made. The original runs : " designato da lui proprio."
VOL. II. S

274 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
portraits : I repeat that Bonasoni's engraving repre
sents him at the age of seventy ; Leoni's wax model
and medallions at eighty; the eight bronze heads,
derived from Daniele's model, at the epoch of his
death. In painting, Marco Venusti and Daniele da
Volterra helped to establish a traditional type by
two episodical likenesses, the one worked into
Venusti's copy of the Last Judgment (at Naples),
the other into Volterra's original picture of the
Assumption (at Trinity de' Monti, Rome). For
the rest, the easel-pictures, which abound, can
hardly now be distributed, by any sane method of
criticism, between Bugiardini, Jacopo del Conte,
and Venusti. They must be taken en masse, as
contributions to the study of his personality ; and,
as I have already said, the oil-painting of the Uffizi
may perhaps be ascribed with some show of pro
bability to Bugiardini.1
1 There is a puzzling easel-picture, formerly in the possession of the
Marchese Lottaringo della Stufa, which deserves mention here. The
face is nearly full, turned to the spectator over the right shoulder ;
very pallid, with rugged features and a fatigued expression ; wrinkles
strongly marked. The right eye is out of drawing with the left. The
lower lip is dragged a little toward the right side, showing more beneath
moustache and beard than elsewhere. The head is covered with a black
felt hat, not unlike that shown in Francesco d'Olanda's sketch. The
key of colouring is black and ivory yellow, with reds worked into the
surface of the face. A doubtful piece of work, yet interesting as diver
gent from the types above named.

CORRESPONDENCE WITH LIONARDO. 275

IV.
Michelangelo's correspondence with his nephew
Lionardo gives us ample details concerning his
private life and interests in old age. It turns
mainly upon the following topics : investment of
money in land near Florence, the purchase of a
mansion in the city, Lionardo's marriage, his own
illnesses, the Duke's invitation, and the project of
making a will, which was never carried out. Much
as Michelangelo loved his nephew, he took frequent
occasions of snubbing him. For instance, news
reached Rome that the landed property of a certain
Francesco Corboli was going to be sold. Michel
angelo sent to Lionardo requesting him to make
inquiries ; and because the latter showed some
alacrity in doing so, his uncle wrote him the follow
ing querulous epistle 1 : " You have been very hasty
in sending me information regarding the estates of the
Corboli. I did not think you were yet in Florence.
Are you afraid lest I should change my mind, as
some one may perhaps have put it into your head ?
I tell you that I want to go slowly in this affair,
because the money I must pay has been gained here
with toil and trouble unintelligible to one who was
born clothed and shod as you were. About your
coming post-haste to Rome, I do not know that you
1 Lettere, No. clxii, February 6, 1546.

276 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
came in such a hurry when I was a pauper and
lacked bread. Enough for you to throw away the
money that you did not earn. The fear of losing
what you might inherit on my death impelled you.
You say it was your duty to come, by reason of the
love you bear me. The love of a woodworm ! If
you really loved me, you would have written now :
' Michelangelo, spend those 3000 ducats there upon
yourself, for you have given us enough already : your
life is dearer to us than your money.' You have all
of you lived forty years upon me, and I have never
had from you so much as one good word. 'Tis true
that last year I scolded and rebuked you so that
for very shame you sent me a load of trebbiano. I
almost wish you hadn't ! I do not write this because
I am unwilling to buy. Indeed I have a mind to do
so, in order to obtain an income for myself, now that
I cannot work more. But I want to buy at leisure,
so as not to purchase some annoyance. Therefore
do not hurry."
Lionardo was careless about his handwriting, and
this annoyed the old man terribly.1
"Do not write to me again. Each time I get one
of your letters, a fever takes me with the trouble I
have in reading it. I do not know where you learned
to write. I think that if you were writing to the
greatest donkey in the world you would do it with
more care. Therefore do not add to the annoyances
I have, for I have already quite enough of them."
1 Lettere, No. cxlxviii., June 5, 1546.

CHOICE OF HOUSE AND WIFE. 277
He returns to the subject over and over again, and
once declares that he has flung a letter of Lionardo's
into the fire unread, and so is incapable of answer
ing it.1 This did not prevent a brisk interchange
of friendly communications between the uncle and
nephew. Lionardo was now living in the Buonarroti house
in Via Ghibellina. Michelangelo thought it advisable
that he should remove into a more commodious man
sion, and one not subject to inundations of the base
ment. He desired, however, not to go beyond the
quarter of S. Croce, where the family had been for
centuries established. The matter became urgent,
for Lionardo wished to marry, and could not marry
until he was provided with a residence. Eventually,
after rejecting many plans and proffers of houses,
they decided to enlarge and improve the original
Buonarroti mansion in Via Ghibellina.2 This house
continued to be their town-mansion until the year
1852, when it passed by testamentary devise to the
city of Florence. It is now the Museo Buonarroti.
Lionardo was at this time thirty, and was the sole
hope of the family, since Michelangelo and his two
surviving brothers had no expectation of offspring.
His uncle kept reminding the young man that, if he
did not marry and get children, the whole property
of the Buonarroti would go to the Hospital or to S.
. J Lettere, Nos. clxxxiv., cciv., ccxxiv.
2 Ibid., Nos. clxxvi., ccxxviii., ccxxix. This decision was made in
August 1 549.

278 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
Martino.1 This made his marriage imperative ; and
Michelangelo's letters between March 5, 1547, and
May 16, 1553, when the desired event took place,
are full of the subject. He gives his nephew excel
lent advice as to the choice of a wife. She ought
to be ten years younger than himself, of noble birth,
but not of a very rich or powerful family ; Lionardo
must not expect her to be too handsome, since he is no
miracle of manly beauty ; the great thing is to obtain
a good, useful, and obedient helpmate, who will not
try to get the upper hand in the house, and who will
be grateful for an honourable settlement in life.2
The following passages may be selected, as speci
mens of Michelangelo's advice: "You ought not
to look for a dower, but only to consider whether the
girl is well brought up, healthy, of good character
and noble blood. You are not yourself of such parts
and person as to be worthy of the first beauty of
Florence." " You have need of a wife who would
stay with you, and whom you could command, and
who would not want to live in grand style or to gad
about every day to marriages and banquets. Where
a court is, it is easy to become a woman of loose
life ; especially for one who has no relatives."
Numerous young ladies were introduced by friends
or matrimonial agents. Six years, however, elapsed
before the suitable person presented herself in the
1 Two ways of saying that it would have to be expended in charities.
2 See in particular Lettere, Nos. clxxv., clxxxii., cxciv., cciv., ccx.,
ccxx., ccxli., ccxlii., ccxlvi., cclv.

GIOVAN SIMONE'S DEATH. 279
shape of Cassandra, daughter of Donato Ridolfi.
Meanwhile, in 1548, Michelangelo lost the elder
of his surviving brothers. Giovan Simone died
upon the 9th of January ; and though he had given
but little satisfaction in his lifetime, his death was
felt acutely by the venerable artist.1 " I received
news in your last of Giovan Simone's death. It
has caused me the greatest sorrow ; for though
I am old, I had yet hoped to see him before he
died, and before I died. God has willed it so.
Patience ! I should be glad to hear circumstantially
what kind of end he made, and whether he con
fessed and communicated with all the sacraments
of the Church. If he did so, and I am informed
of it, I shall suffer less." A few days after the date
of this letter, Michelangelo writes again, blaming
Lionardo pretty severely for negligence in giving
particulars of his uncle's death and affairs. Later
on, it seems that he was satisfied regarding Giovan
Simone's manner of departure from this world. A
grudge remained against Lionardo because he had
omitted to inform him about the property. " I
heard the details from, other persons before you
sent them, which angered me exceedingly."
1 Lettere, Nos. cxci.-cxciii.

LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.

V.
The year 1549 is marked by an exchange of
civilities between Michelangelo and Benedetto
Varchi. The learned man of letters and minute
historiographer of Florence probably enjoyed our
great sculptor's society in former years : recently
they had been brought into closer relations at
Rome. Varchi, who was interested in critical and
academical problems, started the question whether
sculpture or painting could justly claim a priority
in the plastic arts. He conceived the very modem
idea of collecting opinions from practical craftsmen,
instituting, in fact, what would now be called a
" Symposium " upon the subject. A good number
of the answers to his query have been preserved,
and among them is a letter from Michelangelo.
It contains the following passage, which proves in
how deep a sense Buonarroti was by temperament
and predilection a sculptor : 1 " My opinion is that
all painting is the better the nearer it approaches
to relief, and relief is the worse in proportion as
it inclines to painting. And so I have been wont
to think that sculpture is the lamp of painting,
and that the difference between them might be
likened to the difference between the sun and moon.
Now that I have read your essay, in which you
1 Lettere, No. cdlxii.

CORRESPONDENCE WITH VARCHI. 281
maintain that, philosophically speaking, things
which fulfil the same purpose are essentially the
same, I have altered my view. Therefore I say
that, if greater judgment and difficulty, impedi
ment and labour, in the handling of material do
not constitute higher nobility, then painting and
sculpture form one art. This being granted, it
follows that no painter should underrate sculpture,
and no sculptor should make light of painting. By
sculpture I understand an art which operates by
taking away superfluous material ; by painting, one
that attains its result by laying on. It is enough
that both emanate from the same human intelli
gence, and consequently sculpture and painting
ought to live in amity together, without these
lengthy disputations. More time is wasted in
talking about the problem than would go to the
making of figures in both species. The man who
wrote that painting was superior to sculpture, if
he understood the other things he says no better,
might be called a writer below the level of my
maid-servant. There are infinite points not yet
expressed which might be brought out regarding
these arts ; but, as I have said, they want too
much time ; and of time I have but httle, being
not only old, but almost numbered with the dead.
Therefore, I pray you to have me excused. I re
commend myself to you, and thank you to the best
of my ability for the too great honour you have
done me, which is more than I deserve."

282 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
Varchi printed this letter in a volume which he
published at Florence in 1 549, and reissued through
another firm in 1590.1 It contained the treatise
alluded to above, and also a commentary upon
one of Michelangelo's sonnets, "Non ha l'ottimo
artista alcun concetto." 2 The book was duly sent to
Michelangelo by the favour of a noble Florentine
gentleman, Luca Martini. He responded to the
present in a letter which deserves here to be
recited. It is an eminent example of the urbanity
observed by him in the interchange of these and
similar courtesies :3 —
" I have received your letter, together with a
little book containing a commentary on a sonnet
of mine. The sonnet does indeed proceed from me,
but the commentary comes from heaven. In truth
it is a marvellous production ; and I say this not on
my own judgment only, but on that of able men,
especially of Messer Donato Giannotti, who is never
tired of reading it. He begs to be remembered to
you. About the sonnet, I know very well what
that is worth. Yet be it what it may, I cannot
refrain from piquing myself a little on having been
the cause of so beautiful and learned a commentary.
1 Due Lezioni di Messer Benedetto Varchi, 1549. Firenze : Lorenzo
Torrentino ; and again, 1590, Filippo Giunta.
2 This discourse, conceived in a mixed spirit of scholasticism,
Platonism, and sesthetical criticism, shows how highly Michelangelo's
poems were esteemed by the rarest and most cultivated intellects of his
age. It is reproduced in Guasti's edition of the Rime, pp. Ixxxv.-cxii.
3 Lettere, No. cdlxiii.

ACCLAIMED POET. 283
The author of it, by his words and praises, shows
clearly that he thinks me to be other than I am ;
so I beg you to express me to him in terms corre
sponding to so much love, affection, and courtesy.
I entreat you to do this, because I feel myself in
adequate, and one who has gained golden opinions
ought not to tempt fortune ; it is better to keep
silence than to fall from that height. I am old,
and death has robbed me of the thoughts of my
youth. He who knows not what old age is, let
him wait till it arrives : he cannot know before
hand. Remember me, as I said, to Varchi, with
deep affection for his fine qualities, and as his
servant wherever I may be."
Three other letters belonging to the same year
show how deeply Michelangelo was touched and
gratified by the distinguished honour Varchi paid
him.1 In an earlier chapter of this book I have
already pointed out how this correspondence bears
upon the question of his friendship with Tommaso
dei Cavalieri, and also upon an untenable hypothesis
advanced by recent Florentine students of his bio
graphy.2 The incident is notable in other ways,
because Buonarroti was now adopted as a poet by
the Florentine Academy. With a width of sym
pathy rare in such bodies, they condoned the
ruggedness of his style and the uncouthness of his
versification in their admiration for the high quality
1 Lettere, Nos. cdlxiv.-vi.
2 See above, Chapter XII.

284 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
of his meditative inspiration.1 To the triple crown
of sculptor, painter, architect, he now added the
laurels of the bard ; and this public recognition of
his genius as a writer gave him well-merited pleasure
in his declining years.
While gathering up these scattered fragments of
Buonarroti's later life, I may here introduce a letter
addressed to Benvenuto Cellini, which illustrates
his glad acceptance of all good work in fellow-
craftsmen :2 —
" My Benvenuto, — I have known you all these
years as the greatest goldsmith of whom the world
ever heard, and now I am to know you for a sculptor
of the same quality. Messer Bindo Altoviti took
me to see his portrait bust in bronze, and told me
it was by your hand. I admired it much, but was
sorry to see that it has been placed in a bad light.
If it had a proper illumination, it would show itself
to be the fine work it is."

VI.
Lionardo Buonarroti was at last married to
Cassandra, the daughter of Donato Ridolfi, upon
1 When Michelangelo's poems were published, Mario Guidicci de
livered two lectures on theses suggested by them before the Academy.
They are printed by Guasti, Rime, cxiii.-cxxxv.
2 Lettere, No. cdlxxi., date 1552. Cellini's own account of this bust
is worth reading. See his Memoirs, lib. ii. caps, lxxix.-lxxxii.

LIONARDO'S MARRIAGE. 285
the 1 6th of May 1553. One of the dearest wishes
which had occupied his uncle's mind so long, came
thus to its accomplishment. His letters are full
of kindly thoughts for the young couple, and of
prudent advice to the husband, who had not
arranged all matters connected with the settlements
to his own satisfaction.1 Michelangelo congratu
lated Lionardo heartily upon his happiness, and
told him that he was minded to send the bride a
handsome present, in token of his esteem.2 " I
have not been able to do so yet, because Urbino
was away. Now that he has returned, I shall give
expression to my sentiments. They tell me that a
fine pearl necklace of some value would be very
proper. I have sent a goldsmith, Urbino's friend,
in search of such an ornament, and hope to find it ;
but say nothing to her, and if you would like me to
choose another article, please let me know." This
letter winds up with a strange admonition : " Look
to living, reflect and weigh things well ; for the
number of widows in the world is always larger
than that of the widowers." Ultimately he decided
upon two rings, one a diamond, the other a ruby.3
He tells Lionardo to have the stones valued in case
he has been cheated, because he does not under
stand such things ; and is glad to hear in due course
that the jewels are genuine. After the proper
interval, Cassandra expected her confinement, and
1 Lettere, Nos. cclix.-cclxiii. 2 Ibid., No. cclxiii.
3 Ibid., Nos. cclxxiv.-cclxxvi.

286 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
Michelangelo corresponded with his nephew as to
the child's name in case it was a boy.1 "I shall
be very pleased if the name of Buonarroto does not
die out of our family, it having lasted three hundred
years with us." The child was born upon the 16th
of May 1554, turned out a boy, and received the
name of Buonarroto. Though Lionardo had seven
other children, including Michelangelo the younger
(born November 4, 1568), this Buonarroto alone con
tinued the male line of the family. The old man
in Rome remarked resignedly during his later years,
when he heard the news of a baby born and dead,2
that " I am not surprised ; there was never in our
family more than one at a time to keep it going."
Buonarroto was christened with some pomp, and
Vasari wrote to Michelangelo describing the festi
vities. In the year 1554, Cosimo de' Medici had
thrown his net round Siena. The Marquis of
Marignano reduced the city first to extremities by
famine, and finally to enslavement by capitulation.
These facts account for the tone of Michelangelo's
answer to Vasari's letter:3 "Yours has given me
the greatest pleasure, because it assures me that
you remember the poor old man ; and more perhaps
because you were present at the triumph you narrate,
of seeing another Buonarroto re-born. I thank you
heartily for the information. But I must say that
1 Lettere, Nos. cclxvii.-cclxx.
2 See, for instance, Lettere, No. cccxii., December 2, 1558.
3 Lettere, No. cdlxxii., April 1554, "what day I know not."

CORRESPONDENCE WITH VASARI. 287
I am displeased with so much pomp and show.
Man ought not to laugh when the whole world
weeps. So I think that Lionardo has not displayed
great judgment, particularly in celebrating a nativity
with all that joy and gladness which ought to be
reserved for the decease of one who has lived well."
There is what may be called an Elizabethan note —
something like the lyrical interbreathings of our
dramatists — in this blending of jubilation and sorrow,
discontent and satisfaction, birth and death thoughts.
We have seen that Vasari worked for a short time
as pupil under Michelangelo, and that during the
pontificate of Paul III. they were brought into
frequent contact at Rome. With years their friend
ship deepened into intimacy, and after the date
1550 their correspondence forms one of our most
important sources of information. Michelangelo's
letters begin upon the 1 st of August in that year.
Vasari was then living and working for the Duke
at Florence ; but he had designed a chapel for
S. Pietro a Montorio in Rome, where Julius III.
wished to erect tombs to the memory of his ancestors ;
and the work had been allotted to Bartolommeo
Ammanati under Michelangelo's direction. This
business, otherwise of no importance in his bio
graphy, necessitated the writing of despatches, one
of which is interesting, since it acknowledges the
receipt of Vasari's celebrated book : x —
1 Lettere, No. clxviii.

288 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
" Referring to your three letters which I have
received, my pen refuses to reply to such high com
pliments. I should indeed be happy if I were in
some degree what you make me out to be, but I
should not care for this except that then you would
have a servant worth something. However, I am
not surprised that you, who resuscitate the dead,
should prolong the life of the living, or that you
should steal the half-dead from death for an endless
period." It seems that on this occasion he also sent Vasari
the sonnet composed upon his Lives of the Painters.
Though it cannot be called one of his poetical
masterpieces, the personal interest attaching to the
verses justifies their introduction here i1 —
With pencil and with palette hitherto
You made your art high Nature's paragon ;
Nay more, from Nature her own prize you won,
Making what she made fair more fair to view.
Now that your learned hand with labour new
Of pen and ink a worthier work hath done,
What erst you lacked, what still remained her own,
The power of giving life, is gained for you.
If men in any age with Nature vied
In beauteous workmanship, they had to yield
When to the fated end years brought their name.
You, re-illuming memories that died,
In spite of Time and Nature have revealed
For them and for yourself eternal fame.
Vasari's official position at the ducal court of
Florence brought him into frequent and personal
1 Rime, Sonetti, No. xi. In my version, p. 41.

INVITATIONS FROM FLORENCE. 289
relations with Cosimo de' Medici. The Duke had
long been anxious to lure the most gifted of his sub
jects back to Florence ; but Michelangelo, though
he remained a loyal servant to the Medicean family,
could not approve of Cosimo's despotic rule. More
over, he was now engaged by every tie of honour,
interest, and artistic ambition to superintend the
fabric of S. Peter's. He showed great tact, through
delicate negotiations carried on for many years, in
avoiding the Duke's overtures without sacrificing
his friendship. Wishing to found his family in
Florence and to fund the earnings of his life there,
he naturally assumed a courteous attitude. A letter
written by the Bishop Tornabuoni to Giovanni
Francesco Lottini in Rome shows that these over
tures began as early as 1546.1 The prelate says the
Duke is so anxious to regain "Michelangelo, the
divine sculptor," that he promises " to make him a
member of the forty-eight senators, and to give him
any office he may ask for." The affair was dropped
for some years, but in 1552 Cosimo renewed his
attempts, and now began to employ Vasari and
Cellini as ambassadors. Soon after finishing his
Perseus, Benvenuto begged for leave to go to
Rome ; and before starting, he showed the Duke
Michelangelo's friendly letter on the bust of Bindo
Altoviti.2 "He read it with much kindly interest,
and said to me : ' Benvenuto, if you write to him,
and can persuade him to return to Florence, I will
1 Gaye, ii. 352. 2 Memoirs, Book ii. chap, lxxix.
vol. 11. T

290 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
make him a member of the Forty-eight' Accord
ingly I wrote a letter full of warmth, and offered in
the Duke's name a hundred times more than my
commission carried ; but not wanting to make any
mistake, I showed this to the Duke before I sealed
it, saying to his most illustrious excellency : ' Prince,
perhaps I have made him too many promises.' He
replied : ' Michel Agnolo deserves more than you
have promised, and I will bestow on him still greater
favours.' To this letter he sent no answer, and I
could see that the Duke was much offended with
him." While in Rome, Cellini went to visit Michel
angelo, and renewed his offers in the Duke's name.
What passed in that interview is so graphically told,
introducing the rustic personality of Urbino on the
stage, and giving a hint of Michelangelo's reasons
for not returning in person to Florence, that the
whole passage may be transcribed as opening a
little window on the details of our hero's domestic
life : a—
"Then I went to visit Michel Agnolo Buonarroti,
and repeated what I had written from Florence to
him in the Duke's name. He replied that he was
engaged upon the fabric of S. Peter's, and that this
would prevent him from leaving Rome. I rejoined
that, as he had decided on the model of that build
ing, he could leave its execution to his man Urbino,
who would carry out his orders to the letter. I
1 Memoirs, Book ii. chap. Ixxxi.

CELLINI'S EMBASSY.

291

added much about future favours, in the form of a
message from the Duke. Upon this he looked me
hard in the face, and said with a sarcastic smile :
' And you ! to what extent are you satisfied with
him'?' Although I replied that I was extremely
contented and was very well treated by his Excel
lency, he showed that he was acquainted with the
greater part of my annoyances, and gave as his final
answer that it would be difficult for him to leave
Rome. To this I added that he could not do better
than to return to his own land, which was governed
by a prince renowned for justice, and the greatest
lover of the arts and sciences who ever saw the light
of this world. As I have remarked above, he had
with him a servant of his who came from Urbino,
and had lived many years in his employment, rather
as valet and housekeeper than anything else ; this
indeed was obvious, because he had acquired no
skill in the arts. Consequently, while I was press
ing Michel Agnolo with arguments he could not
answer, he turned round sharply to Urbino, as
though to ask him his opinion. The fellow began
to bawl out in his rustic way : ' I will never leave
my master Michel Agnolo's side till I shall have
flayed him or he shall have flayed me.' These stupid
words forced me to laugh, and without saying fare
well, I lowered my shoulders and retired."
This was in 1552. The Duke was loth to take a
refusal, and for the next eight years he continued
to ply Michelangelo with invitations, writing letters

292 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
by his own hand, employing his agents in Rome and
Florence, and working through Vasari.1 The letters
to Vasari during this period are full of the subject.
Michelangelo remains firm in his intention to remain
at Rome and not abandon S. Peter's.2 As years went
on, infirmities increased, and the solicitations of the
Duke became more and more irksome to the old man.
His discomfort at last elicited what may be called a
real cry of pain in a letter to his nephew : 3 —
" As regards my condition, I am ill with all the
troubles which are wont to afflict old men. The
stone prevents me passing water. My loins and
back are so stiff that I often cannot climb upstairs.
What makes matters worse is that my mind is much
worried with anxieties. If I leave the conveniences
I have here for my health, I can hardly live three
days. Yet I do not want to lose the favour of
the Duke, nor should I like to fail in my work at
S. Peter's, nor in my duty to myself. I pray God to
help and counsel me ; and if I were taken ill by
some dangerous fever, I would send for you at once."
Meanwhile, in spite of his resistance to the Duke's
wishes, Michelangelo did not lose the favour of
the Medicean family. The delicacy of behaviour
by means of which he contrived to preserve and
strengthen it, is indeed one of the strongest
evidences of his sincerity, sagacity, and prudence.
1 See Gotti, i. 313-317.
2 See above, Chap. XIII. See Lettere, Nos. cdlxxv.,cdlxxvi., cdlxxxi-
iii. Compare the letters to Lionardo, Nos. cccii.-vi., year 1557.
3 No. ccciv.

RELATIONS TO THE MEDICI. 293
The Cardinal Giovanni, son of Cosimo, travelled to
Rome in March 1560, in order to be invested with
the purple by the Pope's hands. On this occasion
Vasari, who rode in the young prince's train, wrote
despatches to Florence which contain some interest
ing passages about Buonarroti.1 In one of them
(March 29) he says : " My friend Michelangelo is so
old that I do not hope to obtain much from him."
Beside the reiterated overtures regarding a return to
Florence, the Church of the Florentines was now in
progress, and Cosimo also required Buonarroti's
advice upon the decoration of the Great Hall in the
Palazzo della Signoria. In a second letter (April 8)
Vasari tells the Duke : " I reached Rome, and im
mediately after the most reverend and illustrious
Medici had made his entrance and received the hat
from our lord's hands, a ceremony which I wished
to see with a view to the frescoes in the Palace, I
went to visit my friend, the mighty Michelangelo.
He had not expected me, and the tenderness of his
reception was such as old men show when lost sons
unexpectedly return to them. He fell upon my
neck with a thousand kisses, weeping for joy. He
was so glad to see me, and I him, that I have had
no greater pleasure since I entered the service of
your Excellency, albeit I enjoy so many through
your kindness. We talked about the greatness and
the wonders which our God in heaven has wrought
for you, and he lamented that he could not serve
1 Gaye, iii. 27-32.

294 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
you with his body, as he is ready to do with his
talents at the least sign of your will. He also
expressed his sorrow at being unable to wait upon
the Cardinal, because he now can move about but
little, and is grown so old that he gets small rest,
and is so low in health I fear he will not last long,
unless the goodness of God preserves him for the
building of S. Peter's." After some further par
ticulars, Vasari adds that he hopes "to spend
Monday and Tuesday discussing the model of the
Great Hall with Michelangelo, as well as the com
position of the several frescoes. I have all that is
necessary with me, and will do my utmost, while
remaining in his company, to extract useful informa
tion and suggestions." We know from Vasari's Life
of Michelangelo that the plans for decorating the
Palace were settled to his own and the Duke's
satisfaction during these colloquies at Rome.1
Later on in the year, Cosimo came in person to
Rome, attended by the Duchess Eleonora. Michel
angelo immediately waited on their Highnesses, and
was received with special marks of courtesy by the
Duke, who bade him to be seated at his side, and
discoursed at length about his own designs for
Florence and certain discoveries he had made in
the method of working porphyry. These inter
views, says Vasari, were repeated several times
1 Vasari, xii. 261. These despatches show why Cosimo wanted
Michelangelo in Florence. He was engaged on many undertakings
there (including the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo), to which Buonarroti alone
held the clue.

REFUSAL TO LEAVE ROME. 295
during Cosimo's sojourn in Rome ; and when the
Crown-Prince of Florence, Don Francesco, arrived,
this young nobleman showed his high respect for
the great man by conversing with him cap in
hand.1 The project of bringing Buonarroti back to Florence
was finally abandoned ; but he had the satisfaction
of feeling that, after the lapse of more than seventy
years, his long connection with the House of Medici
remained as firm and cordial as it had ever been.
It was also consolatory to know that the relations
established between himself and the reigning dynasty
in Florence would prove of service to Lionardo, upon
whom he now had concentrated the whole of his
strong family affection.
In estimating Michelangelo as man, independent
of his eminence as artist, the most singular point
which strikes us is this persistent preoccupation
with the ancient house he desired so earnestly to
rehabilitate. He treated Lionardo with the greatest
brutality. Nothing that this nephew did, or did not
do, was right. Yet Lionardo was the sole hope of
the Buonarroti-Simoni stock. When he married
and got children, the old man purred with satisfac
tion over him, but only as a breeder of the race ;
and he did all in his power to establish Lionardo
in a secure position.2
1 Vasari, xii. 262.
2 Unfortunately, we do not know what Lionardo felt about his uncle.
The Arch. Buon. contains no drafts of his letters. He must have
suffered much, and borne in patience.

296 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.

VII.
Returning to the history of Michelangelo's do
mestic life, we have to relate two sad events which
happened to him at the end of 1555. On the 28th
of September he wrote to Lionardo : x " The bad
news about Gismondo afflicts me deeply. I am not
without my own troubles of health, and have many
annoyances besides. In addition to all this, Urbino
has been ill in bed with me three months, and is so
still, which causes me much trouble and anxiety."
Gismondo, who had been declining all the summer,
died upon the 1 3th of November. His brother in
Rome was too much taken up with the mortal sick
ness of his old friend and servant Urbino to express
great sorrow. " Your letter informs me of my
brother Gismondo' s death, which is the cause to me
of serious grief. We must have patience ; and inas
much as he died sound of mind and with all the
sacraments of the Church, let God be praised. I
am in great affliction here. Urbino is still in bed,
and very seriously ill. I do not know what will
come of it. I feel this trouble as though he were
my own son, because he has lived in my service
twenty-five years, and has been very faithful.
Being old, I have no time to form another servant
to my purpose ; and so I am sad exceedingly. If,
1 The letters to Lionardo about Gismondo and Urbino are Nos.
cclxxxi.-lxxxiv.

DEATHS OF GISMONDO AND URBINO. 297
then, you know of some devout person, I beg you to
have prayers offered up to God for his recovery."
The next letter gives a short account of his
death : —
" I inform you that yesterday, the 3rd of December,
at four o'clock, Francesco called Urbino passed from
this life, to my very great sorrow. He has left me
sorely stricken and afflicted ; nay, it would have
been sweeter to have died with him, such is the
love I bore him. Less than this love he did not
deserve ; for he had grown to be a worthy man, full
of faith and loyalty. So, then, I feel as though his
death had left me without life, and I cannot find
heart's ease. I should be glad to see you, there
fore ; only I cannot think how you can leave
Florence because of your wife."
To Vasari he wrote still more passionately upon
this occasion : 1 —
" I cannot write well ; yet, in answer to your
letter, I will say a few words. You know that
Urbino is dead. I owe the greatest thanks to God,
at the same time that my own loss is heavy and my
sorrow infinite. The grace He gave me is that,
while Urbino kept me alive in life, his death taught
me to die without displeasure, rather with a deep
and real desire. I had him with me twenty-six
years, and found him above measure faithful and
sincere. Now that I had made him rich, and
thought to keep him as the staff and rest of my
1 Lettere, No. cdlxxvii.

298 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
old age, he has vanished from my sight ; nor have
I hope left but that of seeing him again in Paradise.
God has given us good foundation for this hope in
the exceedingly happy ending of his life. Even more
than dying, it grieved him to leave me alive in this
treacherous world, with so many troubles ; and yet
the better part of me is gone with him, nor is there
left to me aught but infinite distress. I recommend
myself to you, and beg you, if it be not irksome,
to make my excuses to Messer Benvenuto (Cellini)
for omitting to answer his letter. The trouble of
soul I suffer in thought about these things prevents
me from writing. Remember me to him, and take
my best respects to yourself."
How tenderly Michelangelo's thought dwelt upon
Urbino appears from this sonnet, addressed in 1556
to Monsignor Lodovico Beccadelli : 1 —
God's grace, the cross, our troubles multiplied,
Will make us meet in heaven, full well I know :
Yet ere we yield our breath on earth below,
Why need a little solace be denied 1
Though seas and mountains and rough ways divide
Our feet asunder, neither frost nor snow
Can make the soul her ancient love forego ;
Nor chains nor bonds the wings of thought have tied.
Borne by these wings, with thee I dwell for aye,
And weep, and of my dead Urbino talk,
Who, were he living, now perchance would be —
For so 'twas planned — thy guest as well as I.
Warned by his death, another way I walk
To meet him where he waits to live with me.
1 Guasti, Rime, Sonnet lxvii. My version, p. 105.

URBINO'S WILL. 299
By his will, dated November 24, 1555, Urbino,
whose real name was Francesco degli Amadori of
Castel Durante, appointed his old friend and master
one of his executors and the chief guardian of his
widow and children.1 A certain Roso de Rosis and
Pietro Filippo Vandini, both of Castel Durante, are
named in the trust ; and they managed the estate.
Yet Michelangelo was evidently the principal autho
rity. A voluminous correspondence preserved in the
Buonarroti Archives proves this ; for it consists of
numerous letters addressed by Urbino's executors
and family from Castel Durante and elsewhere to
the old sculptor in Rome. Urbino had married a
woman of fine character and high intelligence,
named Cornelia Colonnelli. Two of her letters are
printed by Gotti, and deserve to be studied for the
power of their style and the elevation of their sen
timents.2 He has not made use, however, of the
other documents, all of which have some interest as
giving a pretty complete view of a private family
and its vexations, while they illustrate the conscien
tious fidelity with which Michelangelo discharged his
duties as trustee. Urbino had a brother, also resident
at Castel Durante, Raffaello's celebrated pupil in
fresco-painting, II Fattorino. This man and Vandini,
together with Cornelia and her parents and her second
husband, Giulio Brunelli, all wrote letters to Rome
about the welfare of the children and the financial
1 The document is printed by Gotti, vol. ii. pp. 137-141.
2 Vol. i. pp. 334"338-

300 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
affairs of the estate.1 The coexecutor Roso de Rosis
did not write ; it appears from one of Cornelia's des
patches that he took no active interest in the trust,
while Brunelli even complains that he withheld
moneys which were legally due to the heirs. One
of Michelangelo's first duties was to take care that
Cornelia got a proper man for her second husband.
Her parents were eager to see her married, being
themselves old, and not liking to leave a compara
tively young widow alone in the world with so
many children to look after. Their choice fell first
upon a very undesirable person called Santagnolo, a
young man of dissolute habits, ruined constitution,
bad character, and no estate.2 She refused, with
spirit, to sign the marriage contract ; and a few
months later wrote again to inform her guardian
that a suitable match had been found in the person
of Giulio Brunelli of Gubbio, a young doctor of
laws, then resident at Castel Durante in the quality
of podesta.3 Michelangelo's suspicions must have
been aroused by the unworthy conduct of her parents
in the matter of Santagnolo ; for we infer that he
at first refused to sanction this second match.
Cornelia and the parents wrote once more, assuring
him that Brunelli was an excellent man, and entreat-
1 II Fattorino's letters are to be found in the Arch. Buon., Cod. vi.
Nos. 5-9. Brunelli's, ibid., Cod. vi. Nos. 120-129. Cornelia's, ibid.,
Cod. vii. Nos. 156-184. The parents, Guido and Antonia del Colonello,
ibid., Cod. vii. No. 163. Vandini, ibid., Cod. xi. Nos. 730-738.
2 Cornelia's letter of October 4, 1558.
3 Letter of January 10, 1559. Cod. vii.

MICHELANGELO'S TRUSTEESHIP. 301
ing him not to open his ears to malignant gossip.1
On the 1 5th of June Brunelli himself appears upon
the scene, announcing his marriage with Cornelia,
introducing himself in terms of becoming modesty
to Michelangelo, and assuring him that Urbino's
children have found a second father.2 He writes
again upon the 29th of July, this time to announce
the fact that II Fattorino has spread about false
rumours to the effect that Cornelia and himself in
tend to leave Castel Durante and desert the children.
Their guardian must not credit such idle gossip,
for they are both sincerely attached to the children,
and intend to do the best they can for them.
Family dissensions began to trouble their peace.
In the course of the next few months Brunelli
discovers that he cannot act with the Fattorino
or with Vandini ; Cornelia's dowry is not paid ;
Roso refuses to refund money due to the heirs ;
Michelangelo alone can decide what ought to be
done for the estate and his wards. The Fattorino
writes that Vandini has renounced the trust, and
that all Brunelli's and his own entreaties cannot
make him resume it. For himself, he is resolved
not to bear the burden alone. He has his own shop
to look after, and will not let himself be bothered.3
Unluckily, none of Michelangelo's answers have
1 Letters of April 18 and 20, 1559. Ibid.
2 June 15, 1559, Cod. vi. No. 220. "E stia sicura che li putti di
francesco hanno raquistato un altro patre."
3 Cod. vi. No. 6, June 6, 1561.

302 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
been preserved. We possess only one of his letters
to Cornelia, which shows that she wished to place
her son and his godson, Michelangelo, under his
care at Rome. He replied that he did not feel
himself in a position to accept the responsibility.1
"It would not do to send Michelangelo, seeing
that I have nobody to manage the house and no
female servants ; the boy is still of tender age, and
things might happen which would cause me the
utmost annoyance. Moreover, the Duke of Florence
has during the last month been making me the
greatest offers, and putting strong pressure upon
me to return home. I have begged for time to
arrange my affairs here and leave S. Peter's in
good order. So I expect to remain in Rome all
the summer ; and when I have settled my business,
and yours with the Monte della Fede, I shall
probably remove to Florence this winter and take
up my abode there for good. I am old now, and
have not the time to return to Rome. I will travel
by way of Urbino ; and if you like to give me Michel
angelo, I will bring him to Florence, with more love
than the sons of my nephew Lionardo, and will
teach him all the things which I know that his father
desired that he should learn."
1 Lett Pitt, vol. i. p. 13. It bears date March 28. Milanesi reprint
ing it (Lettere, No. cdlxxx.) assigns it to the year 1557. The autograph
is in the Codex Vaticanus, p. 100. On the back there is a faint brown
sketch for a Christ upon the cross in some soft chalk.

AT SPOLETO. 303

VIII.
The year 1556 was marked by an excursion which
took Michelangelo into the mountain district of
Spoleto. Paul IV. 's anti-Spanish policy had forced
the Viceroy of Naples to make a formidable military
demonstration. Accordingly the Duke of Alva, at
the head of a powerful force, left Naples on the 1st
of September and invaded the Campagna. The
Romans dreaded a second siege and sack ; not
without reason, although the real intention of the
expedition was to cow the fiery Pope into submis
sion. It is impossible, when we remember Michel
angelo's liability to panics, not to connect his
autumn journey with a wish to escape from trouble
in Rome. On the 31st of October he wrote to
Lionardo that he had undertaken a pilgrimage to
Loreto, but feeling tired, had stopped to rest at
Spoleto. While he was there, a messenger arrived
post-haste from Rome, commanding his immediate
return. He is now once more at home there, and
as well as the troublous circumstances of the times
permit.1 Later on he told Vasari : 2 "I have re
cently enjoyed a great pleasure, though purchased
at the cost of great discomfort and expense, among
the mountains of Spoleto, on a visit to those hermits.
1 Lettere, No. ccxcix.
2 Ibid., No. cdlxxix., December 28, 1556.

304 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
Consequently, I have come back less than half
myself to Rome ; for of a truth there is no peace
to be found except among the woods." This is the
only passage in the whole of Michelangelo's cor
respondence which betrays the least feeling for wild
nature. We cannot pretend, even here, to detect
an interest in landscape or a true appreciation of
country life. Compared with Rome and the Duke
of Alva, those hermitages of the hills among their
chestnut-groves seemed to him haunts of ancient
peace. That is all ; but when dealing with a man
so sternly insensible to the charm of the external
world, we have to be contented with a little.1
In connection with this brief sojourn at Spoleto I
will introduce two letters written to Michelangelo
by the Archbishop of Ragusa from his See. The
first is dated March 28, 1557, and was sent to
Spoleto, probably under the impression that Buon
arroti had not yet returned to Rome. After
lamenting the unsettled state of public affairs, the
Archbishop adds : " Keep well in your bodily
health ; as for that of your soul, I am sure you
cannot be ill, knowing what prudence and piety
keep you in perpetual companionship." The second
1 It ought to be mentioned in this connection that among Michel
angelo's unfinished poems is a series of octave stanzas in praise of
rural life. But whatever merit the piece may have belongs to its
abstruse allegories of the passions and vices which perplex the souls of
men in cities. The country is disposed of in a few conventional stanzas,
which any student of Dante, Poliziano, and Lorenzo de' Medici could
have written. See Rime, pp. 317-324.

