Part 4 (2/2)

On the 18th of April 1506, Julius perfor the foundation-stone of the new S Peter's The place chosen was the great sustaining pier of the dome, near which the altar of S Veronica now stands A deep pit had been excavated, into which the aged Pope descended fearlessly, only shouting to the crowd above that they should stand back and not endanger the falling in of the earth above him Coins and medals were duly deposited in a vase, over which a ponderous block of marble was lowered, while Julius, bareheaded, sprinkled the stone with holy water and gave the pontifical benediction On the sa the King that ”by the guidance of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ he had undertaken to restore the old basilica which was perishi+ng through age”

V

The terms of cordial intielo at the close of 1505 were destined to be disturbed The Pope interan to take but little interest in the monuues of Bramante, hispered into the Pontiff's ear that it was ill-omened for a man to construct his own tomb in his lifeti of the sort, and Braelo Aindividual, entirely unscrupulous in his choice ofto flattery and lies, he strove to stand as patron between the Pope and subordinate craftselo had come to Rome under San Gallo's influence, and Bra the commission to rebuild S Peter's over his rival's head It was i whoelo threatened to be very formidable The jealousy which he felt for the man was envenomed by a fear lest he should speak the truth about his own dishonesty To discredit Michelangelo with the Pope, and, if possible, to drive him out of Rome, was therefore Bramante's interest: more particularly as his own nephew, Raffaello da Urbino, had now made up his mind to join hi both San Gallo and Buonarroti during the course of 1506, and that in their absence he reigned, together with Raffaello, almost alone in the art-circles of the Eternal City

I see no reason, therefore, to discredit the story told by Condivi and Vasari regarding the Pope's groant of interest in his to from Rome in 1542, thirty-six years after these events, says that ”all the dissensions between Pope Julius and me arose from the envy of Bramante and Raffaello da Urbino, and this was the cause ofthe tomb in his lifetiood reason; for all he had of art he owed toues, it must be remembered that the Pope at this tina Overwhelmed with business and anxious about money, he could not have had elo was still in Rome at the end of January On the 31st of thatthat the h, and that he had to keep Julius in good hued Lodovico to pack up all his drawings, and to send theainst bad weather, by the hand of a carrier It is obvious that he had no thoughts of leaving Roer about thehe assisted at the discovery of the Laocoon

Francesco, the son of Giuliano da San Gallo, describes how Michelangelo was al there one day, he went, at the architect's invitation, down to the ruins of the Palace of titus ”We set off, all three together; I on my father's shoulders When we descended into the place where the statue lay, my father exclaimed at once, 'That is the Laocoon, of which Pliny speaks' The opening was enlarged, so that it could be taken out; and after we had sufficiently adht the marble for 500 crowns, and had it placed in the Belvedere of the Vatican Scholars praised it in Latin lines of greater or lesser elo is said, but without trustworthy authority, to have assisted in its restoration

This is the last gliht from Rome Under what circumstances he suddenly departed may be related in the words of a letter addressed by him to Giuliano da San Gallo in Rome upon the 2nd of May 1506, after his return to Florence

”Giuliano,--Your letter inforry at my departure, as also that his Holiness is inclined to proceed with the works agreed upon between us, and that I

”AboutRome, it is a fact that on Holy Saturday I heard the Pope, in conversation with a jeweller at table and with the Master of Cere reat This caused me no little astonishment

However, before I left his presence, I asked for part of the money needed to carry on the work His Holiness told me to return on Monday

I did so, and on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, and on Thursday, as the Pope saw At last, on Friday , I was sent away, or plainly turned out of doors The man who did this said he knew me, but that such were his orders I, who had heard the Pope's words on Saturday, and now perceived their result in deeds, was utterly cast down This was not, however, quite the only reason ofelse, which I do not wish to coh that it made me think that, if I stayed in Rome, that city would be my tomb before it was the Pope's And this was the cause of my sudden departure

”Now you write toyou to read him this letter, and inform his Holiness that I am even more than ever disposed to carry out the work”

Further details elo

Writing in January 1524 to his friend Giovanni Francesco Fattucci, he says: ”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 atto the commission of the tomb, and sent for workmen from Florence, who are still alive, and paid them in advance out of ed histhis, I applied to hied at such an insult, I left Ros hich ht to Rome lay till the date of Leo's creation on the Piazza, and both lots were injured and pillaged”

Again, a letter of October 1542, addressed to some prelate, contains further particulars We learn he was so short of money that he had to borrow about 200 ducats from his friend Baldassare Balducci at the bank of Jacopo Gallo The episode at the Vatican and the flight to Poggibonsi are related thus:--

”To continue ed hisit in his lifetime, some shi+p-loads of marble came to the Ripa, which I had ordered a short while before froet e, I had to borrow 150 or 200 ducats from Baldassare Balducci, that is, from the bank of Jacopo Gallo At the same time workmen came from Florence, some of whoave me behind S Caterina with beds and other furniture for the men, and anted for the work of the toreatly eed the Pope with all o forith the business, and he hadwhen I ca this, said to the groorooentleman; I have orders to do this'

I went home, and wrote as follows to the Pope: 'Most blessed Father, I have been turned out of the palace to-day by your orders; wherefore I give you notice that from this time forward, if you want me, you must look for ostino, the steward, to give it to the Pope Then I sent for Cosimo, a carpenter, who lived with me and looked after household matters, and a stone-heaver, who is still alive, and said to the in the house, and come to Florence' I went, took the post, and travelled towards Florence The Pope, when he had read my letter, sent five horseibonsi about three hours after nightfall, and gave me a letter from the Pope to this effect: 'When you have seen these present, come back at once to Rome, under penalty of our displeasure' The horsemen were anxious I should answer, in order to prove that they had overtaken me I replied then to the Pope, that if he would perforard to me, I would return; but otherwise he ain Later on, while I was at Florence, Julius sent three briefs to the Signory At last the latter sent for o to ith Pope Julius because of you

