Part 10 (2/2)
Dante's influence over the great artist's pictorial iment, where Charon's boat, and Minos with his twisted tail, are borrowed direct from the _Inferno_ Condivi, moreover, informs us that the statues of the Lives Conteested by the Rachel and Leah of the _Purgatorio_ We also know that he filled a book with drawings illustrative of the ”Divine Comedy” By a miserable accident this most precious volume, while in the possession of Antonio Montauti, the sculptor, perished at sea on a journey froelo's reputation as a learned student of Dante is given in Donato Giannotti's Dialogue upon the nuh hell and Purgatory Luigi del Riccio, as a great friend of the sculptor's, is supposed to have been walking one day toward the Lateran with Antonio Petreo Their conversation fell upon Cristoforo Landino's theory that the tiht of Good Friday, together with the following day While engaged in this discussion, they elo The four friends joined coood fortune to have fallen thatupon two such eard to Messer Michelangelo, you have abundant reason to say that he is an eminent Dantista, since I am acquainted with no one who understands him better and has a fuller ive a detailed account of Buonarroti's Dantesque criticisrounds for supposing them in part to represent exactly what Giannotti heard him say This applies particularly to his able interpretation of the reason why Dante placed Brutus and Cassius in hell--not as being thelaid violent hands upon the sacred majesty of the Empire in the person of Caesar The narrative of Dante's journey through hell and Purgatory, which is put into Michelangelo's mouth, if we are to believe that he really made it extee of the _Inferno_
VII
Michelangelo's doings at Serravezza can be traced with so the summers of 1518 and 1519 An important letter to Buonarroto, dated April 2, 1518, proves that the execution of the road had not yet been decided on He is impatient to hear whether the Wool Corporation has voted the necessary funds and appointed hiard to the construction of the road here, please tell Jacopo Salviati that I shall carry out his wishes, and he will not be betrayed by me I do not look after any interests of my own in this ed the Pope and Cardinal to give ht be able to conduct it to those places where the bestabout them I did not ask for the co of the sort is in my head” This proves conclusively that elo's abilities on things a lesser ht have accomplished is merely senti for the contract from a desire to profit by it In another letter, of April 18, the decision of the Wool Corporation was still anxiously expected Michelangelo gets io to find the Pope and Cardinal, tell them how it is with me, leave the business here, and return to Carrara The folk there pray for my return as one is wont to pray to Christ” Then he complains of the worthlessness and disloyalty of the stone-hewers he brought frory postscript: ”Oh, cursed a thousand times the day and hour when I left Carrara! This is the cause of o back there soon Nowadays it is a sin to do one's duty” On the 22nd of April the Wool Corporation assigned to Michelangelo a contract for the quarries, leaving hiht best Coe is curious: ”Sandro, he too has gone away from here He stopped severalnothing but fish and make love He cost me a hundred ducats to no purpose; has left a certain quantity of ht to take the blocks that suitthe a junorance, he has treated elo had bought a piece of ground in Via Mozza, now Via S Zanobi, at Florence, from the Chapter of S
Maria del Fiore, in order to build a workshop there He wished, about the tiet an additional lot of land, in order to have larger space at his cootiations went on through the summer of 1518, and on the 24th of November he records that the purchase was completed
Premises adapted to the sculptor's purpose were erected, which reelo's possession until the close of his life
In August 1518 he writes to a friend at Florence that the road is now as good as finished, and that he is bringing down his columns The work is more difficult than he expected One elo hier
”The place where we have to quarry is exceedingly rough, and the workmen are very stupid at their business For some months I must make demands upon my powers of patience until the mountains are tamed and the men instructed Afterwards we shall proceed h, that Ithat Italy has ever seen, if God assists me”
