Michelangelo

by Miles J. Unger

  The form of the republic Savonarola had promoted after the expulsion of the Medici in 1494 remained intact, but the wealthy bankers and traders who now ran things in Florence lacked legitimacy in the eyes of many. They suffered from a lack of leadership and charisma. Locked in a protracted and badly managed war with neighboring Pisa, the current government was both weak and unpopular. Ever-higher taxes increased the burden on ordinary citizens while contributing little toward bringing the war to a successful conclusion. To make matters worse, Florentines were now faced with the prospect of war on a second front, this time with Cesare Borgia (aka Duke Valentino), the brutal and brilliant son of Pope Alexander, who was currently menacing their borders with his army.

  Thus it was under gathering storm clouds that the project to carve a giant David was revived. Adorning the great religious and civic monuments of the city with precious artworks was Florence ’s preferred method of meeting a crisis. A hundred years earlier when the city was similarly threatened—this time from the army of Giangaleazzo Visconti, the Duke of Milan—the city fathers had staged a competition to furnish the Baptistery with a new set of bronze doors, hoping both to win divine protection and reassure an anxious populace. The same crisis also provoked a war of words between the Chancellor of Florence, Coluccio Salutati, and his counterpart in Milan in which Salutati conveyed the plucky spirit of his compatriots who placed their faith in something less tangible than the number of men mustering under their banners. “You say,” wrote the Chancellor, “that you do not see in us strength enough to oppose four cavalry legions. . . . [W]e are aware that victory lies not in the number of soldiers but in the hands of God . . . we know that our ancestors have often resisted against overwhelming enemy forces, and with small ranks . . . obtained . . . the victory beyond their hope.”

  A century later the city fathers hoped to revive the spirit of 1401 in which a badly overmatched city defied and ultimately turned back a great tyrant. And as before, artists were expected to play a key role. In this context the symbolism of David seemed particularly apt. The tale of the shepherd boy who defeated the Philistine giant Goliath was particularly dear to Florentine hearts, a stirring narrative of an underdog emerging victorious in the face of long odds.II Commissioning a colossal image of the young hero would signal a confidence in the future and remind a skittish citizenry how they had overcome similar crises in the past.

  It is not clear how or when Michelangelo first learned of the project. According to Vasari, he was still in Rome when he first heard rumors of the prestigious commission: “From Florence, some of his friends urged him to return so that he might be awarded the carving of the marble that had lain ruined in the yard of the Opera del Duomo, which Gonfaloniere Piero Soderini then had in mind to give to Leonardo da Vinci.” Nothing was more apt to light a fire under Michelangelo more quickly than the thought that somebody else would reap the glory he felt entitled to himself. The mere mention of Leonardo’s name in association with this project would have driven him to distraction. At the time, the forty-nine-year-old painter was the most famous artist in Europe. He had returned to Florence a year earlier, after almost two decades away, during which time he had served not only the Duke of Milan but also the notorious Cesare Borgia as his chief military engineer. Though known more as a painter than a sculptor, Leonardo had modeled a monumental equestrian monument depicting the former Duke of Milan, Francesco Sforza, and the notion of awarding a large-scale work in marble to a man of such obvious gifts was not altogether farfetched. The prospect that an occasional sculptor would steal a commission in a field in which he tolerated no rivals would have been more than incentive enough for Michelangelo to rush back to Florence.

  But Vasari’s narrative is inaccurate on at least one count. Piero Soderini, whom he claims as Leonardo’s champion in this matter, was not elected Gonfaloniere until 1502. It is also not clear that the Operai had decided to revive the project by the time Michelangelo left Rome. Rumors to that effect might have begun to swirl months before their official inspection in July 1501, but no contemporary documents prove such an assertion.

