Michelangelo

by Miles J. Unger

  No doubt Michelangelo would have objected to collaborating with anyone on the project, but he felt a particular disdain for Baccio. He accused the architect of consorting with undesirables, a charge against which Baccio defended himself by telling Michelangelo’s brother “that he never thought of becoming encumbered with Raphael of Urbino, and that he was his mortal enemy.” This admission, however, was not enough to mollify Michelangelo, whose antipathy was professional as well as personal. Despite (or perhaps because of) Baccio’s vastly greater experience as a builder, Michelangelo openly criticized his partner’s work, describing the gallery he had designed for the base of Brunelleschi’s famous dome on the Cathedral as “a cage for crickets” and making “such a clamor that the work was stopped.”X

  In the end, Michelangelo reluctantly agreed to work with Baccio, but only if it was understood that the architect was to be regarded merely as the junior partner. Even when these conditions were met—conditions which must have been humiliating for the older man—Michelangelo continued to carp. “I came to Florence to see the model that Baccio finished,” Michelangelo wrote to Buoninsegni in March, 1517,

  and it was as I expected . . . a childish thing. I am leaving tomorrow and returning to Ferrara and have arranged with la Grassa [a stone mason from Settignano] to make the clay model according to the design, and to send it to you. He tells me he will make one that’s suitable. I do not know how it will turn out. I believe, in the end, I will have to do it myself. . . . I cannot do otherwise.

  This last statement—“I will have to do it myself . . . I cannot do otherwise”—sums up Michelangelo’s approach to every project he was involved with. The flip side of his faith in his own powers was his assumption that no one else was up to the job. His insistence on controlling every aspect of his work was a source of his greatness, but it often led to disappointment when the magnificent visions he conjured surpassed the ability of any one man to bring them to fruition.

  Despite this less-than-auspicious beginning, the pope and the cardinal agreed to proceed on Michelangelo’s terms. The contract laid out a schedule based more in hope than on reason, stipulating he was to complete the façade in eight years, for a total cost of 40,000 ducats. In May all seemed to be on track. “I am eager to tackle this work of the façade of San Lorenzo, whether it be the architecture or the sculpture, so that it becomes a mirror for all of Italy,” Michelangelo wrote Buoninsegni, evidently warming to the task. To which Buoninsegni replied with equal enthusiasm: “As to your saying how eager you are for this undertaking, they [the pope and the cardinal] are well pleased.”

  But like Julius’s tomb, this project soon ran into trouble. Michelangelo had taken a typically audacious approach, “not accept[ing] anyone beyond himself as his guide or superior in the architecture of such a work.” But, Vasari continues in one of his rare criticisms of his idol, “this refusal of assistance was the reason that neither he nor any other executed the work, and that those masters returned in despair to their customary pursuits.”

  In December, Michelangelo traveled to Rome to present his model to Leo and Cardinal Giulio. What Michelangelo had in mind was a work of enormous ambition and startling originality, an elaborate architectural screen providing a home for more than twenty statues, including six over life-size seated figures in bronze above the main door, and seven low-relief marbles. Seamlessly integrating architectural and sculptural elements, the façade expanded on ideas already present in Julius’s tomb. In many ways it was a throwback to the age of the great Gothic cathedrals, when sculpture formed an integral part of the architecture but, in contrast to those earlier masterpieces, Michelangelo’s statues would not be absorbed within the fabric of the building—stiff, columnar figures that conformed to the geometry of the structure—but rather fully independent forms stressing the organic integrity and expressive range of the human body.

  Domenico Buoninsegni reported happily that “the Pope and the Monsignore [Giulio] viewed the model and they expressed themselves as well pleased and satisfied. . . . I heard no criticism, except that it was said that the difficulties have multiplied to an extent that you will never finish it in your lifetime, which in truth is but a slight criticism.” Of course, this was more than a slight criticism; Michelangelo’s Medici patrons had put their finger on the crux of the problem, though, typically, they failed to act on their insight.

