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First published 2013
Copyright © Michael Gayford, 2013
The acknowledgements constitute an extension of this copyright page
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions and would be greatful to be notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future editions of this book
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All rights reserved
Typeset by Jouve (UK), Milton Keynes
Colour reproduction by TAG Publishing
ISBN: 978-0-141-93225-5
Family Tree of the Buonarroti Family
Family Tree of the Medici Family
Map of Central and Northern Italy in Michelangelo’s Youth
List of Popes in Michelangelo’s Lifetime
List of Illustrations
Picture and Text Credits
1. The Death and Life of Michelangelo
2. Buonarroti
3. Unruly Apprenticeship
4. Medici
5. Antiquities
6. Piero de’ Medici and Flight to Bologna
7. Rome, Cupid, Bacchus and the Pietà
8. David and Other Bodies
9. Michelangelo versus Leonardo
10. Giants and Slaves
11. Vault
12. Incarnation
13. Roman Rivalry
14. Marble Mountains
15. Tombs
16. New Fantasies
17. Revolt
18. Love and Exile
19. Judgement
20. Reform
21. Dome
22. Defeat and Victory
Bibliography
Notes and References
Acknowledgements
Follow Penguin
By the same author
The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin
and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles
Constable in Love: Love, Landscape, Money and the Making of a Great Painter
Man with a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Freud
A Bigger Message: Conversations with David Hockney
The Penguin Book of Art Writing
(with Karen Wright, eds.)
To my mother Doreen Gayford (1920–2013) and my father-in-law
Donald Morrison (1920–2013), in memoriam.
THE BUONARROTI FAMILY IN THE LATE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES
A SIMPLIFIED FAMILY TREE OF THE MEDICI FAMILY IN THE FIFTEENTH AND EARLY SIXTEENTH CENTURIES
Sixtus IV (Francesco della Rovere):
9 August 1471–12 August 1484
Innocent VIII (Giovanni Battista Cybo):
29 August 1484–25 July 1492
Alexander VI (Rodrigo Borgia):
11 August 1492–18 August 1503
Pius III (Francesco Todeschini Piccolomini):
22 September 1503–18 October 1503
Julius II (Giuliano della Rovere):
31 October 1503–21 February 1513
Leo X (Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici):
9 March 1513–1 December 1521
Adrian VI (Adriaan Floriszoon Boeyens):
9 January 1522–14 September 1523
Clement VII (Giulio di Giuliano de’ Medici):
18 November 1523–25 September 1534
Paul III (Alessandro Farnese):
13 October 1534–10 November 1549
Julius III (Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte):
8 February 1550–23 March 1555
Marcellus II (Marcello Cervini):
9 April 1555–30 April or 1 May 1555
Paul IV (Giovanni Pietro Carafa):
23 May 1555–18 August 1559
Pius IV (Giovanni Angelo Medici):
26 December 1559–9 December 1565
Opener: Skin of St Bartholomew: detail showing the skin of St Bartholomew with Self-Portrait of Michelangelo from The Last Judgement, 1536–41, fresco, Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome.
Daniele da Volterra, Portrait of Michelangelo, 1551–2, leadpoint and black chalk, The Teyler Museum, Haarlem.
Skull; detail from The Last Judgement, 1536–41, fresco, Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome.
Opener: Studies of Infants (detail), c. 1504–5, pen over black chalk, The British Museum, London.
Detail of Spandrel with Ancestors of Christ, 1508–12, Sistine Chapel ceiling, Vatican, Rome.
Nineteenth-century copy of the Pianta della Catena, or Chain Map, of Florence, c. 1470, attributed to Francesco di Lorenzo Rosselli.
Detail of Lunette with Ancestors of Christ, 1508–12, Sistine Chapel ceiling, Vatican, Rome.
View of the Tuscan countryside from close to the Buonarroti family villa at Settignano, photo: the author.
Two volutes in pietra serena, detail of the vestibule of the Laurentian Library, c. 1526–34, San Lorenzo, Florence.
Opener: Maso Finiguerro, Seated Boy Drawing, c. 1460, pen, ink and wash on paper, Uffizi, Florence.
Filippino Lippi, The Raising of the Son of Theophilus (detail), 1483–4, Brancacci Chapel, Florence.
Domenico Ghirlandaio, The Expulsion of Joachim from the Temple, 1485–90, Santa Maria Novella, Florence; detail of group on right showing Ghirlandaio and associates.
Domenico Ghirlandaio, Confirmation of the Franciscan Rule, 1479–85, Santa Trinita, Florence.