OLD AGE AND ILLNESS 305
followed at the interval'of a year, April 6, 1558, and
gave a pathetic picture of the meek old prelate's
discomfort in his Dalmatian bishopric. He calls
Ragusa "this exceedingly ill-cultivated vineyard of
mine. Oftentimes does the carnal man in me revolt
and yearn for Italy, for relatives and friends ; but
the spirit keeps desire in check, and compels it
to be satisfied with that which is the pleasure of
our Lord." Though the biographical importance of
these extracts is but slight, I am glad, while record
ing the outlines of Buonarroti's character, to cast a
side-light on his amiable qualities, and to show how
highly valued he was by persons of the purest life.1

IX.
There was nothing peculiarly severe about the
infirmities of Michelangelo's old age. We first hear
of the dysuria from which he suffered, in 1548. He
writes to Lionardo thanking him for pears : 2 "I
duly received the little barrel of pears you sent me.
There were eighty-six. Thirty-three of them I sent
to the Pope, who praised them as fine, and who
1 Arch. Buon., Cod. x. Nos. 640, 641. "Stia bene del corpo, che dell'
animo son certo non pud star male, sapendo quanta prudenza e pieta li
tengano di continuo compagnia." " Questa mia vigna assai inculta ; il
senso spesse volte se risen te et desidera italia et parent! et amici. Ma
lo spirito lo fa star quieto e contentarse di quello che piaee al signore."
2 Lettere, No. cxcix., May 2.
VOL. II. u

306 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
enjoyed them. I have lately been in great difficulty
from dysuria. However, I am better now. And
thus I write to you, chiefly lest some chatterbox
should scribble a thousand lies to make you jump."
In the spring of 1549 he says that the doctors
believe he is suffering from calculus:1 "The pain
is great, and prevents me from sleeping. They
propose that I should try the mineral waters of
Viterbo ; but I cannot go before the beginning of
May. For the rest, as concerns my bodily condi
tion, I am much the same as I was at thirty. This
mischief has crept upon me through the great
hardships of my life and heedlessness." A few
days later he writes that a certain water he is
taking, whether mineral or medicine, has been
making a beneficial change.2 The following letters
are very cheerful, and at length he is able to
write : 3 " With regard to my disease, I am greatly
improved in health, and have hope, much to the
surprise of many ; for people thought me a lost
man, and so I believed. I have had a good doctor,
but I put more faith in prayers than I do in
medicines." His physician was a very famous man,
Realdo Colombo. In the summer of the same year
1 Lettere, No. ccxiv., March 15.
2 Ibid., No. ccxv., March 23. It was probably a prescription ; for in
1560 a friend of his wrote for the recipe, referring to the years in Rome
subsequent to 1546. See Gotti, ii. 140. In the Buonarroti Archives
I saw a doctor's prescription for the stone, but omitted to copy it.
Codex, xii. 53.
3 Ibid., No. ccxix., April 25, 1549.

TESTAMENTARY PROJECTS. 307
he tells Lionardo that he has been drinking for the
last two months water from a fountain forty miles
distant from Rome.1 " I have to lay in a stock of
it, and to drink nothing else, and also to use it in
cooking, and to observe rules , of living to which I
am not used."
Although the immediate danger from the calcu
lus passed away, Michelangelo grew feebler yearly.
We have already seen how he wrote to Lionardo
while Cosimo de' Medici was urging him to come
to Florence in 1557. Passages in his correspond
ence with Lionardo like the following are fre
quent : 2 " Writing is the greatest annoyance to my
hand, my sight, my brains. So works old age ! "
"I go on enduring old age as well as I am able,
with all the evils and discomforts it brings in its
train ; and I recommend myself to Him who can
assist me." It was natural, after he had passed the
ordinary term of life and was attacked with a disease
so serious as the stone, that his thoughts should
take a serious tone. Thus he writes to Lionardo : 3
"This illness has made me think of setting the
affairs of my soul and body more in order than I
should have done. Accordingly, I have drawn up
a rough sketch of a will, which I will send you by
the next courier if I am able, and you can tell me
what you think." The will provided that Gismondo
1 Lettere, No. ccxxiv., June 8. Probably the water of Viterbo.
2 Ibid., Nos. ccciv., cccxiv., cccxxii.
3 Ibid., No. ccxv. and No. ccxvii. Compare No. ccl.

308 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
and Lionardo Buonarroti should be his joint-heirs,
without the power of dividing the property. This
practically left Lionardo his sole heir after Gis-
mondo's life-tenancy of a moiety. It does not,
however, seem to have been executed, for Michel
angelo died intestate. Probably, he judged it
simplest to allow Lionardo to become his heir-
general by the mere course of events. At the same
time, he now displayed more than his usual muni
ficence in charity. Lionardo was frequently in
structed to seek out a poor and gentle family, who
were living in decent distress, poveri vergognosi, as
the Italians called such persons. Money was to
be bestowed upon them with the utmost secrecy ;
and the way which Michelangelo proposed, was to
dower a daughter or to pay for her entrance into a
convent. It has been suggested that this method
of seeking to benefit the deserving poor denoted
a morbid tendency in Michelangelo's nature ; 1 but
any one who is acquainted with Italian customs in
the Middle Ages and the Renaissance must be aware
that nothing was commoner than to dower poor
girls or to establish them in nunneries by way of
charity. Urbino, for example, by his will bound his
executors to provide for the marriage of two honest
girls with a dowry of twenty florins apiece within
the space of four years from his death.2
The religious sonnets, which are certainly among
1 Parlagreco, op. cit, p. 86.
2 See the original will in Gotti, ii. 138.

RELIGIOUS SONNETS. 309
the finest of Michelangelo's compositions, belong to
this period. Writing to Vasari on the 10th of Sep
tember 1 554, he begins i1 " You will probably say that
I am old and mad to think of writing sonnets ; yet
since many persons pretend that I am in my second
childhood, I have thought it well to act accord
ingly." Then follows this magnificent piece of
verse, in which the sincerest feelings of the pious
heart are expressed with a sublime dignity : 2 —
Now hath my life across a stormy sea,
Like a frail bark, reached that wide port where all
Are bidden, ere the final reckoning fall
Of good and evil for eternity.
Now know I well how that fond phantasy
Which made my soul the worshipper and thrall
Of earthly art is vain ; how criminal
Is that which all men seek unwillingly.
Those amorous thoughts which were so lightly dressed,
What are they when the double death is nigh 1
The one I know for sure, the other dread.
Painting nor sculpture now can lull to rest
My soul, that turns to His great love on high,
Whose arms to clasp us on the cross were spread.
A second sonnet, enclosed in a letter to Vasari,
runs as follows : 3 —
The fables of the world have filched away
The time I had for thinking upon God ;
His grace lies buried 'neath oblivion's sod,
Whence springs an evil crop of sins alway.
1 Lettere, No. cdlxxiii.
2 Rime, Sonnet lxvi. In my version, p. 102. 3 Ibid., p. 103.

310 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
What makes another wise, leads me astray,
Slow to discern the bad path I have trod :
Hope fades, but still desire ascends that God
May free me from self-love, my sure decay.
Shorten half-way my road to heaven from earth !
Dear Lord, I cannot even half-way rise
Unless Thou help me on this pilgrimage.
Teach me to hate the world so little worth,
And all the lovely things I clasp and prize,
That endless life, ere death, may be my wage.
While still in his seventieth year, Michelangelo
had educated himself to meditate upon the thought
of death as a prophylactic against vain distractions
and the passion of love.1 " I may remind you that
a man who would fain return unto and enjoy his
own self ought not to indulge so much in merry
makings and festivities, but to think on death.
This thought is the only one which makes us know
our proper selves, which holds us together in the
bond of our own nature, which prevents us from
being stolen away by kinsmen, friends, great men
of genius, ambition, avarice, and those other sins
and vices which filch the man from himself, keep
him distraught and dispersed, without ever per
mitting him to return unto himself and reunite his
scattered parts. Marvellous is the operation of
this thought of death, which, albeit death, by his
nature, destroys all things, preserves and supports
those who think on death, and defends them from
all human passions." He supports this position
1 Donato Giannotti's Dialogue. See Guasti, Rime, p. xxxi.

THE THOUGHT OF DEATH. 311
by reciting a madrigal he had composed, to show
how the thought of death is the greatest foe to
love : x —
Not death indeed, but the dread thought of death
Saveth and severeth
Me from the heartless fair who doth me slay :
And should, perchance, some day
The fire consuming blaze o'er measure bright,
I find for my sad plight
No help but from death's form fixed in my heart ;
Since, where death reigneth, love must dwell apart.
In some way or another, then, Michelangelo used
the thought of death as the mystagogue of his
spirit into the temple of eternal things — to at'Sia, die
bleibenden Verhdltnisse — and as the means of main
taining self-control and self-coherence amid the ever-
shifting illusions of human life.2 This explains why
in his love-sonnets he rarely speaks of carnal beauty
except as the manifestation of the divine idea, which
will be clearer to the soul after death than in the
body. When his life was drawing toward its close,
Michelangelo's friends were not unnaturally anxious
about his condition. Though he had a fairly good
servant in Antonio del Franzese,3 and was surrounded
1 Rime, Madrigali, No. xvi.
2 Vasari (xii. 249, 250) says : " Toward the close of his life there
arose in him no thought which was not graven with the idea of death,
whence one could easily perceive that he was making his retreat
toward God."
3 Was this man the son of Giovanni Franzese, whom Michelangelo
employed to make the model of the cupola ? (Vasari, xii. 253).

312 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
by well-wishers like Tommaso Cavalieri, Daniele da
Volterra, and Tiberio Calcagni, yet he led a very
solitary life, and they felt he ought to be protected.
Vasari tells us that he communicated privately with
Averardo Serristori, the Duke's ambassador in Rome,
recommending that some proper housekeeper should
be appointed, and that due control should be insti
tuted over the persons who frequented his house.
It was very desirable, in case of a sudden accident,
that his drawings and works of art should not be
dispersed, but that what belonged to S. Peter's, to
the Laurentian Library, and to the Sacristy should
be duly assigned.1 Lionardo Buonarroti must have
received similar advice from Rome, for a furious
letter is extant, in which Michelangelo, impatient
to the last of interference, literally rages at him :2 —
" I gather from your letter that you lend credence
to certain envious and scoundrelly persons, who,
since they cannot manage me or rob me, write you
a lot of lies. They are a set of sharpers, and you
are so silly as to believe what they say about my
affairs, as though I were a baby. Get rid of them,
the scandalous, envious, ill-lived rascals. As for
my suffering the mismanagement you write about,
I tell you that I could not be better off, or more
faithfully served and attended to in all things. As
for my being robbed, to which I think you allude,
I assure you that I have people in my house whom
I can trust and repose on. Therefore, look to your
1 Vasari, xii. 269. 2 Lettere, No. cccxl., August 21, 1563.

IRRITABLE TEMPER. 3t3
own life, and do not think about my affairs, because
I know how to take care of myself if it is needful,
and am not a baby. Keep well."
This is the last letter to Lionardo. It is singular
that Michelangelo's correspondence with his father,
with Luigi del Riccio, with Tommaso dei Cavalieri,
and with his nephew, all of whom he sincerely
loved, should close upon a note of petulance and
wrath. The fact is no doubt accidental. But it is
strange.

X.
We have frequently had occasion to notice the
extreme pain caused to Michelangelo's friends by
his unreasonable irritability and readiness to credit
injurious reports about them. These defects of
temper justified to some extent his reputation for
savagery, and they must be reckoned among the
most salient features of his personality. I shall
therefore add three other instances of the same kind
which fell under my observation Avhile studying
the inedited documents of the Buonarroti Archives.
Giovanni Francesco Fattucci was, as we well know,
his most intimate friend and trusted counsellor
during long and difficult years, when the negotia
tions with the heirs of Pope Julius were being carried
on ; yet there exists one letter of unaffected sorrow
from this excellent man, under date October 14,

314 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
1545, which shows that for some unaccountable
reason Michelangelo had suddenly chosen to mis
trust him.1 Fattucci begins by declaring that he
is wholly guiltless of things which his friend too
credulously believed upon the strength of gossip.
He expresses the deepest grief at this unjust and
suspicious treatment. The letter shows him to have
been more hurt than resentful. Another document
signed by Francesco Sangallo (the son of his old
friend Giuliano), bearing no date, but obviously
written when they were both in Florence, and there
fore before the year 1535, carries the same burden
of complaint.2 The details are sufficiently pic
turesque to warrant the translation of a passage.
After expressing astonishment at Michelangelo's
habit of avoiding his society, he proceeds : " And
now, this morning, not thinking that I should annoy
you, I came up and spoke to you, and you received
me with a very surly countenance. That evening,
too, when I met you on the threshold with Granacci,
and you left me by the shop of Pietro Osaio, and
the other forenoon at S. Spirito, and to-day, it struck
1 Arch. Buon., Cod. viii. No. 279.
2 Arch. Buon., Cod. xi. No. 681. "Perora istammattina io non
pensando darvi noia macostavi et voi mi facesti molto cattiva cera, et
riscontrato quella sera ch' io vi trovai in sul ucio col Granaccio e poi
mi lasasti a bottega di Pietro Osaio (?), et laltra mattina a Santo Spirito,
ed istamattina mie parso istrano massimo presente il Piloto ed altri
tanti, ch' io penso che voi abiate mecho qualche cosa, ma mi maraviglio
voi non mi chiariate lanimo vostro, perche potresti avere qualche cosa
che saria falsa." This language singularly resembles that of Fattucci,
and of Cavalieri in the noble letter published in the 12th chapter,
p. 148, above.

NERVOUSNESS OF FRIENDS. 315
me as extremely strange, especially in the presence
of Piloto and so many others. I cannot help think
ing that you must have some grudge against me ;
but I marvel that you do not open out your mind
to me, because it may be something which is wholly
false." The letter winds up with an earnest protest
that he has always been a true and faithful friend.
He begs to be allowed to come and clear the matter
up in conversation, adding that he would rather
lose the good-will of the whole world than Michel
angelo's. The third letter is somewhat different in tone,
and not so personally interesting. Still it illustrates
the nervousness and apprehension under which
Michelangelo's acquaintances continually lived. The
painter commonly known as Rosso Fiorentino was
on a visit to Rome, where he studied the Sistine
frescoes. They do not appear to have altogether
pleased him, and he uttered his opinion somewhat
too freely in public. Now he pens a long elaborate
epistle, full of adulation, to purge himself of having
depreciated Michelangelo's works. People said that
" when I reached Rome, and entered the chapel
painted by your hand, I exclaimed that I was not
going to adopt that manner." One of Buonarroti's
pupils had been particularly offended. Rosso pro
tests that he rather likes the man for his loyalty;
but he wishes to remove any impression which
Michelangelo may have received of his own irre
verence or want of admiration. The one thing he

316 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
is most solicitous about is not to lose the great
man's good- will.1
It must be added, at the close of this investi
gation, that however hot and hasty Michelangelo
may have been, and however readily he lent his ear
to rumours, he contrived to renew the broken threads
of friendship with the persons he had hurt by his
irritability.
1 Arch. Buon., Cod. x. No. 659. " Ch' io qua giugniendo e in la
cappella da voi dipinta entrando dicevi che non volevo pigliare quella
nianiera."

CHAPTER XV.
Declining health during the winter of 1563-64. — Anxiety of his
friends in Rome. — They write almost daily to Lionardo Buonarroti
in Florence. — Summon him to the old man's bedside. — Michel
angelo dies on the 1 8th of February 1564. — 2. Lionardo arrives too
late to see his uncle in life. — The corpse is sent by stealth to
Florence. — A monument erected in the church of the SS. Apostoli
at Rome. — Vasari designs another for S. Croce at Florence. — Cor
respondence on this subject with Lionardo. — 3. The Florentine
Academy of Design prepare a, great show for the obsequies of
Michelangelo at S. Lorenzo. — The deposition of his body in S.
Croce. — 4. Condivi's general summary of Michelangelo's qualities
as man and artist. — 5. Details added by Vasari. — His kindness
to friends and pupils. — His servants. — A letter to him from
Condivi. — Rough treatment of understrappers. — His failure to
found a school. — In what manner his influence was felt through
Italy. — 6. His intercourse with brother-artists. — Partiality for
men who amused him by their buffoonery and simplicity of
character. — Scattered anecdotes about his social ways and critical
opinions. — 7. The difficulty of estimating his professional earnings.
— Details regarding the property he acquired. — 8. Faults found by
contemporaries with his character as man. — The criticism applied
to these points by recent psychologists of the new school. — Parla
greco and Lombroso. — An examination of this critique. — 9. The
final verdict on a man like Michelangelo rests with the public, who,
through centuries, have judged him. — Microscopic analysis reveals
peculiarities of structure. — But he remains for all time the hero as
artist.— Self-dedicated to one line of work. — Unbending, unswerv
ing in his addiction to the ideal of life as he was fashioned to
conceive it.

During the winter of 1563-64 Michelangelo's friends
in Rome became extremely anxious about his health,

318 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
and kept Lionardo Buonarroti from time to time in
formed of his proceedings. After New Year it was
clear that he could not long maintain his former
ways of life. Though within a few months of ninety,
he persisted in going abroad in all weathers, and
refused to surround himself with the comforts befit
ting a man of his eminence and venerable age. On
the 14th of February he seems to have had a kind
of seizure. Tiberio Calcagni, writing that day to
Lionardo, gives expression to his grave anxiety : 1
" Walking through Rome to-day, I heard from many
persons that Messer Michelangelo was ill. Accord
ingly I went at once to visit him, and although it
was raining I found him out of doors on foot. When
I saw him, I said that I did not think it right
and seemly for him to be going about in such
weather. ' What do you want 1 ' he answered ; ' I
am ill, and cannot find rest anywhere.' The uncer
tainty of his speech, together with the look and
colour of his face, made me feel extremely uneasy
about his hfe. The end may not be just now, but
I fear greatly that it cannot be far off." Michel
angelo did not leave the house again, but spent the
next four days partly reclining in an arm-chair,
partly in bed. Upon the 15th following, Diomede
Leoni wrote to Lionardo, enclosing a letter by the
hand of Daniele da Volterra, which Michelangelo had
signed.2 The old man felt his end approaching, and
wished to see his nephew. " You will learn from
1 Daelli, Carte Mich. Ined., p. 41. 2 Gotti, i. 353.

LAST DAYS. 319
the enclosure how ill he is, and that he wants you
to come to Rome. He was taken ill yesterday. I
therefore exhort you to come at once, but do so with
sufficient prudence. The roads are bad now, and you
are not used to travel by post. This being so, you
would run some risk if you came post-haste. Taking
your own time upon the way, you may feel at ease
when you remember that Messer Tommaso dei Cava
lieri, Messer Daniele, and I are here to render every
possible assistance in your absence. Beside us,
Antonio, the old and faithful servant of your uncle,
will be helpful in any service that may be expected
from him." Diomede reiterates his advice that
Lionardo should run no risks by travelling too fast.
" If the illness portends mischief, which God forbid,
you could not with the utmost haste arrive in time.
. . . I left him just now, a little after 8 p.m.,
in full possession of his faculties and quiet in his
mind, but oppressed with a continued sleepiness.
This has annoyed him so much that, between three
and four this afternoon, he tried to go out riding, as
his wont is every evening in good weather. The
coldness of the weather and the weakness of his
head and legs prevented him ; so he returned to the
fireside, and settled down into an easy chair, which
he greatly prefers to the bed." No improvement
gave a ray of hope to Michelangelo's friends, and
two days later, on the 17th, Tiberio Calcagni took
up the correspondence with Lionardo : l " This is
1 Gotti, i. 354.

320 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
to beg you to hasten your coming as much as pos
sible, even though the weather be unfavourable. It
is certain now that our dear Messer Michelangelo
must leave us for good and all, and he ought to have
the consolation of seeing you." Next day, on the
1 8th, Diomede Leoni wrote again : " He died with
out making a will, but in the attitude of a perfect
Christian, this evening, about the Ave Maria. I was
present, together with Messer Tommaso dei Cava
lieri and Messer Daniele da Volterra, and we put
everything in such order that you may rest with a
tranquil mind. Yesterday Michelangelo sent for our
friend Messer Daniele, and besought him to take up
his abode in the house until such time as you arrive,
and this he will do."
It was at a little before five o'clock on the after
noon of February 1 8, 1 564, that Michelangelo breathed
his last. The physicians who attended him to the
end were Federigo Donati, and Gherardo Fidelissimi,
of Pistoja. It is reported by Vasari that, during his
last moments, " he made his will in three sentences,
committing his soul into the hands of God, his
body to the earth, and his substance to his nearest
relatives; enjoining upon these last, when their
hour came, to think upon the sufferings of Jesus
Christ." 1
On the following day, February 19, Averardo
Serristori, the Florentine envoy in Rome, sent a
despatch to the Duke, informing him of Michel-
1 Vasari, xii. 269.

DEATH AT ROME. 321
angelo's decease : 1 " This morning, according to
an arrangement I had made, the Governor sent to
take an inventory of all the articles found in his
house. These were few, and very few drawings.
However, what was there they duly registered. The
most important object was a box sealed with several
seals, which the Governor ordered to be opened in
the presence of Messer Tommaso dei Cavalieri and
Maestro Daniele da Volterra, who had been sent for
by Michelangelo before his death. Some seven or
eight thousand crowns were found in it, Avhich have
now been deposited with the Ubaldini bankers.
This was the command issued by the Governor, and
those whom it concerns will have to go there to get
the money. The people of the house will be examined
as to whether anything has been carried away from
it. This is not supposed to have been the case.
As far as drawings are concerned, they say that he
burned what he had by him before he died. What
there is shall be handed over to his nephew when
he comes, and this your Excellency can inform him."
The objects of art discovered in Michelangelo's
house were a blocked-out statue of S. Peter, an
unfinished Christ with another figure,2 and a statu
ette of Christ with the cross, resembling the Cristo
Risorto of S. Maria Sopra Minerva. Ten original
1 Legazioni di Averardo Serristori, Firenze : Le Monnier, 1853,
p. 414.
2 Possibly the fragment of a Pieta which stands in the Palazzo
Rondanini, Corso, Rome. D. da Volterra calls this group a Pieta in
the letter cited below.
VOL. II. X

322 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
drawings were also catalogued, one of which (a
Pieta) belonged to Tommaso dei Cavalieri ; another
(an Epiphany) was given to the notary, while the
rest came into the possession of Lionardo Buonarroti.
The cash-box, which had been sealed by Tommaso
dei Cavalieri and Diomede Leoni, was handed over
to the Ubaldini, and from them it passed to Lionardo
Buonarroti at the end of February.1

II.
Lionardo travelled by post to Rome, but did not
arrive until three days after his uncle's death. He
began at once to take measures for the transport
of Michelangelo's remains to Florence, according to
the wish of the old man, frequently expressed and
solemnly repeated two days before his death.2 The
corpse had been deposited in the Church of the SS.
Apostoli, where the funeral was celebrated with
becoming pomp by all the Florentines in Rome, and
by artists of every degree. The Romans had come
to regard Buonarroti as one of themselves, and, when
the report went abroad that he had expressed a wish
to be buried in Florence, they refused to believe it,
and began to project a decent monument to his
1 The original documents concerning this administration of Michel
angelo's effects will be found in Gotti, ii. 148-156.
2 See a long letter by Daniele da Volterra to Vasari (Gotti, i. 357),
date March 17. It confirms the particulars I have brought together
above.

REMOVAL TO FLORENCE. 323
memory in the Church of the SS. Apostoli. In
order to secure his object, Lionardo was obliged to
steal the body away, and to despatch it under the
guise of mercantile goods to the custom-house of
Florence. Vasari wrote to him from that city upon
the 10th of March, informing him that the packing-
case had duly arrived, and had been left under seals
until his, Lionardo's, arrival at the custom-house.1
About this time two plans were set on foot for
erecting monuments to Michelangelo's memory. The
scheme started by the Romans immediately after his
death took its course, and the result is that tomb
at the SS. Apostoli, which undoubtedly was meant
to be a statue-portrait of the man.2 Vasari received
from Lionardo Buonarroti commission to erect the
tomb in S. Croce. The correspondence of the
latter, both with Vasari and with Jacopo del Duca,
who superintended the Roman monument, turns for
some time upon these tombs.3 It is much to Vasari's
credit that he wanted to place the Pieta which Michel
angelo had broken, above the S. Croce sepulchre. He
1 Gotti, i. 361.
2 The correspondence published by Gotti, i. 360-372, about it makes
this clear. In one of the letters from Diomede Leoni, lithographed by
Daelli (Carte Mich., Ined., p. 82), mention is made of an epitaph by
Paulus Manutius, beginning Unus ex omni memoria. The present in
scription is by another scholar. The monument in the SS. Apostoli at
Rome aims at portraiture. Michelangelo is lying with his head raised
and resting on the left hand. He wears the doublet and apron used by
him when working. On a table are ranged the implements of his
art. A little genius leans against it, weeping ; another offers a book to
Michelangelo. 3 See Daelli, op. cit, pp. 64 et seq.

324 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
writes upon the subject in these words : 1 " When
I reflect that Michelangelo asserted, as is well known
also to Daniele, Messer Tommaso dei Cavalieri, and
many other of his friends, that he was making the
Pietk of five figures, which he broke, to serve for his
own tomb, I think that' his heir ought to inquire
how it came into the possession of Bandini. Besides,
there is an old man in the group who represents the
person of the sculptor. I entreat you, therefore, to
take measures for regaining this Pieta, and I will
make use of it in my design. Pierantonio Bandini
is very courteous, and will probably consent. In this
way you will gain several points. You will assign to
your uncle's sepulchre the group he planned to place
there, and you will be able to hand over the statues
in Via Mozza to his Excellency, receiving in return
enough money to complete the monument." Of the
marbles in the Via Mozza at Florence, where Michel
angelo's workshop stood, I have seen no catalogue,
but they certainly comprised the Victory, probably
also the Adonis and the Apollino. There had been
some thought of adapting the Victory to the tomb
in S. Croce. Vasari, however, doubted whether
this group could be applied in any forcible sense
allegorically to Buonarroti as man or as artist.
Eventually, as we know, the very mediocre monu
ment designed by Vasari, which still exists at S. Croce,
was erected at Lionardo Buonarroti's expense, the
Duke supplying a sufficiency of marble.
1 See Daelli, op. cit., p. 55, March 18, 1564.

THE FLORENTINE ACADEMY. 325

III.
It ought' here to be mentioned that, in the spring
of 1563, Cosimo founded an Academy of Fine Arts,
under the title of " Arte del Disegno." It embraced
all the painters, architects, and sculptors of Florence
in a kind of guild, with privileges, grades, honours,
and officers.1 The Duke condescended to be the
first president of this academy. Next to him, Michel
angelo was elected unanimously by all the members
as their uncontested principal and leader, " inasmuch
as this city, and peradventure the whole world, hath
not a master more excellent in the three arts." The
first great work upon which the Duke hoped to
employ the guild was the completion of the sacristy
at S. Lorenzo. Vasari's letter to Michelangelo shows
that up to this date none of the statues had been
erected in their proper places, and that it was in
tended to add a great number of figures, as well as
to adorn blank spaces in the walls with frescoes.
All the best artists of the time, including Gian
Bologna, Cellini, Bronzino, Tribolo, Montelupo,
Ammanati, offered their willing assistance, "foras
much as there is not one of us but hath learned in
this sacristy, or rather in this our school, whatever
1 A full description of the new corporation is given in a letter written
by Vasari to Michelangelo. Bottari, Lett Pitt, iii. 78. I have trans
lated the part of it which concerns the sacristy in Chap. X. above.

326 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
excellence he possesses in the arts of design." We
know already only too well that the scheme was
never carried out, probably in part because Michel
angelo's rapidly declining strength prevented him
from furnishing these eager artists with the neces
sary working drawings. Cosimo's anxiety to gain
possession of any sketches left in Rome after Buo
narroti's death may be ascribed to this project for
completing the works begun at S. Lorenzo.
Well then, upon the news of Michelangelo's death,
the academicians were summoned by their lieutenant,
Don Vincenzo Borghini, to deliberate upon the best
way of paying him honour, and celebrating his obse
quies with befitting pomp.1 It was decided that all
the leading artists should contribute something, each
in his own line, to the erection of a splendid cata
falque, and a sub-committee of four men was elected
to superintend its execution. These were Angelo
Bronzino and Vasari, Benvenuto Cellini and Amma
nati, friends of the deceased, and men of highest
mark in the two fields of painting and sculpture.
The church selected for the ceremony was S.
Lorenzo ; the orator appointed was Benedetto Varchi.
Borghini, in his capacity of lieutenant or official
representative, obtained the Duke's assent to the
plan, which was subsequently carried out, as we
shall see in due course.
Notwithstanding what Vasari wrote to Lionardo
about his uncle's coffin having been left at the
1 Vasari, xii. 285.

BURIAL AT S. CROCE. 327
Dogana, it seems that it was removed upon the very
day of its arrival, March 1 1 , to the Oratory of the
Assunta, underneath the church of S. Pietro Mag-
giore.1 On the following day the painters, sculptors,
and architects of the newly founded academy met
together at this place, intending to transfer the body
secretly to S. Croce. They only brought a single
pall of velvet, embroidered with gold, and a crucifix,
to place upon the bier. When night fell, the elder
men lighted torches, while the younger crowded to
gether, vying one with another for the privilege of
carrying the coffin. Meantime the Florentines, sus
pecting that something unusual was going forward
at S. Pietro, gathered round, and soon the news
spread through the city that Michelangelo was being
borne to S. Croce. A vast concourse of people in
this way came unexpectedly together, following the
artists through the streets, and doing pathetic honour
to the memory of the illustrious dead. The spacious
church of S. Croce was crowded in all its length and
breadth, so that the pall-bearers had considerable
difficulty in reaching the sacristy with their precious
burden. In that place Don Vincenzo Borghini, who
was lieutenant of the academy, ordered that the coffin
should be opened. " He thought he should be doing
what was pleasing to many of those present ; and, as
he afterwards admitted, he was personally anxious
to behold in death one whom he had never seen in
life, or at any rate so long ago as to have quite for-
1 Vasari, xii. 290.

328 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
gotten the occasion. All of us who stood by expected
to find the corpse already defaced by the outrage of
the sepulchre, inasmuch as twenty-five days had
elapsed since Michelangelo's death, and twenty-one
since his consignment to the coffin ; but, to our great
surprise, the dead man lay before us perfect in all his
parts, and without the evil odours of the grave ;
indeed, one might have thought that he was resting
in a sweet and very tranquil slumber. Not only did
the features of his countenance bear exactly the same
aspect as in life, except for some inevitable pallor,
but none of his limbs were injured, or repulsive to the
sight. The head and cheeks, to the touch, felt just
as though he had breathed his last but a few hours
since." As soon as the eagerness of the multitude
calmed down a little, the bier was carried into the
church again, and the coffin was deposited in a
proper place behind the altar of the Cavalcanti.
When the academicians decreed a catafalque for
Michelangelo's solemn obsequies in S. Lorenzo, they
did not aim so much at worldly splendour or gorgeous
trappings as at an impressive monument, combining
the several arts which he had practised in his life
time. Being made of stucco, woodwork, plaster,
and such perishable materials, it was unfortunately
destined to decay. But Florence had always been
liberal, nay, lavish, of her genius in triumphs,
masques, magnificent street architecture, evoked to
celebrate some ephemeral event. A worthier occa
sion would not occur again ; and we have every

OBSEQUIES AT S. LORENZO. 329
reason to believe that the superb structure, which
was finally exposed to view upon the 14th of July,
displayed all that was left at Florence of the grand
style in the arts of modelling and painting. They
were decadent indeed ; during the eighty-nine years
of Buonarroti's life upon earth they had expanded,
flourished, and flowered with infinite variety in rapid
evolution. He lived to watch their decline ; yet the
sunset of that long day was still splendid to the eyes
and senses.
The four deputies appointed by the academy held
frequent sittings before the plan was fixed, and the
several parts had been assigned to individual crafts
men. Ill health prevented Cellini from attending,
but he sent a letter to the lieutenant, which throws
some interesting light upon the project in its earlier
stages.1 A minute description of the monument
was published soon after the event.2 Another may
be read in the pages of Vasari. Varchi committed
his oration to the press, and two other panegyrical
discourses were issued, under the names of Leonardo
Salviati and Giovan Maria Tarsia.3 Poems composed
on the occasion were collected into one volume, and
distributed by the Florentine firm of Sermatelli.4
To load these pages with the details of allegorical
1 Gotti, i. 365.
2 Esequie del Divino Michelangelo Buonarroti, celebrate in Firenze
daW Academia, &c. Firenze: Giunti, 1564.
3 Varchi's Orazione Funerale, due, was printed by the Giunti in 1564.
4 Poesie di diversi autori latini e volgari, d-c. Firenze : Sermatelli,
1564. It is said to be a very rare book. See Vasari, xii. 310, note 1.

330 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
statues and pictures which have long passed out
of existence, and to cite passages from funeral
speeches, seems to me useless.1 It is enough to
have directed the inquisitive to sources where their
curiosity may be gratified.

IV
It Avould be impossible to take leave of Michel
angelo without some general survey of his character
and qualities. With this object in view I do not
think I can do better than to follow what Condivi
says at the close of his biography, omitting those
passages which have been already used in the body
of this book, and supplementing his summary with
illustrative anecdotes from Vasari. Both of these
men knew him intimately during the last years of
his life ; and if it is desirable to learn how a man
strikes his contemporaries, we obtain from them a
lively and veracious, though perhaps a slightly flat
tered, picture of the great master whom they studied
with love and admiration from somewhat different
points of view. This will introduce a critical exami
nation of the analysis to which the psychology of
Michelangelo has recently been subjected.
1 See Vasari, xii. 309, note 2, for an account of the gradual dispersion
of the models and canvasses which adorned the catafalque.

CONDIVI'S SUMMARY. 331
Condivi opens his peroration with the following
paragraphs : —
" Now, to conclude this gossiping discourse of
mine, I say that it is my opinion that in painting
and sculpture nature bestowed all her riches with a
full hand upon Michelangelo. I do not fear reproach
or contradiction when I repeat that his statues are,
as it were, inimitable. Nor do I think that I have
suffered myself to exceed the bounds of truth while
making this assertion. In the first place, he is the
only artist who has handled both brush and mallet
with equal excellence. Then we have no relics left
of antique paintings to compare with his ; and though
many classical works in statuary survive, to whom
among the ancients does he yield the palm in sculp
ture? In the judgment of experts and practical
artists, he certainly yields to none ; and were we to
consult the vulgar, who admire antiquity without
criticism, through a kind of jealousy toward the
talents and the industry of their own times, even
here we shall find none who say the contrary ; to
such a height has this great man soared above the
scope of envy. Raffaello of Urbino, though he chose
to strive in rivalry with Michelangelo, was wont to
say that he thanked God for having been born in
his days, since he learned from him a manner very
different from that which his father, who was a
painter, and his master, Perugino, taught him. Then,
too, what proof of his singular excellence could be
wished for, more convincing and more valid, than

332 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
the eagerness with which the sovereigns of the world
contended for him'? Beside four pontiffs, Julius,
Leo, Clement, and Paul, the Grand Turk, father of
the present Sultan, sent certain Franciscans with
letters begging him to come and reside at his court.
By orders on the bank of the Gondi at Florence, he
provided that whatever sums were asked for should
be disbursed to pay the expenses of his journey; and
when he should have reached Cossa, a town near
Ragusa, one of the greatest nobles of the realm was
told off to conduct him in most honourable fashion
to Constantinople. Francis of Valois, King of
France, tried to get him by many devices, giving
instructions that, whenever he chose to travel, 3000
crowns should be told out to him in Rome. The
Signory of Venice sent Bruciolo to Rome with an
invitation to their city, offering a pension of 600
crowns if he would settle there. They attached no
conditions to this offer, only desiring that he should
honour the republic with his presence, and stipulat
ing that whatever he might do in their service should
be paid as though he were not in receipt of a fixed
income. These are not ordinary occurrences, or such
as happen every day, but strange and out of common
usage ; nor are they wont to befall any but men of
singular and transcendent ability, as was Homer, for
whom many cities strove in rivalry, each desirous of
acquiring him and making him its own.
"The reigning pope, Julius III., holds him in no
less esteem than the princes I have mentioned. This

ILLUSTRIOUS PATRONS. 333
sovereign, distinguished for rare taste and judgment,
loves and promotes all arts and sciences, but is most
particularly devoted to painting, sculpture, and archi
tecture, as may be clearly seen in the buildings which
his Holiness has erected in the Vatican and the
Belvedere, and is now raising at his Villa Giulia
(a monument worthy of a lofty and generous nature,
as indeed his own is), where he has gathered together
so many ancient and modern statues, such a variety
of the finest pictures, precious columns, works in
stucco, wall-painting, and every kind of decoration,
of the which I must reserve a more extended account
for some future occasion, since it deserves a particular
study, and has not yet reached completion. This
Pope has not used the services of Michelangelo for
any active work, out of regard for his advanced
age. He is fully alive to his greatness, and appreci
ates it, but refrains from adding burdens beyond
those which Michelangelo himself desires ; and this
regard, in my opinion, confers more honour on him
than any of the great undertakings which former
pontiffs exacted from his genius. It is true that his
Holiness almost always consults him on works of
painting or of architecture he may have in progress,
and very often sends the artists to confer with him
at his own house. I regret, and his Holiness also
regrets, that a certain natural shyness, or shall I say
respect or reverence, which some folk call pride,
prevents him from having recourse to the benevol
ence, goodness, and liberality of such a pontiff, and

334 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
one so much his friend. For the Pope, as I first
heard from the Most Rev. Monsignor of Forll, his
Master of the Chamber, has often observed that,
were this possible, he would gladly give some of
his own years and his own blood to add to Michel
angelo's life, to the end that the world should not so
soon be robbed of such a man. And this, when I
had access to his Holiness, I heard with my own
ears from his mouth. Moreover, if he happens to
survive him, as seems reasonable in the course of
nature, he has a mind to embalm him and keep him
ever near to his own person, so that his body in
death shall be as everlasting as his works. This he
said to Michelangelo himself at the commencement
of his reign, in the presence of many persons. I
know not what could be more honourable to Michel
angelo that such words, or a greater proof of the
high account in which he is held by his Holiness.
" So then Michelangelo, while he was yet a youth,
devoted himself not only to sculpture and painting,
but also to all those other arts which to them are
allied or subservient, and this he did with such
absorbing energy that for a time he almost entirely
cut himself off from human society, conversing with
but very few intimate friends. On this account
some folk thought him proud, others eccentric and
capricious, although he was tainted with none of
these defects ; but, as hath happened to many men
of great abilities, the love of study and the perpetual
practice of his art rendered him solitary, being so

EMINENT FRIENDS.