  Matters were not helped by Michelangelo’s habit of alienating those who could have shared the burden of creating the dozens of statues he had in mind. One of those he managed to offend was an old friend, the sculptor Jacopo Sansovino, who believed Michelangelo had talked the pope out of giving him the job of modeling the relief panels. “Not having been able to speak with you before your departure, I am letting you know what I think of you,” he wrote Michelangelo. “[Y]ou measure everyone using your own yardstick, and it matters nothing to you whether there are contracts or trust, and every hour you say yes or no as it suits you or works to your benefit. . . . I did not yet realize that you never do well by anyone, and that, beginning with me, to expect otherwise would be to expect that water would not drown you.”

  Given the atmosphere of mutual recrimination, the project was probably doomed from the start. Decades later, yet another rival of Michelangelo ascribed the failure entirely to Michelangelo’s difficult personality. “[T]he reason [Michelangelo] never supplied any of those statues [for the façade],” wrote Baccio Bandinelli, “was only because he never wanted help from anyone, so as not to set up any masters. . . .”

  But it is unfair to pin the failure solely on the artist. Mismanagement and political meddling from Rome were as much to blame for the fiasco as Michelangelo’s inability to work with others. An already daunting task was made infinitely more difficult when Leo ordered him to obtain most of the marble for the façade from the quarries of Pietrasanta, rather than Carrara, where he had developed a good working relationship with the local artisans.XI Unlike Carrara, Pietrasanta lacked the basic infrastructure and trained workforce needed to get the marble out of the mountains and down to the barges, where they could be transported to Florence. “I have undertaken to rouse the dead,” he grumbled, “if I want to subdue these mountains and bring art to this place.” But Pietrasanta had the great virtue, as far as Pope Leo was concerned, of being located in Florentine territory; in demanding that Michelangelo shift to the new site, he was acting like a politician looking out for his constituents. Unfortunately, Florence ’s gain was Carrara’s loss, and the marquis, Alberico Malaspina, chose to treat Michelangelo’s actions as a personal betrayal, fomenting such discontent among the longshoremen that they refused to load the blocks onto the boats.XII “The barges I hired at Pisa never arrived,” Michelangelo groaned. “I think I’ve been cheated, and so it is with all my affairs. I curse a thousand times the day I left Carrara. This has been the ruin of me.”

  • • •

  One result of the San Lorenzo commission was that after years of empty promises to his father, Michelangelo was finally able to return home. By 1515 he was already spending considerable time in Carrara, and paying frequent visits to his family in nearby Florence. In the early months of 1517 he planted his roots once more in native soil. He even made arrangements to have the blocks for Julius’s tomb shipped to Florence and distributed to the three workshops that had been placed at his disposal.

  Much as he loved his native land, however, returning home was a mixed blessing, since the tenderness he felt for his family was inversely proportional to their proximity. A constant source of irritation was the way ducats disappeared from his bank accounts as his father helped himself liberally to his son’s earnings and his brothers dreamt up new schemes for getting rich without doing any real work. In 1514, Michelangelo finally lent Buonarroto 1,000 ducats to purchase the woolen shop they had been discussing for years, but even this generosity came with a reproach for “Your Ingratitude” and a demand that he repay him “in money or in kind” within ten years.XIII Relations between M
ichelangelo and his father were particularly tense as the two men eyed each other warily across the dinner table. The inevitable explosion came in the fall of 1521 when Lodovico, protesting a perceived insult, ostentatiously stormed out of the house and went to live in exile on his farm in Settignano. Instead of confronting Michelangelo directly, Lodovico decided to slander him in the streets and squares of Florence. Since Michelangelo was now a famous man, the public was more than happy to enjoy even this faint whiff of scandal. “Dearest father,” Michelangelo wrote in evident distress,