Study after Giotto’s Ascension of St John the Evangelist, Peruzzi Chapel, Santa Croce, after 1490, pen, Musée du Louvre, Paris.
Michelangelo and pupils, Dragon and other sketches, c. 1525, pen over black chalk, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
Martin Schongauer, The Temptation of St Anthony, c. 1470, engraving.
Michelangelo (?), The Temptation of St Anthony, c. 1487–8, Kimbell Museum of Art, Fort Worth, Texas.
Opener: Domenico Ghirlandaio, Confirmation of the Franciscan Rule, 1479–85, fresco, Santa Trinita, Florence.
Leonardo da Vinci, Sketch of Hanged Man, 1479, Musée Bonnat, Bayonne.
Study probably after Masaccio, after 1490, pen, Albertina, Vienna.
Sculptor’s tools, photo: Cardozo-Kindersley Studio, Cambridge.
St Matthew, c. 1506, marble, unfinished, Galleria dell’ Accademia, Florence.
Opener: The Battle of the Centaurs, c. 1492, marble, Casa Buonarroti, Florence; detail of left-hand side.
Domenico Ghirlandaio, Confirmation of the Franciscan Rule, 1479–85, fresco, Santa Trinita, Florence; detail: Angelo Poliziano and the Sons of Lorenzo de’ Medici.
Madonna of the Stairs, c. 1492, marble, Casa Buonarroti, Florence.
Tazza Farnese, 2nd century BC, cameo cup, Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, Naples.
The Battle of the Centaurs, c. 1492, marble, Casa Buonarroti, Florence.
Opener: Crucifix (detail), c. 1492–4, polychrome wood, Santo Spirito, Florence.
Crucifix, c. 1492–4, polychrome wood, Santo Spirito, Florence.
Fra Bartolomeo, Portrait of Savonarola, after 1498, Museo di San Marco dell’ Angelo, Florence.
Angel, 1494–5, marble, Arca of San Domenico, San Domenico, Bologna.
Opener: Bacchus, 1496–7, marble, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence; detail of satyr.
Bacchus, 1496–7, marble, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.
The Manchester Madonna, c. 1496, tempera on panel, unfinished, National Gallery, London.
Pietà, 1498–1500, marble, Basilica di San Pietro, Vatican, Rome.
Opener: David, 1501–4, marble, Galleria dell’ Accademia, Florence; detail of upper body.
The Entombment, c. 1500–1501, tempera on panel, unfinished, National Gallery, London.
David, 1501–4, marble, Galleria dell’ Accademia, Florence.
David, 1501–4, marble, Galleria dell’ Accademia, Florence; detail of head.
Domenico Ghirlandaio, Confirmation of the Franciscan Rule, 1479–85, fresco, Santa Trinita, Florence. Detail of background showing Loggia dei Lanzi and Piazza della Signoria before the installation of Michelangelo’s David.
Leonardo da Vinci, Neptune, c. 1504 (?), after Michelangelo’s David, pen and black chalk, Royal Library, Windsor.
Opener: Study of Man Running and Looking into the Background (for The Battle of Cascina), c. 1504–5, black chalk heightened with lead white, The Teyler Museum, Haarlem.
Santi di Tito, Portrait of Niccolò Machiavelli, c. 1513, oil on canvas, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.
Studies for the bronze figure of David, and arm of marble, David, with verse fragments, c. 1502–3, pen, Musée du Louvre, Paris.
Leonardo da Vinci, Madonna of the Yarnwinder, c. 1501, oil on walnut, private collection, on loan to the National Galleries of Scotland, Edinburgh.
Taddei Tondo, c. 1503–5, marble, Royal Academy, London.
Bruges Madonna, c. 1504–5, marble, Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk, Bruges.
A Seated Male Nude Twisting Around, c. 1504–5, pen and brown wash, British Museum, London.
Studies of Infants, c. 1504–5, pen over black chalk, The British Museum, London.
Opener: After Michelangelo (?), Design for the Tomb of Pope Julius II (detail), c. 1505 (?), pen, wash and red chalk, Uffizi, Florence.
Altobello Melone, Portrait of Cesare Borgia (?), c. 1513, oil on panel, Accademia Carrara, Bergamo.
After Michelangelo (?), Design for the Tomb of Pope Julius II, c. 1505 (?), pen, wash and red chalk, Uffizi, Florence.
Raphael, Pope Julius II, mid-1511, oil on poplar, National Gallery, London.
Laocoön and His Sons, c. 25 BC, marble, Vatican Museums, Vatican, Rome.
Rebellious Slave, c. 1513–16, marble, Musée du Louvre, Paris.