335

taken up with the pleasure and delight of these
things that society not only afforded him no solace,
but even caused him annoyance by diverting him
from meditation, being (as the great Scipio used to
say) never less alone than when he was alone.
Nevertheless, he very willingly embraced the friend
ship of those whose learned and cultivated conversa
tion could be of profit to his mind, and in whom
some beams of genius shone forth : as, for example,
the most reverend and illustrious Monsignor Pole,
for his rare virtues and singular goodness ; and like
wise the most reverend, my patron, Cardinal Crispo,
in whom he discovered, beside his many excellent
qualities, a distinguished gift of acute judgment ; he
was also warmly attached to the Cardinal of S. Croce,
a man of the utmost gravity and wisdom, whom I
have often heard him name in the highest terms ;
and to the most reverend Maffei, whose goodness
and learning he has always praised : indeed, he loves
and honours all the dependants of the house of
Farnese, owing to the lively memory he cherishes of
Pope Paul, whom he invariably mentions with the
deepest reverence as a good and holy old man ;
and in like manner the most reverend Patriarch of
Jerusalem, sometime Bishop of Cesena, has lived for
some time in close intimacy with him, finding peculiar*
pleasure in so open and generous a nature. He was
also on most friendly terms with my very reverend
patron the Cardinal Ridolfi, of blessed memory, that
refuge of all men of parts and talent. There are

336 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
several others whom I omit for fear of being prolix,
as Monsignor Claudio Tolomei, Messer Lorenzo
Ridolfi, Messer Donato Giannotti, Messer Lionardo
Malespini, Lottino, Messer Tommaso dei Cavalieri,
and other honoured gentlemen. Of late years, he
has become deeply attached to Annibal Caro, of
whom he told me that it grieves him not to have
come to know him earlier, seeing that he finds him
much to his taste." :
"In like manner as he enjoyed the converse of
learned men, so also did he take pleasure in the
study of eminent writers, whether of prose or verse.
Among these he particularly admired Dante, whose
marvellous poem s he hath almost all by heart. Never
theless, the same might perhaps be said about his
love for Petrarch. These poets he not only delighted
in studying, but he also was wont to compose from
time to time upon his own account. There are
certain sonnets among those he wrote which give a
very good notion of his great inventive power and
judgment. Some of them have furnished Varchi
with the subject of Discourses. It must be remem
bered, however, that he practised poetry for his
amusement, and not as a profession, always depre
ciating his own talent and appealing to his ignorance
in these matters. Just in the same way he has
perused the Holy Scriptures with great care and
industry, studying not merely the Old Testament,
1 At this point Condivi introduces the passage upon Vittoria which I
have already used in Chapter XII.

GENEROSITY. 337
but also the New, together with their commentators,
as, for example, the writings of Savonarola, for whom
he always retained a deep affection, since the accents
of the preacher's living voice rang in his memory.1
" He has given away many of his works, the
which, if he had chosen to sell them, would have
brought him vast sums of money. A single instance
of this generosity will suffice — namely, the two statues
which he presented to his dearest friend, Messer
Ruberto Strozzi.2 Nor was it only of his handiwork
that he has been liberal. He opened his purse
readily to poor men of talent in literature or art, as
I can testify, having myself been the recipient of his
bounty. He never showed an envious spirit toward
the labours of other masters in the crafts he prac
tised, and this was due rather to the goodness of
his nature than to any sense of his own superiority.
Indeed, he always praised all men of excellence
without exception, even Raffaello of Urbino, between
whom and himself there was of old time some rivalry
in painting.3 I have only heard him say that Raffaello
did not derive his mastery in that art so much from
nature as from prolonged study. Nor is it true, as
many persons assert to his discredit, that he has
been unwilling to impart instruction. On the con-
1 Here comes the passage about Michelangelo's sense of beauty and
theories of love, which I have used in Chapter XII., followed by the
description of his sober manner of life, used in Chapter II.
2 The two Captives of the Louvre.
3 See Michelangelo's own letters about Bramante, Sebastiano del
Piombo, and Cellini in confirmation of this.
VOL. II. Y

338 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
trary, he did so readily, as I know by personal
experience, for to me he unlocked all the secrets of
the arts he had acquired. Ill-luck, however, willed
that he should meet either with subjects ill adapted
to such studies, or else with men of little persever
ance, who, when they had been working a few months
under his direction, began to think themselves past-
masters. Moreover, although he was willing to teach,
he did not like it to be known that he did so, caring
more to do good than to seem to do it. I may add
that he always attempted to communicate the arts
to men of gentle birth, as did the ancients, and not
to plebeians." 1

V.
To this passage about Michelangelo's pupils we
may add the following observations by Vasari : 2
1 Vasari (xii. 277) has developed what Condivi says about the
generosity of Michelangelo. He reckons up the number of models and
drawings lavished upon Tommaso dei Cavalieri, Bindo Altoviti, Fra
Sebastiano, Antonio Mini, Gherardo Perini ; describes the cartoon of
Cupid kissing Venus, which he made for Baccio Bettini, and the Noli
me tangere designed for the Marchese del Vasto, both of which were
painted by Pontormo ; and after mentioning the donation of the Captives
to Ruberto Strozzi, alludes to the Pieti bestowed upon his servant
Antonio del Franzese. " Who can accuse that man of avarice who gives
away for nothing things which might have brought him thousands of
crowns 1 " Then he reckons up the sums of money spent in alms, the
largesse of 2000 crowns to Urbino, the frequent donations made to
Lionardo Buonarroti, and the bequest to him of all his property. " Such
bounty we are wont to think the special virtue of Csesars and mighty
Pontiffs." 2 Vasari, xii. 274.

PUPILS AND FOLLOWERS. 339
" He loved his workmen, and conversed with them
on friendly terms. Among these I will mention
Jacopo Sansovino, Rosso, Pontormo, Daniele da
Volterra, and Giorgio Vasari. To the last of these
men he showed unbounded kindness, and caused
him to study architecture, with the view of employ
ing his services in that art. He exchanged thoughts
readily with him, and discoursed upon artistic topics.
Those are in the wrong who assert that he refused
to communicate his stores of knowledge. He always
did so to his personal friends, and to all who sought
his advice. It ought, however, to be mentioned
that he was not lucky in the craftsmen who lived
with him, since chance brought him into contact
with people unfitted to profit by his example.
Pietro Urbano of Pistoja was a man of talent but
no industry. Antonio Mini had the will but not
the brains, and hard wax takes a bad impression.
Ascanio dalla Ripa Transone (i.e., Condivi) took
great pains, but brought nothing to perfection
either in finished work or in designs. He laboured
many years upon a picture for which Michelangelo
supplied the drawing. At last the expectations
based upon this effort vanished into smoke. I re
member that Michelangelo felt pity for his trouble,
and helped him with his own hand. Nothing, how
ever, came of it. He often told me that if he had
found a proper subject he should have liked, old
as he was, to have recommenced anatomy, and to
have written on it for the use of his workmen.

340 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
However, he distrusted his own powers of express
ing what he wanted in writing, albeit his letters
show that he could easily put forth his thoughts
in a few brief words."
About Michelangelo's kindness to his pupils and
servants there is no doubt. We have only to re
member his treatment of Pietro Urbano and Anto
nio Mini, Urbino and Condivi, Tiberio Calcagni
and Antonio del Franzese. A curious letter from
Michelangelo to Andrea Quarantesi, which I have
quoted in another connection, shows that people
were eager to get their sons placed under his
charge. The inedited correspondence in the Buon
arroti Archives abounds in instances illustrating the
reputation he had gained for goodness. We have
two grateful letters from a certain Pietro Bettino
in Castle Durante speaking very warmly of Michel
angelo's attention to his son Cesare.1 Two to the
same effect from Amilcare Anguissola in Cremona
acknowledge services rendered to his daughter
Sofonisba, who was studying design in Rome.2
Pietro Urbano wrote twenty letters between the
years 1 5 1 7 and 1525, addressing him in terms like
"carissimo quanto padre."1 After recovering from
his illness at Pistoja, he expresses the hope that he
will soon be back again at Florence (September 18,
1 5 19): "Dearest to me like the most revered of
1 Cod. vi. Nos. 90, 91, dates October 24, 1561, and August 12, 1563.
2 Ibid., vi. Nos. 35, 36, dates May 7, 1557, and May 17, 1558.
3 Ibid., x. Nos. 614-633.

URBANO AND TWO SILVIOS. 341
fathers, I send you salutations, announcing that I
am a little better, but not yet wholly cured of that
flux ; still I hope before many days are over to find
myself at Florence."1 A certain Silvio Falcone, who
had been in his service, and who had probably been
sent away because of some misconduct, addressed a
letter from Rome to him in Florence, which shows
both penitence and warm affection.2 " I am and shall
always be a good servant to you in every place where
I may be. Do not remember my stupidity in those
past concerns, which I know that, being a prudent
man, you will not impute to malice. If you were
to do so, this would cause me the greatest sorrow ;
for I desire nothing but to remain in your good
grace, and if I had only this in the world, it would
suffice me." He begs to be remembered to Pietro
Urbano, and requests his pardon if he has offended
him. Another set of letters, composed in the same
tone by a man who signs himself Silvio di Giovanni
da Cepparello, was written by a sculptor honourably
1 " Carisimo quanto maggior padre, salute, etc. Avisovi, come io sono
un poco migliorato, ma pure anchora no sono ristagniato del flusso,
pure i spero fra pochi di essere sano e verromme a firenze."
2 Cod. viii., December 6, 15 17. "Io ve sono e serro sempre buono
servitore in tutti li lochi dove io serro, e non vogliate ricordare dela mia
ignioranza dele cose passate lequale so che voi considerarete como homo
prudente non esser facte con malitia : e quando voi pensassero altrimente
me serria grandissimo dolore : perchfe io non desidero altro che di
stare in gratia vostra e se io non avessi altro che questo al mondo me
basteria." There is a letter from him dated August 17, 15 14. This
Silvio was in Michelangelo's service on the occasion of the incident
with Signorelli, described in Lettere, No. cccliv. Michelangelo alludes
to him as a competent witness.

342 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
mentioned in Vasari's Life of Andrea da Fiesole for
his work at S. Lorenzo, in Genoa, and elsewhere.
They show how highly the fame of having been in
Michelangelo's employ was valued. He says that he
is now working for Andrea Doria, Prince of Melfi, at
Genoa.1 Still he should like to return, if this were
possible, to his old master's service : " For if I lost all
I had in the world, and found myself with you, I
should think myself the first of men." A year later
Silvio was still at work for Prince Doria and the
Fieschi, but he again begs earnestly to be taken
back by Michelangelo. " I feel what obligations I am
under for all the kindness received from you in past
times. When I remember the love you bore me
while I was in your service, I do not know how I
could repay it; and I tell you that only through
having been in your service, wherever I may happen
now to be, honour and courtesy are paid me ; and
that is wholly due to your excellent renown, and
not to any merit of my own." 2
The only letter from Ascanio Condivi extant in
the Buonarroti Archives may here be translated in
1 Cod. vii. No. 146, April 6, 1532. "Quando io perdesse cio che ho
al mondo et fussi apreso di voi mi pareria esser il primo homo del
mondo." 2 " Imperoche mi par havere grandissimo obligo per il beneficio da
voi ricevuto neli passati tempi, che quando io me ricordo delo amore
quale mi portasti inimentre io fui al vostro servitio non mi par possibile
potero mai restorarvi, et dicovi solamente per essere io stato al servitio
vostro in tuti quelli lochi clove io mi ritrovo m' e fato honore e cortesia
e questo e solo per la bona fama che e di voi e non gia per merito di mia
virtu." Date April 13, 1532.

ASCANIO CONDIVI. 343
full, since its tone does honour both to master
and servant : J —
"Unique lord and my most to be observed patron,
— I have already written you two letters, but almost
think you cannot have received them, since I have
heard no news of you. This I write merely to beg
that you will remember to command me, and to
make use not of me alone, but of all my household,
since we are all your servants. Indeed, my most
honoured and revered master, I entreat you deign
to dispose of me and do with me as one is wont
to do with the least of servants. You have the
right to do so, since I owe more to you than to
my own father, and I will prove my desire to
repay your kindness by my deeds. I will now end
this letter, in order not to be irksome, recommend
ing myself humbly, and praying you to let me have
the comfort of knowing that you are well : for a
greater I could not receive. Farewell."
It cannot be denied that Michelangelo sometimes
treated his pupils and servants with the same irrit
ability, suspicion, and waywardness of temper as
he showed to his relatives and friends. It is only
necessary to recall his indignation against Lapo and
Lodovico at Bologna, Stefano at Florence, Sandro
at Serravalle, all his female drudges, and the anony
mous boy whom his father sent from Rome. That
he was a man "gey ill to live with" seems indis-
1 Cod. vii. No. 149, date May 24, 1555 (?). I shall print the original
in the Appendix.

344 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
putable. This may in part account for the fact
that, unlike other great Italian masters, he formed
no school. The frescanti who came from Florence
to assist him in the Sistine Chapel were dismissed
with abruptness, perhaps even with brutality. Mon
telupo and Montorsoli, among sculptors, Marcello
Venusti and Pontormo, Daniele da Volterra and
Sebastiano del Piombo, among painters, felt his
direct influence. But they did not stand in the
same relation to him as Raffaello's pupils to their
master. The work of Giulio Romano, Giovanni
da Udine, Francesco Penni, Perino del Vaga, Prima-
ticcio, at Rome, at Mantua, and elsewhere, is a genial
continuation of Raffaello's spirit and manner after his
decease. Nothing of the sort can be maintained
about the statues and the paintings which display
a study of the style of Michelangelo. And this
holds good in like manner of his imitators in archi
tecture. For worse rather than for better, he
powerfully and permanently affected Italian art ;
but he did not create a body of intelligent crafts
men, capable of carrying on his inspiration, as
Giulio Romano expanded the Loggie of the Vatican
into the Palazzo del Te. I have already expressed
my opinions regarding the specific quality of the
Michelangelesque tradition in a passage which I
may perhaps be here permitted to resume i1 —
" Michelangelo formed no school in the strict sense
of the word ; yet his influence was not the less felt
1 Renaissance in Italy, vol. iii. pp. 493-495.

MICHELANGELO'S IMITATORS. 345
on that account, nor less powerful than Raffaello's.
During his manhood a few painters endeavoured to
add the charm of oil-colouring to his designs, and
long before his death the seduction of his mighty
mannerism began to exercise a fatal charm for all
the schools of Italy. Painters incapable of fathom
ing his intention, unsympathetic to his rare type of
intellect, and gifted with less than a tithe of his
native force, set themselves to reproduce whatever
may be justly censured in his works. To heighten
and enlarge their style was reckoned a chief duty of
aspiring craftsmen, and it was thought that recipes
for attaining to this final perfection of the modern
arts might be extracted without trouble from Michel
angelo's masterpieces. Unluckily, in proportion as
his fame increased, his peculiarities became with the
advance of age more manneristic and defined, so
that his imitators fixed precisely upon that which
sober critics now regard as a deduction from his
greatness. They failed to perceive that he owed his
grandeur to his personality, and that the audaci
ties which fascinated them became mere whimsical
extravagances when severed from his terribilita, and
sombre simplicity of impassioned thought. His
power and his spirit were alike unique and incom
municable, while the admiration of his youthful
worshippers betrayed them into imitating the ex
ternals of a style that was rapidly losing spontaneity.
Therefore they fancied they were treading in his
footsteps and using the grand manner when they

346 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
covered church-roofs and canvases with sprawling
figures in distorted attitudes. Instead of studying
nature, they studied Michelangelo's cartoons, exag
gerating by their unintelligent discipleship his wil
fulness and arbitrary choice of form.
"Vasari's and Cellini's criticisms of a master they
both honestly revered may suffice to illustrate the
false method adopted by these mimics of Michel
angelo's ideal. To charge him with faults pro
ceeding from the weakness and blindness of the
Decadence — the faults of men too blind to read his
art aright, too weak to stand on their own feet with
out him — would be either stupid or malicious. If at
the close of the sixteenth century the mannerists
sought to startle and entrance the world by empty
exhibitions of muscular anatomy misunderstood, and
by a braggadocio display of meaningless effects —
crowding their compositions with studies from the
nude, and painting agitated groups without a dis
cernible cause for agitation — the crime surely lay
with the patrons who liked such decoration, and
with the journeymen who provided it. Michelangelo
himself always made his manner serve his thought.
We may fail to appreciate his manner and may be
incapable of comprehending his thought, but only
insincere or conceited critics will venture to gauge
the latter by what they feel to be displeasing in the
former. What seems lawless in him follows the
law of a profound and peculiar genius, with which,
whether we like it or not, we must reckon. His

VARIOUS ANECDOTES. 347
imitators were devoid of thought, and too indifferent
to question whether there was any law to be obeyed.
Like the jackass in the fable, they assumed the
dead lion's skin, and brayed beneath it, thinking
they could roar."

VI.
Continuing these scattered observations upon
Michelangelo's character and habits, we may collect
what Vasari records about his social intercourse
with brother-artists. Being himself of a saturnine
humour, he took great delight in the society of
persons little better than buffoons. Writing the
Life of Jacopo surnamed LTndaco, a Florentine
painter of some merit, Vasari observes:1 "He
lived on very familiar terms of intimacy with Michel
angelo ; for that great artist, great above all who
ever were, when he wished to refresh his mind,
fatigued by studies and incessant labours of the
body and the intellect, found no one more to his
liking and more congenial to his humour than was
Indaco." Nothing is recorded concerning their
friendship, except that Buonarroti frequently invited
Indaco to meals ; and one day, growing tired of the
man's incessant chatter, sent him out to buy figs,
1 Vasari, vi. 133. It will be remembered that this Indaco was one
of the painters brought from Florence by Michelangelo to help him in
the Sistine.

348 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
and then locked the house-door, so that he could
not enter when he had discharged his errand. A
boon-companion of the same type was Menighella,
whom Vasari describes as "a mediocre and stupid
painter of Valdarno, but extremely amusing." l He
used to frequent Michelangelo's house, " and he,
who could with difficulty be induced to work for
kings, would lay aside all other occupations in order
to make drawings for this fellow." What Menighella
wanted was some simple design or other of S. Rocco,
S. Antonio, or S. Francesco, to be coloured for one
of his peasant patrons. Vasari says that Michel
angelo modelled a very beautiful Christ for this
humble friend, from which Menighella made a
cast, and repeated it in papier-mache, selling these
crucifixes through the country-side. What would
not the world give for one of them, even though
Michelangelo is said to have burst his sides with
laughing at the man's stupidity ! 2 Another familiar
of the same sort was a certain stone-cutter called
Domenico Fancelli, and nicknamed Topolino. From
a letter addressed to him by Buonarroti in 1523
it appears that he was regarded as a "very dear
friend." : According to Vasari, Topolino thought
himself an able sculptor, but was in reality extremely
feeble. He blocked out a marble Mercury, and
1 Vasari, xii. 281.
2 Springer, in his Raffael und Michelangelo, remarks that the crucifixes
current among the Italian people still bear a close resemblance to his
style. I have not observed this.
3 Lettere, No. ccclxxx.

ARTIST FRIENDS.

349

begged the great master to pronounce a candid
opinion on its merits. "You are a madman,
Topolino," replied Michelangelo, " to attempt this
art of statuary. Do you not see that your Mercury
is too short by more than a third of a cubit from
the knees to the feet? You have made him a
dwarf, and spoiled the whole figure." " Oh, that
is nothing ! If there is no other fault, I can easily
put that to rights. Leave the matter to me."
Michelangelo laughed at the man's simplicity, and
went upon his way. Then Topolino took a piece
of marble, and cut off the legs of his Mercury below
the knees. Next he fashioned a pair of buskins
of the right height, and joined these on to the
truncated limbs in such wise that the tops of
the boots concealed the lines of juncture. When
Buonarroti saw the finished statue, he remarked that
fools were gifted with the instinct for rectifying
errors by expedients which a wise man would not
have hit upon.
Another of Michelangelo's buffoon friends was
a Florentine celebrity, Piloto, the goldsmith. We
know that he took this man with him when he
went to Venice in 1530; but Vasari tells no char
acteristic stories concerning their friendship. It
may be remarked that II Lasca describes Piloto as
a "most entertaining and facetious fellow," assign
ing him the principal part in one of his indecent
novels.1 The painter Giuliano Bugiardini ought to
1 Le Gene, i. 2.

35° LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
be added to the same list. Messer Ottaviano de'
Medici begged him to make a portrait of Michel
angelo, who gave him a sitting without hesitation,
being extremely partial to the man's company.1 At
the end of two hours Giuliano exclaimed : " Michel
angelo, if you want to see yourself, stand up ; I
have caught the likeness." Michelangelo did as
he was bidden, and when he had examined the
portrait, he laughed and said : " What the devil
have you been about ? You have painted me with
one of my eyes up in the temple." Giuliano stood
some time comparing the drawing with his model's
face, and then remarked : "I do not think so ; but
take your seat again, and I shall be able to judge
better when I have you in the proper pose." Michel
angelo, who knew well where the fault lay, and how
little judgment belonged to his friend Bugiardini,
resumed his seat, grinning. After some time of
careful contemplation, Giuliano rose to his feet and
cried : "It seems to me that I have drawn it right,
and that the life compels me to do so." " So then,"
replied Buonarroti, " the defect is nature's, and see
you spare neither the brush nor art."
Both Sebastiano del Piombo and Giorgio Vasari
were appreciated by Michelangelo for their lively
parts and genial humour. The latter has told an
anecdote which illustrates the old man's eccentri
city.2 He was wont to wear a cardboard hat at
night, into which he stuck a candle, and then
1 Vasari, x. 350. 2 Ibid., xii. 276.

VASARI'S GOSSIP. 351
worked by its light upon his statue of the Pieta.
Vasari observing this habit, wished to do him a
kindness by sending him 40 lbs. of candles made
of goat's fat, knowing that they gutter less than
ordinary dips of tallow. His servant carried them
pohtely to the house two hours after nightfall, and
presented them to Michelangelo. He refused, and
said he did not want them. The man answered :
" Sir, they have almost broken my arms carrying
them all this long way from the bridge, nor will I
take them home again. There is a heap of mud
opposite your door, thick and firm enough to hold
them upright. Here then I will set them all up,
and light them." When Michelangelo heard this,
he gave way : " Lay them down ; I do not mean you
to play pranks at my house-door." Vasari tells
another anecdote about the Pietk.1 Pope Julius III.
sent him late one evening to Michelangelo's house
for some drawing. The old man came doAvn with a
lantern, and hearing what was wanted, told Urbino
to look for the cartoon. Meanwhile, Vasari turned
his attention to one of the legs of Christ, which
Michelangelo had been trying to alter. In order
to prevent his seeing, Michelangelo let the lamp
fall, and they remained in darkness. He then called
for a light, and stepped forth from the enclosure
of planks behind which he worked. As he did so,
he remarked, " I am so old that oftentimes Death
plucks me by the cape to go with him, and one day
1 Vasari, p. 281.

352 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
this body of mine will fall like the lantern, and the
light of life will be put out." Of death he used to
say, that "if life gives us pleasure, we ought not
to expect displeasure from death, seeing it is made
by the hand of the same master." 2
Among stories relating to craftsmen, these are
perhaps worth gleaning.2 While he was working
on the termini for the tomb of Julius, he gave
directions to a certain stone-cutter: "Remove such
and such parts here to-day, smooth out in this place,
and polish up in that." In course of time, without
being aware of it, the man found that he had pro
duced a statue, and stared astonished at his own
performance. Michelangelo asked, " What do you
think of it 1" "I think it very good," he answered,
" and I owe you a deep debt of gratitude." " Why
do you say that ? " " Because you have caused me
to discover in myself a talent which I did not know
that I possessed." — A certain citizen, who wanted a
mortar, went to a sculptor and asked him to make
one. The fellow, suspecting some practical joke,
pointed out Buonarroti's house, and said that if
he wanted mortars, a man lived there whose trade
it was to make them. The customer accordingly
addressed himself to Michelangelo, who, in his turn
suspecting a trick, asked who had sent him. When
he knew the sculptor's name, he promised to carve
the mortar, on the condition that it should be
1 Vasari, p. 278.
2 Ibid., xii. pp. 278-283, and notes.

CRITICAL OBSERVATIONS. 353
paid for at the sculptor's valuation. This was
settled, and the mortar turned out a miracle of
arabesques and masks and grotesque inventions,
wonderfully wrought and polished. In due course
of time the mortar was taken to the envious and
suspicious sculptor, who stood dumbfounded before
it, and told the customer that there was nothing left
but to carry this masterpiece of carving back to him
who fashioned it, and order a plain article for him
self. — At Modena he inspected the terra-cotta groups
by Antonio Begarelli, enthusiastically crying out,
"If this clay could become marble, woe to antique
statuary." — A Florentine citizen once saw him gazing
at Donatello's statue of S. Mark upon the outer wall
of Orsammichele. On being asked what he thought
of it, Michelangelo replied, " I never saw a figure
which so thoroughly represents a man of probity ;
if S. Mark was really like that, we have every reason
to believe everything which he has said." To the
S. George in the same place he is reported to have
given the word of command, " March ! " — Some one
showed him a set of medals by Alessandro Cesari,
upon which he exclaimed, "The death hour of
art has struck ; nothing more perfect can be seen
than these." — Before Titian's portrait of Duke
Alfonso di Ferrara he observed that he had not
thought art could perform so much, adding that
Titian alone deserved the name of painter. — He was
wont to call Cronaca's church of S. Francesco al
Monte "his lovely peasant girl," and Ghiberti's doors
VOL. 11. z

354 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
in the Florentine Baptistery " the Gates of Paradise."
— Somebody showed him a boy's drawings, and ex
cused their imperfection by pleading that he had
only just begun to study: "That is obvious," he
answered. A similar reply is said to have been
made to Vasari, when he excused his own frescoes
in the Cancelleria at Rome by saying they had been
painted in a few days. — An artist showed him a
Pieta which he had finished : " Yes, it is indeed a
pieta (pitiful object) to see." — Ugo da Carpi signed
one of his pictures with a legend declaring he had
not used a brush on it : "It would have been better
had he done so." — Sebastian del Piombo was ordered
to paint a friar in a chapel at S. Piero a Montorio.
Michelangelo observed, " He will spoil the chapel."
Asked why, he answered, " When the friars have
spoiled the world, which is so large, it surely is an
easy thing for them to spoil such a tiny chapel." —
A sculptor put together a number of figures imitated
from the antique, and thought he had surpassed
his models. Michelangelo remarked, " One who
walks after another man, never goes in front of
him ; and one who is not able to do well by his
own wit, will not be able to profit by the works of
others."1 — -A painter produced some notably poor
picture, in which only an ox was vigorously drawn :
"Every artist draws his own portrait best," said
Michelangelo. — He went to see a statue which was in
the sculptor's studio, waiting to be exposed before the
J This was said probably apropos of Bandinelli's copy of the Laocoon.

CAUSTIC REMARKS. 355
public. The man bustled about altering the lights,
in order to show his work off to the best advantage :
" Do not take this trouble ; what really matters
will be the light of the piazza ; " meaning that the
people in the long-run decide what is good or bad
in art. — Accused of want of spirit in his rivalry
with Nanni di Baccio Bigio, he retorted, "Men
who fight with folk of little worth win nothing." —
A priest who was a friend of his said, "It is a
pity that you never married, for you might have
had many children, and would have left them all
the profit and honour of your labours." Michel
angelo answered, " I have only too much of a
wife in this art of mine. She has always kept me
struggling on. My children will be the works I
leave behind me. Even though they are worth
naught, yet I shall live awhile in them. Woe to
Lorenzo Ghiberti if he had not made the gates
of S. Giovanni ! His children and grandchildren
have sold and squandered the substance that he
left. The gates are still in their places."

VII.
This would be an appropriate place to estimate
Michelangelo's professional gains in detail, to
describe the properties he acquired in lands and
houses, and to give an account of his total fortune.

356 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
We are, however, not in the position to do this
accurately. We only know the prices paid for a
few of his minor works. He received, for instance,
thirty ducats for the Sleeping Cupid, and 450 ducats
for the Pietk of S. Peter's. He contracted with
Cardinal Piccolomini to furnish fifteen statues for
500 ducats. In all of these cases the costs of
marble, workmen, workshop, fell on him. He con
tracted with Florence to execute the David in two
years, at a salary of six golden florins per month,
together with a further sum when the work was
finished. It appears that 400 florins in all (includ
ing salary) were finally adjudged to him. In these
cases all incidental expenses had been paid by his
employers. He contracted with the Operai del
Duomo to make twelve statues in as many years,
receiving two florins a month, and as much as the
Operai thought fit to pay him when the whole was
done. Here too he was relieved from incidental
expenses. For the statue of Christ at S. Maria
sopra Minerva he was paid 200 crowns.
These are a few of the most trustworthy items
we possess, and they are rendered very worthless
by the impossibility of reducing ducats, florins, and
crowns to current values. With regard to the
bronze statue of Julius II. at Bologna, Michel
angelo tells us that he received in advance 1000
ducats, and when he ended his work there remained
only 4^ ducats to the good. In this case, as in
most of his great operations, he entered at the

PROFESSIONAL EARNINGS. 357
commencement into a contract with his patron,
sending in an estimate of what he thought it would
be worth his while to do the work for. The Italian
is " pigliare a cottimo ; " and in all of his dealings
with successive Popes Michelangelo evidently pre
ferred this method. It must have sometimes en
abled the artist to make large profits ; but the nature
of the contract prevents his biographer from forming
even a vague estimate of their amount. According
to Condivi, he received 3000 ducats for the Sistine
vault, working at his own costs. According to his
own statement, several hundred ducats were owing
at the end of the affair. It seems certain that
Julius II. died in Michelangelo's debt, and that
the various contracts for his tomb were a source of
loss rather than of gain.
Such large undertakings as the sacristy and library
of S. Lorenzo were probably agreed for on the con
tract system. But although there exist plenty of
memoranda recording Michelangelo's disbursements
at various times for various portions of these works,
we can strike no balance showing an approximate
calculation of his profits. What renders the matter
still more perplexing is, that very few of Michel
angelo's contracts were fulfilled according to the
original intention of the parties. For one reason or
another they had to be altered and accommodated to
circumstances. It is clear that, later on in life, he received money
for drawings, for architectural work, and for models,

358 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
the execution of which he bound himself to super
intend. Cardinal Grimani wrote saying he would
pay the artist's own price for a design he had re
quested. Vasari observes that the sketches he gave
away were worth thousands of crowns. We know
that he was offered a handsome salary for the super
intendence of S. Peter's, which he magnanimously
and piously declined to touch. But what we cannot
arrive at is even a rough valuation of the sums he
earned in these branches of employment.
Again, we know that he was promised a yearly
salary from Clement VII., and one more handsome
from Paul III. But the former was paid irregu
larly, and half of the latter depended on the profits
of a ferry, which eventually failed him altogether.
In each of these cases, then, the same circumstances
of vagueness and uncertainty throw doubt on all
investigation, and render a conjectural estimate
impossible. Moreover, there remain no documents
to prove what he may have gained, directly or in
directly, from succeeding Pontiffs. That he felt the
loss of Paul III., as a generous patron, is proved by
a letter written on the occasion of his death ; and
Vasari hints that the Pope had been munificent in
largesses bestowed upon him. But of these occa
sional presents and emoluments we have no accurate
information ; and we are unable to state what he
derived from Pius IV., who was certainly one of his
best friends and greatest admirers.
At his death in Rome he left cash amounting to

PERSONAL AND REAL ESTATE. 359
something under 9000 crowns. But, since he died
intestate, we have no will to guide us as to the
extent and nature of his whole estate. Nor, so far
as I am aware, has the return of his property, which
Lionardo Buonarroti may possibly have furnished
to the state of Florence, been yet brought to light.1
That he inherited some landed property at Set-
tignano from his father is certain ; and he added
several plots of ground to the paternal acres. He
also is said to have bought a farm in Valdichiana
(doubtful), and other pieces of land in Tuscany.
He owned a house at Rome, a house and workshop
in the Via Mozza at Florence, and he purchased the
Casa Buonarroti in Via Ghibellina. But we have
no means of determining the total value of these
real assets.
In these circumstances I feel unable to offer any
probable opinion regarding the amount of Michel
angelo's professional earnings, or the exact way in
which they were acquired. That he died possessed of
a considerable fortune, and that he was able during
his lifetime to assist his family with large donations,
cannot be disputed. But how he came to command
so much money does not appear. His frugality,
bordering upon penuriousness, impressed contem
poraries. This, considering the length of his life,
may account for not contemptible accumulations.
1 On application to the Archivio di Stato, in the Uffizi at Florence,
I discovered that Michelangelo died during a period when the former
Catasto was suspended.

360 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.

VIII.
We have seen that Michelangelo's contemporaries
found fault with several supposed frailties of his
nature. These may be briefly catalogued under
the following heads : A passionate violence of
temper (terribilita), expressing itself in hasty acts
and words ; extreme suspiciousness and irritability ;
solitary habits, amounting to misanthropy or churl
ishness ; eccentricity and melancholy bordering on
madness ; personal timidity and avarice ; a want of
generosity in imparting knowledge, and an undue
partiality for handsome persons of his own sex.
His biographers, Condivi and Vasari, thought these
charges worthy of serious refutation, which proves
that they were current. They had no difficulty in
showing that his alleged misanthropy, melancholy,
and madness were only signs of a studious nature
absorbed in profound meditations. They easily re
futed the charges of avarice and want of generosity
in helping on young artists. But there remained
a great deal in the popular conception which could
not be dismissed, and which has recently been cor
roborated by the publication of his correspondence.
The opinion that Michelangelo was a man of peculiar,
and in some respects not altogether healthy nervous
temperament, will force itself upon all those who
have fairly weighed the evidence of the letters in

PECULIARITIES OF TEMPERAMENT. 361
connection with the events of his life. It has been
developed in a somewhat exaggerated form, of late
years, by several psychologists of the new school
(Parlagreco and Lombroso in Italy, Nisbet in
England), who attempt to prove that Michelangelo
was the subject of neurotic disorder. The most
important and serious essay in this direction is a
little book of great interest and almost hypercritical
acumen published recently at Naples.1 Signor
Parlagreco lays great stress upon Michelangelo's
insensibility to women, his " strange and contra
dictory feeling about feminine beauty." He seeks
to show, what is indeed, I think, capable of demon
stration, that the man's intense devotion to art
and study, his solitary habits and constitutional
melancholy, caused him to absorb the ordinary
instincts and passions of a young man into his
aesthetic temperament ; and that when, in later
life, he began to devote his attention to poetry,
he treated love from the point of view of mystical
philosophy. In support of this argument Parlagreco
naturally insists upon the famous friendship with
Vittoria Colonna, and quotes the Platonising poems
commonly attributed to this emotion. He has
omitted to mention, what certainly bears upon the
point of Michelangelo's frigidity, that only one out
of the five Buonarroti brothers, sons of Lodovico,
married. Nor does he take into account the fact
1 Michelangelo Buonarroti (H Vecchio): Studio di Carlo Parlagreco.
Napoli : Fratelli Orfeo, 1888.

362 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
that Raffaello da Urbino, who was no less devoted
and industrious in art and study, retained the
liveliest sensibility to female charms. In other
words, the critic appears to neglect that common-
sense solution of the problem, which is found in a
cold and physically sterile constitution as opposed
to one of greater warmth and sensuous activity.
Parlagreco attributes much value to what he
calls the religious terrors and remorse of Michel
angelo's old age ; says that " his fancy became
haunted with doubts and fears ; every day discover
ing fresh sins in the past, inveighing against the
very art which made him famous among men, and
seeking to propitiate Paradise for his soul by acts
of charity to dowerless maidens." The sonnets to
Vasari and some others are quoted in support of
this view. But the question remains, whether it is
not exaggerated to regard pious aspirations, and a
sense of human life's inadequacy at its close, as the
signs of nervous malady. The following passage
sums up Parlagreco's theory in a succession of
pregnant sentences.1 " An accurate study, based
upon his correspondence in connection with the
events of the artist's life and the history of his
works, has enabled me to detect in his character
a persistent oscillation. Continual contradictions
between great and generous ideas upon the one side,
and puerile ideas upon the other ; between the will
and the word, thought and action ; an excessive
1 Op. cit, p. 93.

PARLAGRECO'S CRITICISM. 363
irritability and the highest degree of susceptibility ;
constant love for others, great activity in doing
good, sudden sympathies, great outbursts of en
thusiasm, great fears ; at times an unconsciousness
with respect to his own actions ; a marvellous
modesty in the field of art, an unreasonable vanity
regarding external appearances : 1 — these are the
diverse manifestations of psychical energy in Buon
arroti's life ; all which makes me believe that
the mighty artist was affected by a degree
of neuropathy bordering closely upon hysterical
disease." He proceeds to support this general
view by several considerations, among which the
most remarkable are Michelangelo's asseverations
to friends : 2 " You will say that I am old and mad
to make sonnets, but if people assert that I am on
the verge of dotage, I have wished to act up to
my character : " " You will say that I am old and
mad ; but I answer that there is no better way of
keeping sane and free from anxiety, than by being
mad:" "As regards the madness they ascribe to
me, it does harm to nobody but myself:" "I enjoyed
last evening, because it drew me out of my melan
choly and mad humour."
Reviewing Parlagreco's argument in general,
I think it may be justly remarked that if the
qualities rehearsed above constitute hysterical neuro-
1 This refers to Michelangelo's pride in his pedigree. But it neglects
the notorious simplicity of his personal life.
2 Op. cit, p. 101.