There is no want of heart and spirit in these letters Irritable at elo was at bottom enthusiastic, and, like Napoleon Buonaparte, felt capable of conquering the world with his sole arain at Florence, where he seeo to Roht that his presence there was needed to restore the confidence of the Medici and to overpower calu rivals In reply to a letter of admonition written in this sense by his friend Lionardo di Coent solicitations are toof annoyance at not being able to do what I should like to do, through ed an excellent workshop, where twenty statues can be set up together The drawback is that there are no ainst the weather This yard, encumbered with the marbles for S Lorenzo,he re down his blocked-out columns from the quarries One of these pillars, six of which he says were finished, was of huge size, intended probably for the flanks to the main door at S Lorenzo It tuelo attributed the accident solely to the bad quality of iron which a rascally fellow had put into the lewis-ring byraised On this occasion he again ran considerable risk of injury, and suffered great annoyance The following letter of condolence, written by Jacopo Salviati, proves how rieved, and also shows that he lived on excellent terht-hand allantly with your great enterprise, for your honour requires this, seeing you have co will be amiss with you, and our Lord is certain to coreater losses than this Have no doubt upon this point, and if you want one thing more than another, let me know, and you shall be served initude will lay our city under the deepest obligation, not only to yourself, but also to your faeous spirit, take heart under adversities, and becoh Michelangelo's correspondence during these years It is the affection he felt for his workhi him to confess It happened that Urbano fell ill at Carrara, toward the end of August Michelangelo, on hearing the news, left Florence and travelled by post to Carrara Thence he had his friend transported on the backs of men to Serravezza, and after his recovery sent hith in his native city of Pistoja In one of the _Ricordi_ he reckons the cost of all this at 33-1/2 ducats
While Michelangelo was residing at Pietra Santa in 1518, his old friend and felloorker, Pietro Rosselli, wrote to hi his advice about a tabernacle of marble which Pietro Soderini had ordered It was to contain the head of S John the Baptist, and to be placed in the Church of the Convent of S Silvestro On the 7th of June Soderini wrote upon the saelo sent in October, the execution of the shrine being intrusted to Federigo Frizzi The incident would hardly be worth s to ood-hearted Gonfalonier of Justice, and anticipates the co of the only woman he is known to have cared for, Vittoria Colonna It was at S Silvestro that she dwelt, retired in hood, and here occurred those Sundayconversations of which Francesco d'Olanda has left us so interesting a record
During the next year, 1519, a certain Tommaso di Dolfo invited hiether in Florence, when Michelangelo lay there in hiding from Pope Julius, they had talked about the East, and he had expressed a wish to travel into Turkey Tommaso di Dolfo dissuaded him on that occasion, because the ruler of the province was a s had altered since, and he thought there was a good opening for an able sculptor Things, however, had altered in Italy also, and Buonarroti felt no need to quit the country where his fa daily
Considerable anielo's life at this point by his correspondence with jovial Sebastiano del Pio as early as 1510, when he thanks Buonarroti for consenting to be Godfather to his boy Luciano; a second of 1512, which contains the interesting account of his conversation with Pope Julius about Michelangelo and Raffaello; and a third, of 1518, turning upon the rivalry between the two great artists But the bulk of Sebastiano's gossipy and racy cos to the period of thirteen years between 1520 and 1533; then it suddenly breaks off, owing to Michelangelo's having taken up his residence at Ro the autumn of 1533 A definite rupture at some subsequent period separated the old friends These letters are aartistic life at Rome They prove, beyond the possibility of doubt, that, whatever Buonarroti and Sanzio may have felt, their flatterers, dependants, and creatures cherished the liveliest hostility and lived in continual rivalry It is soelo could have lent a willing ear to the nant babble of a man so much inferior to himself in nobleness of nature--have listened when Sebastiano taunted Raffaello as ”Prince of the Synagogue,” or boasted that a picture of his oas superior to ”the tapestries just come from Flanders” Yet Sebastiano was not the only friend to whose idle gossip the great sculptor indulgently stooped Lionardo, the saddle-maker, was even more offensive He writes, for instance, upon New Year's Day, 1519, to say that the Resurrection of Lazarus, for which Michelangelo had contributed son, was nearly finished, and adds: ”Those who understand art rank it far above Raffaello The vault, too, of Agostino Chigi has been exposed to view, and is a thing truly disgraceful to a great artist, far worse than the last hall of the Palace Sebastiano has nothing to fear”
We gladly turn froelo's personal character The general impression in the world was that he was very difficult to live with Julius, for instance, after reed his style in imitation of Buonarroti, continued: ”'But he is terrible, as you see; one cannot get on with him' I answered to his Holiness that your terribleness hurt nobody, and that you only seem to be terrible because of your passionate devotion to the great works you have on hand” Again, he relates Leo's estimate of his friend's character:
”I knohat esteem the Pope holds you, and when he speaks of you, it would see about a brother, alht up together as boys”