Opener: Sistine Chapel ceiling, 1508–12, central section, Vatican, Rome.
Study for Figure beside Libyan Sibyl, sketch of an entablature, and studies for the Slaves for the Tomb of Julius II, c. 1512, red chalk and pen, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
Sistine Chapel ceiling, fresco, Vatican, Rome; detail: The Fall of Man.
Opener: Sistine Chapel ceiling, fresco, 1508–12, Vatican, Rome; detail: The Separation of Light from Darkness.
Raphael, The School of Athens (detail), 1509–10, fresco, Stanza della Segnatura, Vatican, Rome.
Anatomical Study of a Torso in Three-Quarter View, uncertain date, red chalk, Royal Library, Windsor.
Sistine Chapel ceiling, fresco, 1508–12, Vatican, Rome; detail: The Creation of the Sun, Moon and Plants.
Sistine Chapel ceiling, fresco, 1508–12, Vatican, Rome; detail of nude flanking The Separation of Land and Water.
Sistine Chapel ceiling, fresco, 1508–12, Vatican, Rome; detail: Two ignudo flanking The Separation of Land and Water.
Sistine Chapel ceiling, fresco, 1508–12, Vatican, Rome; detail: The Cumaean Sibyl.
Opener: Moses (detail), 1513–16, marble, from the Tomb of Julius II, San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome.
Raphael, Portrait of Leo X with Two Cardinals, 1518, oil on panel, Uffizi, Florence.
Dying Slave, 1513–16, marble, Musée du Louvre, Paris.
Moses, 1513–16, marble, from the Tomb of Julius II, San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome.
Sebastiano del Piombo, Pietà, c. 1513–16, oil on panel, Museo Civico, Viterbo.
Opener: View of the Apuan Alps near Seravezza, photo: Josephine Gayford.
Drawing of Marble Blocks for the Façade of San Lorenzo, 1516–20, pen, Casa Buonarroti, Florence.
Wooden Model for the Façade of San Lorenzo, autumn 1517, poplar, Casa Buonarroti, Florence.
Drawing of Marble Blocks for the Façade of San Lorenzo, 1516–20, pen, Casa Buonarroti, Florence.
List of Foods with Sketches of Food and Drink, 1517–18, pen, Casa Buonarroti, Florence.
View of the Apuan Alps near Seravezza, photo: Josephine Gayford.
Opener: Head Known as the Damned Soul (Il Dannato), c. 1522–3 (?), black chalk, Uffizi, Florence.
Sebastiano del Piombo, The Raising of Lazarus, 1517–19, oil on panel transferred to canvas, National Gallery, London.
Raphael, The Transfiguration, 1518–20, oil on panel, Pinacoteca, Vatican Museums, Vatican, Rome.
The Risen Christ, 1520–30, marble, Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome.
Bearded Slave, 1525–30, marble, Galleria dell’ Accademia, Florence.
Study for Double Tomb for the Medici Tombs in the New Sacristy, c. 1521, pen, The British Museum, London.
Opener: Vestibule of the Laurentian Library, c. 1526–34, San Lorenzo, Florence.
Sebastiano del Piombo, Pope Clement VII without Beard, before 1527, oil on canvas, Museo e Gallerie Nazionali di Capodimonte, Naples.
Tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici, Duke of Nemours, 1524–34, marble, San Lorenzo, Florence.
Hercules and Antaeus and Other Studies (recto) plus Miscellaneous Sketches and a Poem, c. 1524–5, red chalk, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
Portrait of Andrea Quaratesi, 1528–31, black chalk, The British Museum, London.
Staircase of the Laurentian Library, c. 1526–34, San Lorenzo, Florence.
Day, 1524–34, marble, Medici Chapel, San Lorenzo, Florence.
Night, 1524–30, marble, Medici Chapel, San Lorenzo, Florence.
Opener: Design for Fortifications (detail), c. 1528–9, pen, wash and chalk, Casa Buonarroti, Florence.
Titian, Portrait of Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of Urbino, 1536–7, oil on canvas, Uffizi, Florence.
Victory, c. 1528 (?), marble, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence.
Design for Fortifications, c. 1528–9, pen, wash and chalk, Casa Buonarroti, Florence.
After Michelangelo, Leda and the Swan, c. 1540–60, oil on canvas, National Gallery, London.
Opener: The Fall of Phaeton (detail), 1533, black chalk, Royal Collection, Windsor.
Sebastiano del Piombo, Clement VII and the Emperor Charles V in Bologna, c. 1530, black and white chalk, The British Museum, London.