364 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
pathy, then every testy, sensitive, impulsive, and
benevolent person is neuropathically hysterical. In
particular we may demur to the terms "puerile
ideas," "unreasonable vanity regarding external
appearances." It would be difficult to discover
puerility in any of Buonarroti's utterances ; and his
only vanity was a certain pride in the supposed
descent of his house from that of Canossa. The
frequent allusions to melancholy and madness do
not constitute a confession of these qualities. They
express Michelangelo's irritation at being always
twitted with unsociability and eccentricity. In the
conversations recorded by Francesco d'Olanda he
quietly and philosophically exculpates men of the
artistic temperament from such charges, which were
undoubtedly brought against him, and which the
recluse manner of his life to some extent ac
counted for.
It may be well here to resume the main points of
the indictment brought against Michelangelo's sanity
by the neo-psychologists. In the first place, he
admired male more than female beauty, and preferred
the society of men to that of women. But this
peculiarity, in an age and climate which gave large
licence to immoderate passions, exposed him to no
serious malignancy of rumour. Such predilections
were not uncommon in Italy. They caused scandal
when they degenerated into vice, and rarely failed
in that case to obscure the good fame of persons
subject to them. Yet Michelangelo, surrounded

VINDICATION OF HIS CHARACTER. 365
by jealous rivals, was only very lightly touched by
the breath of calumny in his lifetime. Aretino's
malicious insinuation and Condivi's cautious vindica
tion do not suffice to sully his memory with any
dark suspicion. He lived with an almost culpable
penuriousness in what concerned his personal expen
diture. But he was generous towards his family,
bountiful to his dependants, and liberal in charity.
He suffered from constitutional depression, preferred
solitude to crowds, and could not brook the interfer
ence of fashionable idlers with his studious leisure.
But, as he sensibly urged in self-defence, these
eccentricities, so frequent with men of genius, ought
to have been ascribed to the severe demands made
upon an artist's faculties by the problems with which
he was continually engaged ; the planning of a Pope's
mausoleum, the distribution of a score of histories
and several hundreds of human figures on a chapel-
vaulting, the raising of S. Peter's cupola in air : none
of which tasks can be either lightly undertaken or
carried out with ease. At worst, Michelangelo's
melancholy might be ascribed to that morbus erudi-
torum of which Burton speaks. It never assumed
the form of hypochondria, hallucination, misogyny,
or misanthropy. He was irritable, suspicious, and
frequently unjust both to his friends and relatives
on slight occasions. But his relatives gave him good
reason to be fretful by their greediness, ingratitude,
and stupidity ; and when he lost his temper he re
covered it with singular ease. It is also noticeable

366 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
that these paroxysms of crossness on which so much
stress has been laid, came upon him mostly when
he was old, worn out with perpetual mental and
physical fatigue, and troubled by a painful disease
of the bladder. There is nothing in their nature,
frequency, or violence to justify the hypothesis of
more than a hyper-sensitive nervous temperament ;
and without a temperament of this sort how could
an artist of Michelangelo's calibre and intensity per
form his life-work ? In old age he dwelt upon the
thought of death, meditated in a repentant spirit on
the errors of his younger years, indulged a pious
spirit, and clung to the cross of Christ. But when
a man has passed the period allotted for the average
of his race, ought not these preoccupations to be
reckoned to him rather as appropriate and meritori
ous? We must not forget that he was born and
lived as a believing Christian, in an age of immorality
indeed, but one which had not yet been penetrated
with scientific conceptions and materialism. There
is nothing hysterical or unduly ascetic in the religion
of his closing years. It did not prevent him from
taking the keenest interest in his family, devoting
his mind to business and the purchase of property,
carrying on the Herculean labour of building the
mother-church of Latin Christendom. He was sub
ject, all through his career, to sudden panics, and
suffered from a constitutional dread of assassination.
We can only explain his flight from Rome, his
escape from Florence, the anxiety he expressed

GENIUS AND MORBIDITY. 367
about his own and his family's relations to the
Medici, by supposing that his nerves were sensitive
upon this point. But, considering the times in
which he lived, the nature of the men around him,
the despotic temper of the Medicean princes, was
there anything morbid in this timidity ? A student
of Cellini's Memoirs, of Florentine history, and of
the dark stories in which the private annals of the
age abound, will be forced to admit that imaginative
men of acute nervous susceptibility, who loved a
quiet life and wished to keep their mental forces
unimpaired for art and thought, were justified in
feeling an habitual sense of uneasiness in Italy of
the Renaissance period. Michelangelo's timidity, real
as it was, did not prevent him from being bold upon
occasion, speaking the truth to popes and princes,
and making his personality respected. He was even
accused of being too "terrible," too little of a
courtier and time-server.
When the whole subject of Michelangelo's tem
perament has been calmly investigated, the truth
seems to be that he did not possess a nervous tem
perament so evenly balanced as some phlegmatic
men of average ability can boast of. But who
could expect the creator of the Sistine, the sculptor
of the Medicean tombs, the architect of the cupola,
the writer of the sonnets, to be an absolutely normal
individual? To identify genius with insanity is a
pernicious paradox. To recognise that it cannot
exist without some inequalities of nervous energy,

368 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
some perturbations of nervous function, is reason
able. In other words, it is an axiom of physiology
that the abnormal development of any organ or any
faculty is balanced by some deficiency or abnor
mality elsewhere in the individual. This is only
another way of saying that the man of genius is
not a mediocre and ordinary personality : in other
words, it is a truism, the statement of which appears
superfluous. Rather ought we, in Michelangelo's
case, to dwell upon the remarkable sobriety of his
life, his sustained industry under very trying cir
cumstances, his prolonged intellectual activity into
extreme old age, the toughness of his constitution,
and the elasticity of that nerve-fibre which continued
to be sound and sane under the enormous and
varied pressure put upon it over a period of seventy-
five laborious years.
If we dared attempt a synthesis or reconstitution
of this unique man's personality, upon the data
furnished by his poems, letters, and occasional
utterances, all of which have been set forth in their
proper places in this work, I think we must con
struct him as a being gifted, above all his other
qualities and talents, with a burning sense of abstract
beauty and an eager desire to express this through
several forms of art — design, sculpture, fresco-paint
ing, architecture, poetry. The second point forced
in upon our mind is that the same man vibrated
acutely to the political agitation of his troubled age,
to mental influences of various kinds, and finally to

MICHELANGELO'S PERSONALITY. 369
a persistent nervous susceptibility, which made him
exquisitely sensitive to human charm. This quality
rendered him irritable in his dealings with his
fellow-men, like an instrument of music, finely
strung, and jangled on a slight occasion. In the
third place we discover that, while accepting the
mental influences and submitting to the personal
attractions I have indicated, he strove, by indulging
solitary tastes, to maintain his central energies in
tact for art — joining in no rebellious conspiracies
against the powers that be, bending his neck in
silence to the storm, avoiding pastimes and social
diversions which might have called into activity the
latent sensuousness of his nature. For the same
reason, partly by predilection, and partly by a
deliberate wish to curb his irritable tendencies, he
lived as much alone as possible, and poorly. At
the close of his career, when he condescended to
unburden his mind in verse and friendly dialogue,
it is clear that he had formed the habit of recurring
to religion for tranquillity, and of combating domin
ant desire by dwelling on the thought of inevitable
death. Platonic speculations upon the eternal value
of beauty displayed in mortal creatures helped him
always in his warfare with the flesh and roving
inclination. Self-control seems to have been the
main object of his conscious striving, not for its own
sake, but as the condition necessary to his highest
spiritual activity. Self-coherence, self-concentration,
not for any mean or self-indulgent end, but for the
VOL. II. 2 A

370 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
best attainment of his intellectual ideal, was what
he sought for by the seclusion and the renunciations
of a lifetime.
The total result of this singular attitude toward
human life, which cannot be rightly described as
either ascetic or mystical, but seems rather to have
been based upon some self-preservative instinct,
bidding him sacrifice lower and keener impulses to
what he regarded as the higher and finer purpose
of his being, is a certain clash and conflict of
emotions, a certain sense of failure to attain the end
proposed, which excuses, though I do not think it
justifies, the psychologists, when they classify him
among morbid subjects. Had he yielded at any
period of his career to the ordinary customs of his
easy-going age, he would have presented no problem
to the scientific mind. After consuming the fuel of
the passions, he might have subsided into common
calm, or have blunted the edge of inspiration, or
have finished in some phase of madness or ascetical
repentance. Such are the common categories of
extinct volcanic temperaments. But the essential
point about Michelangelo is that he never burned
out, and never lost his manly independence, in
spite of numerous nervous disadvantages. That
makes him the unparalleled personality he is, as
now revealed to us by the impartial study of the
documents at our disposal.

CONCLUSION. 371

IX.
It is the plain duty of criticism in this age to
search and probe the characters of world-important
individuals under as many aspects as possible,
neglecting no analytical methods, shrinking from
no tests, omitting no slight details or faint shadows
that may help to round a picture. Yet, after all
our labour, we are bound to confess that the man
himself eludes our insight. "The abysmal deeps
of personality" have never yet been sounded by
mere human plummets. The most that microscope
and scalpel can perform is to lay bare tissue and
direct attention to peculiarities of structure. In the
long-run we find that the current opinion formed
by successive generations remains true in its grand
outlines. That large collective portrait of the hero,
slowly emerging from sympathies and censures, from
judgments and panegyrics, seems dim indeed and
visionary, when compared with some sharply in
dented description by a brilliant literary craftsman.
It has the vagueness of a photograph produced by
superimposing many negatives of the same face one
upon the other. It lacks the pungent piquancy
of an etching. Yet this is what we must abide by ;
for this is spiritually and generically veracious.
At the end, then, a sound critic returns to think
of Michelangelo, not as Parlagreco and Lombroso

372 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
show him, nor even as the minute examination of
letters and of poems proves him to have been, but as
tradition and the total tenour of his life display him
to our admiration. Incalculable, incomprehensible,
incommensurable : yes, all souls, the least and
greatest, attack them as we will, are that. But
definite in solitary sublimity, like a supreme moun
tain seen from a vast distance, soaring over shadowy
hills and misty plains into the clear ether of
immortal fame.
Viewed thus, he lives for ever as the type and
symbol of a man, much-suffering, continually labour
ing, gifted with keen but rarely indulged passions,
whose energies from boyhood to extreme old age
were dedicated with unswerving purpose to the
service of one master, plastic art. On his death-bed
he may have felt, like Browning, in that sweetest
of his poems, " other heights in other lives, God
willing." But, for this earthly pilgrimage, he was
contented to leave the ensample of a noble nature
made perfect and completed in itself by addiction to
one commanding impulse. We cannot cite another
hero of the modern world who more fully and with
greater intensity realised the main end of human
life, which is self-effectuation, self-realisation, self-
manifestation in one of the many lines of labour
to which men may be called and chosen. Had we
more of such individualities, the symphony of civili
sation would be infinitely glorious ; for nothing is
more certain than that God and the world cannot be

THE HERO AS ARTIST. 373
better served than by each specific self pushing
forward to its own perfection, sacrificing the super
fluous or hindering elements in its structure, regard
less of side issues and collateral considerations.
Michelangelo, then, as Carlyle might have put it,
is the Hero as Artist. When we have admitted this,
all dregs and sediments of the analytical alembic
sink to the bottom, leaving a clear crystalline elixir
of the spirit. About the quality of his genius
opinions may, will, and ought to differ. It is so
pronounced, so peculiar, so repulsive to one man,
so attractive to another, that, like his own dread
statue of Lorenzo de' Medici, " it fascinates and is
intolerable." There are few, I take it, who can feel
at home with him in all the length and breadth and
dark depths of the regions that he traversed. The
world of thoughts and forms in which he lived
habitually is too arid, like an extinct planet, tenanted
by mighty elemental beings with little human left
to them but visionary Titan-shapes, too vast and
void for common minds to dwell in pleasurably.
The sweetness that emerges from his strength, the
beauty which blooms rarely, strangely, in unhomely
wise, upon the awful crowd of his conceptions, are
only to be apprehended by some innate sympathy or
by long incubation of the brooding intellect. It
is probable, therefore, that the deathless artist
through long centuries of glory will abide as soli
tary as the simple old man did in his poor house at
Rome. But no one, not the dullest, not the weakest,

374 LIFE OF MICHELANGELO.
not the laziest and lustfullest, not the most in
different to ideas or the most tolerant of platitudes
and paradoxes, can pass him by without being
arrested, quickened, stung, purged, stirred to uneasy
self-examination by so strange a personality ex
pressed in prophecies of art so pungent.
Each supreme artist whom God hath sent into
the world with inspiration and a particle of the
imperishable fire, is a law to himself, an universe,
a revelation of the divine life under one of its in
numerable attributes. We cannot therefore classify
Michelangelo with any of his peers throughout the
long procession of the ages. Of each and all of
them it must be said in Ariosto's words, "Nature
made him, and then broke the mould." Yet if
we seek Michelangelo's affinities, we find them
in Lucretius and Beethoven, not in Sophocles
and Mozart. He belongs to the genus of deep,
violent, colossal, passionately striving natures ; not,
like Raffaello, to the smooth, serene, broad, ex
quisitely finished, calmly perfect tribe. To God be
the praise, who bestows upon the human race
artists thus differing in type and personal quality,
each one of whom incarnates some specific por
tion of the spirit of past ages, perpetuating the
traditions of man's soul, interpreting century to
century by everlasting hieroglyphics, mute witnesses
to history and splendid illustrations of her pages.

Fold out

PEDIGREE OF THE BUONARROTI SIMONI FAMILY— (Table B.)

LODOVICO SIMONI BUONARROTI,
b. 1444, ob. 1534.
(5«« Table A.)

Lionardo,
b, Nov. 16, 1473. Do
minican Friar. Alive in
1510.

MICHELANGELO.
The subject of this memoir.

Buonarroto,
b. May 26, 1477. Prior in
1515. Ob, July 2, 1528.
M. (1) Cassandra, dr. of
Bernardo Puccini, s.p.
M. (2) on May 19, 1515,
Bartolommeo, dr. of
Ghezzo della Casa.

Giovan Simone,
b. March n, 1479. Ob.
Jan. 9, 1548, s.p.

SlGISMONDO,
b. Jan. 22, 1481. Ob.
Nov. 13, 1555, s.p.

SlMONE.
Ob. fet. nine years.

Lionardo,
b. Sept. 25, 1519. Ob.
Nov. 18, 1599.
M. May 16, 1553. Cas
sandra, dr. of Ridolfo
Ridolfi.

I
Francesca,
m. in 1538 Michele, son of
Niccol6 Guicciardini.

Four sons.
Ob. s.p.

One daughter,
ob. in infancy.
One daughter.

Two daughters,
who married.

Buonarroto,
b. April 14, 1554.
Jan. 22, 1628.
M. Alessandra, dr.
Andrea Macinghi.

I
Michelangelo,
~)b. called " The Younger,"
b. Nov. 4, 1568. Ob. Jan.
of 11, 1647. An Italian
poet, playwright, and
orator of distinction. He
first collected and pub
lished his great-uncle's
poems in 1623 (Flor.
Giunti).
Elder line extinct in the person of Cosimo Buonarroti, who died Feb. 12, 1858, bequeathing the Casa Buonarroti to the town of Florence.
The family is said still to exist in the male line of a younger branch.
( = )

TABLE I. OF THE MEDICI OF FLORENCE.

C

GIOVANNI DI AVERARDO DEI MEDICI,
b. 1360, d. 1429 ; m. Piccarda Bueri.

Cosimo,
Pater Patriae,
b. 1389, d. 1464.
Piero,
b. 1416, d. 1469.

Lorenzo
il Magnifico,
b. 1449, d, 1492.

PlERO,
b. 1471, d. 1503.

Lorenzo,
Duke of Urbino,
b. 1492, d. 1519.

= Contessina de' Bardi,
d- 1473-
= LUCREZIA TORNABUONI,
d. 1482.

Lorenzo,
b. 1395, d. 1440.

= GlNEVRA CAVALCANTI.

From whom descended Lorenzino, the murderer of Duke
Alessandro, Giovanni delle Bande Nere, and
Cosimo, first Grand Duke of Tuscany, whose line ex
pired in 1737, and the Pope Leo XI. Lorenzino was
fourth in descent from Lorenzo, Giovanni delle Bande
Nere was third, and Cosimo, his son, fourth. Alessandro
was sixth in descent from Cosimo, Pater Patrice.

= Clarice Orsini,
d. 1488.

I

Giuliano,
b. 1453, murdered by
the Pazzi, 1478.

Giulio, nat. son,
b. 1478, d. 1534,
Pope Clement VII.

Bianca,
. Guglielmo dei
Pazzi.

Nannina,
m. Bernardo Rucellai.

Maria, nat. dr.,
1. Lionetto dei Rossi.

Alfonsina Orsini,
d. 1520.

Giovanni,
b. 1475, d. 1521,
Pope Leo X.

I

Giuliano,
b. 1479, d. 1516,
Duke of Nemours;
m. Filiberta of
Savoy.

Lucrezia,
. Jacopo Salviati.

Luisa,
betrothed to Giovanni
dei Medici, her distant
cousin, descended from
Lorenzo. 1!

: Madeleine
de la Tour
d'Auvergne, d. 1519.

Clarice,!
m. Filippo Strozzi, the
great foe of the
House of Medici,
who killed himself in
prison, 1537.

Maddalena,
m. Franceschetto
Cybo, nat. son of
Pope Innocent
VIII.

Contessina,
m. Piero Ridolfi.

Ippolito, nat. son., Cardinal, d. 1535. He was born at Urbino
in 1511, the son of Pacifica Brandano. Giuliano was prob
ably his father, though some suppose he was only adopted
out of charity by the Duke. (See Litta, Table X.)

Alberigo Cybo,
Marquis of Massa.

Cardinal Ridolfi,
Bishop of Orvieto.

Caterina,
Queen of France,
wife of Henri II.,
b. 1519, d. 1589.

Alessandro, nat. ^whether of Giuliano or his cousin Giulio, Pope Clement VII. , is doubtful. Duke of Penna
and afterwards of Florence , m. Margherita, nat. dr. of the Emperor Charles V., d.s.p. murdered by his
cousin Lorenzino dei Medici. He was the son, it is said, of a Moorish slave at Urbino. Varchi (iii q7)
says the mother was a peasant of Colle Vecchio. Lorenzo de' Medici, in his Apologia, says the mother
was a woman of Colle Vecchio, near Rome, and the wife of a coachman. (Litta Table X )
( 3 )

TABLE II. OF THE MEDICI OF FLORENCE.

Lorenzo dei Medici, = Ginevra Cavalcanti.
b. 1395, d. 1440.
(Litta, Table XII.)
Pierfrancesco, = Laodamia Acciajuoli.
d. in 1476 or 1467. |

Lorenzo, :
d. 1503. It was for
him that Michelangelo
made a little statue of
S. John in 1495.

Semir amide,
dr. of Giacomo Appiani,
Lord of Piombino, in
1483-

Pierfrancesco. = In 1511, Maria, dr. of
Tommaso Soderini.

Lorenzino,
b. 1514. Murdered at
Venice in 1547.

Giovanni, :
. 1467 ; the hand
somest young man in
Florence ; d. 1408.

In 1497, Caterina, nat.
dr. of Galeazzo Maria
Sforza, Duke of Milan ,
and widow of (1)
Girolamo Riario, Lord
of Forll and Imola ;
(2) of Giacomo Feo,
a handsome plebeian
of Savona ; d. 1509.

In 1516, Maria, dr. of
Giacomo Salviati,
whose mother was Lu-
creziadei Medici, sister
of Pope Leo X.

GlOVANNr
delle Bande Nere,
b. in 1498 at Forli, d.
of his wounds in
1526.

Cosimo, first Grand =Eleonora da Toledo.
Duke of Tuscany,
b. 1519. m
Grand Ducal House of Tuscany.

The Medici of Milan were derived (but not authentically) from Giambuono, son of Bernardo dei Medici of Florence
(b. before 1300). Litta clearly thinks the two families were distinct. Pius IV. pretended to the alliance, and took
the Florentine arms. (See Litta's Famiglie Celebri, article " Medici," Part II. Table 3.)
( 4 )

Fold out

APPENDIX.

No. I.
NOTE ON THE BUONARROTI PEDIGREE.
i. The family of Lodovico Buonarroti in the year 1480.
Archivio di Stato, Firenze. Catasto, 1480 ; Leon Nero, ac. 265.
Portata di Francesco e Lodovicho di Lionardo di Buonarotta
Simoni. Bocche [these were the persons maintained in the family] : —
Francesco di Lionardo sopra detto d'eta d'anni ... 45.
Lodovicho di Lionardo sopra detto d'etk d'anni ... 34 [sic].
Ma Lesandra nostra madre d'eta d'anni  71.
Ma Chasandra donna del sopra detto Francesco d'eta
d'anni  25.
Ma Francesca donna di Lodovicho sopra detto d'eta,
d'anni  25.
Lionardo figliuolo di Lodovicho sopra detto d'eta d'anni 7.
Michelangniolo figliuolo di Lodovicho detto d'anni . . 5.
Buonarroto figliuolo di Lodovicho detto d'anni ... 3.
Giovan Simone figliuolo di Lodovicho detto d'anni . . i£.
2. In the Catasto 1469, Leon Rosso, ac. 808, Portata delle Rede
di Miniato della Sera, Francesca (Lodovico's first wife) is said to
be twelve years old. This does not agree with the age of twenty-
five given her in the Catasto of 1480 above, and is possibly a
mistake for fourteen. But her registration among the heirs of
Miniato proves her to have been living in her father's home in
1469. Her eldest son, Lionardo, was born in 1473, if he had
reached the age of seven in 1480. Her youngest son, Sigis-

376 APPENDIX.
mondo, was born in January 1481. When she died remains
uncertain. 3. Lodovico's second marriage, to Lucrezia Ubaldini, took place
in 1485. She died in 1497, and was buried at S. Croce on the
9th of July in that year. Libro de' Morti, 1457-1506. Anno
1497, Luglio : " La donna di Lodovicho Bonaroti fu riposta in
Santa ?£< [Croce] a di 9."
4. Proofs of the births of Giovan Simone and Sigismondo.
Archivio di Stato di Firenze. Archivio delle Tratte, Libro ii. delle
Eta (Gbnfalone Leon Nero), foglio 84 : —
" Giovan Simone di Lodovicho di Lionardo di Buonarroto
Simoni, 11 Marzo 1478" (79 common style).
" Gismondo di Lodovicho di Lionardo di Buonarroto Simoni
22 Gennaio 1480" (81 common style).
These Registers of the age of Florentine citizens were kept
because it was the custom to ballot for public offices, and when a
man was elected, his age was duly inscribed. It is from the same
source that we know Lodovico to have been born in 1444. This
date does not agree with the age of thirty-four assigned to him
in the Catasto of 1480 quoted above.

No. II.
TRANSLATION OF LETTERE, No. CCCLXXXIIL, FROM
MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI TO SER GIOVAN
FRANCESCO FATTUCCI. Rome, January 1524.
You write to ask me how my affairs with Pope Julius stand.
I assure you that if I could claim an estimate of losses and gains,
the balance would turn out rather to my credit than my debit.
The matter stands thus : When the Pope sent for me from
Florence, I think in the second year of his pontificate, I had
begun to paint one half of the Hall of the Council, and was to
be paid 3000 ducats ; the Cartoon was finished, as is known to
all Florence ; and the money seemed to me already half earned.

APPENDIX. 377
Also, of the twelve Apostles ordered for S. Maria del Fiore, one
was blocked out, as any one can see still ; and I had brought
down nearly all the marbles necessary for this work. When
Pope Julius called me away, I made no profit by either of these
undertakings. Afterwards, when I went to Rome with the said
Pope Julius, he gave me a commission to make his tomb ; the
marble was to cost iooo ducats ; and he commissioned me to pay
for it, and sent me to Carrara to have it quarried. There I
stayed about eight months, directing the work of blocking out ;
after which I brought nearly the whole of it to S. Peter's, though
a part remained at the Ripa. When I had finished paying for
the transport of these marbles, and all the money was spent, I
furnished the house I had upon the Piazza di S. Pietro with beds
and utensils at my own expense, trusting to the commission of
the tomb, and sent for workmen from Florence, some of whom
are still alive, and paid them in advance out of my own purse.
Meanwhile Pope Julius changed his mind about the tomb, and
would not have it made. Not knowing this, I went to ask him
for money, and was expelled from the chamber.1 Enraged at
such an insult, I left Rome on the moment. The things with
which my house was stocked went to the dogs. The marbles I
had brought to Rome lay till the date of Leo's creation on the
Piazza of S. Peter's, and both lots were injured and pillaged.
Among other details which I can prove, two blocks of four and a
half cubits a piece were carried away from the Ripa by Agostino
Chigi ; these had cost me more than fifty golden ducats ; and the
money might be sued for, since there are witnesses to the fact.
But to return to the marbles ; more than a year elapsed from the
time I went to quarry them and settled at Carrara to the day
when I was expelled the Palace. For all this time I never
received any pay, and spent some scores of ducats out of my
own pocket.
Proceeding with my statement, when Pope Julius went to
1 In the abbozzo (ccclxxxiv.) : " Finding myself engaged in great expense,
and seeing his Holiness indisposed to pay, I complained to him ; this annoyed
him so that he had me turned out of the ante-chamber. Upon which I became
Rome suddenly."

378 APPENDIX.
Bologna the first time, I was forced to go there with a rope round
my neck to beg his pardon.1 He ordered me to make his statue
in bronze, sitting, about seven cubits in height. When he asked
what it would cost, I answered that I thought I could cast it for
1000 ducats; but that it was not my trade, and that I did not
wish to bind myself by contract. He answered : " Go to work ;
you shall cast it over and over again till it succeeds ; and I will
give you enough to satisfy you." To put it briefly, I cast the
statue twice, and at the end of two years, at Bologna, I found
that I had four and a half ducats left. I never received any
thing more for this job ; and all the moneys I paid out during
the said two years were the iooo ducats with which I promised
to cast it. These were disbursed to me in several instalments by
Messer Antonio Maria da Legniame, a Bolognese.
When I had placed the statue before S. Petronio and returned
to Rome, the Pope was still unwilling that I should complete the
tomb, and ordered me to paint the vault of the Sistine. We
agreed for 3000 ducats. The first design I made for this work
had twelve Apostles in the lunettes, the remainder being a cer
tain space filled in with ornamental details according to the usual
manner. After I had begun, it seemed to me that this would turn out a
poor affair, and I told the Pope that the Apostles alone would
make a poor effect, in my opinion. He asked me why; I
answered, because they too were poor. Then he gave me a new
commission to do what I liked best, and promised to satisfy my
claims for the work, and told me to paint down to the pictured
histories upon the lower row. Meanwhile, when the vault was
nearly finished, the Pope went back to Bologna; whereupon I
went twice to get the necessary funds, and obtained nothing, and
lost all that time, till I returned to Rome. Then I began to
make Cartoons, that is, for the extremities and sides around the
said chapel, hoping to get money at last and to complete the
1 In the abbozzo : " After some seven or eight months, during which I re
mained almost in hiding and in fear, on account of the Pope's anger, I was
compelled, being unable to stay at Florence, to go and crave his mercy at
Bologna,"

APPENDIX. 379
work. I never could extract a farthing ; and when I complained
one day to Messer Bernardo da Bibbiena and to Atalante, repre
senting that I could not stop longer at Rome, and that I should
have to go away with God's grace, Messer Bernardo told Atalante
that he must bear this in mind, for that he wished me to have
money whatever happened. He had 2000 ducats of the Camera
paid out to me; and this sum, together with the first 1000, is
what they lay to my account for the tomb. I expected to get
more for my lost time and the work I had done. Of this money,
as Messer Bernardo and Atalante had raised me up, I gave the
former 100, and the latter 50 ducats.
Afterwards, came the death of Pope Julius ; and at the begin
ning of Leo's reign, Aginensis wished to enlarge his uncle's tomb,
that is, to make something on a larger scale than my original
plan. So we drew up a contract. I objected to the 3000 ducats
which I had received being put to the account of the tomb,
explaining that I ought to have a great deal more. Upon this
Aginensis told me that I was a cheating rascal.

No. III.
DOCUMENT RELATING TO THE WOOL USED BY
MICHELANGELO IN FORTIFYING FLORENCE.
Die xiiii ottobris 1531.
Essendosi nel tempo dello assedio qui della cipta, per ordine di
quelli Magistrati che allora governavano, intrapreso e tolto di
dogana e di piii magazini dimolte balle di lana di diversi merca- Montis
tanti e lanajuoli qui della cipta e d'altri ; e quelle adoprate per auctoritas
fare ripari e altro, secondo che allora occorse, delle quali lane danda
parte se ne sono salvate e hoggi si truovono ragunate nella Casa feriendis
di Horto San Michele e nel Fondaco del guado ; e perche le sono J?nls L?reP-
°_ ' r . tiseDoana
molto mescolate e male agevolmente si ricognoschono di chi le tempore
siano, pur per renderle in verita a di chi elle f ussino e trovarne e 1-
piii il vero che sia possibile. II Magnifc0 Gonfaloniere di Gius-

380 APPENDIX.
titia e gli altri Spectabili Cittadini della presente Balia hanno
nello infrascritto modo proveduto.
Che per virtu della presente Provisione alii Spectabili Ufficiali
di Monte s'intenda essere e sia data auctoritk e facolta di potere
fra X di, dal di della finale conclusione di questa, eleggere et
havere electo quattro ciptadini e' quali parra loro piu idonei e
approposito ; et intendasi essere e sia per la presente data loro
auctorita di potere tutti a quattro, o almeno tre di loro dac-
cordo, rinvenire e ritrovare in quanto si possa e' padroni di decte
lane e che quantita e qualita di lana invero a ciascheduno di loro
fossi stata tolta ; e di poi havere, infra dua mesi dal di della loro
electione, renduto, dato e consegnato e restituito decte lane, e
partitale a chi giudicheranno che siano e' veri padroni di quelle ;
cioe rendendo a ciascheduno quella tanta rata e parte a lira e
soldo che li toccassi. E tanto quanto cosi dichiareranno e con-
segneranno, tanto s'intenda essere e sia ben giudicata dato e con
segnato, e a quello ciascheduno debba stare tacito e contento e
non si possa per alcuno muovere, contradire o alterare im modo
alcuno. Non obstantibus, &c.
Copia estratta del Libro di Provvisioni della Balia a C. 49, che
si conserva nel R. Archivio di Stato di Firenze.

No. IV.
LETTER FROM BATTISTA DELLA PALLA.1
Al Molto honorando Michelagnolo buonarotj simonj amico
carissimo, Vinetia in casa Ecmo panciatichi.
Doppo la de xxj tenuta a xxij per lo scarpellino a posta ui
scrissj a xxiiij per la quale oltre alio hauerui rafermo tutto il
dettoui per la dauanti ni promessi dopo esser parato per piu
nostra satisfattione et sicureza uenire fino qui a leuarui et per
1 Arch. Buon., vol. vii. No. 196.

APPENDIX. 381
tenerui compagnia fino drento di fiorenza ogni uolta che da uoi
fussi chiamato et parendomi essere trascorsi tanti giorni che di gia
qui douessi essere comparso alli xj di questo me ne uennj qua con
tale ordine da toruj dello animo ogni sospettione del camino et
cosi mi ci sono trattenuto infra pisa et qui fino a questa mattina.
Ma non comparendo, ne sentendo alchuna nouella di uoj, ne auan-
zandomj piu tempo della licentia concessami da cot1 Sig" (cotesti
Signori) me ne ritorno di presente alia uolta di casa che scriuendo
questa sono stiualato et col pie alia staffa et perche io non mi
posso persuadere che uoj non uegniate in ognj modo ui fo inten
dere per questa : se per sorte anchora non fussi partito che i beni
di quelli che cascarono nella contumacia in compagnia uostra gia
si uendono et che se non uenite nel termine del tempo cioe per
tutto questo mese conccessoui per el saluo condotto si fara il
simile di uostri senza uno remedio al mondo et uenendo come
al] fermo confido fate motto qui al mio Hrdo M. Filippo Calan-
drinj al quale ho lasciata Mria ( = memoria) del sopra detto modo
di condurui sicuro senza un pensiero. Dio ci guardi di male et
facciacj riuedere presto inella patria per sua bonta uittoriosa
1. di Lucca a di xviiij0 di nouembre 1529. Racomandatemj al
bruciolo al quale scriuer6 di fiorenza di nuovo del caso suo al
mio partire lasciato in assai buon termine.
Nostro b. d. p. Battista della Palla.

No. V.
ON MICHELANGELO'S TEMPERAMENT AND ITS
BEARING ON HIS POETRY.
I had written the sections of Chapter XII. which deal with
Michelangelo's loves and friendships, and was in some uneasiness
as to the propriety of publishing the results I had arrived at,
when a series of new works came beneath my notice, rendering it
totally impossible to avoid the problem in question. As far back

382 APPENDIX.
as the year 1888, F. Parlagreco published a little essay at Naples,
in which he strongly insisted upon Michelangelo's indifference to
women and his partiality for male friends as the sign of radical
psychical unsoundness. The views taken by this author are ex
treme and exaggerated. Still they approved themselves to the emi
nent Italian psychologist, Lombroso, who condensed and adopted
them in a paper contributed to the Archivio di Psichiatria, vol. xi.
Fasc. 3 and 4, 1890. Both Parlagreco and Lombroso treated the
theories of Guasti, Milanesi, and Gotti with ridicule, and ran to
the conclusion that Michelangelo was a victim of mental disorder
bordering upon hysteria. Lombroso repeated these views regard
ing Michelangelo's congenital morbidity in his " Uomo di Genio,"
with some important modifications. They were echoed, with
omissions and reticences intended for the English public, by Mr.
Nisbet in " The Insanity of Genius." Personally, I do not accept
the theory of Michelangelo's morbidity, or the hypothesis which
makes all genius a diseased manifestation akin to vice and crime.
Yet the diffusion of such opinions confirmed me in my own sense
that the time had arrived for dealing frankly with the great
artist's psychology by the light of his correspondence and ungar-
bled poems. I could not, moreover, neglect the fact that Anton
Springer, in what is now the most authoritative book on Michel
angelo in German, followed an erroneous line of explanation. He
describes the Cavalieri episode in Buonarroti's life as " a paroxysm
of friendship," an "illness," an " aberration of fancy," from which
the sufferer emerged into healthier feelings and a purer air when
he became attached to Vittoria Colonna.1 Springer refused to
recognise, what all the documents make manifest, that the Cava
lieri episode was only a marked instance of Michelangelo's habitual
emotion, whereas the friendship for Vittoria Colonna is unique
in his biography, and belongs to the latest phase of his spiritual
experience. When I had advanced so far, and while the sheets of Chapter
XII. were going through the press, I received an essay published
in the present year. It is entitled " Michelangelo : Eine Renais
sance Studie," by Ludwig von Scheffler : Altenburg, Geibel, 1892.
1 Springer, ii. 299-301.

APPENDIX. 383
This book of 227 pages is almost entirely devoted to the analysis
of Michelangelo's psychology, as revealed by his letters and
poems. Von Scheffler arrived independently at conclusions which
are in all essential points coincident with those I had expressed
upon the problem. I welcome his work, therefore, as a corro
boration and justification of my own. He demonstrates with
subtlety and vigour that Buonarroti's leading passion was a
purely Hellenic enthusiasm for beauty exhibited in young men,
regarded as the supreme manifestations of eternal loveliness, and
admired more as works of art than as carnal personalities. This
passion, when it found utterance in poetry, owed its literary
colour and complexion directly to Platonic sources, especially to
the Phcedrus and Symposium. Von Scheffler is of opinion that
in no case was Michelangelo's intenser feeling excited by the
female sex, and argues with much plausibility that Vittoria, " il
grande amico," exercised a peculiar influence over his nature in
old age by supplying what he had always been seeking — a calm
and spiritual communion of minds, a haven and refuge from
stormy perturbations of the sense of beauty, an atonement of
conflicting impulses through the vivid awakening of religious
instincts — at a period of life when distinctly assthetical enthu
siasms and the powerful attractions of physical charm were begin
ning to lose their force. In support of these opinions, Von
Scheffler traces, in the same way as I have done, the falsification
of documents and traditions, beginning with Michelangelo him
self, who substituted donna for the male signore of his poems,
passing through Condivi's apologetic treatment of his erotic ten
dencies, touching on Aretino's malignant insinuations, exposing
Michelangelo the younger's pious frauds, and finally condemning
in no measured terms the Florentine group of scholars who used
the knowledge acquired in their privileged inspection of the Buo
narroti Archives to bolster up an obvious fiction. Von Scheffler
maintains, with justice I believe, that Michelangelo's emotion was
ideal, imaginative, chaste : such, in fact, as the philosophers of
Athens in the best age conceived and formulated. Here he vindi
cates his hero, as I seek to do, against the injurious hypotheses
of Parlagreco, Lombroso, Springer, and the no less injurious

384 APPENDIX.
apologies of Guasti, Milanesi, Gotti, W. Lang. Not having had
access to the Archivio Buonarroti, he makes some minor mistakes
and lacks some substantial information. He does not know, for
instance, that Febo di Poggio was a real man, and thinks the letter
addressed to him by Michelangelo in December 1534 was meant for
Cavalieri. He is also, of course, unacquainted with Pierantonio's
correspondence. But I discovered nothing in the documents
inaccessible to his inspection which invalidates the main line of
his argument.
At this point I am bound to sum up my own final conclusions
regarding the delicate topic which I have been obliged to handle.
It is clear, I think, that Michelangelo Buonarroti was one of
those exceptional, but not uncommon men, who are born with
sensibilities abnormally deflected from the ordinary channel.
He showed no partiality for women, and a notable enthusiasm for
the beauty of young men. There is nothing in his letters, in the
correspondence addressed to him, in his poetry, or in any of the
numerous contemporary notices of his daily life, to raise any
suspicion regarding his moral conduct. On the contrary, the
whole weight of argument adduced from documents and corro
borative statements leaves the impression on our mind that he
was a man of physically frigid temperament, extremely sensitive
to beauty of the male type, who habitually philosophised his
emotions, and contemplated the living objects of his admiration
as amiable not only for their personal qualities, but also for their
sesthetical attractiveness. In this connection, it is not insie-
nificant to notice that Michelangelo was one of five brothers,
four of whom (himself included) did not marry, and had no
ascertained progeny, while the fifth, Buonarroto, left only one
heir-male to carry on the family. The Buonarroti-Simoni breed,
in his generation, appears to have been partially sterilised. He
complained frequently and sadly to his nephew Lionardo that
the race appeared to be dying out from want of heirs-male.
Individuals of Michelangelo's peculiar temperament cannot be
characterised as morbid, although the medical psychologists of
modern Europe seem now agreed to do so. The history of
ancient Hellas precludes this explanation of the phenomenon.

APPENDIX. 385
In Hellas they found a social environment favourable to their
free development and action, but in Renaissance Italy the case
was different. Society did not recognise the possibility of ele
vating and purifying these passions on the Socratic method.
It is not impossible that the tragic accent discernible through
out Michelangelo's love-poetry may be due to his sense of the
discrepancy between his own deepest emotions and the customs
of Christian society. He was versed in the chivalrous poetry of
Dante and Petrarch; he was also -acquainted with the Platonic
writings — how, or through what medium, we do not know : yet
he had certainly appropriated the mysticism of the Phcedrus and
Symposium, the doctrine of anamnesis, the imagery of the soul's
wings, and many other details which contributed to a philosophy
based upon erotic principles. In this philosophy he seems to
have sought, and perhaps to have found, a refuge from dominant
emotions. When he wrote verses, he cast his Greek feeling for
the beauty of young men in forms which recall the Dantesque
tradition, using at the same time metaphors and symbols de
rived immediately from Plato. His poems, therefore, present a
singular example of psychological and literary hybridism. The
tap-root of feeling is Greek. The form given to it in the
sonnet, the madrigal, the capitolo, is medieval. The imagery
is Platonic. The personality of the beloved object, though
passionately felt, remains abstract. So far as this is possible,
the person is addressed as tu ; when further particularisation
is needed, generally as Signore ; very rarely as Donna, and then,
for the most part, in cases where the text has been deliberately
altered. This vagueness regarding the sex and individuality of
the beloved person may be ascribed in part to the poet's ideal
feeling, which excluded concrete or sensual touches, partly to
the obscuring medium of the double literary conventions he
adopted in his method of self-expression.

vol. 11.