You must return; and if you do so, rite you letters of such authority that, should he do you harly I took the letters, and went back to the Pope, and what folloould be long to tell”

These passages froelo's correspondence confir that he had gathered his information fro Michelangelo send a verbal ed by this repulse, he exclairoom: 'Tell the Pope that if henceforth he wants me, hethat only the first of these letters, written shortly after the event, and intended for the Pope's ear, contains a hint of Michelangelo's dread of personal violence if he reer Cellini's autobiography yields sufficient proof that such fears were not unjustified by practical experience; and Braue, may have commanded the services of assassins, _uomini arditi e facinorosi_, as they were somewhat eupheelo's precipitate departure and veheent idity This has to be noticed, because we learn from several incidents of the same kind in the master's life that he was constitutionally subject to sudden fancies and fears of ier to his person frona in haste from dread of assassination or maltreatotiations which passed between the Pope and the Signory of Florence about what elo for into powerful relief the i the princes of Italy I propose to leave these for the commencement of my next chapter, and to conclude the present with an account of his occupations during the sunor Gotti says that he passed threethat he arrived before the end of April, and reached Bologna at the end of Noveht to estimate this residence at about seven ust shows that he had not then left Florence upon any intermediate journey of importance Therefore there is every reason to suppose that he enjoyed a period of half a year of leisure, which he devoted to finishi+ng his Cartoon for the Battle of Pisa

It had been commenced, as we have seen, in a workshop at the Spedale dei Tintori When he went to Bologna in the autumn, it was left, exposed presumably to public view, in the Sala del Papa at S Maria Novella It had therefore been coelo had colio

Lionardo began to paint his Battle of the Standard in March 1505 The work advanced rapidly; but theoil colours to a fat composition laid thickly on the wall, caused the ruin of his picture He is said to have wished to reproduce the encaustic process of the ancients, and lighted fires to harden the surface of the fresco This melted the wax in the lower portions of the paste, andnow relio, the walls of which are covered by the id brush-work of Vasari It has even been suggested that Vasari knew more about the disappearance of his predecessor's masterpiece than he has chosen to relate Lionardo's Cartoon has also disappeared, and we know the Battle of Anghiari only by Edelinck's engraving fro of Rubens, and by some doubtful sketches

The saelo's Cartoon All that rereat work is the chiaroscuro transcript at Holkham, a sketch for the whole composition in the Albertina Gallery at Vienna, which differs in soroup, several interesting pen-and-chalk drawings by Michelangelo's own hand, also in the Albertina Collection, and a line-engraving by Marcantonio Raimondi, commonly known as ”Les Grielo finished his Cartoon in 1506 He left it, says Condivi, in the Sala del Papa Afterwards it lio; for Albertini, in his _Memoriale_, or Guide-Book to Florence, printed in 1510, speaks of both ”the works of Lionardo da Vinci and the designs of Michelangelo” as then existing in that hall Vasari asserts that it was taken to the house of the Medici, and placed in the great upper hall, but gives no date This may have taken place on the return of the princely family in 1512 Cellini confir the Cartoon, which could hardly have happened before 1513, the Battle of Pisa was at the Palace of the Medici, and the Battle of Anghiari at the Sala del Papa The way in which it finally disappeared is involved in so to Vasari's spite and mendacity In the first, or 1550, edition of the ”Lives of the Painters,” he wrote as follows: ”Having becoular object of study to artists, the Cartoon was carried to the house of the Medici, into the great upper hall; and this was the reason that it cauard into the hands of those said artists: inas the illness of the Duke Giuliano, when no one attended to such matters, it was torn in pieces by thementsnow in the house of Uberto Strozzi, a gentlereat respect” When Vasari published his second edition, in 1568, he repeated this story of the destruction of the Cartoon, but with a very significant alteration Instead of saying ”it was torn in pieces _by them_” he now printed ”it was torn in pieces, _as hath been told elsewhere_” Now Bandinelli, Vasari's eneration aht safely defaly he introduced a Life of Bandinelli into the second edition of his work, containing the following passage: ”Baccio was in the habit of frequenting the place where the Cartoon stood more than any other artists, and had in his possession a false key; what follows happened at the time when Piero Soderini was deposed in 1512, and the Medici returned Well, then, while the palace was in tuh this revolution, Baccio went alone, and tore the Cartoon into a thousand fragments Why he did so was not known; but some surmised that he wanted to keep certain pieces of it by hi es in study; some, that he was moved by affection for Lionardo da Vinci, who suffered n; some, perhaps with sharper intuition, believed that the hatred he bore to Michelangelo inspired him to coht one, and Baccio deserved the blaot, for everybody called hi contradiction to the first, both as regards the date and the place where the Cartoon was destroyed It does not, I think, deserve credence, for Cellini, as a boy of twelve in 1512, could hardly have drawn from it before that date; and if Bandinelli was so notorious for his nant vandalism as Vasari asserts, it isof the Cartoon in connection with Torrigiano, should not have taken the opportunity to cast a stone at the man whom he detested more than any one in Florence Moreover, if Bandinelli had wanted to destroy the Cartoon for any of the reasons above assigned to himents to be treasured up with reverence At the close of this tedious suht to add that Condivi expressly states: ”I do not knohat ill-fortune it subsequently came to ruin” He adds, however, that many of the pieces were found about in various places, and that all of them were preserved like sacred objects We have, then, every reason to believe that the story told in Vasari's first edition is the literal truth Copyists and engravers used their opportunity, when the palace of the Medici was thrown into disorder by the severe illness of the Duke of Neelo's Cartoon for their own use in 1516