Michelangelo (?), Ganymede, c. 1533, black chalk, Fogg Museum, Cambridge, Mass.
Tityus, c. 1533, black chalk, Royal Collection, Windsor.
The Risen Christ, c. 1532–3, black chalk, Royal Collection, Windsor.
The Fall of Phaeton, 1533, black chalk, Royal Collection, Windsor.
Opener: The Last Judgement, 1536–41, fresco, Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome.
The Dream, c. 1533–4, black chalk, Courtauld Gallery, London.
Titian, Pope Paul III, 1545–6, oil on canvas, Museo e Gallerie Nazionali di Capodimonte, Naples.
Brutus, c. 1537–55, marble, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.
The Last Judgement, 1536–41, fresco, Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome; detail: The Blessed Embracing.
The Last Judgement, 1536–41, fresco, Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome; detail: Lustful Soul being Dragged Down.
The Last Judgement, 1536–41, fresco, Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome; detail: Minos being Gnawed by a Serpent.
Opener: Pietà for Vittoria Colonna (detail), c. 1538–40, black chalk, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.
Rachel, or the Contemplative Life, marble, from the Tomb of Julius II, c. 1541–5, San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome.
The Crucifixion, c. 1538–41, black chalk, The British Museum, London.
The Conversion of St Paul, 1542–5, fresco, Pauline Chapel, Vatican, Rome.
Tomb of Julius II, 1505–45, San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome.
Giulio Bonasone, Portrait of Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1546, engraving.
The Crucifixion of St Peter, 1545–9, fresco, Pauline Chapel, Vatican, Rome.
Opener: Wooden Model of the Dome of St Peter’s, 1558–61, Vatican Museum, Vatican, Rome.
St Peter’s, view of the walls of the chancel and transept, photo, Vatican, Rome.
The Campidoglio, photo, Rome.
Opener: Study for the Porta Pia, 1561, black chalk, pen, wash and white heightening, Casa Buonarroti, Florence.
The Head of Nicodemus, from Pietà (detail), c. 1547–55, marble, Museo del Opera del Duomo, Florence.
The Rondanini Pietà, ůc. 1552/3–1564, marble, Castello Sforzesco, Milan.
Self-Portrait of Michelangelo from The Last Judgement: Photo akg-images/MPortfolio/Electa; Portrait of Michelangelo The Teyler Museum, Haarlem, The Netherlands; Skull Photo Scala, Florence; Studies of Infants: The British Museum, London; Ancestors of Christ Vatican Museums; Nineteenth-century copy of the Pianta della Catena, or Chain Map, of Florence Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of Musei Civici Fiorentini; Lunette with Ancestors of Christ Vatican Museums. Photo akg-images/MPortfolio/Electa; View of the Tuscan countryside from close to the Buonarroti family villa at Settignano Photo Martin Gayford; Two volutes in pietra serena Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; Seated Boy Drawing: Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; The Raising of the Son of Theophilus Photo Scala, Florence/Fondo Edifici di Culto. Min. dell’ Interno; The Expulsion of Joachim from the Temple Photo Scala, Florence/Fondo Edifici di Culto. Min. dell’ Interno; Confirmation of the Franciscan Rule Photo Scala, Florence; Ascension of St John the Evangelist Photo Scala, Florence; Dragon and other sketches Photo The Bridgeman Art Library; The Temptation of St Anthony The British Museum, London; The Temptation of St Anthony Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas; Confirmation of the Franciscan Rule: Photo Scala, Florence; Sketch of Hanged Man Photo Scala, Florence; Study probably after Masaccio Photo Scala, Florence; Sculptor’s tools photo: Cardozo-Kindersley Studio, Cambridge; St Matthew Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; The Battle of the Centaurs: Photo DeAgostini Picture Library/Scala, Florence; Confirmation of the Franciscan Rule Photo Scala, Florence; Madonna of the Stairs Photo Scala, Florence; Tazza Farnese Photo DeAgostini Picture Library/Scala, Florence; The Battle of the Centaurs Photo DeAgostini Picture Library/Scala, Florence; Crucifix: Photo Scala, Florence; Crucifix Photo Scala, Florence; Portrait of Savonarola Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; Angle Photo DeAgostini Picture Library/Scala, Florence; Bacchus: Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; Bacchus Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; The Manchester Madonna Photo Scala, Florence; Pietá Photo Scala, Florence; David: Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; The Entombment Photo Scala, Florence; David Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; David Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; Confirmation of the Franziscan Rule Photo Scala, Florence; Neptune The Royal Collection © 2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Photo: The Bridgeman Art Library; Study of Man Running and Looking into the Background (for The Battle of Cascina): The