386 APPENDIX.

No. VI.
LETTERS FROM BARTOLOMMEO ANGELINI TO
MICHELANGELO.
Addi vij di settembre 1521.
Michelamgelo mio Carm0 al passato non uo schriptto che non
me hochorso non gia che sempre non u abbj nel quore come ui
sono hoblighato d essere & che di molte uolte non ragionj di uoj
com bastiano uiniziano & mastro giouannj darreggio del quale
sera dua inchluse in questa quale ui pregha li facciate risposta
& selle date costa a bonifazio fazzj aranno 'sempre bonifsimo
richapito / & ui pregho che se di qua ho da fare per uoj cosa
alchuna che mi sera somma grazia mi chomandiate & sia di qual si
uoglia cofa / & uoy di comtinouo mi rachomando & il uostro mr
giouannj il simile ch iddio in sanita ui chomseruj.
Vro Bahtholomeo Angielinj in Roma.
A tergo : Al suo Carm0 Michelan
giolo Bonarrota schultore
in fiorenza. fate bem dare ch e d amicho.

ihesus addi xx^J d giugnio 1523.
Cmo michelangelo e piu tempo non uo schritto che no me
ochorso non istamte che sempre u abbj nel quore e auero finch
aro uita ma trouandomj pochj giornj fa chol Cardinale grimano
uenimo a ragionamento di uoj doue mi pregho ui schriuessj e ui
preghassj che f ussj chomtemto farlj quel quadretto per uno studiolo
chome di gia u adimando & dice li promettestj e rimette in uoj
della materia della famtasia ho pittura ho getto & schultura quelo
ch e piu chomodo a uoj quel facciate e che del prezzo la rimettera
in uoj che quel tamto 1 adimanderete tamto ui dara & amchora

APPENDIX. 387
fopra di piu restaruj hoblighatifsimo pero charo michelamgniolo
perch io defidero faruj bene e chompiaceruj e alsi al luj quamdo
e ui sia chomodo del paghamento lassatene a me la chura che ui
faro paghare chosta li danarj e quamto adimanderete e certamente
desidera tamto auer qual chofa di uostra mano quamto desidera
la propia salute pero semdouj chomodo il rispondermj dell animo
uostro me ne farete simghular piacere richordandouj che sempre
sono uostro e non defidero altro che chompiaceruj e che mi
chomandiate che iddio in fanita ui chonseruj / di nuouo non so
che dirmj siamo al prefente chom pocha ho niente di peste jddio
grazia & uoj per 1 amore ui porto ui chomforto a lo stare a bona
ghuardia che jddio in fanita ui chomseruj.
V° Baetholomeo Angielinj in Roma.
A tergo : Alio suo car™10 Michelamgelo
Bonarrotj schultore in fiorenza.

ihesus addi xj di luglio 1523.
Michelamgniolo mio Car1210 jo o riceuto una uostra a me tamto
grata quanto dir si possa e uegho che di quamto uo schritto del
quadretto per il Carle siate d animo di seruirlo e conseruarlj
la promefsa chom tutto ch abbiate pocho tempo da lauorare
pure jo o fatto intemdere a . s . s . 1 animo . uostro . e perche
defidera gramdemente d auerlo pemfa lo seruirete a ongnj
modo e per una suo lettera in questa uedrete quamto ui schriue
e pregha e achaulsa ueggiate e d animo 1 abbiate a feruire m
a ordinate ch a uostro piacere ui faccj paghare scudi 50 dor
larghi per arra e parte di paghamento & tamto ho fatto chome
per una nostra in questa uedrete che ordino a bonifazio fazzy &
compangnj ch a uostro piacere ue li paghi in termini da questo
di . a . 3 . mesj cioe che la chomefsione durj . 3 . mesj che sia
in liberta uostra il pigliarlj & perche defidero chompiaceruj &
desidererej schontare in parte del debito ho chon uoj che tutto
questo ch o fatto & che ¦ fo lo fo per faruj bene pero femdouj in
piacere il seruire il Carle al luj e a me ne farete finghular piacere
& nel prezzo chome per altre u o detto sara rimessa in uoj che u

388 APPENDIX.
a in tamto grado & uenerazione che non ue lo potre ma dire & co
che 1 adimanderete tamto ui dara & di questo a me ne lassate la
brigha che fatto arete 1 opera ho prima chome uorrete mi direte
quamto u o da far paghare e tamto faro chostj a bonifazio fazzy
fi che di questo non ue ne date brigha che stimo forse molto piu
1 amicizia uostra & chonoscho 1 obligho ho chon. uoj non uj pem-
fate & uolessj iddio un dj ue lo potefsj dimostrare.
A bastiano a mr giouannj & a 1 altrj amicj uostrj a tuttj
ho fatto le rachomandazione & a uoj tutti si rachomandano
infinite uolte e jo infieme chom loro che iddio in fanita ui
chomferuj. Veo Bartholomeo angielinj in Roma.
A tergo :
Vblj • d . Michelangnio lo Bonarrotia
schultr amicho hrmo jn propria.

ihesus addi xxviiij d aprile 153 1.
Honrdo michelangniolo jo ho sempre defiderato far chosa che
ui fia grata chom e mio hobligho di fare chon uoj e non potendo
farlo di chose gramde non manchero maj a quelle porro / ¦ il
nostro bastiano non fapeua doue f indirizare una suo lettera per
uoj a me la data e in questa ue la mando e uolendo fare risposta
al luj fate dare la lettera a loremzo mannuccj bamderaro in
piazza il quale la mandera chon la fua e jo la daro fubito in mano
propria a bastiano e se altro posso per uoj richordateuj richor-
dateuj (sic) che dou i sono ui auete un fratello che non defidera
che feruiruj fedelifsimamente e basti.
Ne altro per questa iddio jn fanita ui chonferuj etc.
V° Baetolomeo angielinj jn Roma.
A tergo : Al fuo Hnrd0 Michelangniolo
bonarrotj jn fiorenza.
Ihesus addi xviiij di giugnio 1531.
Honrdo etc. sabato paxato ui schrifsj chom aueuo riceuto la
uostra . e dato la fua a mastro febaftiano il quale di poj questo

APPENDIX. 389
di m a portato 1 inchluxa per risposta alia uostra la qual aro
charo arriuj a bon faluamento & se altro ochorre fono al ufato
tutto il uostro.
jddio in fanita ui chonseruj etc.
Vro Baetolomeo angiolini jn Roma.
A tergo : A lo . fuo . CarBm0 . e Honrdo michelangniolo
otj jn propria.

ihesus addi xxij di luglio 153 1.
Honrdo michelangniolo la prefente fara per far chouerta al
uostro febastiano & jo prima non u o risposto alia uostra aspet-
tando la fua & le uostre rachomandazione 1 o fatte al uostro mr
paulo Gallo il quale ui fi rachomanda & u e tamto afezionato
quamto dir si possa & non defidera che di riuederuj & di chom
piaceruj in quel che per lui fi possa & che la chasa & co ch anno
al mondo & tutto a uostro comando. jo non emterro piu chon
uoj inn altre cirimonie paremdomj fuperflue bastauj che non o
maggior piacer al mondo fe non quamdo pemso potere far qual
chosa per uoj che ni sia grata & quamdo mi chomandafsj qua
chosa pero fatelo fe defiderate farmj piacere restandouene fempre
obligatifsimo. Ne altro per questa jddio di mal ui guardj etc.
V° Baetolomeo angiolinj jn Roma.
A tergo : Alio . fuo Honrd0 michelangniolo
otj jn fioremza.

Honrdo michelangniolo o riceuto la uostra chom 1 inchluxa al
nostro febastiano la quale li dettj in propria mano e in questa ne
fara la risposta a ochorendo altro che per me fi possa chomanda-
temj che altro non defidero che feruiruj & bene ualete in Roma
die xviiij d aghosto 153 1. Veo Bakt° angiolinj.
A tergo : Alio fuo Honrdo Michelangelo
re jn fiorenza.

390 APPENDIX.
Honrdo michelangniolo fra bastiano nostro m a detto che di
giorno in giorno u attemde di qua che jddio sa quamto n o
piacere & dice uoresti schaualchare in chasa uostra & fappiemdo
che non u e altro che lie mura & jo trouandomj certe po di masse-
rizie lo fatte condurre in chasa uostra di modo ch auerete da
dormire & da federe & qualch altra po di chomodita / da mang-
niare n auete in uicinanza da prouederuene a uostra uolonta
pero uenite a uostra comodita che defidero di seruiruj inn altro
che questo & pagare in parte del tamto debito che o chon uoj se
jddio me ne presterra grazia pero uolendo ch i facca chosa alchuna
per uoj comandatemj che jddio in fanita ui chonseruj jn Roma
addi xvj d aghosto 1532. Veo Baetholomeo angielinj.
A tergo : Dono Michelangniolo
Bonarotj fuo Honrdo jn propria.

Honrdo michelangniolo jo ho parlato a quel delli danarj &
lunedj ce li dara . rimandouj la lettra . & mi faro fare la forma delle
quitamze . & ue le mandero . & a uoj m ofero & rachomando.
in roma addi xviiij di settembre 1532.
Tutto uro Bart0 angiolinj.
A tergo : Le lectere de dugento ducatj.

ihesus addi xij di luglio 1533.
Honrdo & Car™0 michelangniolo di poj la partita uostra non
ui o fchritto ne mancho ho noftre lettere . & tutti di qua defider-
iamo e amchora che tengniamo per certo ch ariuafsj a bon falua
mento pur ne faremo piu certj uedemdo uostre lettere / jo dettj
quell anima a mr Thomao il quale molto ui fi rachomanda . & mi
prego auemdo fuo lettere ne li mandassj & chosi li promifsj / fra
bastiano amchor luj m a detto che . n . s . li a dimandato piu uolte
fe a lettere da uoj . & sta bene . & ui fi rachomanda.

APPENDIX. 391
La chasa uostra . & di chomtinouo ongni notte guardata . & di
giorno spefso da me uicitata le galline & mr gallo triomfano & le
gatte molto fi lamentano della uostra afemzia amchor che non
manchy loro da mangniare.
La gita di . n. s . hongni giorno fi tiefi piu certa . & filippo
strozzi dichono partira lunedj per chostj & che chomdurra la
duchesfina a nizza & amchor uerra la duchessa di chamerino di
modo che no resteremo qua foli ma aueremo pazziemza chome 1
altre uolte / non ui diro altro ftate fano . & rachomandatemj a
urbino & a tutti li altrj . & ochorremdouj di qua cosa alchuna
chomandatemj . & uolemdo fchriuermj mandate le lettere a boni
fazio fazzi ho amdrea ch e 11 j in por zamta maria all infemgnia dell
amgiolo & tubbia che tutti le manderanno bene che jddio in sanita
ui chonseruj etc. Tutto . uro . Bartholomeo angielinj jn Roma.

A tergo :

Al suo Honrdo & Car"10 Mi
chelangniolo bonarrotj jn propria.

ihesus addi xviiij di luglio 1533.
Honrdo e Car8™0 michelangniolo e 1 qual i amo fopra tutti
1 altrj ominj fabato pafsato jo ui schrifsj una lettera e di poj com
piacere gramdifsimo n o auta una di uro chon una a fra bastiano
la quale ebbe in mano propria e se ntefo chom ariuastj a buon
faluamento e chome attemdete a spediruj chom piu presteza potete
per ritornaruene in qua e che molto la defiderate che non e mancho
il defiderio nostro ch abbiamo di riaueruj che fi sia il uostro d
esercj che choll aiuto di dio di un e 1 altro (sic) succedera / Come
ui difsj fabato le chose uostre ftanno bene & ne medefimj terminj
che le lassastj faluo ch o leuato uia il uino & uemdutolo & alia
tornata uostro ne richomperro dell altro meglio pero ftate fano &
se sete manchato non e marauiglia per lj gram chaldj che fono
statj ma ne uerranno li fichj e tutti ci ristoreremo / di qua non
f attemde ad altro ch a metterf j a ordine per la gita di niza . &
d e stato jntimato a tutta la chorte ch omgniomo allj vii . jd .
agosto fia a ordine ma dichono andranno allj . xx . & aspettano

392 APPENDIX.
.16. galee framzese che li leueranno di modo resteremo folj
almancho per dua mefj fra bastiano m a detto che . n . s . a
studiato molto la uostra lettera & ch e molto desiderofo di
chompiaceruj ma le parole non bastano non piu state fano e jo
fori molto piu uostro che mio etc.
Tutto . ueo . Baetholomeo angielinj jn Roma.
A tergo : Al mio Car™0 & molto
Honrdo Michelangniolo
Bonarrotj jn propria.

ihesus addi xxvj di luglio 1533.
Honrdo & fopra tutti li altri da me amato michelangniolo
Car8m0 i mi trouo la uostra con una a fra febastiano la quale li
fecj dare in mano propria & molto ui fi rachomanda / & fabato
pafsato ui mandaj una fua con una di mr Thomao uostro & per la
uostra intefo quanto fia 1 afezione li portate che jn uero che per
quanto in luy o uisto non ui ama mancho che ui amiate uoj luj
& perche in principio della uostra lettera auete fattj dua versj
bellj m auete amchor me fatto pemfare di dar principio di uoler
essere poeta amchora ch i non pemfo auere adoperatj altro
alloro fe non quamdo auefsj a chocere ho falsicca ho fegatellj
pero rideteuj di me piu onestamente potete & come per efso
ui dicho potete uiuere lieto perche 1 uostro defiderio & pari
tra uoi & Tho . & li o fatto la uostro inbascata . & com tutto il
chore ui fi rachomanda & quamto alio schriuere fi chomtenta di
quel ui chomtentate uoj tamt e 1 amore che ui porta . & jo
jnfieme com luj.
La chasa uostra com tutti 1 animalj & 1 orto ftanno bene al
folito & omgniomo ui defidera.
&1 papa da lunedj in qua non a fatto che gridare delle podagre
pure adefso & migliorato & la' fua partita per nizza dichono non
fara prima ch a fettembre perch auamtj fi parta uol auer noua
che fi sia comfumato il matrimonio della duchessina & po fubito
amdra. jn questa fara una di fra baftiano jnfieme chon li dua camtj

APPENDIX. 393
delli uostri madrichali & altro non o che diruj faluo che fon
fempre il uostro che jddio jn fanita ui chonferuj etc.
Tutto uro Bart0 angielinj jn Roma.
A tergo :
Alio . fuo . Car™0 . & molto . Honrdo Miche
Bonarrotj in fiorenza.

ihesus addi ij d aghosto 1533.
Michelangniolo mio Honrsmo alli xxvj del paxato ui schrifsj 1
ultima mia e di poi mi trouo la uostra di xxviij chon una in
chluxa al uostro mr Thomao la quale dettj fubito in mano propria
e molto ui fi rachomanda e per quamto ritrafsi del fuo parlare
mostra non auer altro desiderio al mondo che la tornata uostra
perche dice quamd e chon uoj li par efer felice perch a tutto quel
defidera in questo mondo di modo che mi pare che fe uo ui
chonfumate di tornare luj abruca di defiderio che uo torniate fi
che state comtemto e attemdete a fpediruj per tornare e dar quiete
a uoj e ad altrj . ho uisto 1 anima uostra sta bene . & fotto bona
chustodia & 1 corpo attemdecj uoj.
La chasa uostra fta al folito bene e 1 moschadello e prefso a maturo
e chome fara bem fatto ne mandero la fuo parte a mr tomao e a
fra bastiano fe lie ghazere non fe lo mangiano tutto chom auien
chomincato che fi portauan difonestamente ma o soprito (?) con
ispauemtachj fe basteranno jo u o fempre nel chore . & non pemfo
inn altro che di chompiaceruj e quamdo comfidero quamtj fieno 1
obrighi gramdifsimj o chon uoj giudicho che fe uiuefsj mill anno
nod fare may per rimeritaruene la minima parte pero pregho iddio
che ue ne rimeritj per me di modo ch e 1 chomtrario di quel par a
uoj pero attemdiamo a uiuere & quamdo mi uolete fare gramdifsimo
piacere comandatemj jo o auto questa mattina le uostre lettere .
& manday fubito la fua a fra febastiano & ueramente che ui porta
tamto amore per quel dimostra quamto portar fi posfa a un altro
omo & fiate certo che non mancha di teneruj richordato a . n .
s . perche ui dia quel u a dato jntemzione che chome luj jo pemfo
ch abbj da uenire a ongni modo.
Questa mattina il mastro di chafa del papa a fatto intimare

394 APPENDIX.
alia chancelleria che la fi trouj a nizza allj 3 ho a . 4 . di
settembre e ongniomo uada per che uia uole e luj amdera per
terra fin all fpezie di modo che pafsera di chosta m anchora non fi
sa apunto la ftrada che . sa . sta fara.
jo fono ftato a fpettare fino a notte per uedere fe fra bastiano
mi mandaua uostre lettere & non 1 a fatto mandouj una auta da
mr tomao & s aro quella del frate ue la mandero.
Alli gallj uostri & mia patronj o fatto la uostra inbascata &
ui fi rachomandano. Tutto uro Bart0 angiolinj in Roma.
A tergo : Alio . mio . CarBm0 . & molto . Honrdo
chelamgiolo bonarrotj in fiorenza.

ihesus addi xvj d aghosto 1533.
Honrd0 & Car™0 michelangniolo jo ui schrifsj 1 utima mia allj
ij del presente e di poj mi trouo la uostra di . vj . chon una a fra
sebastiano la quale dettj in propria mano & di poj o auta un
altra uostra al luj la quale li manday fubito ma perche & ftato
un pocho indisposto pemfo non u ara rifposto chosj presto . ma
jddio grazia & guarito & sta benifsimo & molto ui fi rachomanda.
jo ho auto piacere del uostro fchriuermj perche mi dite aue
tanto piacere del mio fonetto che non lo fecj per altro comside
ramdo che mandamdo una chofa gofifsima a un omo &cellemte
come fiate uoj tamto fe li da piu materia di ridere . & di chom-
fiderare la diferemza ch e dan noj a uoj ma fapete ui fchrifsj ui
ridefsj di me oneftamente & amchora comsiderato 1 amore &
afezione che fempre m auete portato mi fanno pigliar animo al
mostraruj integramente il quore mio quale &gli e uerfo di uoj
che altro non defidera che di chompiaceruj & di feruiruj / a mr
Thomao o fatto le uostre rachomandazione & jn molto piu numero
indrieto ue le rimando & altro non defidera chel la tornata uostra
come noi altrj / Li fichj del uostro cortile fon molto bonj quellj
dell orto & 1 moschadello amchor non som fatti . & jo comtinouo
ci uo a uicitarlj . 1 altrj animalettj tutti ftanno bene & 1 orto a
comincato a beuere che c e un po piouto / Vo direte ben ch i ui

APPENDIX.

395

schriua certe lettere famza fustanza alchuna perdonatemj che mj
pare che choll amicj char™' fia lecito parlar liberamente e chom i
defidero facciate uoj chome / la partita di . n . s . fara alia fine
del prefente mefe o pocho prima ho poj fechomdo che piouera ma
1 amdata & piu che certifsima ne altro a uoj mi rachomando
ftate fano. Tutto uro Baet0 angiolinj jn Roma.
A tergo :
Alio • mio Car™0 & molto Honrdo
gielo bonarrotj jn propria.

ihesus addi xxiij d aghosto 1533.
Honrdo & Car™0 michelangniolo alli xvj del prefente fu 1 utima
mia e di poj questo di mi ritono dua uostre una per mano delli
uostri bastagi & 1 altra per il bamcho con una a fra bastiano la
qual fubito li manday a palazzo & a detto uolere parlare a . n . s .
& faruj rifposta & mandarmela che se 1 lo fara fara in questa / jo
ui dissj per 1 utima chome s era femtito di mala uoglia pur e
guarito & fta benifsimo & pero non ui a fchritto.
L altra lettera a mr Thomao 1 o data . & amchor luj a promefso
fare rifposta & molto defidera la tornata uostra & molto ui fi
rachomanda <fcd e tutto il uostro / ami detto dappoj che questo
di non uj fara altra rifposta ma e tutto uostro. (These words
were added, after the letter had been finished, in another ink.)
Dell amdata di . n . s . per amchor non f intemde quamdo
abbj da efsere questa partita perche dichono non f amdra piu a
niza rispetto che 1 ducha di sauoia non uol dare la fortezza . & per
questo . n . s . mando lunedj pafsato mr jaco" girolamj in poste al
re di framca per rifoluerfj doue fad amdare dichono / moltj
dichono f amdra a marfilia altrj a pregni altrj a grassa & molti
che non f amdra i nefsun logo ma 1 papa dice f amdra a ongni
modo & non fi mancha di chomtinouo delle preparazione di modo
che tutta questa terra sta ambighua jn tutte le chofe jddio lafsj
feguire il meglio.
La chafa chon tutte 1 altre uostre cose fta al folito e jo uo a
uicitare spefso que uostri fichj che fon moltj bonj e 1 moschadello

396 APPENDIX.
ne fecj parte all amicj uostri . ne altro m ochorre faluo fom fempre
a li feruizi uostri che jddio jn fanita ui chonferuj.
Tutto uro Bart0 angiolinj jn Roma.
A tergo : Alio mio Car™0 & Honrdo michelangniolo
Bonarrotj jn fioremza.

ihesus addi xxx d aghofto 1533.
Honrdo e Car™0 michelangniolo fabato pafsato fu 1 utima mia
chon una del uostro fra baftiano & di poj non a fchritto altri-
mentj ma in quello ch auefsj manchato foperira (?) a bocha perche
. n . s . dichono ch al fermo partira uenerdj proximo e stara a
uiterbo e alia madonna dell auergna tutto lunedj & di poj per la
uolta di niza per la uia d'e paesi uostrj e fra bastiano m a detto
che . n . s . uole che parta dua dj auamtj perche uemgha chosta
a trouaruj di modo che farete raguagliato del tutto a bocha e aret
un po di brigha a raccettarlo per quel mi pemfo non che m abbj
detto chofa nefsuna di questo / altro non o che diruj noj di qua
refteremo tutti foli e aren tempo amdarcj a follazzo.
mr Thomao sta bene e ui fi rachomanda & jo infieme chon n efso
che jddio in fanita ui chomferuj etc.
Tutto uro Bartolomeo angiolinj jn Roma.
A tergo : Alio . fuo . Honrd0 & Car™0
michelangniolo bonarrotj
in propria.

ihesus addi vj di settembre 1533.
Honrdo & Car™0 michelangniolo jo o riceuto la uostra a me
Car™a infieme chol uostro gemtile e bel fonetto del quale rifer-
batomene chopia o dato al uostro mr Thomao qual a uto molto
charo conofcemdo auer tamta grazia da dio d auer aquistato una
tamta amicizia chon un omo dotato da tamte uirtu qual fiate uoj
& tamto piu 1 e stato grato quamto 1 o detto che la uostra tornata
fara presta il che defidera fopra ongni altra chofa.

APPENDIX. 397
Car™0 michelangniolo jo no mi pemti maj di piacer alchuno ch
i abbj ma fatto a neffuno amzi mi dogo di que ch i non o pofsutj
fare & non tamto alli stranj quamt all amicj . & uoj che ui
temgho primo . sre . & padrone non uo che pemsiate che m
inchrescha f i o fatto chofa che ui fia stata grata perche fa dio ch
i non defidero che di feruiruj & di chompiaceruj & questo non m
inchrefce may n imchrefcera fim ch aro uita e f i ui manday
quel fonetto abozzato cho pichonj ne fu chaulsa 1 amore ui porto
& la sichurta mi par auer chon uoj e per 1 amore che uoj fempre
m auete dimostro pero amdiamo auamtj fichuramente & ongnun
parlj chome 1 e chomodo e tutto fi reputj a bom fine.
j o fchritto questo di a m loremzo del cone uettle [ = uetturale]
che fta chostj fermamente &d e omo da bene e a dua fratellj che
di chomtinouo uemghono a roma fidatifsimj il qual ui uerra a
parlare che li o detto uolete mandare certe uostre robe che ui
dicha quamdo e pemfa che un di que fuo fratellj uemgha in qua
che per trouarf j loro qui per amdare alia fpezie chol papa non
fo quamdo faranno tornatj chostj ma luj ue lo faperra dire e
tornandouj chomodo ui potrete feruir di loro liberamente per efer
ftdatj fidatifsimj.
E si dice per certo che 1 papa partira martedj ma moltj non
lo chredono per non efer piouto il che defiderauano facefsj auamtj
partifsino pure pocho a piu faranno per foprastare jac° faluiatj
questa mattina f u seppellito in fam pietro e madonna luchrezia fta
molto male . e 1 fimile il uostro oratore di modo questa morte
non la perdona a nefsuno.
fra bastiano m a detto questa fera che partiranno martedj e luj
per tutta quest altra fettimana fara chostj & a uoj fi rachomanda
& jo infieme con effo.
Ne altro per questa jddio di mal ui guardi etc.
Tutto uro Baet0 angielinj jn Roma.
A tergo : Alio mio Car™0 &t Honrdo
Michelangniolo bonarrotj jn fiorenza.

398 APPENDIX.
ihesus addi xviij d ottobre 1533.
Honrdo and Car™0 michelangniolo jo mi trouo la uostra de di
xj d ottobre infieme cholla di mr Thomao e li bellifsimj fonettj
delli qualj n o feruato chopia e di poj datolj a chi amdauano per
faper quamta afezione & porti a tutte le chofe uostre . & m a
promefso faruj rifposta la quale fara in questa & per quamto o
uifto comta 1 ore non che li giornj che uo dite d efer di qua pure
a charo ongnj uostra comodita . & molto ui fi rachomanda la
fettimana pafsata jo fecj la uemdemia delle melagrane uostre &
ne mandaj una canestra a mr Thomao . & un altra al putto &
fra bastiano & una parte ne ferbo a uoj che quest anno fono state
bellifsime & la chafa chon tutta la uostra brigata ftanno bene & 1
mio fonetto fatto cholla zappa ui pare da chorregger ch i fo che
non ui resteria niente ma mi basta che fanno chon uoj quell
efetto che fa il fucile cholla pietra amchor che dimostrate che ce
ne fia un altro che fa molto piu focho che 1 mio amchor che non
fia di ferro / quamdo faremo di qua jnfieme ne riparleremo
fpediteuj & uenite . & ochorremdo chofa alchuna auisate . &
la stamza di roma & bona & fichura per quanto fi uede &
jntemde. Ne altro fon fempre il uoftro jddio di mal ui guardi etc.
V° Baetolomeo angiolinj jn Roma
A tergo : Al mio Car™0 & Honrdo'Mi
chelangniolo bonarrotj jn propria.

Honrdo & Car™0 michelangniolo jo ho la uostra & intemdo la
chaulfa che per amchora ui trouate chostj che tutto fia in bonora
ch e forza a chi fi troua in quefto mondo fpefso far della uoglia
fua quella d altri pure quamdo fi fa chon isperanza di qualche
bene & mancho male.
jo ho fatto le uostre rachomandazione & schusa del non li
fchriuere al uoftro mr Thomao le rachomandazione acetta ma
1 altra . no . ma dice bene non ui fchriuerra piu per non ui
infastidire ma che uoj non 1 imfastidirestj maj ma piu ara chara

APPENDIX. 399
la prefemza uostra che le lettere . & che s a uoj par mill annj
di uenire qua al luj ne pare x mila che uoj arriuiate.
Quamto all efsere bon efsere in questa terra per quamto fi puo
giudichare per quel che fi uede . & bonifsimo chom bona iustizia
& dal pane in fora d ongni chofa a bon merchato ma 1 grano ci
uale v -*¦ •£ in . 8 . il rubbio & amchor che fi sia detto mille
nouelle di fospezione di nouj foladtj per uenire a questa uolta s e
chiarito che fono ftate bugie . & parmi che non f abbj d auer
paura fe non de seruitorj chi a nome d auer danarj perche da
pochy giornj in qua & stato morto dua & rubatj da feruidorj
ma d altrj non f intemde un minimo manchamento per quanto f
intemda. La lettera di fra baftiano 1 o dato bonifsimo richapito jo ho auto
il uostro galamte e bel fonetto . & amchor che no me ne diciate
chofa alchuna uifto per chi e fatto gnien o dato il quali e ftato
molto acetto chome tutte 1 altre chose uostre / & perche pare che
per efso fonetto mostriate che 1 amore di chomtinouo ui tien
trauagliato . & a me pare il chomtrario ui mando in questa un
mio fonetacco che non e fe non e il nome di fonetto e puofsj dire
pesce pastinacha ma nonn e bon da magniare e chome 1 orfo
taluolta piace per la fua ghofeza chof j fi potre dir di questo
quamdo ui piacefsj pero pigliatene la mia bona afezione.
jo aspettauo pur che uo uenifsj a far la uemdemia delle
melagrane & delle perfiche del uostro orto ma uisto che ftate
tamto a chomparire & le fi chomincano a marcire ne faro come
del moschadello & ue ne faluero la uostra parte che fon quest
anno bellifsime al folito tutto il resto della chafa fta benifsimo
Ne altro m ochorre ftate fano jddio di mal ui guard j.
Vro Bartholomeo angiolinj jn Roma.
A tergo :
Alio . mio . Honrdo & Car™0 michelangniolo
tj in firenze

4oo APPENDIX.

No. VII.
LETTERS FROM TOMMASO CAVALIERI, FEBO DI
POGGIO, LUIGI DEL RICCIO, AND ASCANIO CON
DIVI, TO MICHELANGELO.
Ho receuuta una uostra littera quanto piu non sperata da me
tanto piu grata non sperata dico reputadomi io indegno che un
uostro pari si degnasse scriuermi : circa di quello che pierantonio
in mia laude ui a detto e quelle opere mie che co uostri occhi
hauete uiste perl le quali mostrate di mostrarmi non poca affectione
ui rispondo che no erano bastanti fare che u huomo eccellentis-
simo come uoi e senza secodo non che senza pari in terra, deside-
rasse scriuere a un giouane appene nato al mondo e p questo
quanto si puo essere ingnorante. Ne uoglio anchora dire che uoi
siate bugiardo. Penso bene anzi son certo che de la affettione
che mi portate la causa sia questa che essendo uoi uirtuosissimo
o p dir meglio essa uirtu : sete forzato amar coloro che di essa
son seguaci, e che lamano, tra li quali son io et i questo secodo
le mie forze no cedo a molti. Vi prometto bene che da mene
receuete uguale e forse magior cambio che mai portai amore ad
huomo piu che ad uoi ne mai desiderai amicitia piu che la uostra
e se no 1 altro almaco in questo o bonissimo iuditio e ne uedreste
le effettetto se non che la fortuna in questo solo a me cotraria
uuole che hora che mi potrei godere di uoi stia poco sano spero
bene se ella no mi uuole di nuouo cominciare a tormentare tra
pochi giorni esser guarito et uenire a fare il mio debito in uisi-
tarui se a quella piacera : Jn questo mezo mi pigliaro al manco
doi hore del giorno piacere in cotemplare doi uostri desegni che
pieratonio me a portati quali quanto piu li miro tato piu mi piac-
ciono et appagero i gran parte il mio male pensando alia speranza
chel detto pieratonio mi a data difarmi uedere altrecose delle uostre.
Per non esser fastidioso no scriuero piu a lungo : solo ui ricordo
accascado ui seruiate di me : et ad uoi di continuo mi racomado.
Di V. S affettionatissimo
seruo Thomao caualiere.

APPENDIX. 401
Unico signor mio ho riceuuta una de le uostre a me gratissima
per la quale ho inteso V. S. esserse non poco attristato di quel
dimenticare io gli scrissi : io ui rispondo che io non lo scrissi ne
per che V. S. non mi hauessi mandato niente ne per accrescerui
magior fiamma ma folo il scrissi per mottegiar con esso uoi che
credo certo posserlo fare pero non ui attristate per che io son
certo che non mi possete dimenticare. Jn quanto V. S. mi scriue
di quel giouane de nerli lui e molto mio e hauendosi da partire di
Roma mi uenne a dire sio uoleuo nulla da firenze io gli dissi che
no e lui mi prego che io lo lasciassi andare da parte mia a raco-
mandarmi a V. S. solamente per desiderio di parlarui : Altro no
so che scriuermi se no che V. S. torni presto perche tornando libe-
rarete me di prigione per che io fuggio le male pratiche e uolendo
f ugire le (male pratiche) non posso praticare con altri che con uoi
non altro. A Y. S. infinite nolte mi ricomando in Roma a di 2
de agosto 1533. Vostro piu che fuo
Thomao caualiere.
A leccellentifzimo e fuo da
magior honorado Mr miche
langnolo buonarruoti
Jn fiorenza.

Unico fignor mio alli giorni passati ebbi una delle ure a me
gratissima fi come per intendere il uostro star bene e fi ancora
per esser certo che la uostra tornata fia brieue : e afsai me increbbe
el non posserli responclere : pure mi conforto che intefa la cogione
mi harrete per iscuso che il giorno ch io 1 ebbi mi era uenuto un
uomito fi fatto accompagnato con una febre che io hebbi a morire
e certo se non era quella che alquanto mi risuscito io moriuo poi
dio gratia son stato sempre bene : hora hauendomi misser Barto-
lomeo portato un fonetto da parte uostra, mi e parso fare il debito
mio circa il fcriuere : forse tre giorni fa io ebbi il mio fetonte
assai ben fatto e alio uisto il papa il cardinal de medici e ugnuno
io non so gia per qual causa sia desiderato di uedere : II cardinal
de medici a uoluto ueder tutti li uostri disegni e sonnogli tanto
vol. ii. 2 c

402 APPENDIX.
piaciuti che uoleua far fare quel titio el ganimede in cristallo e
nono saputo far si bel uerso che non habbia fatto far quel titio e
ora il fa maestro giouanni assai o fatto a saluare il ganimede
laltro giorno feci la uostra imbasciata a fra sebastiano e ue si
ricomanda per mille uolte non altro se non pregarui che tornate
di roma a di 6 d setteb. di V. S. affettionato Thomao caualiere.
A leccellentiffimo e fuo da
magior honorado Mr mie
helagnolo buoarruoti
Jn fioreza.

Molto magc0 S0r mio.
Jo da certi giorni in qua mi sono adueduto che uoi haueui
con me non so pero che cosa ma pur ieri me ne certificai,
quando uenni a casa uostra, ne possendomi imaginarne la
causa, ho uoluto scriuerui questa, accio che piacendoui possiate
chiarirmene, et sono piu che certo non hauerui mai offeso, ma
uoi credete facilmente a chi forse meno deuereste et forse alcuno
ui a detto qualche bugia p dubbio che io pur un giorno non scopra
molte ribalderie che fi fanno sotto il nome uostro che ui portono
poco onore et se le uorrete sapere le saprete, pure io non posso
ne manco possendo uorrei sforzarui, ma ben ui dico che se uoi
non mi uolete p amico, potete farlo ma non farrete gia ch' io non
sia amico a uoi et sempre cercaro di farui seruitio, et pur ieri ueniuo
per mostrarui una lettera scritta dal Duca di Firenze et per leuarui
noie come sempre o fatto insin qui et sappiate certo che uoi non
hauete il miggliore amico di me ne mi uogglio stendere sopra di
cio, ma se a uoi adesso pare altramente, spero che in poco tempo,
se uolete, ue ne chiarirete, et so che sapete ch' io ui sono stato
sempre amico senza interesse alcuno, ora io non uogglio dire altro
p che pareria ch' io mi uolesse scolpare di qualche cosa il che
non e . ne mi so imaginare p nessum uerso ch cosa habiate meco,
et ui prego et scongiuro p quanto amore portate a Dio ch me lo

APPENDIX. 4o3
uogliate dire, accio ch' io ui possa sgannare, et non mi occorrendo
altro me ui ricomando di casa il di 15 d nouembre 1561.
Di V. S. Sor
Thomao d caualieri.
Al molto magco mr
Michelangelo bonarroti
padrone ossermo.

From Febo di Poggio (Arch. Buon., Cod. 8. 303).
Jf.B. — The orthography, which is very bad in the original, has been modernised.
Magnifico Messer Michelangelo da padre honorando.
Hieri tornai da Pisa che io era andato fin la per veder mio
padre, e subito fui giunto da quello vostro amico che sta insul
banco mi fu dato una vostra la quale ho vista con grandissimo
piacer, per aver inteso di vostro bene stare. II simile per lo Dio
gratia alpresente e di me. Appresso ho inteso quanto dite circa
dello essermi io corucciato (chorucato) io con esso voi, che sapete
bene io non potrei corucciarmi (churucarmi) con esso voi per
tenervi io in luogo di padre, e poi i portamenti vostri non sono
stati di talsorte verso di me che io avessi a far talcosa. E pensate
che quella sera voi partiste, la mattina io non mi potei mai
spiccare da M. Vincenzo che avevo grandissimo desiderio di
parlarvi. Alia mattina venni a casa, e voi eri di gia partito che
ebbi dispiacere grande vi partissi senza che vi vedessi.
Io mi trovo qui in Firenze, e quando vi partesti mi diceste che
s' io avr6 bisogno di niente, lo domandassi a quel vostro amico, e
perche M. Vincenzo non si trova qua mi trovo bisognoso di
danari si per vestirmi e si per andar fino al Monte a veder combatter
coloro che la si trova M. Vincenzo. Per tanto io andai a trovare
quel del banco, e mi disse non aveva da voi commissione alcuna,
ma che era uno che partira stasera e che arebbe risposta fra
cinque di cosi se voi li davi commessione che non manchera. Si
che vi prego vogliate essere contento di prowedermi e aiutarmi di
quel tanto che pare a voi e non mancate cli respondere.

404 APPENDIX.
Non vi diro altro se non che quanto so e posso a voi mi racco-
mando Iddio pregando di mal vi guardi.
Da Firenze il giorno 14 di Gennajo 1534, vostro da figliuolo
Febo di Poggio.

From Luigi del Riccio.
Mag00 et hon mr mictio.
Chi non ha da se et libisognia ritrouarsi con ch ha, uolendo
aparire se non come loro almanco il meglio che puo, ci e forza
seruirsi in qualche modo di quel d altri, il che usa con risico di
rimanerne se ciascuno si uenisse per il suo, nudo et uituperato,
pero coloro che lo fanno uoluntarii sono non poco da biasimare .
et per ch io mi trouo nel medesimo grado con lo incluso madrigale,
il quale ancora che fie in maggiore parte acchatato da uoi, che
siete maestro perfetto, si e egli pur si brutto et mal composto che
non ha simiglianza alcuna con le cose uostre . come interuiene che
chi non sa da se mai intende interamte ne sa ben usare le cose d
altri : ho uoluto agiugnere q uersi in mia scusa et dirui che non
uoluntario ma sforzato da uoi mi son messo a usar per necessita
le cose life, che mi auete non solo detto che se non ui mando
qualcosa del mio io non haro mai piu nulla del uro ma hauete
fatto di piu che di gia mi hauete tolto di quello che io haueuo,
pero piu per ubidire che per altro quale egli e uelo mando con
protestatione che sia primo et utimo che per sempre harete da
me . perche non essendo la mia professione, e, un farsi scorgiere,
anchora che, ogni cosa da uoi m' e dolcie onore ; conosco di non
ui hauere ubidito perche mi hauete doman dato del mio et io ui
mando del uostro . pero scusimi quanto di sopra et il non potere
dare quel ch' io non ho : ho ben piacere pensando con questa
occasione del domandarui, hauere da uoi la gratia chesta et che a
possibile desidero come da quello che sapete, possete et uorrete,
consolarmi di che ui haro perpetua obrigatione et diro che e mia
uersi ui sieno piaciuti hauendo fatto frutto et se non ui parra
fatica il far loro risposta sarete causa di farli conosciere et che
qualcuno fara loro carezse per amore uro come fanno a urbino

APPENDIX. 405
uro sle (servitore) che altra diferenza non e da loro a ufi che da
urbino a voi et mi ui racomando State sano et amatemi che
iddio ui mantengha molti anni,
Di banchi alli 16 di Die. 1543.
A com1'1 d. v. s. Luigi dl riccio.
1. Raro fattor' ch' el tuo be! arno honori
Piu ch' e' Romani il tebro e' Greci il Xanto
Et a Natura il uanto
Toi, nel far l'opre tue eterne et belle
che a' celesti chori
si assemblan tutte et apena di quelle
fra mille una ne piacie, et quella il tempo
Guasta et inuola in breue ; alle tuo' dona,
gratia et fauor ; et uiuon seco apparo.
Ond' io c' omai mi attempo
per la nostra amicitia uera et buona
ti prego fammi un dono onesto et raro
che fia signor mio caro
far l'alma donna nostra, bella et pia
contento eterno della uita mia
Mag00 mr michlo
chi non ha da se et e forzato a dare, bisognia
Si acomodi di quel d altri et pero io
ui mando del uro medexi0
di la.
Delle belle opre tua ch' 1' tempo eterne
conserua, e 1 secol nostro onoran tanto
a che fuggir, le lodi, il pregio, el uanto
ch' assai uie piu da ciascun merti hauerne.
Potess' io pur mie giuste uoglie interne
co' 1 opre dimostrar' al mondo, quanto
t' honoro ; enchino al uirtuoso e santo
uiuer tuo dato alle gratie superne.