  Still, it’s hard to believe that Michelangelo set out for Florence in March of 1501 without some expectation that major commissions would come his way. He had left Florence for Rome almost five years earlier, and it’s unthinkable that he would have abandoned the prospects of the burgeoning capital for the provincial comforts of Florence unless he thought he could build on what he ’d already achieved. The possibility that he ’d caught wind of the new project is hinted at by a letter he received from his father in December 1500, assuring Michelangelo he would have important work to do in Florence.

  There were, in fact, plenty of reasons to remain where he was. Whatever the possibilities opening up in his native land after Savonarola’s downfall, Michelangelo was now all but certain that a brilliant career awaited him in Rome. The success of his Pietà secured his reputation as the most promising sculptor of his generation, and nowhere were the opportunities richer or more varied than in the seat of the papacy. Having made a successful debut on the most important stage in Europe, the twenty-five-year-old sculptor found himself in an enviable position. His latest patron had just died, but there were numerous princes of the Church willing and able to take his place, worldly men disposing of vast incomes who would have been thrilled to have such an accomplished sculptor immortalize them in gleaming Carrara marble.

  But Michelangelo was homesick. He loved his native city and, despite frequent quarrels with his father and brothers, was deeply attached to his family. Even before securing the commission for the Pietà, he had assured Lodovico he would soon be leaving for Florence, though at the time he made little effort to follow through on his promise. In fact, shortly after completing the sculpture for the cardinal’s tomb, he signed a contract to paint an altarpiece for a chapel in Sant’Agostino in Rome, another commission facilitated by Jacopo Gallo, who was among the building’s supervisors. Scholars have identified the painting (for which he was paid the rather modest sum of 60 ducats) as The Entombment, now in the National Gallery of London. Even in its half-completed state it is a work of remarkable inventiveness, particularly when one considers how little it has in common either in feeling or composition with the nearly contemporary Pietà. Here the transfer of Christ’s body from the Cross to the Tomb is a muscular, athletic event, far removed from the ethereal mood of the Pietà. It’s as if the sculpture had been turned inside out, transforming a contemplative moment into a drama played out in terms of physical stresses and strains.

  We don’t know for certain why Michelangelo never completed the project, but it’s plausible that he abandoned the painting once he heard rumors of more exciting opportunities awaiting him in Florence. Michelangelo often signed on to a project only to discard it when something better came along, a habit that infuriated those left in the lurch who believed (with some justification) that he was acting in bad faith. Often the ink on one contract barely had time to dry before he was pursuing another, more attractive offer. Some of these jilted patrons even accused him of trying to defraud them, though Michelangelo never acted out of mercenary impulses. It was not the money that caused him to put aside whatever he was working on in favor of something more compelling, though he appreciated large fees as a sign of his growing stature as an artist. Rather, it was the excitement of a new challenge that made him seek out the next horizon. Creative restlessness, not greed for gold, contributed to a long string of unfulfilled promises and half-realized masterpieces.

  Michelangelo was in fact notoriously uninterested in material possessions, or at least creature comforts. He was so absorbed in his work that he often let the rest of his life fall into shambles. For the three commissions he received in Rome, he earned more than 650 ducats, a sum on which he might have lived comfortably, even luxuriously. But a letter from his father—written in December 1500 after a visit from his younger brother, who had gone to Rome to celebrate the Pope ’s Jubilee—paints a scene at odds with
his recent success: “Buonarroto tells me how you live there with great frugality or rather squalor: frugality is good, but squalor is bad because it is a vice that displeases both God and men, and besides it will do damage to both your soul and your body. Since you are young, you can tolerate discomfort for awhile, but when the vigor of youth has gone you will discover the ills that come from living miserably. . . . [L]ive moderately and do not deny yourself. . . . Above all care for your head, keeping it warm, but never bathe. . . .”

  Even in his old age, when he had grown wealthy through his art and owned considerable property in both Rome and Florence, Michelangelo adopted an ascetic lifestyle. As he told his biographer, “Ascanio, rich man as I have made myself, I have always lived as a poor one,” a theme on which Condivi elaborated: “All through his life Michael Angelo has been very abstemious, taking food more from necessity than from pleasure, especially when at work, at which time, for the most part, he has been content with a piece of bread, which he munched whilst he labored.”

