Part 6 (1/2)
When Julius received news that his statue had been duly cast and set up in its place above the great door of S Petronio, he began to be anxious to have Michelangelo once more near his person The date at which the sculptor left Florence again for Rome is fixed approximately by the fact that Lodovico Buonarroti emancipated his son fro to Florentine law, Michelangelo was not of age, nor master over his property and person, until this deed had been executed
In the often-quoted letter to Fattucci he says: ”The Pope was still unwilling that I should complete the toreed for 3000 ducats The first design I made for this work had twelve apostles in the lunettes, the re a certain space filled in with ornaun, it seemed to me that this would turn out rather meanly; and I told the Pope that the Apostles alone would yield a poor effect, in my opinion He asked ave me commission to do what I liked best, and promised to satisfy my claims for the work, and told me to paint down the pictured histories upon the lower row”
There is little doubt that Michelangelo disliked beginning this neork, and that he would have greatly preferred to continue the sepulchral monument, for which he had made such vast and costly preparations He did not feel certain how he should succeed in fresco on a large scale, not having had any practice in that style of painting since he was a prentice under Ghirlandajo It is true that the Cartoon for the Battle of Pisa had been a splendid success; still this, as we have seen, was not coloured, but executed in various methods of outline and chiaroscuro Later on, while seriously engaged upon the Sistine, he coreat distress offro forward in a way that seems to me to deserve it That co my trade_ And so I waste my time without results God help me”
We may therefore believe Condivi when he asserts that ”Michelangelo, who had not yet practised colouring, and knew that the painting of a vault is very difficult, endeavoured by allRaffaello forward as the properthat this was not his trade, and that he should not succeed” Condivi states in the same chapter that Julius had been prompted to intrust hireat abilities, and hoped he ht fail conspicuously when he left the field of sculpture I have giventhe accuracy of this tradition; and e have just read of Michelangelo's own hesitation confirms the statement made by Bramante in the Pope's presence, as recorded by Rosselli In fact, although we may assume the truth of Bramante's hostility, it is difficult to forainst Buonarroti
Julius would not listen to any arguelo made up his mind to obey the patron whom he nicknamed his Medusa
Bra, which he did so clue cables, that Michelangelo asked how the holes in the roof would be stopped up when his painting was finished The Pope allowed him to take down Bran
The rope alone which had been used, and noasted, enabled a poor carpenter to dower his daughter Michelangelo built his own scaffold free fro a method which was afterwards adopted by all architects for vault-building Perhaps he re he once made of Ghirlandajo's assistants at work upon the ladders and wooden platfor that he should need helpers in so great an undertaking, and also ed several excellent Florentine painters A these, says Vasari, were his friends Francesco Granacci and Giuliano Bugiardini, Bastiano da San Gallo surnaelo di Donnino, Jacopo di Sandro, and Jacopo surnamed l'Indaco Vasari is probably accurate in his stateelo, in his _Ricordi_, makes mention of five assistants, two of whom are proved by other documents to have been Granacci and Indaco We also possess two letters froelo di Donnino, and Jacopo l'Indaco were engaged in July The second of Granacci's letters refers to certain disputes and hagglings with the artists This elo to Florence, for he was there upon the 11th of August 1508, as appears fro deed of renunciation: ”In the year of our Lord 1508, on the 11th day of August, Michelangelo, son of Lodovico di Lionardo di Buonarrota, repudiated the inheritance of his uncle Francesob an instrument drawn up by the hand of Ser Giovanni di Guasparre da Montevarchi, notary of Florence, on the 27th of July 1508” When the assistants arrived at Rome is not certain It must, however, have been after the end of July The extracts froelo's notebooks show that he had already sketched an agreees several weeks before ”I record how on this day, the 10th of May 1508, I, Michelangelo, sculptor, have received from the Holiness of our Lord Pope Julius II
500 ducats of the Camera, the which were paid li Albizzi, on account of the painting of the vault of the Sistine Chapel, on which I begin to work to-day, under the conditions and contracts set forth in a document written by his Most Reverend Lordshi+p of Pavia, and signed by my hand