4o6 APPENDIX.
e ingrato se ben
Ma 1' guasto et cieco che non sente o uede
opra se non fa sol quanto il mal uso seco apporta
parendoli il fiel dolcie el mele amaro
fuggiendo quel che mostra harabbe a tenere caro hauer piu caro
fara' come chi tardi si rauede
del danno suo e ua chiuder la porta
dicendo ancora, a lui mai nacque paro.
MagC0 et hon mr michlo
Voi mi hauete tanto mostro, nel leggere le
cose uostre, che forse qualcosa mi sene sara
apichata; pero qual' ella e uien da uoi et e uostra
Ch' io per me son quasi un terreno asciutto
colto da uoi, il pregio e uostro in tutto.
From Ascanio Condivi.
Vnico sigre et padron mio ossmo-
Ho gia scritte due lettere . dubito non glie sieno uenute alle
niani non hauendo saputo altra noua di uoi . con questa dir6 solo
che ui ricordiate di comandarmi et seruirsi non solamente di me
ma di tutta la casa Perche ui siamo tutti serui . Di gratia messere
mio ossmo et hon dignatiue ualerui et fare di me come d'un
minimo seruo far si suole-; e l'hauete afare perche ho piu obbligo
a uoi che a'mio Padre : et ue corrispondero con gli effetti .
faro fine per non annoiarui. Raccomandandomeni humilmente
dignandoui darmi consolatione che stiate bene che la maggior di
questa non potrei hauere . Stiate sano . di Ciuita nova li xxiiij
di maggio del 1,555 0)-
D. V. S. M.
Seruo perpetuo Ascanio Condiuj.
A tergo :
A Michelagnolo Buonarroti, Pittore
Scultore et architetto Vnico.
A Roma uicino la piazza di sto apostolo
canto la chiesa di loreto e casa Zanbeccari.

APPENDIX. 4o7

VIII.
ACCOUNT OF THE CODEX VATICANUS OF
MICHELANGELO'S RIME.
The Vatican MS. of Michelangelo's poems (No. 32 11) consists
mainly of a copybook which must have belonged to Buonarroti,
and which he began to use for the preservation of madrigals and
sonnets. The first fourteen pages are filled with thirty-five
poems, four sonnets, the quatrain on La Notte, together with
Strozzi's verses, and the rest madrigals. All these are entered
in one handwriting — perhaps Luigi del Riccio's. They finish
with the word TEAOS. That the book was kept for Michel
angelo's use appears probable from the fact that we find at least
eleven alterations in his own handwriting. One of these is caro
for grato in the quatrain on La Notte. On the back of page 14
a madrigal is written by the same scribe, together with part of a
sonnet (Dal del Discese). Page 15 opens with the second part of
this sonnet in a different and more clerkly hand. Three madrigals
follow by the second scribe. Pages 16 to 22 return to the first
handwriting, with four madrigals and three sonnets. From the
back of page 2 2 to the end of the Codex, the whole is written in
Michelangelo's autograph. It should here be said that there
are 103 pages in the book, mostly written upon both sides. There
are about 120 poems or fragments of madrigals and sonnets,
among which must be reckoned very frequent repetitions of the
same pieces with various readings. In addition, we find five
letters and three closely written pages of medical prescriptions
relating to ways of treating the eyes in disease and health, all in
Michelangelo's autograph. The prescriptions may belong to the
time when he suffered in the eyes from painting the Sistine vault.
It is clear from many indications that the poems entered by
Michelangelo himself belong to the later portion of his life. I
doubt whether a single one is antecedent to the year 1544.
Several of those entered by the scribes are referable to an earlier

408 APPENDIX.
date. The original copybook is a small quarto. It has been
broken up, and each leaf neatly inserted into a large sheet of
paper. When this book comes to an end, the Codex has been
made up of scattered manuscripts, and the whole is bound
handsomely in red calf.

INDEX.

Academy of Design at Florence,
founded by Grand Duke Cosimo I.
de' Medici, ii. 325
Academy of Fine Art established by
Lorenzo the Magnificent, i. 20
Active and Contemplative Life,
Michelangelo's statues of, ii. 79
Adonis, Dying, Michelangelo's statue
of, i. 139 ; its design and probable
purpose, ii. 90
Adrian Florent, tutor of the Emperor
Charles V., elected Pope as Adrian
VI., i. 367 ; his character, ib.
Aginensis. See Delia Rovere, Car
dinal Leonardo Grosso.
Agnolo, Baccio d', i. 96 ; ordered by
Leo X. to prepare a design for the
facade of S. Lorenzo, 314; in
trusted by Michelangelo with the
construction of the model for the
facade, 323
Alberti, Leo Battista, his style of
architecture, ii. 5 ; his definition of
its charm, 215
Alberti, Michele, corresponds with
Leonardo Buonarroti regarding
Michelangelo's bust, ii. 271
Albertinelli, i. 117
Albertini, i. 163, and note
Aldobrandini, Giovanni, his verses
on the death of Cecchino de' Bracci,
ii. 152
Aldobrandini, Pietro, Michelangelo
designs a sword-hilt for him, i.
191
Aldovrandi, Gianfrancesco, Bolognese

nobleman, a patron of Michelangelo,
i. 47
Aldovrandi, Ulisse, i. 62 note
Alexander VI., Pope, i. 69 note;
his obsequies in the chapel of the
Madonna della Febbre, 73 ; evil
character, 74 note ; nearly killed in
the Vatican, 355 note
Alidosi, Francesco, Cardinal of Pavia,
suppresses the revolt of the Bolog
nese, i. 194 ; stabbed to death by
Francesco Maria della Rovere, ib.
note
Aliotti, Piero Giovanni, Bishop of
Forli, and keeper of the wardrobe
to Pope Paul, ii. 73
Altoviti, Bindo, Tuscan consul at
Rome, Cellini's portrait of him,
ii. 284
Alva, Duke of, invades the Campagna
in 1556, ii. 303
Amadori, Cornelia degli, i. xiii.
Ambrogio, Fra, ii. 116
Ammanati, Bartolommeo, his letter
on neo-Pagan art, ii. 113 note;
allotted the task of erecting the
tombs in S. Pietro a Montorio,
287 ; offers the Duke of Tuscany
his assistance in completing the
Sacristy of S. Lorenzo, 325
Ammirati, Scipione, cited for the
purity of Michelangelo's life, ii. 164
Anacreon, Greek poet, his conception
of Eros, i. 63
Anatomy, Michelangelo's studies in,
i. 42 ; his sketch at Oxford, 44

409

ANG

INDEX.

Angelini, Bartolommeo, i. xiii., 465
note, 466 ; his correspondence with
Michelangelo, ii. 142, 386
Anghiari, battle of (1440), the subject
selected by Lionardo da Vinci for
his fresco painting in the Sala del
Gran Consiglio, i. 118, and note
Anguissola, Amilcare, thanks Michel
angelo for his kindness to his
daughter, ii. 340
Apollo, Michelangelo's unfinished
statue of, i. 445
Area, Niccola d', i. 54 note
Archadelt, Giacomo, sets some of
Michelangelo's madrigals to music,
i. 464
Architecture : character of early Re
naissance, ii. 5 ; Michelangelo's
innovations in, 4, 8 ; influence of
Vitruvius upon, 6 ; the Barocco
manner and Palladian style, 7 ;
Michelangelo's influence on the
transition state, ib. ; weakness of
Italian, 13 ; limits of individual
effort in, 243
Archivio Buonarroti, the, i. viii., x.
Arcieri, or Bersaglio, Michelangelo's
sketch, i. 296
Aretino, Pietro, i. xiii. ; corresponds
with Michelangelo on the theme of
the Last Judgment, ii. 45 ; requests
a drawing from Michelangelo, 49 ;
his spiteful and insolent letters to
him, 51, 131
Ariosto, his interview with Leo X., i.
301 ; on the use of the word gonna,
ii. 172 note ; 374
Armagnac, Louis d', i. 106
Art: single specimens of art possessed
no high market value in the time
of Michelangelo, i. 18 ; Michel
angelo closed the cycle of figura
tive art, 238 ; conditions under
which Greek and Italian flourished,
260 ; differences between Classic

andRomantic, 261 ; true test of the
highest, 266 ; influence of Greek,
upon Michelangelo, 275 ; Michel
angelo's opinion concerning, ii. 109,
in
Artists, rivalry and quarrels of, in
Rome, i. 213 ; Michelangelo on, ii.
Ill sq.
Atalante, i. 218 ; ii. 379
Avalos, Ferrante Francesco d'. See
Pescara.
Bacchanal of children, ii. 125, 141
Bacchus, Michelangelo's statue of, i.
58 ; his conception of the god, 59 ;
disagreeable impression left on the
mind by the statue, 61 ; Shelley's
criticism of the work, ib.
Bach, Sebastian, i. 72
Baglioni, Gianpaolo, despot of Peru
gia, pays homage to Julius II., i. 184
Baglioni, Malatesta, employed in
military operations by the Floren
tines, i. 408 ; betrays Florence,
433. 435
Baif, Lazare de, French ambassador
at Venice, intrigues to secure the
services of Michelangelo for the
French king, i. 427
Baldassare del Milanese, broker,
purchases the Sleeping Cupid of
Michelangelo, i. 50 ; refuses to
return it, 55
Balducci, Baldassare, a Florentine
friend of Buonarroti at Rome, i. 58
Balducci, Giovanni, corresponds with
Michelangelo regarding the Ma
donna now at Bruges, i. 76
Bandinelli, Baccio, accused by Vasari
of having destroyed Michelangelo's
cartoon of the Battle of Pisa, i.
164, 315 and note, 392; his Her
cules and Cacus, 439 ; accused of
breaking into Michelangelo's work
shop, 440
Bandini, Francesco, Florentine exile,

410

BAR

INDEX.

BON

desires a relic of Michelangelo's
work, ii. 202, 231
Barcelona, the peace of (1529), i. 408,
432
Bari, Niccolo da, sculptor, i. 48
Barocco architects, ii. 7
Bartolommeo, Fra, i. 117 ; his chalk-
studies, 288, 289 note
Bazzacco, his copper-plate from the
Last Judgment, ii. 50
Beatrizet, Niccolb, engraves Michel
angelo's Arcieri, i. 297
Beaumont, Sir George, acquires for
the Royal Academy a Holy Family
of Michelangelo, i. Ill
Beccadelli, Lodovico, the sonnet ad
dressed to him by Michelangelo on
the death of Francesco cl'Urbino,
ii. 298
Beethoven, his discontent with Haydn
as a teacher a parallel of the re
lations existing between Michel
angelo and Ghirlandajo, i. 16 ; his
affinity with Michelangelo, ii. 374
Begarelli, Antonio, Michelangelo's
criticism of his terra-cotta groups,
"• 353
Belli, Valeric, gem-cutter, i. 407
Bembo, i. 39 note
Bene, Baccio del, corresponds with
Michelangelo regarding his sketch
for the equestrian statue of Henri
II., ii. 257
Bene, Benedetto, copies Michel
angelo's Leda, i. 442
Benti, Battista, his work on the tomb
of Julius, ii. 77
Benti, Donato di Battista, Michel
angelo's agent-in-chief at Pietra
Santa, i. 340 note
Bentivogli, masters of Bologna, take
refuge in Milan on the approach of
Julius IL, i. 185, 193 ; overcome
the Papal party at Bologna, 1 97 ; de
stroy the bronze statue of Julius, ib. 411

Bentivoglio, Giovanni, i. 47
Berni, quoted, i. 373
Bernini, ii. 8
Bersaglio, or Arcieri, Michelangelo's
sketch, i. 296
Bertoldo, chosen by Lorenzo de'
Medici to assist in raising the art
of sculpture, i. 20
Berughetta, Alonso, Spanish painter,
i-233
Bettino, Pietro, thanks Michelangelo
for his kindness to his sou, ii.
340
Beyle, Henri, his impressions in the
Sistine Chapel, ii. 67
Biagi, Professor Guido, Prefect of
the Laurentian Library, i. xvii. ;
his monograph upon Tullia d'Ara
gona, ii. 169
Biard, his statue of Louis XII., ii. 258
Bibbiena, Bernardo da, Cardinal
Dovizi, i. 218 ; ii. 379
Bibliotheque Internationale des
Beaux- Arts, their edition of Michel
angelo's correspondence, i. viii.
Bini, Giovanni Francesco, assists
Michelangelo in one of his poems,
ii. 168
Bion, i. 72
Biondo, Flavio, ii. 3
Boboli Gardens, the rough-hewn male
figures in the, ii. 88
Bode, Professor, on the young S. John
at Berlin, i. 49 note
Bologna : Julius II. determines to free
the Papal cities from their tyrants,
i. 184 ; his triumphal entry into
Bologna, 185 ; the people plan revolt
in 1507, 193 ; victory of the Benti
vogli party, 197
Bologna, Gian, offers the Duke of
Tuscany his assistance in completing
the Sacristy at S. Lorenzo, ii. 325
Bonasoni, Giulio, engraves Michel
angelo's drawing for a Pieta, ii. 99 ;

BON

INDEX.

BUO

his engraving of Michelangelo's
profile, 265, 274
Bononiensis, Tudius, engraves Michel
angelo's drawing for a Pieta, ii. 99
Borghini, Don Vincenzo, lieutenant
of the Florentine Academy of
Design, superintends the obsequies
of Michelangelo at S. Croce, ii. 326
Borgia, Cesare, and the Sleeping
Cupid of Michelangelo, i. 52
Borgia, Ruderigo. See Alexander VI.
Borgias, the, i. 1 25
Bosco, Maso del, the portrait-statue
of Julius II. carved by, i. 143 ; his
work on the tomb of Julius, ii. 77
Bottari-Ticozzi, i. vi., xi.
Botticelli, his type of face corresponds
with that of Filippino Lippi, i. 49
note ; character of his Madonnas, 66,
94 ; fresco-work by him in the Sis
tine Chapel, 237 ; his twenty-eight
Popes, 238 ; style of his design, 289
Bracci, Cecchino de', admired by
Michelangelo for his attractive per
sonality, ii. 71, 122, 123, 151 ;
affection felt for him by Luigi del
Riccio, 151 ; his death, 152
Bramante d'Urbino, his designs for
S. Peter's, i. 148, ii. 214 ; untrust-
worthiness, i. 149; jealousy and
fear of Michelangelo, 152; his in
trigues against him, 176; bad scaf
folding erected by him for the
vault of the Sistine, 200 ; tries to
obtain for Raffaello the completion
of the painting, 211; character of
his architecture, ii. 5
Bronze statue of Julius II. com
missioned by the Pope, i. 187 ;
set up above the great central door
of S. Petronio, 196 ; thrown down
by the Bentivogli, 197
Bronzino, Angelo, offers the Duke of
Tuscany his assistance in complet
ing the Sacristyof S. Lorenzo, ii. 325

Browning, quoted, ii. 372
Briicke, Professor, on Michelangelo's
treatment of form, i. 265
Bruges, the Madonna of Michel
angelo at, i. 74
Brunelleschi, i. 87 ; the Church of S.
Lorenzo erected from his designs,
314, ii. 2 ; character of his archi
tecture, 5, 242
Brunelli, Giulio, doctor of laws, ii.
299 ; marries the widow of Fran
cesco d'Urbino, 301
Brutus, Michelangelo's marble bust
of, ii. 251
Buckingham, Duke of : Clarendon's
narrative of the apparition of Sir
George Villiers, i. 46
Bugiardini, Giuliano, engaged by
Michelangelo to assist in painting
the vault of the Sistine, i. 201,407,
ii. 137; the portrait of Michel
angelo in the Uffizi possibly by
him, 274 ; anecdote regarding it,
349
Buglioni, Santi, ii. 267 .
Buonarroti Simoni : history of the
family, i. I ; legend of changing
their name from Canossa, 3 ; fined
by the newly restored Medicean
Government, 232 ; Michelangelo's
letter thereon, ib. ; note on the
family pedigree, 375
Buonarroti, Buonarroto (brother of
Michelangelo), receives an aug
mentation of the family arms from
Leo X., i. 2 ; created Count Pala
tine, ib,, 313 ; put to the cloth
trade, 77 ; blamed by Michelangelo
for his conduct towards Filippo
Strozzi, 191 ; rebuked by his
brother for ingratitude, 227 ; his
description of Leo X.'s triumphal
entry into Florence, 312 ; attends
upon tlie Pope at mass, 313 ; death,
405
,12

BUO

INDEX.

cap

Buonarroti, Commendatore Cosimo,
i. vi.
Buonarroti, Giovau-Simone(brotherof
Michelangelo), i. 77; his death,ii.279
Buonarroti, Gismondo (brother of
Michelangelo), his death, ii. 296
Buonarroti, Lionardo (brother of
Michelangelo), enters the priest
hood, i. 8
Buonarroti, Lionardo (nephew of
Michelangelo), in ill-health, i. 446 ;
goes to Rome on hearing of his
uncle's illness, ii. 187, 188; his
anxiety to obtain the bust of the
latter from Daniele da Volterra,
269; correspondence with his uncle,
275 ; rebuked by the latter for his
vile handwriting, 276 ; projects
for his marriage, 277 ; marries
Cassandra, daughter of Donato
Ridolfi, 279 ; birth of a son, 286 ;
his uncle's last letter, 312; sum
moned to his dying bed, 319; ar
rives too late to see him in life, 322
Buonarroti, Lodovico (father of Mi
chelangelo), his record of the birth
of Michelangelo, i. 4 ; returns to
Florence, 9 ; opposed to Michel
angelo's desire to become an artist,
10 ; sends him as apprentice to
Ghirlandajo, 12 ; summoned to
appear before Lorenzo de' Medici,
21 ; result of the interview, 22 ;
loses his post at the Customs, 77 ;
his two marriages, 78 note ; advises
Michelangelo as to his course of
life, 80 ; his illness, 322 ; at Pisa
during the siege of Florence, 446;
probable date of his death, 467
Buonarroti, Michelangelo. See Michel
angelo.
Buonarroti, Michelangelo (the young
er). See Michelangelo the younger.
Buonarroti, Cavaliere Michelangelo,
i. vi. 413

Buonarroti, Sigismondo (brother of
Michelangelo),i.77; his death, ii. 279
Buoninsegni, Domenico, Michelan
gelo's agent at Rome, i. 325, 326,
328, 332
Buono, Lodovico del, metal-caster, i.
189
Burckhardt, i. xvi. ; cited for Michel
angelo's Risen Christ, 364 note; for
the history of S. Peter's, ii. 214
Burton's "Anatomy," ii. 365
Busini, Giambattista, quoted, i. xii.,
410 ; for Michelangelo's plan for the
fortification of Florence, 412, 413 ;
his account of Michelangelo's flight
to Venice, 419
Cagione, Lionardo di, enters into
partnership with Michelangelo at
Carrara, i. 326
Calcagni, Tiberio, Florentine sculptor
and draughtsman, i. xiii. ; buys
Michelangelo's Deposition from the
Cross, ii. 202; writes to Lionardo
Buonarroti about the murder of
Michelangelo's clerk of the works,
234 ; helps Michelangelo with his
drawing for the Church of S. Gio
vanni de' Fiorentini at Rome, 250 ;
charm of personality, 251 ; writes to
Lionardo regarding the grave con
dition of Michelangelo, 318, 319
Cambi, Giovanni, i. 357, 381
Camerino, Duke of, attends upon
Leo X. at mass, i. 313
Campori, i. xi.
Canossa, Count Alessandro da, recog
nizes a relationship with Michelan
gelo, i. 2
Canossa, Simone da, legendary ances
tor of Michelangelo, i. 2
Canossa, claim of the Buonarroti
Simoni family to descent from the
house of, i. 2
Capitol of Rome : its reconstruction

CAP

INDEX.

CEL

decided upon, ii. 246 ; general de
sign provided by Michelangelo, 247
Cappella Paolina, Rome, Michel
angelo's frescoes there, ii. 181 sqq.
Capponi, Niccolb, Gonfalonier of
Florence, appointed president of a
popular government in Florence,
i. 404; opposes Michelangelo's plan
for the fortification of the city, 412
Caprese, the birthplace of Michel
angelo, i. 5, 6
Captives, Bound, Michelangelo's, i.
139, ii. 86
Caracei, Annibale, painter of the
halls in the Farnese Palace at
Rome, ii. 209
Cardiere, story of the appearance to
him of the apparition of Lorenzo
de' Medici, i. 45
Cardona, Raimondo de, brings the
Medici back to Florence, i. 230
Carducci, on the use of the word
Signore in love-poetry, ii. 129 note
Carnesecchi, Pietro, one of the circle
of Vittoria Colonna, ii. 95 ; burned
for heresy, ib.
Carnivals, devised by Lorenzo de'
Medici for political purposes, i. 32
Caro, Annibale, entreats Antonio
Gallo to intercede with the Duke
of Urbino for Michelangelo, ii. 78
Carota, wood-carver, employed by
Michelangelo, i. 397
Carpi, Cardinal of, ii. 218 ; persuades
Michelangelo to construct a wooden
model of the cupola for S. Peter's,
231 ; his mind poisoned against the
artist, 233
Carpi, Ugo da, Michelangelo's criti
cism upon one of his pictures, ii. 354
Carrara, Michelangelo's visits to pur
chase marble, i. 321, 328
Cartoon of the Battle of Pisa for
the Municipal Palace, Florence,
Michelangelo's, i. 119, 161; Vas

ari's account of its destruction,
163 ; Cellini's description of it,
166 ; that of Vasari, 168 ; extra
ordinary effect produced by it upon
contemporaries, 170
Cartoons for the frescoes of the Vault
of the Sistine Chapel, Michel
angelo's, i. 240 sqq. ; for the Pau
line Chapel, ii. 181 sqq.
Casa Buonarroti, the collection of
manuscripts at the, i. v.
Castelli, Cesare, his measurements of
Michelangelo's model of the cupola
of S. Peter's, ii. 241
Castriotto, Jacopo Fusto, carries out
Michelangelo's scheme for the de
fence of Rome, ii. 213
Catherine de' Medici. See Medici.
Cavalieri, Tommaso de', i. x., xiii. ;
becomes acquainted with Michel
angelo, 465, ii. 98, ioi, 125 ; cor
responds with him, 138; nurses
him in his last illness, and after
wards carries on his work in the
Capitol, 148 ; 231, 247, 312 ; present
at his death, 320 ; letters from
him to the artist, 400
Cellini, Benvenuto, his autobio
graphy, i. xii. ; quoted for the
quarrel between Michelangelo and
Piero Torrigiano, 31 ; for Floren
tine street-singing, 35 ; contrasted
with Michelangelo, 85 ; his ac
count of contemporary sculpture,
102 ; cited for the existence of the
cartoons of the battles of Pisa and
Anghiari in 1513, 163, 165 ; his
account of Michelangelo's cartoon,
166 ; encouragement given him by
Michelangelo, 405 ; ii. 50 ; cited
for the execution of the equestrian
statue of Henri II. , 257 ; his por
trait of Bindo Altoviti commended
by Michelangelo, 284 ; sent to per
suade Michelangelo to return to

414

CEN

INDEX.

COL

Florence, 289 ; offers the Duke of
Tuscany his assistance in complet
ing the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo, 325
Cencio, Bernardo, Canon of S. Peter's,
orders the statue of the Risen Christ
of S. Maria sopra Minerva, i. 305
Centaurs, Michelangelo's bas-relief
of the, i. 27 sq. ; example of his
early style, 29
Cepparello, Silvio di Giovanni da,
servant of Michelangelo, his high
appreciation of his master, ii. 341
Cervini, Marcello, Cardinal, ii. 228 ;
elected Pope with the title of Mar-
cellus IL, 230
Cesare da Castel Durante, Michel
angelo's clerk of the works at S.
Peter's, his murder, ii. 234
Cesari, Alessandro, Michelangelo's
criticism of his medals, ii. 353
Cesena, Biagio da, master of cere
monies to Paul III., caricatured by
Michelangelo in the fresco of the
Last Judgment, ii. 57
Ceserino, Giuliano, ii. 251
Chalk, Michelangelo's use of, in his
designs, i. 291 sqq.
Chapel of the Medici. See Lorenzo, S.
Charles V., Emperor, i. 367, 408, 432 ;
stops the violent deeds of Pope
Clement in Florence, 436
Charles VIII., Emperor, his invasion
of Italy, i. 44, 69 note
Chatsworth, portrait-drawing of Leo
X. at, ii. 125
Chigi, Agostino, carries away two of
Michelangelo's blocks of marble,
ii- 377
Chiusiin Casentino, description of,i. 6
Christ, Risen, the, of S. Maria sopra
Minerva, Michelangelo commis
sioned to make it, i. 305 ; its com
pletion, 359 ; mishandled by Pietro
Urbano, 360 ; criticism of the work,
362 ; its fame, 363

Ciapino, carpenter, employed by
Michelangelo, i. 397
Ciecha, Bernardo della, i. 96
Cino da Pistoja, cited for the use of
the masculine gender in love-poetry,
ii. 128, 129
Cinque, Battista del, employed by
Michelangelo, i. 397
Civitali, sculptor, i. 87
Clarendon, his narrative of the ap
parition of Sir George Villiers, i. 46
Clement, Charles, his Life of Michel
angelo, i. xiv.
Clement VII., Pope : anxious to
monopolise the labour of Michel
angelo, i. 141 ; his appreciation of
the artist, 347 ; pushes on the
Sacristy of S. Lorenzo, 372 ; pro
jects the Laurentian Library, ib. ;
mediates in the dispute between
Michelangelo and the heirs of
Julius, 376 ; meditates the erection
of a Colossus, 400 ; takes refuge in
the Castle of S. Angelo, 403 ; his
despotic conduct after the surren
der of Florence, 436 ; pardons
Michelangelo, 438 ; issues a brief
enjoining him to spare his strength,
453 ; meets him at S. Miniato al
Tedesco, 465 ; projects the comple
tion of S. Lorenzo, ii. 2 ; promises
Michelangelo a yearly salary, 358
Codex Vaticanus of Michelangelo's
Rime, account of, ii. 407
Colombo, Realdo, Michelangelo's
physician, ii. 306
Colonna, the, drive Clement VII.
to take refuge in the Castle of S.
Angelo, i. 403
Colonna, Fabrizio, Grand Constable
of Naples, father of Vittoria Col
onna, ii. 93
Colonna, Stefano, employed by the
Florentines in their military opera
tions, i. 408

415

COL

INDEX.

COK

Colonna, Vittoria, Marchioness of
Pescara, i. x., xiii., 344 ; her early
history, ii. 93 ; marriage to the Mar
quis of Pescara, 94 ; her life subse
quent to his death, 95 ; religious
aims, 96 ; influence over Michel
angelo, ib. ; character of her poems,
97 ; four of her letters to Michel
angelo, 103 ; criticism of their
friendship, 117; her death, 118;
sonnets and madrigals addressed to
her by Michelangelo, 120, 121
Colonnelli, Cornelia, wife of Fran
cesco d'Urbino, ii. 299 ; her second
marriage, 301
Colossus, Clement VII. meditates the
erection of one in the Piazza San
Lorenzo, i. 400
Colvin, Professor Sidney, i. xviii.
Compagno, Lionardo di, saddle-maker,
i. 341, 346
Condivi, Ascanio, his Life of Michel
angelo, i. xi. ; cited, 2, 3, 10, 11 ; for
Domenico Ghirlandajo's jealousy
of Michelangelo, 13 ; his conten
tion with Vasari as to the in
fluence of Michelangelo's teachers,
14, 18, 21 ; cited for Michelan
gelo's position in the Casa Medici,
25 ; for the bas-relief of the Cen
taurs, 27 note ; for the story of
Lorenzo de' Medici's apparition
to Cardiere, 45 ; for the story of
Michelangelo's Sleeping Cupid, 5 1 ;
for the Bacchus of Michelangelo
commissioned by Jacopo Gallo, 58 ;
for the Madonna della Febbre, 70,
72 ; for the Madonna at Bruges,
75 ; for Michelangelo's habits and
appearance, 82, 83 ; for the story of
the David, 89 ; for the casting of a
life-size statue of David, and a
David with Goliath, 106 note ; for
Michelangelo's criticism on Dona-
tello, 114 ; for Michelangelo's tomb

of Julius II. , 128; for the un-
trustworthiness of Bramante, 149 ;
for the reception and pardon of
Michelangelo by Julius, 186 ; for
Michelangelo's dislike of under
taking to paint the vault of the
Sistine, 200 ; for the time employed
by him on the work, 216 ; for
Michelangelo's meeting with the
Pope on the scaffold, (219 ; for
Michelangelo's idealisation of form,
286 ; for the marble quarries of
Pietra Santa, 329 ; for his sudden
flight to Venice, 416 ; for his tem
pera picture of a Leda, 440 ; for his
troubles anent the tomb of Julius,
458 ; for the animosity of Duke
Alessandro de' Medici towards
Michelangelo, 461 ; for Paul III.'s
determination to engage Michel
angelo, ii. 38 ; becomes Michel
angelo's servant, 71 ; cited for the
statue of Moses, 83 ; for the draw
ings made by Michelangelo for Vit
toria Colonna, 98 ; narrative of the
death of Vittoria, 118; cited for
Michelangelo's opinions and practice
in affairs of the emotions, 164 ; for
his frescoes in the Cappella Paolina,
181 ; for his Deposition from the
Cross, 1 98 ; his general summary
of Michelangelo's qualities as man
and artist, 331 ; letter to the
master, 343, 406
Contarini, Cardinal Gasparo, his re
ligious aims in sympathy with those
of Vittoria Colonna, ii. 95
Conte, Jacopo del, his portrait of
Michelangelo, ii. 264
Corboli, Francesco, Michelangelo pur
poses buying his estates, ii. 275
Cornelius, Munich painter, pronounces
the Entombment in the National
Gallery to be by Michelangelo,
i.67

416

COR

INDEX.

DEL

Corniole, Giovanni delle, Florentine
gem-cutter, and the David, i. 95
Correggio, his method of treating fore-
shortenings, i. 282 note
Cosimo, Piero di, painter, upon a site
for the David, i. 95 ; assists Lor
enzo de'Medici in devising Carnival
triumphs and processions, 33
Cottier, M., his copy of Daniele da
Volterra's bronze head of Michel
angelo, ii. 268
Council of Nine at Florence, Michel
angelo a member of the, i. 409
Croce, S., at Florence, Michelangelo's
monument in, ii. 328
Cronaca, Michelangelo's criticism of
his church of S. Francesco al Monte,
"• 353
Crowe and Cavalcaselle, cited for
the materials supplied for Lionardo
da Vinci's cartoon of the Battle of
Anghiari, i. 120
Crucifix carved in wood for the Prior
of S. Spirito, i. 43
Crucifixion, Michelangelo's designs
for the, ii 98, 197
Cupid, Sleeping, the statue of, sold to
the Cardinal di San Giorgio, i. 50
Cupid, the so-called statue of, now
at South Kensington, discovered
by Professor Miliarini and the
sculptor Santarelli, i. 62 ; the atti
tude characteristic of Michelan
gelo's style, 63
Cupola of S. Peter's, ii. 238 sq.
Daelli, i. vii.
Dandolo, Marco, of Venice, i. 436
Daniele da Volterra. See Volterra
Dante, i. 6 ; his simile drawn from
the fir-cone in the old Basilica of
S. Peter's at Rome, 145 ; anecdote
about him and Giotto the painter,
192 ; influence of his genius over
Signorelli and Michelangelo, 253,
VOL 11. 41

336 ; project for bringing his bones
to Florence, 334 ; Michelangelo's
sonnets and studies on his work,
335-337-
David, Michelangelo's pen-and-ink
drawing in the Louvre, i. 107
David, bronze statue, intended for
Marshal de Gie', i. 105
David, Michelangelo's colossal statue
of, i. 89 ; terms of the contract,
91 ; he begins to work on it, 92 ;
a committee appointed to consider
where it should be placed, 93; con
veyed to the site selected, 96 ; its
subsequent history, 97 ; criticism
of the statue, 98 sq. ; Vasari's story
about the nose, 104
Dawn, Michelangelo's statue of, ii.
22, 31-36
Day, Michelangelo's statue of, ii. 22,
31-36
Delia Finocchiaja marble quarries,
"¦332
Della Porta, Giacomo, architect, his
treatment of Michelangelo's plan
for the cupola of S. Peter's, ii. 239
Delia Rovere family, the : Giuliano.
See Julius II.
Della Rovere, Cardinal Leonardo
Grosso, Bishop of Agen, i. 135, and
note ; encourages Michelangelo to
proceed with the tomb of Julius,
377 ; accuses him of cheating, ii.
379
Della Rovere, Duke Francesco Maria,
institutes legal proceedings against
Michelangelo on account of the
tomb of Julius IL, i. 141, 387 ;
principal heir of Julius, 378 ; as
sassinates Francesco Alidosi, Car
dinal of Pavia, 194 note ; complies
with Pope Paul III.'s wishes with
regard to the tomb of Julius, ii. 43
Della Rovere, Guidobaldo, Duke of
Urbino, complies with Pope Paul
7 2 11

DES

INDEX.

FAN

III.'s wishes with regard to the
tomb of Julius, ii. 43, and note
Design : Michelangelo's style, i. 288 ;
that of Andrea del Sarto, ib. ; of
Lionardo da Vinci, ib. ; of Raphael,
ib. ; Michelangelo on the science
of, ii. 112
Designs of naked man in the Louvre,
by Michelangelo, i. 109 ; and of
the Tomb of Julius in the Uffizi,
133-135. 137
Desnoyers, M., Minister of Louis
XIII., orders Michelangelo's Leda
to be destroyed, i. 443
De Stendhal, i. xvi.
Dini, Captain Cuio, i. 396, and note
Dionigi, S., Cardinal di, commissions
Michelangelo to make a Pieta, i. 69
Dolfo, Tommaso di, invites Michel
angelo to visit Adrianople, i. 344
Donatello, his method compared with
that of Michelangelo, i. 28, 49, 66,
87 ; his Judith and bronze David,
93 note, 97 ; the facial features
of his S. George the model for
Michelangelo's David, 100 ; strong
instinct for plastic effect, 246 ;
influence over Michelangelo, 275 ;
the latter's criticism of his statue
of S. Mark, ii. 353
Donati, Federigo, physician, present
at Michelangelo's death, ii. 320
Doni, Angelo, Michelangelo paints a
Holy Family for him, i. 1 14
Doni's " I Marmi," cited for the re
creations of the Florentines in
summer, i. 36
Donnino, Angelo di, engaged by
Michelangelo to assist in paintin°-
the vault of the Sistine, i. 201
Doria, Andrea, desire of the Genoese
to obtain from Michelangelo »
statue to him, i. 370
Doria, Andrea, Prince of Malfi, ii. 342
Dovizi, Cardinal. See Bibbiena

418

Draughtsmanship, great importance
of, i. 284
Duca, Giacomo del, his work on the
tomb of Julius, ii. 77 note
Duca, Jacopo del, Sicilian bronze-
caster, corresponds with Lionardo
Buonarroti regarding Michelan
gelo's bust, ii. 270 ; superintends
the Roman monument to the latter,
323
Duccio, Agostino di Antonio di,
sculptor, character of his work, i.
90, and 91 note
Duppa, Richard, his Life of Michel
angelo, i. xiii.
Diirer, Albert, compared with Michel
angelo, i. 43 ; ascribes the Bruges
Madonna to Michelangelo, 75 note ;
may have met him at Bologna,
192 ; his book on the art of fortifi
cation, 413
Durm, Professor Josef, i. xviii. ; on
the construction of the cupola of
S. Peter's, ii. 238, note, 241, 243
Edelinck, his engraving from a
drawing of Rubens of the battle
of Anghiari, i. 162
" Ente Buonarroti," the, i. ix.
Entombment, picture of the, in the
National Gallery, i. 67 ; its doubt
ful authenticity, 68
Este, Alfonso d'. See Ferrara, Duke of
Eugenius IV., Pope, i. 118 note
Falcone, Silvio, his affection for
Michelangelo, ii. 341
Fancelli, Domenico, nicknamed Topo
lino, stone-cutter, his intercourse
with Michelangelo, ii. 348
Fanfani, P., cited for the nature of
the relations between Michelangelo
and Vittoria Colonna, ii. 130
Fano, Girolamo da, employed to
provide draperies for the most

INDEX.