  Such austerity might seem peculiar in someone so invested in his aristocratic pedigree, but Michelangelo’s snobbery was not of the sort that required him to ape the dress and manners of the nobility to which he claimed to belong. His superiority to his fellow man was expressed not through fine clothes and courtly bearing but through an inner fire that blazed forth in his work. Late in life when he complained that his brother Gismondo was living like a peasant, his anger was aroused not by the material but by the intellectual poverty of his brother’s existence and the general lack of ambition it bespoke.

  II. I WITH THE BOW

  In March 1501, with the fame of his Pietà spreading to all corners of Italy and beyond, Michelangelo returned to Florence with a full purse and his head held high. The fact that his finances were now on a solid footing helped ease his homecoming, but one shouldn’t discount the psychological impact of his recent triumph. He would set foot on native soil a conquering hero rather than a failure.

  In Florence, Michelangelo moved back into the crowded, ramshackle house on the Via de ’ Bentaccordi, close by the church of Santa Croce. There he found himself once more in the bosom of his large, quarrelsome family, something he regarded as at best a mixed blessing. Michelangelo’s relationship with his father had undergone a radical transformation since the days of his adolescence, when Lodovico and his uncle beat him when he told them he wanted to become an artist. Now that he had proven himself, it was the son who exuded confidence while the father seemed diminished. Lodovico was no less ornery than before, but instead of bullying his son he tended to whine and play on Michelangelo’s guilt. Shortly before he returned, Lodovico sent his second-oldest son a letter filled with self-pity:

  It seems to you that I am unhappy; it seems to me with good reason; when it comes to God, I am happy and content, but when it comes to my sons I am less satisfied, because I have five sons and, now 56 years old, and thanks to God I have no one who will give me so much as a glass of water. Instead, in my old age, I must stay with relatives who ask 22 quattrini a day to cover their expenses, and in addition to this I have to do my own cooking, wash the dishes, bake the bread, and provide everything for myself, despite my aches and pains. . . .

  Lodovico’s grousing was not entirely unjustified, but it also reflected his prickly personality. The loss of his second wife and an unpayable debt weighed heavily, but he was a man whose pride outstripped his ambition so that he was always bemoaning his poverty without lifting a finger to alleviate it. He felt aggrieved at the world in general and by his children in particular, who always fell short in his eyes. His only successful son took on most of the burden of caring for him and bore the brunt of his complaints. But no matter how much Michelangelo sacrificed for his sake, it was never enough. Toward the end of his life, after decades in which Michelangelo had been his primary support, Lodovico accused his son of cheating him, an outrageous charge that hurt Michelangelo deeply and almost provoked a permanent rift.

  In spite of everything, Michelangelo was devoted to his father. His need to please this dour man, to show him that his choice of career would not bring disgrace to the Buonarroti name, fueled his fierce ambition. Returning to the paternal hearth as an acknowledged success was crucial to his sense of himself, but it would not have been possible without the prospect of gainful employment.

  From the beginning Michelangelo’s name topped the list of sculptors being considered by the overseers of the cathedral; few men had both the skill and the desire to tackle the difficult task of carving the monumental column. Despite Vasari’s claim that Michelangelo hurried home to forestall Leonardo capturing the prize, there ’s no evidence the older artist pursued it for himself. On August 16, 1501, four months after the initial inspection, the secretary for the Opera del Duomo drew up a contract “declaring that Michelangelum Lodovici Bonarroti, citizen of Florence, is to make and carry out and to finish perfectly a figure, the so-called Giant . . . nine braccie tall, already present in the Opera . . . within two years, beginning next September, and with salary and wages each month of six gold florins.”