”For the painter-assistants who are to coold ducats of the Camera apiece, on this condition; that is to say, that when they are here and are working in harmony with me, the twenty ducats shall be reckoned to each in upon the day they leave Florence And if they do not agree with me, half of the saidexpenses, and for their tith of this _Ricordo_, it has been assuan to paint the Sistine on the 10th of May 1508 That would have been physically and literally i to rent his house in Borgo Pinti, upon the 18th of March Therefore he had no idea of going to Rootiations went on, as we have seen, between him and Pope Julius One plan for the decoration of the roof was abandoned, and another on a grander scale had to be designed To produce working Cartoons for that immense scheme in less than two months would have been beyond the capacities of any human brain and hands But there are , and the materials for fresco not accumulated, till a much later date For instance, we possess a series of receipts by Piero Rosselli, acknowledging several disburse of the roof between May 11 and July 27 We learn from one of these that Granacci was in Roelo writes for fine blue colours to a certain Fra Jacopo Gesuato at Florence upon the 13th of May All is clearly in the air as yet, and on the point of preparation Michelangelo's phrase, ”on which I begin work to-day,”
will have to be interpreted, therefore, in the widest sense, as i the architectural foundation ready, and procuring a stock of necessary articles The whole su n to the proper scale of working drawings; and if Michelangelo had toiled alone without his Florentine helpers, it would have been ih with these prelielo'shis Cartoons see He first made a s a large variety of figures Then he went to the living n in careful transcripts fro black and red chalk, pen, and sos left to us are several which were clearly executed with a view to one or other of these great Cartoons Finally, returning to the first composition, he repeated that, or so le sheet, on the exact scale of the intended fresco These enlarged drawings were applied to the wet surface of the plaster, and their outlines pricked in with dots to guide the painter in his brush-work
When we reflect upon the extent of the Sistine vault (it is estimated at more than 10,000 square feet of surface), and the difficulties presented by its curves, lunettes, spandrels, and pendentives; e reures in every conceivable attitude, soht, those seated as prophets and sibyls ht, all ani types of the utination quails before the intellectual energy which could first conceive a scheme so complex, and then carry it out with mathematical precision in its elo actually began to paint the fresco is not certain Supposing he worked hard all the suht have done so when his Florentine assistants arrived in August; and, assu that the letter to his father above quoted (_Lettere_, x) bears a right date, hebefore the end of January 1509 In that letter he mentions that Jacopo, probably l'Indaco, ”the painter whoo; and as he complained about me here in Rome, it is likely that he will do so there Turn a deaf ear to hi, and I could say much about his bad behaviour toward me”
Vasari informs us that these assistants proved of no use; whereupon, he destroyed all they had begun to do, refused to see them, locked himself up in the chapel, and determined to complete the work in solitude It seems certain that the painters were sent back to Florence Michelangelo had already provided for the possibility of their not being able to co-operate with him; but what the cause of their failure e can only conjecture Trained in the , incapable of entering into the spirit of a style so supereelo's, it is probable that they spoiled his designs in their attempts to colour them Harford pithily remarks: ”As none of the suitors of Penelope could bend the bow of Ulysses, so one hand alone was capable of wielding the pencil of Buonarroti” Still it round his own colours, prepared his daily measure of wet plaster, and executed the whole series of frescoes with his own hand Condivi and Vasari imply, indeed, that this was the case; but, beside the physical impossibility, the fact remains that certain portions are obviously executed by inferior masters Vasari's anecdotes, elo's singlehanded labour He speaks about the caution which the ainst any treason of his worker part, including all the s to Michelangelo
These troubles with his assistants illustrate a point upon which I shall have to offer soelo's inaptitude for forent felloorkers, for fashi+oning inferior natures into at least a sy on good terms with hired subordinates All those qualities which the facile and genial Raffaello possessed in such abundance, and whichfavourite of heaven and fortune to fill Ro to the stern, exacting, and sensitive Buonarroti
But the assistants were not the only hindrance to Michelangelo at the outset Condivi says that ”he had hardly begun painting, and had finished the picture of the Deluge, when the work began to throw out ures could hardly be seen through it Michelangelo thought that this excuse et him relieved of the whole job So he went to the Pope and said: 'I already told your Holiness that painting is not my trade; what I have done is spoiled; if you do not believe it, send to see' The Pope sent San Gallo, who, after inspecting the fresco, pronounced that the li out produced this elo what the cause was, and bade hi” About the fresco of the Deluge Vasari relates that, having begun to paint this coures were too crowded, and consequently changed his scale in all the other portions of the ceiling This is a plausible explanation of what is striking--nae is quite differently planned fro Yet I think it e in all the working Cartoons, as well as a reht