Teyler Museum, Haarlem, The Netherlands; Portrait of Nicclò Machiavelli Photo Scala, Florence; Studies for the bronze figure of David, and arm of marble, David, with verse fragments Photo White Images/Scala, Florence; Madonna of the Yarnwinder Photo National Galleries of Scotland; Taddei Tondo Photo The Bridgeman Art Library; Bruges Madonna Photo Scala, Florence; A Seated Male Nude Twisting Around The British Museum, London; Studies of Infants The British Museum, London; Design for the Tomb of Pope Julius II: Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; Portrait of Cesare Borgia Photo Scala, Florence; Design for the Tomb of Pope Julius II Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; Pope Julius II Photo Scala, Florence; Laocoön and His Sons Photo © Peter Horree/Alamy; Rebellious Slave Photo Scala, Florence; Sistine Chapel ceiling: Photo akg-images/Rabatti-Domingie; Figure beside Libyan Sibyl Photo: The Art Archive; The Fall of Man Photo akg-images/Rabatti-Domingie; The Separation of Light from Darkness: Photo akg-images/Erich Lessing; The School of Athens Photo akg-images; Anatomical Study of a Torso in Three-Quarter View Photo The Bridgeman Art Library; Sistine Chapel ceiling Photo akg-images/Erich Lessing; The Separation of Land and Water Photo akg-images/Erich Lessing; Two ignudi flanking The Separation of Land and Water Photo akg-images/Rabatti-Domingie; Sistine Chapel ceiling Photo akg-images/Rabatti-Domingie; Moses: Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; Portrait of Leo X with Two Cardinals Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; Dying Slave Photo Scala, Florence; Moses Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; Pietà Photo Scala, Florence; View of the Apuan Alps near Seravezza: Photo Josephine Gayford; Drawing of Marble Blocks for the Façade of San Lorenzo Photo Scala, Florence; Wooden Model for the Façade of San Lorenzo Photo Scala, Florence; Drawing of Marble Blocks for the Façade of San Lorenzo Photo Scala, Florence; List of Foods with Sketches of Food and Drink Photo Scala, Florence; View of the Apuan Alps near Seravezza Photo Josephine Gayford; Head know as the Damned Soul (Il Dannato): Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; The Raising of Lazarus Photo Scala, Florence; The Transfiguration Photo Scala, Florence; The Risen Christ Photo Scala, Florence/Fondo Edifici di Culto. Min. dell’ Interno; Bearded Slave Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; Study for Double Tomb for the Medici Tombs in the New Sacristy The British Museum, London; The vestibule of the Laurentian Library: Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; Pope Clement VII without Beard Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; Tomb of Giuliano de’ Medici, Duke of Nemours Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; Hercules and Antaeus and Other Studies (recto) plus Misscellaneous Sketches and a poe Photo: The Bridgeman Art Library; Protrait of Andrea Quaratesi The British Museum, London; Staurcase of the Laurentian Library Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; Day Photo akg-images/Erich Lessing; Night Photo DeAgostini Picture Library/Scala, Florence; Design for Fortifications: Photo Scala, Florence; Portrait of Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of Urbino Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; Victory Photo White Images/Scala, Florence; Design for Fortifications Photo Scala, Florence; Leda and the Swan Photo Scala, Florence; The Fall of Phaeton: Photo The Bridgeman Art Library; Clement VII and the Emperor Charles V in Bologna The British Museum, London; Ganymede Photo The Bridgeman Art Library; Tityus Photo The Bridgeman Art Library; The Risen Christ Photo The Bridgeman Art Library; The Fall of Phaeton Photo The Bridgeman Art Library; The Last Judgement: Photo akg-images/IAM; The Dream Photo The Bridgeman Art Library; Pope Paul III Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; Brutus Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; The Last Judgement Photo akg-images/IAM; The Last Judgement Photo akg-images/IAM; The Last Judgement Photo akg-images/IAM; Pietà for Vittoria Colonna: Photo The Bridgeman Art Library; Rachel, or the Contemplative Life Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; The Crucifixion The British Museum, London; The Conversion of St Paul Photo Scala, Florence; Tomb of Julis II Photo Scala, Florence. Courtesy of the Ministero Beni e Att. Culturali; Portrait of Michelangelo Buonarroti The British Museum, London; The Crucifixion of St Peter Photo The Bridgeman Art Library; Wooden Model of the Dome of St Peter’s: Photo Scala, Florence; St Peter’s, view of the walls of the chancel and transept Photo Scala, Florence; The Campidoglio, Rome Photo Scala, Florence; Study for the Porta Pia: Photo Scala, Florence; The Head of Nicodemus Photo Scala, Florence; The Rondanini Pietà Photo Scala, Florence.