  I was amazed at your behavior the other day, when I did not find you at home, and now, hearing that you complain of me and say that I threw you out, I’m even more surprised; for I’m certain that, from the day I was born until now, I never wished to do anything, neither small nor big, that was to your disadvantage, and always, every burden that I bore I bore for the love of you. And since I’ve returned to Florence from Rome, you know that I’ve always cared for you, and said that all I had was yours. . . . Don’t you see how bad you’ve made me look, saying that I’ve thrown you out? Now I’ve had it up to here, what with my other worries and every other thing! All of which I’ve done for love of you. See how you repay me! So have it your way. I’ll try to pretend I’ve tossed you and that I’ve always treated you shamefully, and so just as if it were true I’ll ask your forgiveness. Act as if you’re pardoning your son who has always wished you every ill in this world. And so, again, I ask you to pardon me, like the wretch I am, and not to spread gossip about me as if I had thrown you out, because it matters to me more than you could know. I am, after all, still your son!

  There is something poignant about Michelangelo’s continual, but ultimately futile, struggle to earn Lodovico’s approval. “I have never exerted myself but for him,” he told his brother, knowing how little his efforts were appreciated, “in order to help him in his need, as long as he lives.” Loyalty bound father and son, but expressions of affection were less common than bitter quarrels that pointed to unresolved tensions. Even in a society where sons were expected to treat their fathers with reverence, Lodovico’s sense of entitlement seems excessive. On rare occasions his father’s ingratitude would provoke an angry outburst, but for the most part Michelangelo showed him a deference he did little to merit. In fact, Michelangelo’s constant carping over the deficiencies of his colleagues, his jealousy, his accusations that they were incompetent, disloyal, or ungrateful, are reminiscent of the charges his father often threw in his face, as if he was compelled to reproduce the most unpleasant aspects of the paternal hearth in the workplace.

  What held the Buonarroti clan together was the belief that their fates were intertwined. The behavior of any one of them affected all, each triumph redounding to their credit and each scandal besmirching their collective name. Michelangelo’s brothers basked in his reflected glory, while he did his best to make sure they did not sink so low as to bring him shame. Both he and his father were united by a mutual interest in promoting the Buonarroti name, but pushed apart by a stiff-necked pride. Both were cast from the same mold, touchy and quick to take offense. It was not a formula calculated to promote familial bliss.

  Tensions in the Buonarroti household were exacerbated by Michelangelo’s professional disappointments. In March 1520 work on the façade of San Lorenzo was suddenly suspended. Dismayed by this unexpected news, Michelangelo wrote a long and bitter letter to an unknown correspondent in which he enumerated the many sacrifices he had made for the sake of the pope and pointed out how little he ’d received in return: “I am not charging for the wooden model I made, which I sent to Rome; I’m not charging for the three years I’ve wasted on this project; I am not charging for the fact that I’ve been ruined on account of San Lorenzo; I am not charging for the great insult of having me brought here to take charge of the façade and then having it taken from me—and I still do not know why.”

  The reasons for the cancellation have never been fully explained. Vasari suggests it was the fault of a Roman cabal led by Domenico Buoninsegni, who turned on Michelangelo when he would not participate in a scheme to divert papal funds into his own pocket. “Michelangelo refused,” Vasari claimed, “not consenting that his genius should be employed in defrauding the Pope, and Domenico conceived such hatred against him that he went about ever afterwards opposing his undertakings, in order to annoy and humiliate him, but this he did covertly. He thus contrived to have the façade discontinued. . . .”

  While peculation was endemic in the Vatican bureaucracy and it is clear that Michelangelo and Buoninsegni had some sort of falling out, the story is too similar to the one used to explain Bramante ’s antipathy to be entirely convincing.XIV In fact, the termination of the project probably had more to do with the precarious state of papal finances and frustration over the slow pace of progress. Leo was currently involved in various costly military campaigns and heavily invested in the ongoing program to rebuild St. Peter’s. Like Julius, he promoted the sale of indulgences across Europe to help offset his huge expenditures, but these were never enough to balance the books. In addition, a large-scale project to pave the floor of the Duomo in Florence demanded huge quantities of marble. Given the difficulties with the quarry at Pietrasanta, there was probably not enough stone to go around.