FOR

obnoxious figures in the Last Judg
ment, ii. 57
Farnese Palace at Rome, Michel
angelo's design for the, ii. 207
Farnese, Alessandro. See Paul III.
Farnese, Cardinal, said to have bought
the drawings of Michelangelo in
the possession of Cavalieri, ii. 141
Farnese, Pier Luigi, Duke of Castro,
approves of Michelangelo's scheme
for the defence of Rome, ii. 211
Fattorino, II, pupil of Raffaello, and
brother of Francesco d'Urbino, ii.
299
Fattucci, Giovan Francesco, i. xiii.,
372 ; rebukes Michelangelo for his
want of courage, 373 ; friend and
correspondent of the latter, ii. 130,
314 ; Michelangelo's letter to him
concerning the tomb of Julius, 376
Faun's mask, Michelangelo's first
work in marble, i. 21
Fea, i. xi.
Ferrante, Francesco, betrothed to
Vittoria Colonna, ii. 93. See Pescara
Ferrara, Duke of, presented by the
Bentivogli with Michelangelo's
bronze statue of Julius, i. 197 ;
413 ; Michelangelo's tempera pic
ture of a Leda intended for him, 441
Ferrucci, Francesco, his defence of
Florence, i. 432
Fesch, Cardinal, Michelangelo's En
tombment now in the National Gal
lery originally in his collection, i. 67
Festa, Costanzo, sets some of Michel
angelo's madrigals to music, i. 464
Ficino, Marsilio, i. 24 ; the story of
his apparition appearing to Michele
Mercato, 39 note
Fidelissimi, Gherardo, physician, pre
sent at Michelangelo's death, ii. 320
Fiesole, Mino da, ii. 80
Figiovanni, Giovan Battista, i. 438
Filarete, Francesco, chief herald of

the Signory at Florence, on the best
site for the David, i 93
Fiorentino, Rosso, his apologetic
letter to Michelangelo, ii. 315
Flaminio, Marcantonio, ii. 95
Florence : culture under Lorenzo de'
Medici, i. 25, 32 ; a council of not
ables convened to decide the best site
for Michelangelo's David, 93 ; im
portance of the French alliance in
1501, 105 ; the Signory persuade
Michelangelo to return to Rome,
178 ; return of the Medici in Sep
tember 15 12, 230; prepares for a
siege in 1529, 408 ; weakened by
internal jealousies, 410 ; progress
of the siege, 432 ; surrender of the
town, 435 ; chafes at the tyrannous
law "La Polverina," ii. 185; an
Academy of Design founded by the
Duke of Tuscany, 325 ; great show
prepared by the Academy for
Michelangelo's obsequies at S.
Lorenzo, 326 ; document relating
to the wool used by Michelangelo
in its fortifications, 379
Florent. See Adrian Florent
Florentine Academy, recognise
Michelangelo as a poet, ii. 283
Florentine painters, style of their
Madonnas previous to the time of
Michelangelo, i. 66
Florentines, honour paid to the
memory of Michelangelo by them,
ii. 327
Foiano, Fra Benedetto da, starved to
death, i. 437
Fontana, ii. 244
Form, the Tuscan ideal of, i 259 ;
the Greek ideal, ib.
Fortifications of Florence, Michel
angelo appointed to the control of
the, i. 409
Fortnum, C. DruryE.,i. xviii. ; the
original wax model of Leone Leoni's

i'9

FRA

INDEX.

GHI

medal of Michelangelo in his collec
tion, ii. 261 ; his monographs on
Michelangelo, 262 note
Francesco, Don, Crown-Prince of
Florence, visits Michelangelo at
Rome, ii. 295
Francesco, Sebastiano di, stone
cutter, i. 427
Francia, Francesco, painter, i. 117;
his meeting with Michelangelo, 192
Francis I. of France : meets Leo X.
at Bologna, i. 312 ; has Michel
angelo's Risen Christ cast and
sent to Paris, 363 ; gives the two
Bound Captives to the Constable
de Montmorenci, ii. 86 ; taken
prisoner at the battle of Pavia, 94 ;
requests some masterpiece from
the hand of Michelangelo, 194
Francis of Holland, his Dialogues on
Painting, i. xii., ii. 107-1 16 ; 70 ;
his sketch of Michelangelo in hat
and mantle, 263
Francis, S., receiving the Stigmata,
Michelangelo's picture of, i. 57
Franzese, Antonio del, Michelangelo's
servant, is given the Deposition
from the Cross, ii. 199 note, 311;
his letter to the Duke of Urbino
concerning the statuette of Moses,
273
Franzese, Giovanni, his model of the
cupola of S. Peter's, ii. 239
Frediani, i. xi.
Fresco of the Last Judgment. See
Last Judgment
Frescoes of the Pauline Chapel : the
climax of Michelangelo's fourth
stage of form-ideal, i. 182 ; criti
cism of the pictures, ii. 1S1
sqq.
Frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. Sec
Sistine Chapel on brown paper
Frizzi, Federigo, sculptor, finishes
Michelangelo's Risen Christ, i. 360

Frundsberg, and his Lutheran rabble,
i-403
Fuseli, his art-lectures, i. xiii.
Gaeta, Pier Luigi, servant of Michel
angelo, ii. 235
Galichon, M. Emile, the example of
the Phaethon in his collection,
ii. 141
Galilei, Alessandro, designs the fajade
of the existing S. Giovanni dei
Fiorentini at Rome, ii. 251
Gallieno, Florentine embroiderer, i. 95
Gallo, Antonio, asked to intercede
with the Duke of Urbino on behalf
of Michelangelo, ii. 78
Gallo, Jacopo, Roman banker, be
friends Michelangelo, i. 58 ; com
missions the latter to execute a
marble Bacchus, ib. ; said to have
purchased » Cupid from him, 62 ;
stands surety for Michelangelo's
performance of the Madonna della
Febbre, 69
Garnier, Charles, quoted for Michel
angelo's position as architect, ii.
11 ; for the construction of the
cupola of S. Peter's, 238 note ; for
Michelangelo's scheme for the
Capitol, 248
Gaston de Foix, i. 230
Gaye, i. vi., xi.
Genezzano, Fra Mariano da, i. 38
Gesuato, Fra Jacopo, i. 204
Ghiberti, Lorenzo, sculptor, i. 87 ;
his doors in the Florentine Baptis
tery, ii. 353
Ghirlandajo, David, on the best site
for the David, i. 95.
Ghirlandajo, Domenico, tries to dimi
nish the impression produced by
Michelangelo's early work, i. 11 ;
origin of the name, 12 note; his
jealousy of Michelangelo, 13, 16;
drafts Granacci and Michelangelo

420

¦GIA

INDEX.

GUA

: to study sculpture under Bertoldo,
20 ; his influence traced in Michel
angelo's Madonna in the National
Gallery, 66 ; his fresco-work in
the Sistine Chapel, 237; use of
white chalk on brown paper, 292
Giannotti, Donato, his Dialogue, i.
x"-> 335 5 337 ; one of the circle at
Rome which includedMichelangelo,
ii. 69, 25 1 ; his three sonnets on
the death of Cecchino de' Bracci,
152. 231
Ginori, Federigo, applies to Michelan
gelo for a design for a medal, i. 406
Giorgio, Cardinal San, buys Michel
angelo's Sleeping Cupid, i. 50
Giorgione, his pen-and-ink sketch for
a Lucretia in the Uffizi, i. 288
Giotto, painter, anecdote about him
and Dante, i. 192 note
Girolami,Raffaello,Florentine patriot,
sent to prison and poisoned, i. 436
Giugni, Galeotti, Florentine envoy to
Ferrara, i. 414 ; intercedes with
the Florence Signory on Michel
angelo's behalf, 427
Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, Michel
angelo's statue of, in the Sacristy of
S. Lorenzo, ii. 31
Goethe, quoted, i. 364
Gondi, Carlo, his verses on the death
of Cecchino de' Bracci, ii. 153
Gondi, Pietro, i. 373, 404
Gonna, Ariosto cited for the use of
the word, ii. 172 note
Gonzaga, Don Ferrante, commander
of the Imperial forces at the siege
of Florence, i. 435
Gotti, Aurelio, his Life of Michelan
gelo, i. ix., x., xiv. ; his two plans
of the cupola of S. Peter's, ii. 241 ;
cited for the psychology of Michel
angelo, 382
Gozzoli, Benozzo, his portraits of the
Medici and Poliziano, i. 27 ; small

expenditure of intellectual energy
required for his work, 239
Granacci, Francesco, inspires Michel
angelo with the resolution to be
come an artist, i. 10 ; studies
sculpture under Bertoldo, 20 ; be
seeches Michelangelo's father to
obey the summons of Lorenzo de'
Medici, 21 ; assists in devising
carnival triumphs and processions,
33 i engaged to assist in painting
the vault of the Sistine, 201 ; guards
Michelangelo's property during his
flight from Florence, 427
Grant, Thomas, i. vi.
Grazzini, Anton Francesco, " II
Lasca," his description of Floren
tine carnivals, i. 33 ; writes verses
on the death of Cecchino de' Bracci,
i'- 153
Greek and Italian ideals of form
contrasted, i. 258 ; and religious
emotion, 260
Greeks, their conception of Dionysos,
i. 59
Grimani, Cardinal, begs Michelangelo
for a specimen of his art, i. 369,
ii. 358
Grimm, Hermann, i vii., viii. note;
his Life of Michelangelo, xiv. ; ii.
104 note
Grosso, Cardinal Leonardo, Bishop
of Agen. See Della Rovere
Gruner, i. xiv.
Gsell-Fels, quoted for Michelangelo's
Risen Christ, i. 364
Gualandi Rosselmini, Count, owner
of the statue of S. John now in the
Berlin Museum, i. 49 note
Guasti, Signor Cesare, his edition of
Michelangelo's poems, i. vii, x. ;
on the falsification of their text,
ii. 128, 131; cited for Michel
angelo's attachment to young men,
154 ; his edition of the autographs

421

GUC

INDEX.

JUL

of Michelangelo, 173 ; cited for his
psychology, 382
Guceio, Agostino di Antonio di. See
Duccio
Guicoiardini, cited for the effects of
the sensual indulgences of Lorenzo
the Magnificent, i. 38 ; for the cha
racter of Pope Julius II., 300
Guidicci, Mario, lectures on Michel
angelo's poems before the Floren
tine Academy, ii. 284
Guillaume, M., his theory regarding
Michelangelo's Victory, ii. 89
Hakpoed, John Samuel, his Life of
Michelangelo, i. xiii. ; cited, 206 ;
for the history of S. Peter's, ii. 214
note
Hawkwood, Sir John, i 119
Haydn, i. 16
Hellas, ancient, social environment of
favourable to free development of
personal emotion, ii. 385
Henri II. of France, the equestrian
statue of, ii. 255
Henry VII., Emperor, i. 6
Hercules, Michelangelo's lost statue
of, i. 40
Hercules and Cacus, Baccio Bandi-
nelli's statue group, i. 439
Hercules and Centaurs, Michelan
gelo's bas-relief of, i. 27
Holkham, the picture there from
Michelangelo's cartoon of the
Battle of Pisa, i. 162, 170
Holy Family. See Madonna and
Child
Human figure, Michelangelo's treat
ment of the, in the Sistine Chapel,
i. 245, ii. 56 sqq.
Ibycus, Greek poet, his conception of
Er6s, i. 63
Image, Selwyn, cited for Michel
angelo's individualism, i. 290

Imola, Benv. da, his anecdote of Dante
and Giotto, i. 192 note
Ingres, his picture of the Golden
Age, i. 67
Italian Gothic, the early Italian Re
naissance style, ii. 5 ; its faults
partly overcome by fifteenth-cen
tury architects, 14
Italians : sensible of Michelangelo's
early ability, i. 87 ; their ideal of
form as contrasted with that of the
Greeks, 258 ; experimental charac
ter of their architecture after the
abandonment of the Romanesque,
ii. 4 ; society of Renaissance Italy
compared with that of ancient
Hellas, 385
Italy, convulsions in, between 1526
and 1530, i. 395
JACOPO l'lndaco, Florentine painter,
engaged to assist in painting the
vault of the Sistine, i 201 ; his
intimacy with Michelangelo, ii. 347
John, S., Michelangelo's statue at
Berlin, i. 49
Johnson, Samuel, quoted for "Lyci-
das," ii. 123
Julius IL, Pope, i 117 : his political
character, 125 ; personal character,
126; calls Michelangelo to Rome,
ib. ; sympathy between him and
the artist, 127 ; decides to build a
monument for himself, 129; sends
Michelangelo to quarry marble at
Carrara, ib. ; determines to rebuild
S. Peter's, 148 ; lays the founda
tion-stone in 1506, 151; grows
cold about the tomb, 153 ; corre
sponds with the Signory concerning
the extradition of Michelangelo,
178 ; his arrival at Bologna, 181 ;
account of the campaign under
taken by him, 184 ; triumphal
entry into Bologna, 185; receives

422

JUL

INDEX.

LEY

. and pardons Michelangelo, 1 86 ;
commissions him to cast his statue
in bronze, 187 ; and to paint the
vault of the Sistine, 198; refuses
to listen to any arguments against
the proposal, 200 ; visits the artist
on the scaffold while at work, 209 ;
his death, 300 ; on Michelangelo's
violence of temper, 347 ; in debt to
him at the time of his death, ii. 137
Julius III., Pope, a. friend and ad
mirer of Michelangelo, ii. 226
Kugleb, i. xvi.
Labacco, Antonio, makes Sangallo's
wooilen model for S. Peter's, ii,
217 note
Landino, Cristoforo, his theory re
garding the number of days spent
by Dante in his journey through
Hell and Purgatory, i. 337
Lang, W., cited for Michelangelo's
letter to Febo di Poggio, ii. 156
Languet, his letters to Sidney illustr
ative of personal emotion at the end
of the sixteenth century, ii. 154, 159
Laocoon, discovery of the, i. 154
Lapo, Lapo d' Antonio di, sculptor, an
assistant of Michelangelo, i. 189
Lasca, II. See Grazzini
Last Judgment, the, in the Sistine
Chapel, Michelangelo begins the
work, ii. 42 ; Aretino's criticism on
the fresco, 50 sq. ; contemporary
opinions on its nudity, 56 ; exposed
to view, 58 ; criticism of the work,
59 ; its immediate fame, 67
Laurentian Library, the, Pope Cle
ment's ideas regarding, ii. 2 ; the
vestibule, 15 ; difficulty about the
staircase, 253
Leda and the Swan, Michelangelo's
picture of, i. 441 ; disapproved of
by the Duke of Ferrara's agent,

442 ; taken to France by Antonio
Mini, ib. ; copy by Benedetto Bone,
ib. ; sold to the King of France,
443 ; ordered to be destroyed be
cause of its indecency, ib. ; restored
and taken to England, ib.
Legniame, Antonio Maria da, ii. 378
Lenoir, M., purchases Michelangelo's
Bound Captives for the French
nation, ii. 86
Leo X., Pope, grants an augmenta
tion of the family arms to Buon
arroto Buonarroti, i. 2 ; rejoicings
in Italy on his election, 300 ; his
character, 301 ; employs Michelan
gelo, 311 ; his triumphal entry into
Florence, ib. ; meets Francis I. at
Bologna, 312 ; re-enters Florence,
313 ; conceives the idea of finishiug
the Church of S. Lorenzo, 314, ii.
2 ; orders Michelangelo to con
struct a road at Santa Pietra, i.
330 ; changes his mind about S.
Lorenzo, 350 ; offers Sebastiano
del Piombo a hall to paint, 355 ; his
vacillation, 356 ; purchases the
library of S. Marco, ii. 3 ; commis
sions Raffaello to continue Bra
mante's design for S. Peter's, 215 ;
appoints Antonio da Sangallo to
assist him, ib. ; death, i. 365 ; esti
mate of his character, 366
Leoni, Diomede, corresponds with
Lionardo Buonarroti regarding
Michelangelo's bust, ii. 269, 271 ;
apprises Lionardo of the grave con
dition of his uncle, 318; and of
his death, 320
Leoni, Leone, his tomb at Milan for
Gian Giacomo de' Medici, ii. 79
note ; his medal of Michelangelo,
258 ; his wax model and medal
lions of the artist, 274
Le Pileur, A., i. ix.
Leyden, Lucas van, his copper-plate

423

LIP

INDEX

man

from the cartoon of the Battle of
Pisa, i. 172
Lippi, Filippino, type of his face
like that of Botticelli, i. 49 note ;
character of his Madonnas, 66 ; his
opinion as to the most suitable
position for Michelangelo's David,
95
Lombroso, on the psychology of
Michelangelo, ii. 361, 382
Lorenzi, Battista, sculptor, ii. 267
Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, Michel
angelo's statue of, in the Sacristy
of S. Lorenzo, ii. 3 1
Lorenzo, S., the Church of, at Flo
rence, Leo X. resolves to erect a
new front, i. 314; Michelangelo
selected as architect, ib. ; the
Sacristy roofed in, 375 ; history of
the schemes planned by Michel
angelo for its decoration, 380 ; the
number of statue-portraits origin
ally contemplated, 381 ; a mural
plan eventually adopted, 382; light
thrown upon'^the matter by original
drawings, ib. ; the church founded
in part by a Medici, ii. 2 ; mem
bers of the family buried there,
ib. ; Popes Leo and Clement design
its completion, ib. ; kind of archi
tecture for which the Sacristy was
adapted, 19; criticism of Michel
angelo's work there, 30
Lottino, a friend of Michelangelo, ii.
231, 289
Louis XII., ridicules the idea of a
high-priest riding to the wars, i.
184
Lucretius, affinity between him and
Michelangelo, i. 271, ii. 374
Lysippus, his partiality for the male
form, i. 266
Macchiavelli, cited for the battle of
Anghiari (1440), i. 118 note; for

the character of Gianpaolo Baglioni,
despot of Perugia, 184
Macchinisti, the, i. 282 note
Macpherson, Robert, discovers the
National Gallery Entombment at
Rome, i. 68 note
Madonna and Child, Michelangelo's
marble bas-relief in the Casa Buon
arroti, Florence, i. 29
Madonna and Child, Michelangelo's,
statue at Bruges, i. 74
Madonna and Child, Michelangelo's,
and other figures, the National
Gallery picture, i 65 sq.
Madonna and Child, Michelangelo's,
statue for the tomb of Julius II.,
ii. 81
Madonna and Child, Michelangelo's,
circular bas-relief in the Florence
Museum, i III ; in the Royal
Academy, London, ib.
Madonna and Child (the Doni Holy
Family), i. 114; the only easel-
picture which can be attributed to
Michelangelo with certainty, ib. ;
powerful and original character of
the composition, 115 ; its defects,
117
Madonna and Child, Michelangelo's,
marble group in the Medici Chapel,
ii. 22
Madonna della Febbre, Michelan
gelo's marble statue, i. 69 sq.
Maiano, Da, sculptor, i 87
Malaspina, Marchese Alberigo, of
Massa, i. 87 note, 330, 332
Malatesta Baglioni. See Baglioni
Manfidi, Angelo di Lorenzo, second
herald of the Signory at Florence,
on the best site for the David,
i. 94
Mantegna, his style of design, i. 289
Mantua, Marchioness of, her desire
to possess Michelangelo's Sleeping
Cupid, i. 52

424

INDEX.

MED

Manutius, Paulus, his epitaph on
Michelangelo, ii. 323 note
Manuzio, Aldo, his edition of Plato,
i. 230
Marcantonio, his engraving from
Michelangelo's cartoon of the
Battle of Pisa, i. 172
Marchesi, Giovanni de', assigned an
architectural part of the tomb of
Julius, ii. 69
Maria Novella, S., the abode of the
Popes when on a visit to Florence,
i. 118 note
Maria, S., degli Angeli, the Church
of, designed by Michelangelo, ii.
255
Mariette, M., quoted, i. 101 ; on
Michelangelo's Leda, 443
Marignano, the Marquis of. See
Medici, Giangiacomo de
Mark, S., Donatello's statue of,
Michelangelo's criticism of it,'li. 353
Martelli, Niccolb, sends Michelangelo
some poems on the Last Judgment,
ii. 68
Martelli, Sigismondo, i. 108
Martin V., Pope, i 118 note
Martini, Luca, sends Michelangelo a
copy of Varchi's commentary on
one of his sonnets, ii. 129; and
Varchi's book, 282
Martino d'Olanda. See Schongauer
Masaccio, his designs in the Branacci
Chapel of the Carmine at Florence,
i- 31
Mask of Faun. See Faun's mask
Matthew, S., Michelangelo's statue
of, i. 108
Medici, the, i. 24 ; manner of life,
25 ; their expulsion from Florence,
44 ; brought back by the Spanish
troops of Raimondo de Cardona,
230 ; determine to work the quarries
of Pietra Santa, 329 ; lose their
hold on Florence after the sack of

Rome in 1527, 404 ; benefactors of
the Church of S. Lorenzo, ii. 1
Medici, Alessandro de', marries the
illegitimate daughter of Charles V.,
i. 432 ; his evil character, 461
Medici, Catherine de', marries the
Dauphin, afterwards Henri IL, i.
465 ; begs Michelangelo fora design
for an equestrian statue of him, ii.
255 ; advances 6000 crowns for the
work, 256 ; its subsequent history,
257
Medici, Cosimo de' (Pater Patria), a
patron of the Church of S. Lorenzo,
ii. 2 ; his collection of manuscripts,
3
Medici, Cosimo de' (first Grand Duke
of Tuscany), restores Michelangelo's
injured David, i. 97 ; his scheme for
finishing the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo,
ii. 25 ; his law against malcontents
185 ; solicits Michelangelo to re
turn to Florence, 230, 289 ; en
slaves the city of Siena, 286; visits
Michelangelo at Rome, 294 ; founds
an Academy of Fine Arts, 325
Medici, Cosimo de' (Grand Duke
Cosimo III.), sets up the Deposition
from the Cross in the Duomo of
Florence, ii. 203
Medici, Giangiacomo de, Marquis of
Marignano, II Medeghino, ii. 254 ;
reduces the city of Siena, 286
Medici, Giovanni Angelo. See Pius
IV.
Medici, Cardinal Giovanni de', estab
lishes his nephews as despots in
Florence, i. 230. See Leo X.
Medici, Giovanni d'Averardo dei, and
the Church of S. Lorenzo, ii. ^
Medici, Giulio de' (afterwards Clement
VII.), his sympathy with Michel
angelo, i. 327 ; correspondence about
the marble quarries of Pietra Santa,
332 ; real author of Michelangelo's

425

INDEX.

MIC

commission for the Sacristy of S.
Lorenzo, 358 ; elected Pope, 368.
See Clement VII.
Medici, Lorenzo de', the Magnificent,
adorns the gardens of the Medici
at San Marco, i. 19 ; seeks to
raise the art of sculpture, 20 ; story
of Michelangelo's Faun's mask ;
takes the artist into his own house,
22 ; prosperity of Florentine culture
under his rule, 25 ; his policy to
wards the Florentines, 32 ; death,
38 ; the true golden age of the
Italian Renaissance may be said to
have ended with him, 39 ; his chil
dren, 40 ; a patron of the Church
of S. Lorenzo, ii. 2
Medici, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de',
a friend and patron of Michel
angelo, i. 49
Medici, Ottaviano de', asks Bugiar
dini to make him a portrait of
Michelangelo, ii. 350
Medici, Piero de', nature of his govern
ment, i. 41 ; begs Michelangelo to
return to the Casa Medici, 42 ;
the ghost-story of Cardiere, 45 ;
commissions Michelangelo to make
a statue, 56 ; his shameful life in
Rome, 57
Meleghino, Jacopo, assists Michel
angelo in carrying out his scheme
for the defence of Rome, ii. 213
Menighella, painter, his intercourse
with Michelangelo, ii. 348
Mercato, Michele, story of the appari
tion of Marsilio Ficino appearing
to him, i. 39 note
Michelangelo Buonarroti de' Simoni :
his family history, i. 1 ; believes
in their descent from the Counts of
Canossa, 2 ; record of his birth, 4 ;
godfathers, 5 ; horoscope, ib. ; suc
ceeds to the position of eldest son,
8 ; strength and tenacity of his

domestic affections, 9, 228 ; his
foster-mother, 9 ; childhood at Set-
tignano, ib. ; at school in Florence,
ib. ; early passion for design, 10 ;
influence upon him of Francesco
Granacci, ib. ; youthful ability as
a draughtsman, ib. ; enters Ghir-
landajo's workshop, 12 ; violent
temper, 16, 30, 346, ii. 313;
clever forgeries of old masters,
18; studies sculpture under Ber
toldo, 20 ; the Faun's mask, 21 ;
one of the circle gathered round
Lorenzo de' Medici, 24 ; first
works, 26 ; bas-relief of the Cen
taurs, 27 sq. ; Madonna and^Child,
29 ; quarrels with Piero Torri-
giano, 31; falls under the influence
of Savonarola, 37 ; returns to his
father's, 40 ; the lost statue of
Hercules, ib. ; re-enters the Casa
Medici, 42 ; studies anatomy, ib. ;
the specimen of his pen-drawing at
Oxford, 44 ; leaves Florence, 47 ;
adventure at Bologna, ib. ; works
on the tomb of S. Domenico, 48 ;
returns to Florence, ib. ; carves the
little S. John, 49 ; points of re
semblance between him and Dona-
tello, ib. ; the Sleeping Cupid, 50 ;
first journey to Rome, 53; assisted
by Jacopo Gallo, 58 ; carves a
Bacchus for him, ib. ; the South
Kensington Cupid, 62 ; preference
of the particular to the universal,
64 ; the Madonna at the National
Gallery, 65 sq. ; the Entombment
there, 67 sq. ; the Madonna della
Febbre, 69 sq. ; defence of the Ma
donna's youthful face, 71 ; the
Madonna at Bruges, 74 ; condition
of his family at this time, 77 ; value
of his domestic correspondence in
comprehending his true nature, 79 ;
personal habits and frugal life, 81 ;

426

INDEX.

MIC

physical appearance, 83 ; even
tenor of life, 85 ; compared with Mil
ton, ib. ; again at Florence, 86 ; com
missioned to execute fifteen statues
for Siena, 88 ; the colossal statue of
David, 89 sqq. ; method of working
in marble, 101, 113 ; commissioned
to cast a bronze David, 105 ; un
dertakes the execution of twelve
marble Apostles for the Duomo,
108; the S. Matteo, ib., 109; his
use of the left hand as well as the
right, ib. ; his definition of sculp
ture, ib. ; two circular bas-reliefs
of the Holy Family by him, in ;
criticism on Donatello, 114 ; paints
the Doni Holy Family, 114 ; com
missioned to paint one side of the
Sala del Gran Consiglio, 118 ; car
toon of the battle of Pisa, 119,
161 sqq. ; literary recreations, 120 ;
bearing of his literary proclivities
on the scheme of his psychology,
122 ; incapable of forming a school,
ib., 207, ii. 344 ; solitary habits,
123 ; summoned to Rome by Julius
IL, 126; sympathy between him
and Julius, 127 ; furnishes a design
for his tomb, 1 29 ; sent to quarry
marble at Carrara, ib. ; praises
Bramante's design for S. Peter's,
149 ; complains of Bramante's
wanton ruthlessness, 1 50 ; differ
ences between him and Julius, 152 ;
present at the discovery of the
Laocoon, 154; sudden flight from
Rome, 155 sq. ; nervousness, 159,
174 ; anecdote of his encounter
with Lionardo da Vinci, 173 ;
intrigues at Rome against him,
175 ; friends entreat hiin to return
thence, 17S; two sonnets on the
Pope, 183; reaches Bologna, 186;
received and pardoned by Julius,
ib. ; commissioned by him to cast

his statue in bronze, 187 ; letter
to Fattucci regarding this work,
ib. ; penurious life at Bologna,
188 ; ill served by workmen,
189 ; designs a sword-hilt for
Aldobrandini, 191 ; meets Francia
the painter, 192 ; possibly met
Albrecht Diirer at Bologna, ib. ;
details of the casting of the statue
of Julius, 193 sqq.; returns to Flor
ence, ib. ; emancipated by his
father, 19S ; joins the Pope at
Rome, ib. ; commissioned to paint
the vault of the Sistine, ib. ; first
project, ib. ; the scaffolding, 200 ;
engages Florentine fresco-painters
to assist him, 201 ; his method
in preparing his cartoons, 204 ;
inutility of his assistants, 206 ;
practical difficulties with the fresco,
208 ; visited by Julius on the
scaffold, 209 ; success of the first
half of the vault uncovered, ib. ;
annoyed by Bramante's intrigues
against him, 212 ; exposes the
nature of Bramante's wrork to the
Pope, 213 ; is regarded as the anti
podes of Raffaello, 214, and note;
his silence with regard to his art
work, 215; traditions regarding
the time he employed upon the
Sistine, 216; unfinished state of
the frescoes when finally exposed,
219 ; rencontre with the Pope on
the scaffold, ib. ; domestic life in
Rome, 220; rebukes Giovan Simone
and Buonarroto for ingratitude,
225, 227 ; his suspiciousness, 227
note; kind letters to his father, ib.;
his anxiety regarding affairs at
Florence, 23 1 ; attitude toward the
Medici, ib. ; his sonnet to Giovanni
da Pistoja about the frescoes of
the Sistine, 234 ; this work closes
the cycle of the figurative arts, 238 ;

427

MIC

INDEX.

MIC

salient differences between his style
and that of the fifteenth-century
masters, 239 ; his matured scheme
for the Sistine vault, 240 sqq.;
effectiveness of the fresco lost by
the lack of u, representation of
Christ, ib. ; the scheme limited to
an architectural framework and a
host of human figures, 245 ; his in
debtedness to Siguorelli, 247 ; chief
difference between them, 249 ; his
employment of the nude for decora
tive purposes, if). ; in what sense
Signorelli his predecessor, 252, 254 ;
effect of Dante's genius upon him,
253 ; Signorelli's influence over
him, 254 ; his colouring of the Sis
tine vault, 257 ; is essentially a
Romantic, not a Classic, 263 ; his
treatment of the body and the face,
ib. ; sometimes indifferent to the
physical capacities of the human
body, 265, and note; his ideal of
womanhood, 267 ; affinity between
him and Lucretius, 271 ; hazy con
ception of woman in his poems,
273; his intense feeling for male
beauty and strength, 274 ; the four
stages in the evolution of his form-
ideal, 275 sqq. ; his way of dealing
with figures in relief and fore-
shortenings, 282 note; gracefulness
of his old-age designs for Christ's
Passion and mythologies, ib. ; im
portance attached by him to original
drawings, 284 ; the four greatest
draughtsmen compared, 287 ; in
what way Nature particularly ap
pealed to him, 288 ; his indivi
dualism, 289 ; vehicles used by
him in his designs, 291 ; his use of
the pen, 293 ; and of chalk, 294 ;
enters into a new contract for the
tomb, 302 ; befriends Signorelli,
10T. ; commissioned to make the

Risen Christ of S. Maria sopra
Minerva, 305 ; dislike to be termed
sculptor, 307 ; keen sense of
nobility, 308; and of family dig
nity, 309 ; Pope Leo begins to em
ploy him, 311; he prepares a plan
for the facade of S. Lorenzo, 315
sq. ; at Carrara in 1516, 321 ; de
finitely enters the service of Leo,
322 ; his model for the facade of S.
Lorenzo, 328 ; troubles with the
Carraresi, ib. ; ordered to construct
a road at Pietra Santa, 330 ; his
profound study of Dante, 335 ; his
book of drawings illustrative of the
" Divine Comedy," 337 ; wastes
his time and energy in the marble
quarries, 338 ; purchases a house
at Florence, 340 ; his workman
Pietro Urbano, 343 ; correspond
ence with Sebastiano del Piombo,
345 ; contracts for the f acade of S.
Lorenzo cancelled, 349 ; writes to
Rome in favour of Sebastiano, 353 ;
weakness and dejection, 356 ; his
project for the new Sacristy, 357 ;
completes the Risen Christ, ZStysqq.;
scanty details regarding his life
during the pontificate of Adrian,
369 ; sends bitter letter to his
father, 371 ; arrangements for a
pension from the Pope, 373 ;
troubles about the tomb of Julius,
376, ii. 69, 73; refuses his pension,
378 ; his schemes for the decoration
of the Sacristy, 380 sqq. ; employs
collaborators, 397 ; humorous letter
about a Colossus, 400 ; at Florence
during the sack of Rome, 404 ; en
courages Cellini, 405 ; elected a
member of the Council of Nine,
409 ; inspects the fortress of Pisa,
411 ; begins to fortify S. Miniato,
412; sent to Ferrara, 414; sud
den flight to Venice, 416 ; residence

MIC

INDEX.

MIC

on the Giudecea, 425 ; sentence of
outlawry issued against him, 426 ;
granted a safe-conduct by the
Florence Signory, 427 ; returns to
Florence, 431 ; goes into hiding,
437; pardoned by the Pope, and
set to work again at S. Lorenzo,
438 ; his tempera picture of a Leda,
440 ; attitude toward subjects for
art- work, 444 ; begins an Apollo
for Baccio Valori, 445 ; overworked,
452 ; new contract for the tomb of
Julius, 455 ; in disfavour with Duke
Alessandro de' Medici, 461 ; mad
rigal upon the loss of Florentine
liberty, 463 ; meets Clement at S.
Miniato al Tedesco, 465 ; leaves
Florence for good in December
1534, 467 ; poem on the death of his
father, 469 ; the f agade, the Sacristy,
and the Library of S. Lorenzo as
signed to him, ii. 2 ; innovations in
architecture, 4 ; position attained
by him in this art, 14 ; his method
of procedure exemplified in the
vestibule of the Laurentian Lib
rary, 15 ; appointed chief archi
tect, sculptor, and painter at the
Vatican, 40 ; begins the Last
Judgment, 42 ; his correspondence
with Pietro Aretino on the theme
of the fresco, 45 ; falls from the
scaffolding, 58 ; becomes acquainted
with Vittoria Colonna, 93; points
of contact between them, 96 ; draw
ings made for her, 98 ; letters and
sonnets, 100 ; opinions about art
and artists, 109 ; nature of the
friendship with Vittoria Colonna,
117; sonnets written on her death,
120 ; madrigals addressed to her,
121 ; his friendship with Tom
maso de' Cavalieri, 125 ; draw
ings made for him, ib. ; sonnets,
126; suspicions fallen upon him

exaggerated by his grand-nephew,
127 ; his susceptibility to personal
beauty and accomplishments, 132,
164; illustrated by his poems, 159;
his letters to Cavalieri, 133 ; de
signs in chalk made for Cavalieri,
141 ; light thrown upon their
friendship by Angelini's correspon
dence, 143 : admiration for Cec
chino de' Bracci, 151 ; lines on his
death, 153; letter to Febo di
Poggio, 155 ; purity of his life,
164 ; place in Italian literature as
a poet, 168 ; obscure style, ib. ;
Platonic notions and Petrarchan
imagery, 170; specific qualities to
be traced in his poems, 174 ; his
frescoes in the Cappella Paolina,
181 ; serious illness in the rooms of
Del Riccio, 183; relations with the
house of Medici, 185 ; second ill
ness, 188; correspondence with Del
Riccio, 189 ; quarrels with him,
192 ; answer to Francis the First's
request for a masterpiece, 194 ;
turns to architecture, 195 ; failure
of his plastic power, 196 ; his de
signs for the Passion, 197 ; the De
position from the Cross, 198; leaves
it unfinished, 201 ; his smaller
Pieta, 203 ; doubtful medallion of
a Pieta at Genoa, 203 ; adverse
report on Sangallo's design for the
Farnese Palace at Rome, 205 ; his
life embittered by the Sangallo
sect, 206 ; plan for the cornice of
the Farnese Palace, 207, 209 ; criti
cises Sangallo's design for S.
Peter's, 208 ; . and his scheme for
the defence of Rome, 211; suc
ceeds to Sangallo's appointments at
Rome, 213 ; undertakes to superin
tend the building of S. Peter's
without pay, ib. ; aims as an archi
tect, 218 ; plan for the continuation

429

INDEX.

MIL

of S. Peter's, 219 ; is opposed by
Sangallo's workmen and pupils,
221 ; befriended by Pope Julius
III., 226 ; solicited by Duke Cosimo
to leave Rome, 230 ; feels that he
must not leave S. Peter's, ib. ; con
structs a wooden model for the
cupola, 232 ; furnishes the general
design for the reconstruction of
the Capitol, 247 ; also plans for the
Church of S. Giovanni dei Fioren
tini at Rome, 249 ; his bust of
Brutus, 251 ; correspondence with
Ammanati and Vasari about the
Laurentian Library, 253 ; designs
the Porta Pia and other gates in
Rome, 254; the Church of S. Maria
degli Angeli, 255 ; requested to
supply a sketch for an equestrian
statue of Henri II., 256; Leone
Leoni's medal of him, 258 ; critique
of various portraits of him, 264 ;
correspondence with his nephew
Lionardo, 275; his projects for
Lionardo's marriage, 277 ; his ad
vice on the choice of a wife, 278 ;
death of his brother Gian Simone,
279 ; on the rival claims of sculp
ture and painting, 280 ; recog
nised as a poet by the Florentine
Academy, 283 ; his joy in the
birth of an heir to Lionardo, 286 ;
reflections on the child's christen
ing, ib. ; intimate relations with
Vasari, 287 ; besought to return to
Florence, 289; refuses to leave S.
Peter's, 292 ; grief at the death of
his old friend and servant Urbino,
297; sonnet thereon, 298; trustee
ship of Urbino's widow and chil
dren, 299 ; sojourn at Spoleto, 303 ;
illness, 305, 317 ; testamentary pro
jects, 307 ; charitable munificence,
308 ; religious sonnets, 3C9 ; anxiety
of friends about his condition, 311,

317 ; desires to see his nephew,
318 ; death, 320 ; his corpse sent
by stealth to Florence, 323 ; monu
ments erected to his memory, ib. ;
obsequies at S. Lorenzo, 326 ; de
position of his body in S. Croce,
328 ; his qualities as man and artist,
331 ; Vasari on his kindness to
friends and pupils, 339 ; his treat
ment of servants, 340 ; and under
lings, 344 ; his influence on Italy,
345 ; intercourse with brother
artists, 347 ; anecdotes of his social
habits and critical opinions, 351;
his professional earnings, 356 ; pro
perty left at death, 359 ; contem
porary criticism of his character as
a man, 360 sqq. ; neo-psychologists
thereon, 361 ; analytical examina
tion of their deductions, 365 ; final
judgment of his character rests
with the public, 371 ; his life dedi
cated to plastic art, 372 ; as artist,
373 ; influence of his temperament
on his poetry, 381 ; letter to Fat
tucci detailing the history of the
Tomb of Julius, 376 ; Codex Vati
canus of his Rime, 407
Michelangelo the younger, i. v. ;
garbled edition of his granduncle's
poems, viii. ; effects of the falsifica
tion, ii. 127, 174
Michelangelo (father of Bandinelli),
Florentine goldsmith, upon the best
site for the David, i. 95
Michelet, i xvi. ; on the influence of
Savonarola on Michelangelo's fres
coes in the Sistine Chapel, 38
Middleton, Professor J. Henry, of
Cambridge, i. xvii. ; cited as to
Michelangelo's Madonna in the
National Gallery, 67 note ; his re
construction of the tomb of Julius
n, 137
Milanesi, Commendatore Gaetano, his

43°

MIL

INDEX.