The publishers greatefully acknowledge permission to reprint extracts from: Autobiography by Benvenuto Cellini, translated with an introduction by George Bull (Penguin Books, 1956). Copyright © George Bull, 1956.
The Lives of the Artist, Vols. I and II, by Giorgio Vasari, translated by George Bull (Penguin Classics, 1987). Copyright © George Bull, 1965.
The Letters of Michelangelo by Michelangelo Buonarroti, translated and edited by E. H. Ramsden by permission of Peter Owen Ltd, London.
Michelangelo: Life, Letters and Poetry, translated by George Bull (1999), pp. 9–12, 14–16, 21, 22, 28, 32, 37, 38, 45–8, 53, 67, 68, 70–72. By permission of Oxford University Press.
Forbidden Friendships: Homosexuality and Male Culture in Renaissance Florence, by Michael Rocke (1997), p. 349. By permission of Oxford University Press, USA.
Renaissance Rivals: Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Titian by Rona Goffen. By permission of Yale University Press.
The Poetry of Michelangelo: An Annotated Translation, by James M. Saslow. By permission of Yale University Press.
‘The Academy and confraternity of painters and sculptors have resolved, if it please your most illustrious Excellency, to do some honour to the memory of Michelangelo Buonarroti, because of the debt owed to the genius of perhaps the greatest artist that ever lived (one of their own countrymen and so especially dear to them as Florentines) …’
– Vincenzo Borghini, writing to Duke Cosimo I de’ Medici on behalf of the Florentine Academy, 1564
On 14 February 1564, while he was walking through Rome, a young Florentine living in Rome named Tiberio Calcagni heard rumours that Michelangelo Buonarroti was gravely ill. Immediately, he made his way to the great man’s home in the street of Macel de’ Corvi near Trajan’s Column and the church of Santa Maria di Loreto. When he got there he found the artist outside, wandering around in the rain. Calcagni remonstrated with him. ‘What do you want me to do?’ Michelangelo answered. ‘I am ill and can find no rest anywhere.’
Somehow Calcagni persuaded him to go indoors, but he was alarmed by what he saw. Later in the day, he wrote to Lionardo Buonarroti, Michelangelo’s nephew, in Florence. ‘The uncertainty of his speech together with his look and the colour of his face makes me concerned for his life. The end may not come just now, but I fear it cannot be far away.’ On that damp Monday, Michelangelo was three weeks short of his eighty-ninth birthday, a great age in any era and a remarkable one for the mid-sixteenth century.
Later on, Michelangelo sent for other friends. He asked one of these, an artist known as Daniele da Volterra, to write a letter to Lionardo. Without quite saying that Michelangelo was dying, Daniele said it would be desirable for him to come to Rome as soon as he could. This letter was signed by Daniele, and also underneath by Michelangelo himself: a weak, straggling signature, the last he ever wrote.
Despite his evident illness, Michelangelo’s enormous energy had still not entirely ebbed away. He remained conscious and in possession of his faculties, but was tormented by lack of sleep. In the late afternoon, an hour or two before sunset, he tried to go out riding, as was his habit when the weather was fine – Michelangelo loved horses – but his legs were weak, he was dizzy, and the day was cold. He remained in a chair near the fire, a position he much preferred to being in bed.
All this was reported to Lionardo Buonarroti in a further letter sent that day, as a covering note to the earlier letter signed by Michelangelo himself. This was written in the evening by Diomede Leoni, a Sienese friend of the master’s, who advised Lionardo to come to Rome, but to take no risks in riding at speed over the bad roads at that time of year.
After another day in the chair by the fire, Michelangelo was forced to take to his bed. At his home were some members of his inner circle: Diomede Leoni, Daniele da Volterra, his servant Antonio del Francese, and a Roman nobleman, Tommaso de’ Cavalieri, some four decades his junior, who had been perhaps the love of Michelangelo’s life. Michelangelo wrote no formal will but made a terse statement of his last wishes: ‘I commit my soul into the hands of God, my body to the earth, and my possessions to my nearest relatives, enjoining them when their hour comes to meditate on the sufferings of Jesus.’
For a while, he followed the last of those recommendations himself, listening to his friends reading, from the Gospels, passages concerning the passion of Christ. He died on 18 February at about 4.45 p.m.