  In any case, the façade was not actually abandoned, merely postponed. Cardinal Giulio had decided to put it on hold so he could concentrate his attention and his resources on another enterprise, one that now seemed more urgent than the costly and troublesome façade. In March 1516, Giuliano de ’ Medici—Pope Leo’s brother and the youngest son of Lorenzo Il Magnifico—died, probably from the effects of syphilis; three years later he was joined by his nephew, Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, at the age of twenty-seven. Neither man lived up to the high standards set by his illustrious forebears, but their early deaths were a severe blow to the family’s dynastic ambitions, since this meant that the two surviving male descendants of Cosimo, pater patriae, were both clerics—Pope Leo and Cardinal Giulio—prohibited from passing down their titles to legitimate heirs.XV

  Even before these twin disasters, plans were under way to build a new sacristy at the northwest corner of San Lorenzo to complement the old, where the Medici patriarch Giovanni de ’ Bicci was entombed with his wife and grandsons. This second mortuary chapel was intended to provide the final resting place for Lorenzo and Giuliano, fathers of Pope Leo and Cardinal Giulio respectively; the unexpected deaths of the two dukes merely increased the urgency of bringing this project to a speedy conclusion.

  From the beginning Michelangelo was the obvious choice to take charge of the important commission. Construction began almost immediately after work on the façade was suspended, but Michelangelo, sulking in his tent like Achilles, held out until November. For eight months while stonemasons put up the exterior walls, the cardinal used his considerable persuasive powers on the artist, knowing that sooner or later he ’d be forced to relent. No matter how upset he was over the capriciousness of his masters, Michelangelo was now entirely dependent on the Medici for the fulfillment of his own ambitions.

  Brunelleschi, Basilica of San Lorenzo, early fifteenth century.

  III. TEMPLE OF MELANCHOLY

  The decision by the Medici to suspend work on the façade of San Lorenzo and devote their energies to constructing the family tomb was partly dictated by circumstance, but it also marks an important shift in their relationship to the people of Florence. Though San Lorenzo held a special place in the hearts of the Medici family, it was also an important religious center for the entire Florentine community. When they committed themselves to refurbishing the public face of the church, the Medici were also demonstrating a commitment to their compatriots, following the age-old practice of promoting private interests through civic patronage. Of course, a prominent family was expected to patronize public projects and private spaces; each was a legitimate way to express patriotism and fulfill one ’s pious duty. After all, in endowing a second chapel at Sa
n Lorenzo, the Medici were only doing in more spectacular fashion what the Pazzi had already done at Santa Croce, the Tornabuoni at Santa Maria Novella, and the Sassetti at Santa Trinità.

  But for the family that exerted an unprecedented control over the institutions of religious and political life, it signaled shifting priorities. By devoting their resources to a private mortuary chapel, the Medici made it clear to the people of Florence that they no longer felt the need to woo them with lavish displays. They were turning inward, contemplating their relations with the Almighty rather than engaging with their fellow citizens. In the icy grandeur of the New Sacristy we can feel the lifeblood of the ancient republic ebbing away. It is telling that the two figures whose untimely deaths spurred the building of the mausoleum were the first of the Medici to claim the exalted title of duke.XVI Another member of the family was currently pope, while his cousin was not only one of the most prominent members of the Sacred College but also the Archbishop of Florence. The civic virtues Michelangelo himself proclaimed so stirringly in the David have retreated or disappeared altogether: the locus of meaning has moved from the public square to the intimate family chapel; the struggle for liberty in the here and now has been abandoned as idealized figures now fix their stony gaze on eternity; the fighter lays down his arms to reinvent himself as a saint or a philosopher.