A BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY OF
artist took place, in which the latter graciously submitted to be pardoned, telling the Pope, however, at the same time, that he " felt he had not merited the treatment he had received."
Julius II., who, as we have seen, " knew the habit and humour of men of this sort," and who felt, no doubt, that though he had twenty-four cardinals in his train he had but one Michelangelo, took no notice of his sulky discontent, but immediately employed him on a great bronze statue of himself to be set up over the church door at Bologna. This laborious work, which occupied Michelangelo two years, and cost him much trouble and vexation, was soon after thrown down by the enemies of Julius, and a huge cannon made of its metal.
After this work was accomplished Michelangelo went back to Florence in March 1508, hoping probably to be allowed to settle there, but Julius [I. again summoned him to Rome, though not to work on the monument he had before undertaken, but instead to begin no less a work than the painting in fresco of the vault of the Sixtine Chapel in the Vatican. Every one knows how Michelangelo accomplished this stupendous task, but it was not without considerable remonstrance that he began it, telling the Pope that " painting was not his Art," and advising him to give the commission to Raphael. But Julius II., who was probably aware of Michelangelo's achievement of the cartoon for the painting in the Palazzo Vecchio, would hear of no excuses or delay, and the artist was made, as we may say, to begin forthwith.
Vasari's accounts of the painting of these frescoes of the Sixtine is very graphic and circumstantial, and is no doubt true in many of its details, though in others it is transparently inaccurate. It has, however, been followed submissively by all writers on the subject until modem research began to throw doubt upon its exactness. Heath Wilson in particular, who submitted the frescoes of the vault of the Sixtine to the most careful examination, having been allowed to raise a scaffolding five stages high for the purpose, and who also made their history the subject of profound study, proves by a conclusive chain of reasoning that Michelangelo could not possibly have painted these works in the short space of time—twenty months—that Vasari assigns. This, if the amount of labour is once fairly considered, is indeed self-evident, but Heath Wilson shows from documentary testimony that Michelangelo began this work in the summer of 1508, and did not finish it until late in the autumn of 1512, thus giving a period of four years and some months, little enough even so for the accomplishment of such a vast amount of work. The story of his working entirely without assistants, "without even a man to grind his colours," must also be given up, though it would seem that the amount of assistance he received was small. He worked, however, with marvellous celerity, " painting a nude figure considerably above life-size in two working days, the workmanship being perfect in every part. The colossal nude figures of young men on the cornice of the vault at most occupied four days each."
Julius II. as usual was extremely anxious to see the work he had commissioned finished, and got so impatient that on the 1st of November, 1509, the scaffolding had to be removed and the portion of the work that was then finished exhibited to the public. His enemies, and Bramante in particular, who had hoped to behold a failure, were completely overpowered by the universal admiration, and Michelangelo received the commission to continue the work he had begun.
No description of this marvellous work, in which Michelangelo set forth in one great poem the history of the world in its early prime as told in the Book of Genesis, can be given here. The reader will find an ample account by Sir Charles Eastlake in his 'Contributions to the Literature of the Fine Arts,' and graphic descriptions by Vasari and numerous other writers. The Sixtine frescoes have also been admirably photographed of late years. The neglect of these frescoes was lamentable. "Cobwebs hung from every part, nails had been driven through them without remorse, and they were so darkened by the constant smoke from tapers that seen from the floor their real colours were imperceptible. "Altogether," adds Heath Wilson, who was pathetic on the subject, "they are the greatest existing examples of barbarous maltreatment and neglect."
With Leo X., who succeeded Julius II. in 1513, Raphael was the favoured artist. Michelangelo wished for nothing better than to be allowed to go on with the monument to Julius, for which he had already executed the great figure of Moses, and the two well-known statues of 'The Captive,' now in the Louvre, and reckoned among his finest work. But although he received a fresh commission for this work from the executors of Julius, difficulties were always thrown in his way, and finally he was sent by Leo X. to Florence and employed upon the front of San Lorenzo, which the Pope had deter- mined to build in a magnificent style. This was certainly an important work, and Michelangelo determined to make it " whether in respect of architecture or sculpture the masterpiece of all Italy," as he says in one of his letters; hut he was kept so long superintending in the new quarries of Seravezza, even making roads to them, and so many hindrances seem to have been purposely put in his way, that in the end nothing was accomplished. Indeed the ten years of Leo's pontificate were almost wasted years in the life of Michelangelo.
Nor was much accomplished during the short reign of Adrian, though Michelangelo for a time went on working at the monument to Julius, often at his own cost. But when Clement VII. became Pope in 1523 a change took place, and Michelangelo was once more in request, chiefly, however, for the superintendence of various architectural works, which Michelangelo, who always regarded himself as a sculptor, had little wish to undertake.
In 1527 the terrible sack of Rome under the Constable de Bourbon took place. Michelangelo was away in Florence at this time, where the popular party had again risen and driven out the Medici. This being the case, Michelangelo's commissions for the Medicean Pope remained for a time in abeyance, while he with patriotic energy undertook the charge of fortifying the city against his patron, the Signory having appointed him director and provider over the works of defence. The new knowledge supplied by the recent publication of the Buonarroti letters clears up much that formerly seemed inexplicable in his conduct at this time. It is evident that he was greatly trusted by the Signory, acting for them not only as military engineer, but likewise being entrusted with private missions. One of these missions, it
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