Thus ended the mortal existence of the most celebrated artist who had ever lived, indeed by many measures the most renowned to have existed until the present day. Few other human beings except the founders of religions have been more intensively studied and discussed. Michelangelo’s life, work and fame transformed for ever our idea of what an artist could be.
In 1506, when he was only thirty-one years old, the government of Florence described Michelangelo in a diplomatic communication with the Pope as ‘an excellent young man, and in his profession unequalled in Italy, perhaps in the whole world’. At that point, he had almost six decades of his career still to come. From being the greatest artist ‘perhaps’ in the world, his prestige grew and grew.
There was an epic quality to Michelangelo’s life. Like a hero of classical mythology – such as Hercules, whose statue he sculpted in his youth – he was subject to constant trials and labours. Many of his works were vast and involved formidable technical difficulties: the huge frescoes of the Sistine Chapel ceiling and The Last Judgement, the marble giant David, carved from an awkwardly shaped and previously used block of stone. Michelangelo’s larger projects – the tomb of Julius II, the façade and the New Sacristy at San Lorenzo, the great Roman Basilica of St Peter’s – were so ambitious in their scale that, for lack of time or resources, he was unable to complete any of them as he had originally intended. However, even his unfinished buildings and sculptures were revered as masterpieces and exerted enormous influence on other artists.
Michelangelo continued to work, for decade after decade, near the dynamic centre of events: the vortex in which European history was changing. When he was born, in 1475, Leonardo da Vinci and Botticelli were starting out on their artistic careers. The Italian peninsula was a patchwork of small independent states, dukedoms, republics and self-governing cities. By the time he died, the Reformation and Counter-Reformation had taken place. The political and spiritual map of Europe had altered completely; the European superpowers of France and Spain had invaded Italy and turned it into a traumatized war zone. The unity of Christendom had shattered: Protestants had split from the authority of the Pope in Rome and divided among themselves into a multitude of theological factions. Catholicism was resurgent in a more tightly orthodox and militant form. A century of religious strife had begun.
Daniele da Volterra, Portrait of Michelangelo, 1551–2.
While still in his mid-teens, Michelangelo became a member of the household of Lorenzo de’ Medici, the Magnificent, one of the figures around whom our idea of the Renaissance has coalesced. He worked in turn for no fewer than eight popes, and with several his relations were close to the point of intimacy. He had grown up with the two Medici popes, Leo X (reigned 1513–21) and Clement VII (reigned 1523–34), at the court of Lorenzo the Magnificent. The former spoke of him ‘almost with tears in his eyes’ (but found him dauntingly difficult to deal with). With Clement VII, Michelangelo’s connection was, if anything, even closer. He regarded Michelangelo ‘as something sacred, and he conversed with him, on both light and serious matters, with as much intimacy as he would have done with an equal’.
Clement died in 1534, but Michelangelo still had thirty years to live and four more popes to serve. The huge church of St Peter’s rose, very slowly, under his direction. Rome and Christianity metamorphosed around him. The Jesuit order and the Roman Inquisition were founded, and Europe froze into a religious divide between Catholic and Protestant quite as ferocious and lethal as any of the ideological struggles of the twentieth century. Still Michelangelo was there, acknowledged as the supreme artist in the world – and not just in his time, but of all time.
The day after Michelangelo died, an inventory was made of his goods. It listed the contents of a house that was sparsely furnished but rich in other ways. In the room where he slept there was an iron-framed bed with one straw mattress and three stuffed with wool, a couple of woollen covers and one of kid skin, and a linen canopy. The clothes in his wardrobe suggested a touch of luxury, including a selection of black silken caps – two in a luxurious shot-silk known as ermisino, and another of rascia (rash), the most expensive cloth made in Florence – two coats lined with fox fur, and a fine cape. In addition, Michelangelo owned a variety of sheets, towels and underwear, including nineteen used shirts and five new ones.
Apart from this, the house seemed bare. In the stable was the horse Michelangelo used to ride in the afternoons, described as ‘a little chestnut-coloured nag, with saddle, bridle etc’. There was nothing in the dining room except some empty wine barrels and bottles. The cellar contained some big flagons of water and a half-bottle of vinegar. Two large unfinished statues, one of ‘St Peter’ – perhaps in fact an effigy of Julius II once intended for his tomb – the other described as ‘Christ with another figure above, attached together’ remained in a workshop behind the house, with its own roof. There was also a little incomplete statuette of Christ carrying the cross.
Some drawings were found in Michelangelo’s bedroom, though a very small number in relation to the quantity he had made over the years. Most of these concerned his current building projects, particularly the Basilica of St Peter’s. Of the thousands of others he had made, some had been given away, some remained in Florence, where he had not set foot for almost thirty years, but a huge number had been deliberately destroyed by Michelangelo in a series of bonfires, one shortly before his death.