(Giovanni de' Medici and the sculptor were exactly of the sahten everybody, even Popes!” Michelangelo must have complained of this last remark, for Sebastiano, in a letter dated a few days later, reverts to the subject: ”Touching what you reply to me about your terribleness, I, for my part, do not esteem you terrible; and if I have not written on this subject do not be surprised, seeing you do not strikethe greatest master who ever lived: that is my opinion; if I am in error, the loss is ht: ”One letter to your friend (the Pope) would be enough; you would soon see what fruit it bore; because I kno he values you He loves you, knows your nature, adores your work, and tastes its quality as much as it is possible for man to do Indeed, his appreciation is reat satisfaction to an artist He speaks of you so honourably, and with such loving affection, that a father could not say of a son what he does of you It is true that he has been grieved at tie of Florence He shrugged his shoulders and cried, 'Michelangelo is in the wrong; I never did hi to find Sebastiano, in the saelo's sensitiveness ”One favour I would request of you, that is, that you should come to learn your worth, and not stoop as you do to every little thing, and reh! I know that you will laugh at my prattle; but I do not care; Nature has made me so, and I am not Zuan da Rezzo”
VIII
The year 1520 was one of ives a brief account of the last four years, winding up with the notice that ”Pope Leo, perhaps because he wants to get the facade at S Lorenzo finished quicker than according to the contractthereto, sets ation of accounting to any one for anything which I have had to do with him or others upon his account” It appears from the draft of a letter without date that soelo and the Medici preceded this rupture
He had been withdrawn froht plan the new buildings at S Lorenzo; and the work business in his absence
Marbles which he had excavated for S Lorenzo were granted by the Cardinal de' Medici to the custodians of the cathedral, and no attenation was roused by this indifference to his interests, and he complains in terms of extreme bitterness Then he sums up all that he has lost, in addition to expected profits ”I do not reckon the wooden model for the said facade, which I made and sent to Rome; I do not reckon the period of three years wasted in this work; I do not reckon that I have been ruined (in health and strength perhaps) by the undertaking; I do not reckon the enorht here to do the work, and then seeing it taken away from me, and for what reason I have not yet learned; I do not reckon my house in Rome, which I left, and where marbles, furniture and blocked-out statues have suffered to upwards of 500 ducats O all these matters, out of the 2300 ducats I received, only 500 reelo told Condivi that Pope Leo changed his mind about S Lorenzo In the often-quoted letter to the prelate he said: ”Leo, not wishi+ng me to work at the tomb of Julius, _pretended that he wanted to complete_ the facade of S Lorenzo at Florence” What was the real state of the case can only be conjectured It does not seem that the Pope took very kindly to the facade; so the project elo neglected his own interests by not going to Ro calumnies into the Pope's ears
The Marquis of Carrara, as reported by Lionardo, wrote to Leo that ”he had sought to do you honour, and had done so to his best ability It was your fault if he had not done more--the fault of your sordidness, your quarrelsomeness, your eccentric conduct” When, then, a dispute arose between the Cardinal and the sculptor about the marbles, Leo may have felt that it was time to break off from an artist so impetuous and irritable Still, whatever faults of teelo may have had, and however difficult he was to deal with, nothing can excuse the Medici for their wanton waste of his physical and ht of their development
On the 6th of April 1520 Raffaello died, worn out with labour and with love, in the flower of his wonderful young iven the world the best he had to offer, because nothing is so incalculable as the evolution of genius
Still we perceive now that his latest ards the method of execution by assistants, shows hie of intellectual decline While deploring Michelangelo's i temperament which made him reject collaboration, and which doomed so much of his best work to inco life he produced nothing (except perhaps in architecture) which does not bear the seal and superscription of his fervent self Raffaello, on the contrary, just before his death, see into a nebulousthe rich and facile treasures of his genius through a host of lesser men, he had almost ceased to be a personality Even his oork, as proved by the Transfiguration, was deteriorating The blosso; and all those pupils who had gathered round hi like planets froidity and insignificance Only Giulio Romano burned with a torrid sensual splendour all his own
Fortunately for the history of the Renaissance, Giulio lived to evoke the wonder of the Mantuan villa, that climax of associated crafts of decoration, which reed by Raffaello in his Roman period