  Curiously, only three months earlier Michelangelo had traveled to Siena to accept the commission from Cardinal Piccolomini to provide fifteen statues for a monument in the local cathedral honoring his uncle, Pope Pius II. The contract not only stipulated that “they are to be of greater quality, better made, and finished with greater perfection than the modern sculptures that are in Rome today,” but Michelangelo also promised “not to undertake any other work in marble or anything else that will delay him.” Michelangelo violated the terms of that contract when he agreed to carve the David, demonstrating his almost compulsive need to set his sights on the next artistic summit before he had even scaled the first. The proof that he was biting off more than he could chew is that after many years of procrastination he completed only four of the proposed statues, and these only with considerable help from assistants.

  It was the commission for the David that really excited him, and Michelangelo was willing to risk angering the cardinal in order to carve a figure that would rival the great colossi of the ancient world and assure his fame both in Florence and abroad. In deceiving the cardinal, Michelangelo was also deceiving himself. His faith in his own abilities encouraged him to promise more than he could possibly deliver, a habit at once dishonorable and self-defeating. Pursuing the David while neglecting the Piccolomini monument was a typically questionable business decision since he ’d been promised 500 ducats to complete the latter, while he was originally promised only six gold florins a month for the former, an amount less than half as great.

  The most generous explanation for Michelangelo’s behavior was that he was keen to help out his country in its hour of need. The David was a potent symbol of Florence ’s will to endure, while the Piccolomini monument was just another vanity project for a wealthy prince of the Church. No matter how many years he lived abroad, Michelangelo was always devoted to Florence, and the patriotic aspects of the commission would certainly have appealed to him. But he was also seduced by the purely artistic challenge of carving a giant figure in the round. Michelangelo was not only personally ambitious but determined to elevate his profession. How better to achieve this goal than by creating a monumental figure that would astound, inspire, and amaze?

  Interest in the project was already high. Florentines took their art seriously and clung to their cultural heritage even when their fortunes in other areas were in decline. Earlier that year Leonardo had opened his studio to display his latest creation, a drawing of the Madonna and St. Anne for an altarpiece he was painting at Santissima Annunziata. According to Vasari, “men and women, young and old, continued for two days to flock for a sight of it to the room where it was, as if to a solemn festival, in order to gaze at the marvels of Leonardo, which caused all those people to be amazed.” Among those making his way to the studio was Michelangelo himself, whose admiration for the work was tempered by jealousy of a man who now enjoyed the acclaim he cr
aved.

  Despite his thirst for glory, Michelangelo made little attempt to ingratiate himself with the public. For most of the period he was carving the monumental statue, the citizens of Florence were effectively shut out. He built around his worksite “an enclosure of planks and masonry” to discourage visitors and conceal what he was doing from prying eyes. As always, Michelangelo preferred to work in solitude, springing his masterpiece on a populace whose excitement would have been primed by months, even years, of waiting.

  According to a note inserted into the margin of the contract, “Michelangelo began to work and carve the said giant on 13 September, 1501, a Monday; although previously, on the 9th, he had given it one or two blows with his hammer, to strike off a certain [nodule] that it had on its breast. But on the said day, that is the 13th, he began to work with determination and strength.”

  Hacking away at an upright column more than three times the height of an average man posed particular logistical problems. The massive block had already been raised to a vertical position by the Operai del Duomo before their initial inspection, but before he could begin to work, a scaffolding had to be erected to allow the artist to reach every part of the column with ease. Michelangelo began cutting away at the block with the subbia, a heavy, pointed tool made of iron that was used to rough out the principal masses, before employing the shorter blade known as the calcanguolo. By the time he reached for the gradina, the claw-toothed chisel whose marks are clearly visible in many of Michelangelo’s unfinished sculptures, the basic form of the statue was already emerging from the surrounding matrix like a bather rising from the tub.III It was with the gradina that the statue began to come to life, as muscle and sinew, protuberant bone, and supple flesh were defined by the caress of the iron blade wielded by a skilled hand. In the case of the David—and on every occasion when he was actually able to complete the work—the forms would be refined further with rounded files and straight rasps, before receiving the final polish with pumice stones.