Condivi continues: ”While he was painting, Pope Julius used oftenti by a ladder, while Michelangelo gave hier and impatient of delay, he decided to have the roof uncovered, although Michelangelo had not given the last touches, and had only completed the first half--that is, froelo's letters show that the first part of his as executed in October He writes thus to his brother Buonarroto: ”I a by the end of the week after next--that is, the portion of it which I began; and when it is uncovered, I expect to be paid, and shall also try to get a month's leave to visit Florence”
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The uncovering took place upon Nove that sowhich the silentNor were they disappointed The effect produced by only half of the enorhted up a lah to illuminate the World, drowned, for so lance that the genius which had revolutionised sculpture was now destined to introduce a new style and spirit into their art This was the case even with Raffaello, who, in the frescoes he executed at S Maria della Pace, showed his ielo, and his deterreed upon this point, and Michelangelo hination, asserted many years afterwards that what Raffaello knew of art was derived from him That is, of course, an over-stateinality, Raffaello forino, Fra Bartolo, but of absorbing and assienius the excellent qualities of all in whoelo's influence was undeniable, and we cannot ignore the testireat artists--of Julius himself, for instance, when he said to Sebastian del Pio the ino's manner, and did his utmost to approach that of Buonarroti”
Condivi's assertion that the part uncovered in Nove fro in the raphers
We no for certain that what Michelangelo an” was the whole central space of the ceiling--that is to say, the nine coenii and architectural surroundings That is rendered clear by a statement in Albertini's Roman Handbook, to the effect that the ”upper portion of the whole vaulted roof” had been uncovered when he saw it in 1509
Having established this error in Condivi's narrative, what he proceeds to relate may obtain some credence ”Raffaello, when he beheld the new andextraordinarily apt at iht, by Bramante's elo ended at a line drawn halfway across the breadth of the vault, leaving the Prophets and Sibyls, the lunettes and pendentives, all finished so far, it would have been a piece of monstrous ientle Raffaello, to have begged for leave to carry on a scheme so marvellously planned But the history of the Creation, Fall, and Deluge, when first exposed, looked like a work coelo, as notoriously secretive, had aln to painters of Bra; and it is also i Cartoons for the lower and larger portion of the vault Accordingly, there ree vacant space to cover between the older frescoes by Signorelli, Perugino, Botticelli, and other painters, round the walls below the s, and that new rant iht be allowed to carry the work doard froestion may have been that the Sistine Chapel should become a Museum of Italian art, where all painters of eminence could deposit proofs of their ability, until each square foot of as covered with coelo heard of Bra begun his task unwillingly, he now felt an equal or greater unwillingness to leave the stupendous conception of his brain unfinished Against all expectation of himself and others, he had achieved a decisive victory, and was placed at one stroke, Condivi says, ”above the reach of envy”
His hand had found its cunning for fresco as forof triuht an audience with the Pope, and openly laid bare all the persecutions he had suffered fros of theto Condivi, that Michelangelo exposed Bramante's scamped work and vandalism at S Peter's Julius, as perhaps the only man in Rome acquainted with his sculptor's scheme for the Sistine vault, brushed the cobwebs of these petty intrigues aside, and left the execution of the whole to Michelangelo
There is so rivalries and jealousies between artists and s that arethe path of life, half flying on the wings of inspiration, half hobbling on the feet of interest the crutches of coh he made the David and the Sistine, had also to led with shrewd uers, folk who used undoubted talents, each in its kind excellent and pure, for baser purposes of gain or getting on The art-life of Rome seethed with such blood-poison; and it would be sentilect what entered so deeply and so painfully into the daily experience of our hero Raffaello, kneaded of softer and elo, throve in this environment, and was somehow able--so it seems--to turn its veno like stars on widely separated orbits, with radically diverse teh the turbid at their lucidity Each, in his oay, as it seems to me, contrived to keep himself unspotted by the world; and if they did not understand one another and make friends, this was due to the different conceptions they were fra the exact antipodes to the other
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