NAN

edition of Michelangelo's letters, i.
vii., viii, x., xi. ; on Michelangelo's
attachment to young men, ii. 154 ;
on the psychology of the artist, 382
Miliarini, Professor, discovers the
South Kensington Cupid, i. 62
Milton, compared with Michelangelo,
i. 85 ; his style in " Paradise Re
gained " and " Samson Agonistes "
comparedwithMichelangelo'sfourth method of form-ideal, 283
Mini, Antonio, a pupil of Michel
angelo, i. 375 ; takes the Leda to
France, 442
Mini, Paolo, on Michelangelo's serious
illness in 1531, i. 452
Miniatore, Stefano. See Stefano
Mirandola, Pico della, i. 24 ; on the
preaching of Savonarola, 37 ; his
death, 39
Monciatto, Francesco, Florentine
wood-carver, on the best site for
the David, i. 94
Montauti, Antonio, sculptor, loses
Michelangelo's book of drawings
illustrative of the "Divine
Comedy," i. 337
Montauto, Salvestro da, ii. 77
Monte di Pieta, the, established as a
state institution in Florence, i. 79
note
Monte San Savino, Andrea del, i 89
Montef eltro, Agnesina i di, mother of
Vittoria Colonna, ii. 93
Montefeltro, Guidobaldo di, Duke of
Urbino, presented with Michelan
gelo's Sleeping Cupid, i. 52
Montelupo, Raffaello da, cited for
the fact that Michelangelo worked
with his left hand as well as his
right, i. 1 10 ; given four statues
to finish for the tomb of Julius
IL, 143 ; assists Michelangelo in
the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo, ii. 22 ;
undertakes to finish three statues

for the tomb of Julius, 69, 72 ; left
to complete the statues for the
tomb, 73 ; offers the Duke of
Tuscany his assistance in complet
ing the Sacristy, 325 ; Michel
angelo's influence upon him, 344
Montemellino, Gian Francesco, engi
neer, collaborates with Michel
angelo in carrying out his scheme
for the defence of Rome, ii. 211
Montmorenci, Constable de, presented
by Francis I. with the two Bound
Captives, ii. 86
Montorsoli, assists Michelangelo in
the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo, ii. 22 ;
Michelangelo's influence over him,
344
Monument of Julius II. See Tomb
of Julius II.
Monuments of the Medici. See Lo
renzo, S., the Church of
Morelli, suggests Sodoma as the
author of the Alexander and
Roxana attributed to Raphael, i.
29S note
Morone, Giovanni, one of the circle
of Vittoria Colonna, ii. 95
Morone, Girolamo, his intrigue with
the Marquis of Pescara, ii. 94
Moses, Michelangelo's statue of, ii.
79 sqq.
Mouscron, the Bruges family of, i. 75
Mozza Via, Michelangelo's studio in
the, broken into, i. 440
Museo Buonarroti, the, i. vi., ii. 277
Nanni di Baccio Bigio, ii. 223 ; his
bronze copy of Michelangelo's
Madonna della Febbre, 224 note;
secures the execution of a new
bridge at Rome, the Ponte Rotto,
229 ; tries to eject Michelangelo
from his post, 234 ; appointed clerk
of the works at S. Peter's, 235 ;
dismissed with indignity, 236J

431

NAR

INDEX.

PET

Nardi, cited for Michelangelo's sudden
flight from Florence, i. 421
Niccolini, his treatise on the Sub
lime, i xvi.
Nicholas V., Pope, i. 147
Night, Michelangelo's statue of, i.
139, ii. 22, 31-36
Nisbet, H., on the psychology of
Michelangelo, ii. 361 ; his "In
sanity of Genius," 382
Ochino, Fra Bernardino, one of the
circle of Vittoria Colonna, ii. 95
Opie, his art-lectures, i. xiii.
Orvieto, Signorelli's frescoes at, i. 253
Paesano, Piero, cited for Michel
angelo's sudden flight from Flor
ence, i. 422, and note
Painting : Michelangelo on the rival
claims of sculpture and painting, ii.
2S0
Palestrina, i. 72
Palla, Giovanni Battista della, buys
the lost Hercules of Michelangelo,
i. 40, 417 ; letters to and from
him, 427, ii. 380 ; imprisoned and
poisoned, 436
Palladian style of architecture, ii. 7
Pandolfini, Francesco, Florentine
envoy to France, i. 106
Parisani, Ascanio, Cardinal, ii. 69 note
Parlagreco, F., on the psychology of
Michelangelo, ii. 361, 382
Passerini, his " Bibliografia," i v.;
cited for the two marriages of
Lodovico Buonarroti, 78 note
Pater, i. xvi.
Paul III., Pope, declares Michelan
gelo's Moses sufficient for the tomb
of a Pope, i. 143 ; enlists the artist
in his service, ii. 38 ; appoints
him chief architect, sculptor, and
painter to the Vatican, 40 ; in
spects the Last Judgment, 56 ; ap

points a caretaker for the frescoes
of the Cappella Paolina and the
Sistine, 182 ; his portrait-bust
at Naples, 204 ; approves of the
design for reconstructing the Capi
tol, 247 ; begins to rebuild the
old Farnese Palace at Rome, 204 ;
takes measures for the better de
fence of the city, 210 ; confers on
Michelangelo the office of architect-
in-chief of S. Peter's, 213 ; his
death, 225 ; his promise of a yearly
salary to Michelangelo, 358
Paul IV., Pope, effects of his anti-
Spanish policy, ii. 303
Pauline Chapel, Michelangelo's fres
coes in the, ii. 181 sqq.
Pavia, the battle of (1525), ii. 94
Pearson, Lieut. -Col. Alfred, i. xviii.
Pelliccia, Francesco, contracts with
Michelangelo to supply marble, i. 32 1
Penni, Francesco, relation in which
he stood to Raffaello, ii. 344
Pens, steel, i. 291
Perini, Gherardo, a Florentine friend
of Michelangelo, ii. 131
Perini, Vincenzo, ii. 68
Perkins, Charles, i. xvi.
Perugia : Julius II. determines to
free her cities, i. 184
Perugino, i. 117; his fresco-work in
the Sistine Chapel, 237, ii. 41
Peruzzi, Baldassare, architect, i. 369 ;
graceful effect given by him to the
Palazzo Massimo at Rome, ii. 19 ;
appointed a colleague of Sangallo,
216
Pescara, Marquis of, married to Vit
toria Colonna, ii. 94 ; his career,
ib. ; death, 95
Peter's, S. : history of the old Basilica,
i. 144 ; Julius II. resolves to re
build it, 148 ; Bramante's plan, ib. ;
the foundations laid in 1 506 ; his
tory of the edifice between 1505

432

PET

INDEX.

POG

and 1547. ii- 214 ; Bramante's origi
nal design, ib. ; departed from by
Raffaello, 215 ; Baldassare Peruzzi's
scheme, 216; Sangallo's alterations,
217 ; Michelangelo's plan for its
continuation, 219 ; the cupola, 231 ;
the chief redeeming point of the
structure, 238 ; as it now exists S.
Peter's cannot be regarded as the
creation of Michelangelo's genius,
238
Petreo, Antonio, i. 337
Petronio, San, Michelangelo's small
statue on the altar of San Domenico
at Bologna, i. 48
Phaethon, Michelangelo's drawing, ii.
141
Pheidias,his impartiality in represent
ing the male and female form, i.
266
Piagnoni, the, followers of Savonarola
i- 375
Piccinino, Niccoli, defeated at the
battle of Anghiari (1440), i. 118
Piccolomini, Andrea, i. 88
Piccolomini, Anton Maria, i. 88
Piccolomini, Francesco, Cardinal
Archbishop of Siena, afterwards
Pope Pius III. , employs Michelan
gelo to execute the fifteen statues in
the cathedral at Siena, i. 88
Piccolomini, Jacopo, i. 88
Pierantonio, ii. 133, 138 notes
Pieta, the group of (Madonna della
Febbre), executed by Michelangelo
for the Cardinal of S. Denys, i. 69 sq.
Pieta, unfinished group of, in the
Cathedral of Florence, Michel
angelo's last work in marble, ii.
199 ; its subsequent history, 202 ;
anecdotes about it, 350
Pieta, at Genoa, doubtful, ii. 203
Pieta, Michelangelo'ssketchfora,ii. 98
Pietra Santa, the marble quarries of,
i. 329

Piffero, Giovanni (father of Cellini),
on the best site for the David, i. 95
Piloto, goldsmith, a friend of Michel
angelo, ii. 349
Pinturicchio, criticism of his work, i.
239
Piombo, Sebastiano del, i. viii, xiii. ;
worked with his left hand as well
as his right, III ; correspondence
with Michelangelo, 345 ; tries to get
the painting of the Hall of Con-
stantine, 352 ; offered a hall to
paint by Leo X., 355 ; correspond
ence with Michelangelo on the
Risen Christ, 359 note, 360 ; his
portrait of Anton Francesco degli
Albizzi, 396 ; writes to Michelan
gelo about the Sacristy, 398 ; bur
lesque suggestion about the lan
tern, 399 ; again in correspondence
with Michelangelo, 449 sqq. ; story
of his preparing the end-wall of the
Sistine Chapel, ii. 42 ; his reported
designf or the cornice of the Farnese
Palace, 207 ; Michelangelo's in
fluence over him, 344
Piot, M., i. vi.; his copy of Daniele
da Volterra's bronze head, ii. 268
Pisa, the battle of (1364), i. 119
Pisanello, medallion portraiture origi
nating from him, ii. 263
Pisano, Nicola, sculptor, i. 48
Pistoja, Giovanni da, sonnet addressed
to him by Michelangelo, i. 234
Pitti, Bartolommeo, i. Ill
Pius III., Pope. See Piccolomini,
Francesco
Pius IV., Pope, his admiration for
Michelangelo, ii. 234 ; requests him
to supply a design for a tomb, 254 ;
and to re-model the Baths of Dio
cletian, 255
Po, the river, the revenues of a ferry
on, given to Michelangelo, ii. 41
Poggio, Febo di, his correspondence
433 2E

POI

INDEX.

RAF

with Michelangelo, i. 466, ii. 119
note, 155, 157, 384, 403
Pointed Gothic style of architecture
not understood by Italian archi
tects, ii. 5
Pole, Cardinal Reginald, ii. 95
Poleni, strengthens the chains round
the shell of S. Peter's, ii. 243
Poliziano, Angelo, tutor to the chil
dren of Lorenzo de' Medici, i. 24,
27 ; suggests the bas-relief of the
Centaurs to Michelangelo, ib. ; his
threnody on Lorenzo, 39 ; death,
ib.
Pollajuolo, Simone del, " II Cronaca,"
transports Michelangelo's David to
the Palazzo Vecchio, i. 96
Ponte, Bernardino dal, assists Michel
angelo in casting the bronze statue
of Julius, i. 193
Pontelli, Baccio, Florentine architect,
builds the Sistine Chapel, i 237
Pontormo, Jacopo, decorates the cars
for the Carnival triumphs and pro
cessions devised by Lorenzo de'
Medici, i. 33, 68 ; Michelangelo's
influence over him, ii. 344
Porcari, Metello Varj dei, commis
sions Michelangelo to make the
Risen Christ of S. Maria sopra
Minerva, i. 305 ; his satisfaction
with the statue, 362
Porta, Giacomo della, diverges from
Michelangelo's model for the cupola
of S. Peter's, ii. 238 note, 239; his
design for the existing Church of
S. Giovanni dei Fiorentini in
Rome, 251
Porta, Giacomo and Vignola della,
carry out Michelangelo's scheme
for the Capitol, ii. 248
Porta, Giovan Maria della, the Duke
of Urbino's ambassador at Rome,
i- 452. 456
Porta, Guglielmo della, possible

author of the marble portrait-bust
of Pope Paul III. at Naples, ii. 204
Porta Pia, Michelangelo designs this
and other gates of Rome, ii. 254
Poynter, Edward J., R.A., i. xviii.
Prato, sack of, i. 230
Praxiteles, his partiality for the female
form, i. 266
Primaticcio, relation in which he
stood to Raffaello, ii. 344
Psychology of Michelangelo, ii. 360
sqq. ; summary of the difficulties
presented by the, 381 sq.
Pucci, Lorenzo, Cardinal of Santi-
quattro, I. 135 note
Pulci, Luigi, i. 24, 35
Quarantesi, Andrea, i. 456, ii. 340
Quarantesi, Niccolo, ii. 163 note
Quercia, Della, i. 87
Quincy, Quatremere de, his Life of
Michelangelo, i. xiii.
Ragusa, Archbishop of, his corres
pondence with Michelangelo, ii. 304
Raimondi, Marcantonio, his line-en
graving from Michelangelo's car
toon of the Battle of Pisa, i. 162, 172
Raffaello, i. 31, 122 ; resolves to join
Bramante in Rome, 153 ; effect of
Michelangelo's art upon him, 210 ;
seeks to obtain a commission to
complete the vault of the Sistine,
211 ; the antipodes of Michelan
gelo, 214 and note, ii. 375 ; his
tapestries for the Sistine, i. 237 ;
develops the quatrocento form of
arabesque, 250; his sonnets, 273;
one of the four great draughtsmen
of the epoch, 287 ; particular way
of feeling Nature, 288 ; Michelan
gelo's Arcieri ascribed to him, 297 ;
drawing for Alexander and Roxana,
ib. ; portraits of Popes Julius II.
and Leo X., 302 ; ordered to pre-

434

RAV

INDEX.

SAD

pare a design for the facade of S.
Lorenzo, 314; death, 351; his
pupils claim the right to carry on
his work in the Vatican, 352 ; com
missioned to continue Bramante's
design for S. Peter's, ii 215 ; nature
of his relations to his pupils, 344
Ravenna, battle of (1512), i. 230, ii. 94
Reggio, Giovanni da, i. 348
Religious ideas, Greek and modern,
i. 261
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, his art-lectures,
i. xiii.
Riario, Raffaello, Cardinal di S.
Giorgio, and Michelangelo's Sleep
ing Cupid, i. 50
Riccio, Luigi del, Florentine mer
chant, a friend of Michelangelo, i.
337, ii. 70, 86 ; his attachment
to Cecchino de' Bracci, 151 ; his
threnody on the death of the latter,
153 ; nurses Michelangelo in an
illness, 183 ; correspondence with
him, 189, 404 ; goes to Lyons, 191 ;
quarrels with Michelangelo, 192;
death, 194
Richards, Samuel, i. xviii.
Ridolfi, Cardinal, ii. 251
Ridolfi, Cassandra, married to Lion
ardo Buonarroti, ii. 279
Ridolfi, Donato, father of Cassandra,
ii. 279
Robbia, Luca della, i. 66, 87
Robertet, Florimond, French secre
tary of finance, presented with
Michelangelo's bronze David, i. 106
Rogers, quoted, ii. 32
Rohan, Pierre de, Duke of Nemours,
desires a copy of Donatello's bronze
David, i. 105
Rolland, Lannan, his "Michel- Ange
et Vittoria Colonna," ii. 173
Romano, Giulio, i. 352 ; relation in
which he stood to Raphael, ii. 344
Rome, Romans: disgust of the Romans

on the election of Adrian VI., i
367 ; sack of the city in 1527, 403 ;
the Porta Pia and other gates of
the city designed by Michelangelo,
ii 254; menaced in 1556 by the
Spanish troops under the Duke of
Alva, 303 ; the Romans erect a
monument to the memory of
Michelangelo in the Church of the
SS. Apostoli, 322
Rontini, Baccio, Michelangelo's
physician, ii. 58, 188
Roscoe, i. xiii.
Rosis, Roso de, one of the trustees of
Francesco d'Urbino, ii. 299
Ross, Mrs., of Poggio Gherardo, i.
xviii.
Rosselli, Cosimo, i. 94 ; his fresco
work in the Sistine Chapel, 237
Rosselli, Pietro, writes to Michelan
gelo regarding Bramante's intrigues
at Rome, i. 176 ; asks advice about
a marble shrine, 344
Rossellino, i. 87
Rosso, Fra Paolo del, his verses on the
death of Cecchino de' Bracci, ii. 1 53
Rota, Martino, his engraving of the
Last Judgment, ii. 68
Rovezzano, Benedetto da, assists
Michelangelo in casting the bronze
David, i. 106
Rubens, his drawing of Lionardo da
Vinci's cartoon of the Battle of
Anghiari, i 162
Rucellai Gardens, Florence, discovery
there of the South Kensington
Cupid, i. 62
Ruskin, John, i. xvi., 116; quoted
for the Greek and Italian ideals of
form, 258 ; criticises Michelangelo
for want of facial expression and
feeling, 262 ; ii. 66
Sadoleto, Jacopo, one of the circle
of Vittoria Colonna, ii. 95

435

INDEX.

SCU

Saint, Bearded, Michelangelo's sketch site for the David, i. 94; said to

in the British Museum, i. 89 note
Salt-cellar made by Michelangelo for
the Duke of Urbino, ii. 43
Salvestro, Florentine jeweller, i. 95
Salviati, Alamanni, i. 129
Salviati, Cardinal, the elder, ii. 228
Salviati, Cecchino, i. 97
Salviati, Gianozzo, in attendance
upon Leo X. at mass, i. 313 1
Salviati, Jacopo, letter of condolence
to Michelangelo, i. 342 ; endeavours
to restore his courage, 392
Salviati, Leonardo, his panegyric on
Michelangelo, ii. 329
Salviati, Michelangelo, i. 97
Samson slaying a Philistine, Michel
angelo's sketch of, i 439
Sandro, Jacopo di, engaged to assist
in painting the vault of the Sistine
i. 201, 340
Sandwich, Earl of, ii. 252 note
San Galli, the character of their archi
tecture, ii. 6
San Gallo, Antonio da, Florentine
architect, on the best site for the
David, i. 95, 96 ; his design for S.
Peter's, 148 ; the Chapel of the
Holy Sacrament in the Vatican, ii.
68 ; architect of the Farnese Palace
at Rome, 204 ; his plan opposed by-
Michelangelo, 205 ; his model for
S. Peter's, 207 ; his scheme for the
defence of Rome, 210; appointed
to assist Raffaello da Urbino at S .
Peter's, 215; his alterations in the
original design, 217 ; death, 213
San Gallo, Bastiano da, engaged to
assist in painting the vault of the
Sistine, i. 201
San Gallo, Francesco da, cited for
the discovery of the Laocoon, i.
154 ; complains about Michel
angelo's unkindness, ii. 314
San Gallo, Giuliano da, on the best

have advised Julius II. to employ
Michelangelo, 126 ; his design for
the facade of S. Lorenzo, 314
Sansovino, Andrea, his design for the
facade of S. Lorenzo, i 314; his
two monuments in S. Maria del
Popolo, ii. 8l note
Sansovino, Jacopo, his Bacchus com
pared with that of Michelangelo, i.
61 ; chooses Venice for the theatre
of his life-labours, 87 ; his design
for the facade of S. Lorenzo, 314 ;
angry letter to Michelangelo, 315
Sansovini, the, character of their
architecture, ii 6
Santa Maria sopra Minerva, the
statue of the Risen Christ in, i.
305. 359 sq.
Santarelli, Florentine sculptor, dis
covers the South Kensington Cupid,
i. 62
Sarto, Andrea del, one of the four
great draughtsmen of the epoch,
i. 287 ; his particular way of feeling
Nature, 288
Satyr, Michelangelo's drawing of a,
at Settignano, i. 19
Savonarola, effects of his preaching,
i. 37 ; at the head of a liberal
Government in Florence, 44, ii. 1 63
Scappucci, Mario, and the Risen
Christ of S. Maria sopra Minerva,
i- 3°5
Scheffler, Ludwig von, cited, ii. 104
note; for Michelangelo's letter to
Febo di Poggio, 156; his analysis
of the psychology of Michelangelo,
382
Schbngauer, Martin, Michelangelo's
transcript from his copper-plate,
i. 10
Scipione, an assistant of Michel
angelo, i. 357
Sculpture : Cellini's account of the

436

SEG

INDEX.

SOD

art in his time, i. 102 ; Vasari's
description, 103; Michelangelo on
its rival claims with painting, ii.
280
Segni, cited for Michelangelo's sud
den flight from Florence, i. 421,
ii. 163
Sellajo, Lionardo, i. xiii.
Serbelloni, Gabrio, sent by Pius IV.
to inspect the works at S. Peter's,
ii. 235
Serlio, Sebastiano, cited for the his
tory of S. Peter's, ii. 214 note
Sermatelli, Florentine bookseller, ii.
329
Serravezza, i 332
Serristori, Averardo, Florentine en
voy at Rome, i. 286 ; supports
Nanni di Baccio Bigio's claim as
architect-in-chief of S. Peter's, ii.
236 ; informs the Duke of Florence
of Michelangelo's death, 320
Settignano, Desiderio da, i. 87
Shakespeare, his sonnets illustrative
of personal emotion at the end of
the sixteenth century, ii. 154, 159
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, his criticism of
the Bacchus of Michelangelo, i. 61
Siena, the siege of, in 1554, ii. 286
Signore .- on the use of the word in
love-poetry, ii. 129, and note
Signorelli, Luca, sympathy of genius
between him and Michelangelo, i
115 ; fresco- work in the Sistine
Chapel, 237 ; strong instinct for
plastic effect, 246 ; frescoes in the
Chapel of S. Brizio, in the Cathedral
at Orvieto, 247 ; character of his
work, 248 ; chief difference between
him and Michelangelo, 249 ; his
employment of the nude for decora
tive purposes, ib. ; tendency toward
violence, 250 ; the predecessor of
Michelangelo, 252, 254 ; his fres
coes at Orvieto mark the transition 437

from the art of the fifteenth to that
of the sixteenth century, 253 ; in
fluence of Dante upon him, ib. ;
transcripts from the nude, 289 ;
visits Michelangelo's workshop, 304
Sistine Chapel, the : Julius II. pro
jects the scheme for painting the
vault, i. 198 ; Michelangelo's first
project, ib. ; the scaffolding, 200 ;
Florentine assistants engaged for
the work, 201 ; the artist's methods
in preparing his cartoons, 204 ;
practical difficulties with the fresco,
208 ; the first half of the vault un
covered, 209 ; its immediate and
immense success, 210; fabulous
traditions regarding the time em
ployed by Michelangelo on the
work, 216 ; unfinished state of the
frescoes when finally exposed, 219;
the chapel built by Baccio Pontelli
for Sixtus IV., 237; its condition
before Michelangelo began his work
there, ib. ; scheme for the vault,
240 ; the nine dominant central
subjects, ib. ; the Prophets and
Sibyls, 242 ; four types of God's
mercy to mankind, ib. ; the ances
tors of Christ ; the spiritual teach
ing of the fresco lost by the want of
a representation of Christ, ib. ; the
colouring of the vault, 257 ; Michel
angelo begins to paint the Last
Judgment, ii. 41. See Last Judg
ment
Sixtus IV., Pope, i. 124; the Sistine
Chapel built for him by Baccio
Pontelli, ii. 237
Soderini, Piero, Gonfalonier of Flor
ence, cited for contemporary opinion
of Michelangelo, i 87 note ; Vasari's
story about the nose of the David,
104 ; commissions Michelangelo to
cast a bronze David, 105 ; deter
mines to adorn the Sala del

SOL

INDEX.

TOM

Gran Consiglio, 1 18 ; gets Michel
angelo to prepare cartoons for one
of the walls, 119; correspondence
regarding Michelangelo's return to
Julius II., 180 ; projects a colossal
statue of Hercules subduing Cacus,
197 ; asks Michelangelo for a design
for a marble tabernacle, 344
Solari, Christoforo, "II Gobbo," of
Milan, Michelangelo's Madonna
della Febbre ascribed to him, i. 72
Spin a,Giovanni, Clement the Seventh's
Florentine agent, i. 373, 393
Springer, Anton, his "Raffael und
Michelangelo," i. xv. ; on Michel
angelo's Sleeping Cupid, 54 note ;
cited as to the two marriages of
Lodovico Buonarroti, 7S note ; for
the attitude of Michelangelo's
David, IOO note; for the style of
Italian crucifixes, ii.348n.ote; on the
psychology of Michelangelo, 382
Staccoli, Hieronimo, agent of the
Duke of Urbino, i. 451, ii. 43
Statues, unfinished, in the grotto of
the Boboli Gardens, ii. 88
Stefano Miniatore, a servant of
Michelangelo, clerk of the works
at S. Lorenzo, i. 373 and note, 375
and note
Stella, Giovanni Francesco, assists
Michelangelo in one of his poems,
ii. 168
Stillman, J., i. xviii.
Strozzi, the, try to upset the Dukedom
of Florence, ii. 186 note
Strozzi, Filippo, Michelangelo pre
sents him with the dagger origin
ally designed for P. Aldobrandini,
i. 191
Strozzi, Giovan Battista, his quatrain
on Michelangelo's statue of the
Night, ii. 35
Strozzi, Ruberto, the two Captives of
the Louvre given to him by Michel-

438

angelo, i. 141, ii. 86; receives a
singular message from him, 184 ;
negotiates with him regarding the
equestrian statue of Henri II. ,
256
Strozzi, Uberto, i. 164
Strzygowski, Josef, i. 27 note
Stufa, Marchese Lottaringo della, the
doubtful easel-picture of Michel
angelo formerly in his possession, ii
274 note
Surnames, Italian and Norman, how
formed, i. 4
Sword-hilt designed by Michelangelo
for Pietro Aldobrandini, i 191
Taddei, Taddeo, i. 1 1 1
Tarsia, Giovan Maria, his panegyric
on Michelangelo, ii. 329
Tasso, wood-carver, employed by
Michelangelo, i 397
Tedaldi, Francesco, part owner of
Michelangelo's Leda, i. 442
Tintoretto, his method of treating
foreshortenings, i. 282 note
Titian, his chalk-studies, i. 288, 289
note; his portrait of Alfonso di
Ferrara, ii. 353
Tolomei, Lattanzio, ii. 108, 1 16
Tomb of Julius IL, designed by
Michelangelo, i. 129 ; Condivi's
description of the tomb as at first
planned, 131 ; changes in the de
sign, 135 ; Professor Middleton's
reconstruction, 138 ; fragments still
existing from the marble sculptured
for the second design, 139 ; finally
completed, 144 ; Michelangelo's
troubles with the heirs of Julius
regarding it, 376, ii. 69, 73 ; criti
cism of the tomb and its statues.
78 ; composed of two discordant
parts, ib. ; the lower half, 79 ; the
upper half, 80 ; Michelangelo's, let
ter to Fattucci concerning it, 376

TOM

INDEX.

VAS

Tommaso, Stefano di, i. 357 ; ap
pointed clerk of the works at S.
Lorenzo, 373
Tornabuoni, Bishop of Florence, en
deavours to persuade Michelangelo
to return to Florence, ii. 289
Torrigiano, Piero, his quarrel with
Michelangelo, i. 31, 84 ; begins one
of the fifteen statues for the Duomo
of Siena, 88
Trade, estimation of, in Florence,
i 77 note
Tribolo, offers his assistance in com
pleting the Sacristy at S. Lorenzo,
ii. 325
Tridentine Council, the, alteration in
social feeling after, ii. 127
Tromboncino, Bartolommeo, sets some
of Michelangelo's madrigals to
music, i. 464
Twilight, Michelangelo's statue of,
ii. 22, 31 sqq.
Ubaldini, the, bankers, ii. 321
sq.
Udine, Giovanni da, employed to
decorate the vault of the Sacristy
of S. Lorenzo, i. 398, ii. II ; his
frescoes in the cupola of S. Lorenzo,
24 ; relation in which he stood to
Raphael, 344
Ughi, Giovan Francesco, puts Michel
angelo on his guard against calumny,
ii. 223
Urbano, Pietro, one of Michelangelo's
workmen, i. 189, 343 ; sent to
Rome with the Risen Christ, 359 ;
mishandles it, 360 ; affection for
Michelangelo, ii. 340
Urbino, Francesco da, schoolmaster
of Michelangelo, i. 9
Urbino, Francesco da, Michelangelo's
servant, i. 143 ; assigned an archi
tectural part of the tomb of Julius,
ii. 69 ; Michelangelo undertakes

the guardianship of his children,
71 ; his illness and death, 296
Urbino, Raffaello da. See Raffaello
Vaga, Perino del, i. 269 note; design
for the cornice of the Farnese
Palace at Rome attributed to him,
ii. 207 ; relation in which he stood
to Raffaello, 344
Valori, Baccio, the Pope's commis
sary-general, i. 435 ; Michelangelo's
Apollo, 445
Vandini, Pietro Filippo, one of the
trustees of Francesco d'Urbino,
ii. 299
Vanvitelli, architect, remodels the
Church of S. Maria degli Angeli,
"• 255
Varchi, Benedetto, i xii, 57 ; on the
influence of Dante upon Michel
angelo, 336 ; his annals of the
siege of Florence, 410 ; cited for
Michelangelo's flight from Flor
ence, 421, 425 ; for the sonnets
addressed to Tommaso de' Cava
lieri, ii. 126; his interpretation of
Sonnet xxxi, 128 ; revises the
verses of Tullia d'Aragona, 169 ;
peroration to his discourse upon
a sonnet of Michelangelo, 177 ;
corresponds with the latter about
the rival claims of sculpture and
painting, 280 ; discourse on his
poems, 282 ; appointed orator at
his obsequies, 326
Vasari, Giorgio, his Life of Michel
angelo, i xi. ; cited for Michel
angelo's horoscope, 5, 9 ; for the
terms of his apprenticeship, 12 ;
contention with Condivi as to the
influence of Michelangelo's teachers,
14 ; cited for Michelangelo's work
in his master's studio, 16; for his
departure from Ghirlandajo's work
shop, 19 ; for his passion for

439

vas

INDEX.

VIG

anatomy, 43 ; for an injury to the
David, 97 ; for Michelangelo's
manner of treating the face, 100 ;
his account of sculpture in his
time, 103 ; on Piero Soderini and
the nose of the David, 104; cited
for the S. Matteo, 108; his story
regarding the Doni Holy Family,
114; cited for Michelangelo's lite
rary interests, 120 ; for the date of
Michelangelo's arrival in Rome,
126 note; for the tomb of Julius
II. , 133; his two accounts of the
destruction of Michelangelo's car
toon of the Battle of Pisa, 163 ;
cited for the Pope's correspondence
regarding the extradition of Michel
angelo, 178 ; for the painter-assist
ants for the Sistine, 201 ; for the
success of his work on the vault,
210 ; for his way of dealing with
figures in relief and foreshorten-
ings, 282 note ; for the importance
attached by him to original draw
ings, 286 ; for the materials used
by draughtsmen in his lifetime,
292 note ; becomes Michelangelo's
pupil, 389 ; cited for his sudden
flight from Florence, 422 ; for his
Apollo, 445 ; for his innovations in
architecture, ii. 4, 8 ; his letter on
Cosimo de' Medici's scheme for
finishing the Sacristy of S. Lorenzo,
25 ; his criticism of the Last Judg
ment, 64; cited for the friendship
of Michelangelo and Tommaso de'
Cavalieri, 125; for Michelangelo's
frescoes in the Cappella Paolina,
183 ; design for the cornice of the
Farnese Palace at Rome attributed
to him, 207 ; cited for the antagon
ism existing between Michelangelo
and Sangallo, 210; for the charac
ter of Baldassare Peruzzi's scheme
for S. Peter's, 216 ; for Michel

angelo's plan for its continuation,
219; value of his evidence for this
period of Michelangelo's life, 228 ;
his description of S. Peter's, 240 ;
cited for Michelangelo's idea of the
formation of the cupola, 242 note ;
for his designs for the Porta Pia
and other gates in Rome, 254 ; for
Leone Leoni's model of Michel
angelo, 259 ; intimate relations
with Michelangelo, 287 ; endea
vours to persuade him to return
to Florence, 289; his anxiety re
garding his health, 312; quoted
for his last moments, 320; com
missioned to erect a monument to
him in S. Croce, 323 ; quoted for
Michelangelo's intentions regard
ing the broken Pieta, 324 ; for his
generosity, 338 note ; for his kind
ness to friends and pupils, 339 ; for
his intercourse with brother-artists,
347 ; for his eccentricity, 350
Vasto, Marchese del, adopted son of
Vittoria Colonna, ii. 95
Vendramin, Rosina, i vi.
Venice, Michelangelo's flight to, i.
416, 425
Venusti, Marcello, his copy of Michel
angelo's Last Judgment, ii. 67 ; in
troduces the portrait of Michel
angelo therein, 264, 274 ; paints pic
tures from Michelangelo's designs
for a Crucifixion, 99 ; his easel-
portrait of him, 264 ; Michelangelo's
influence upon him, 344
Vernia, La, scene of the foundation
of the Order of S. Francis, i 6 ;
and of the retirement of Dante, ib.
Verocchio, i. 87 ; his David, 98
Vico, Enea, engraver, ii. 50
Victory, Michelangelo's statue of, i.
139, ii. 89
Vida, his "Christiad," i 364
Vignola, ii. 8

440

INDEX.

ZOL

Villiers, Sir George : story of the ap
pearance of his apparition to his
son the Duke of Buckingham, i. 46
Vinci, Lionardo da, on the best posi
tion for Michelangelo's David, i. 95 ;
engaged to paint one side of the Sala
del Gran Consiglio, 118; selects the
Battle of Anghiari for his subject,
ib. ; materials supplied for his car
toon, 120; faulty character of the
method he adopted, 161 ; anecdote
of his encounter with Michelan
gelo, 173 ; one of the four great
draughtsmen of the epoch, 287 ; his
particular way of feeling Nature, 288
Visconti, Filippo Maria, his troops
routed at the battle of Anghiari
(1440), i. 118
Vitruvius, his influence upon the
Italian architects of the early Re
naissance, ii. 6
Vittoria Colonna. See Colonna
Volpaia, Benvenuto della, i. 448, 453
Volterra, Daniele da, i. xiii. ; pro
vides draperies for the nude figures
in the Last Judgment, ii. 57, 59 ;
his equestrian statue of Henri II. ,
256 sq. ; his portrait of Michel
angelo in the oil-painting of the
Assumption of the Virgin, 264, 274,
312, 318 ; his bronze head of him,
266 ; existing copies of this head,
267 ; present at Michelangelo's
death, 320 ; influence of Michel
angelo upon him, 344 ; his death,
269
Waeenewyck, Marcus von, and

Michelangelo's Madonna at Bruges,
i. 75 note
Warren, Edward Prioleau, i xviii.
Wilson, Heath, his adaptation of
Gotti's Life of Michelangelo, i.
xiv. ; cited for Michelangelo's Satyr
at Settignano, 19, 62, 67 ; for
the two marriages of Lodovico
Buonarroti, 78 note; for the at
titude of Michelangelo's David,
IOO ; for the Doni Madonna being
an oil-painting, 114; for Michel
angelo's drawing in the Uffizi for
the monument of Julius II. , 134 ;
on the successive contracts there
for, 140 ; cited for Michelangelo's
method and the measurements of
the Sistine, 205 ; for the irreverence
of Michelangelo's Risen Christ, 363
note, 364 note ; for his intention as
to the male figures in the Boboli
Gardens, ii. 88; for the Victory,
90 ; for the cupola of S. Peter's,
241
Windsor, drawings of Michelangelo
at, ii. 141
Womanhood, Michelangelo's ideal of,
i. 267
Wordsworth, his translations of
Michelangelo's poems, ii. 173
Wren, Sir Christopher, ii. 242.
Ykiaete, cited, i. 91 note
Zappi, Giovanni Battista Felice, his
sonnet on Michelangelo's statue of
Moses, ii. 85
Zolfanelli, i xi.

441

SPECIAL INDEX
TO SOME OF
MICHELANGELO'S WORKS
WHICH ARE PARTICULARLY MENTIONED IN THIS BOOK.

AKCHITECTUKE.

Capitol, Rome, ii. 245 sq.
Lorenzo, S., Library, ii.2-4, 15, 253
Lorenzo, S., Sacristy, i 375 sqq., ii.
19 sqq.

Maria, S., degli Angeli, ii. 255
Peter's, S., cupola of, ii. 218, 231,
238 sqq., 241, 244
Porta Pia and other gates, Rome, ii. 254

DEAWINGS, SKETCHES, &c

Anatomy, study of (Oxford), i. 44
Arcieri, or Bersaglio (Windsor), i. 296
Cartoon of the Battle of Pisa, i.
119, 161-170
Cartoons for the frescoes of the Sis
tine, i. 240 sqq.
Crucifix carved in wood, i 43
Crucifixion, ii. 98, 197
David, the second (Louvre, Paris), i.
107
Designs for a Naked Man (Louvre,
Paris), i. 109
Ganymede (Windsor), ii. 142, and note
Madonna (Louvre), i. 294
Male Nude ( Albertina, Vienna), i. 294
Middleton's Reconstruction of the

Tomb of Julius II. (Cambridge), i
138
Monument of Julius II. (Uffizi,
Florence), i. 133-135, 137
Phaethon, ii. 141
Pieta, ii. 98
Revel of Children (Windsor), ii. 125,
141, 142
Saint, Bearded (British Museum), i.
89 note
Salt-cellar, ii. 43
Samson slaying a Philistine, i 439
Satyr (Settignano), i. 19
Sword-hilt, i. 191
Tityos (Windsor), ii. 141, 142
Various drawings, i. 295

PAINTINGS.

Entombment (? National Gallery, Lon
don), i. 67, 68 note, 114 note, ii. 199
Francis, S., receiving the Stigmata
(S. Pietro a Montorio, Rome), i. 57
Frescoes on the vault of the Sistine
Chapel, i 208 sqq., 237 sqq.
Leda and the Swan, i 259, 440-
443

Madonna and Child (National Gallery,
London), i 65
Madonna and Child — the Doni Holy
Family (Uffizi, Florence), i 114,
and note
The Last Judgment, ii. 42 sqq.
The Pauline Chapel, ii. 181 sqq.

442

SPECIAL INDEX OF MICHELANGELO'S WORKS.

SCULPTURE.

Active and Contemplative Life
(Church of S. Pietro in Vincoli,
Rome), ii. 79
Adonis, Dying (BargeUo Palace,
Florence), i. 139, ii. 90
Angel and S. Petronio on the Area
of S. Domenico (in S. Petronio,
Bologna), i. 48
Apollo (BargeUo Palace, Florence),
i- 445
Bacchus (BargeUo Palace, Florence),
i- 58, H3
Brutus (BargeUo Palace, Florence),
ii 251
Captives, Bound (Louvre, Paris), i.
39. 'i- 86
Centaurs, bas-reUef of the (Casa
Buonarroti, Florence), i. 27
Christ, Risen (Santa Maria sopra
Minerva, Rome), i. 305, 359 sqq.
Cupid, Sleeping, i. 50 sqq.
Cupid (South Kensington), i. 58, 62,
63
David (bronze), i. 105
David in marble (Florence), i. 89 sqq.,
"3
Dawn (S. Lorenzo, Florence), i. 268,
ii. 22, 31-36
Day (S. Lorenzo, Florence), ii. 22,
31-36
Dying Slave (Louvre, Paris), i 50
Faun's mask (BargeUo Palace, Flor
ence), i 21
Giuliano, Duke of Nemours (S. Lo
renzo, Florence), ii. 31

Hercules, the lost, i. 40
John, S. (Berlin Museum), i. 49
Julius II. (bronze), i. 187, 196, 197
Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino (S. Lorenzo,
Florence), ii. 31
Madonna and Child (BargeUo Palace,
Florence), i. 111
Madonna and Child (Bruges), i. 74,
113
Madonna and Child (Casa Buonarroti,
Florence), i. 29
Madonna and Child (Royal Academy,
London), i. in
Madonna and Child (S. Lorenzo,
Florence), ii. 22
Madonna (Tomb of Julius, Rome), ii.
81
Male figures, roughly blocked out
(Boboli Gardens), ii 88
Male Saints (Duomo of Siena), i. 88
Matthew, S. (Accademia, Florence),
i. 108
Moses (Tomb of Julius, Rome), i.
113, ii. 79 sqq.
Night (S. Lorenzo, Florence), i 139,
268, ii. 22, 31-36
Pieta (Duomo, Florence), ii. 198, 202
Pieta, called the Madonna della
Febbre (S. Peter's, Rome), i. 60,
69. "3
TwUight (S. Lorenzo, Florence), ii.
22, 31-36
Victory (BargeUo Palace, Florence),
i. 139, ii. 89

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