Also in the bedroom was a walnut chest, locked and bearing various seals. This was opened in the presence of the notaries carrying out the inventory. It turned out to contain, secreted in bags and small jugs of maiolica and copper, some 8,289 gold ducats and scudi,1 plus silver coins.
Michelangelo remarked that ‘however rich I may have been, I have always lived as a poor man.’ Clearly, he was not joking, on either count. The inventory gives the impression of a decidedly Spartan style of life; the gold and silver in that chest represented a fortune. Stored in his bedroom was a sum just a few hundred ducats short of the amount which Eleonora di Toledo, wife of Cosimo de’ Medici, the Duke of Tuscany, had paid fifteen years before for one of the grandest dwellings in Florence: the Palazzo Pitti.2
The gold in Michelangelo’s strongbox represented only a fraction – considerably less than half – of his total assets, most of which were invested in property. He was not only the most famous painter or sculptor in history, he was probably richer than any artist who had ever been. This was just one of many contradictions in Michelangelo’s nature: a wealthy man who lived frugally; a skinflint who could be extraordinarily, embarrassingly generous; a private, enigmatic individual who spent three quarters of a century near the heart of power.
By the time Michelangelo died, the praise of him as ‘divine’ – a description that had been given to other towering cultural figures before, such as the poet Dante – was taken almost literally. Some, at least, regarded Michelangelo as a new variety of saint. The strength of the veneration felt for him was similar to that in which famous mystics and martyrs were held. As a result, Michelangelo had two funerals and two burials in two different places.
The first was in Rome, in the church of Santi Apostoli not far from the house on Macel de’ Corvi, where the artist and pioneer art historian Giorgio Vasari described how he was ‘followed to the tomb by a great concourse of artists, friends, and Florentines’. There Michelangelo was laid to rest ‘in the presence of all Rome’. Pope Pius IV expressed an intention of eventually erecting a monument to him in Michelangelo’s own masterwork, the Basilica of St Peter’s (at that point still a domeless building site).
This state of affairs was intolerable to Duke Cosimo de’ Medici, ruler of Florence, who for many years had tried without success to lure the old man to return to his native city. He resolved that Rome should not retain the great artist’s corpse, and so there followed a bizarre incident that echoed the theft of the body of St Mark from Alexandria by Venetian traders.
At the insistence of Michelangelo’s nephew Lionardo – who had finally arrived in Rome but too late to stop the first funeral – the great man’s body was smuggled out of the city by some merchants, ‘concealed in a bale so that there should be no tumult to frustrate the duke’s plan’. Arrangements for an elaborate state funeral and interment were made.
Skull; detail from the The Last Judgement, 1536–41.
When the corpse arrived in Florence, on Saturday 11 March, it was taken to the vault of the Confraternity of the Assumption, a crypt behind the altar in the church of San Pier Maggiore. There, the next day, the artists of the city assembled at nightfall around the bier, on which Michelangelo was now placed in a coffin covered by a velvet pall richly embroidered with gold. Each of the most senior carried a torch, which would have created a scene of sombre magnificence, the flickering flames illuminating the casket draped in black.
Next Michelangelo was carried in procession to the huge Gothic Basilica of Santa Croce, the heart of the quarter to which his family had always belonged. The route would have taken his coffin close both to his childhood home and to the houses he owned – and lived in for some years – on Via Ghibellina. When word got around of whose body was being moved through the dark streets, a crowd began to assemble. Soon the procession was mobbed by Florentine citizens, distinguished and undistinguished, and ‘only with the greatest difficulty was the corpse carried to the sacristy, there to be freed from its wrappings and laid to rest’. After the friars had said the office of the dead, the writer and courtier Vincenzo Borghini, representing the Duke, ordered the coffin to be opened, partly, according to Vasari – who was there – to satisfy his own curiosity, partly to please the crush of people present. Then, it seems, something extraordinary was discovered. Borghini ‘and all of us who were present were expecting to find that the body was already decomposed and spoilt’. After all, Michelangelo had been dead at this point for the best part of a month. Yet Vasari claimed: ‘On the contrary we found it [his corpse] still perfect in every part and so free from any evil odour that we were tempted to believe that he was merely sunk in a sweet and quiet sleep. Not only were his features exactly the same as when he was alive (although touched with the pallor of death) but his limbs were clean and intact and his face and cheeks felt as if he had died only a few hours before.’ Of course, an incorrupt corpse was one of the traditional signs of sanctity.