“that Michelangelo of stupendous fame”: Campbell, “Fare un Cosa Morta Parer Viva,” 597.
“I record that today”: Michelangelo, Letters, I, 272.
“my much beloved and honored kinsman”: Bull, Michelangelo: A Biography, 156.
“once came to visit me in Rome”: Michelangelo, Letters, II, 86.
“This is an age of gold”: Schevill, History of Florence, 416.
“Giorgio, if I have anything of the good in my brain”: Vasari, Lives, II, 643.
“[T]he heavens and his nature”: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 40–41.
“[H]is father and his uncles”: Ibid., 41.
“he has always desired to cultivate the arts”: Ibid., 169.
“The most blessed Ruler of the Universe”: Vasari, Le Vite de ’ Più Eccellenti Architetti, Pittori, et Scultori Italiani da Cimabue Insino a’ Tempi Nostri, 880.
“received absolutely no assistance from him”: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 42, 45.
“he counterfeited sheets”: Vasari, Lives, II, 646.
“dismayed that a child knew more than he”: Vasari, Le Vite, 547.
“showing the excellence of a mere lad”: Vasari, Lives, II, 645.
“Given the great love he had for both painting”: Vasari, Le Vite, 882–83.
“I cannot find any master who satisfies me”: Hirst, Michelangelo Buonarroti, 273.
One day, [Michelangelo] was examining: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 12.
“lamenting that his son would be led astray”: Ibid., 48.
“I have never practiced any profession”: Ibid., 49.
“not only Michelangelo”: Ibid., 50.
“a good room in his own house”: Ibid., 48.
“When he speaks of you”: Michelangelo, Carteggio, II, cdlxxvii, October 27, 1520, 253.
“how much wrong he had done to his nature”: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 51.
“very difficult . . . demand[ing] great skill”: Vasari, On Technique, 156.
“[I]t seems to me that painting may be held good”: Michelangelo, Letters, II, no. 280, 75.
“you work with your mind”: Hughes, Michelangelo, 266.
“It is said that Torrigiano”: Vasari, Lives, II, 648–49.
“Buonarroti and I used to go as boys”: Cellini, Vita, 31.
“I know I am ugly”: Borolsky, Michelangelo’s Nose, 20.
“I pray my body”: Michelangelo, Rime e Lettere, 176.
So accustomed am I to sin: Ibid., 95.
[T]he master’s constitution was very sound: Vasari, Lives, II, 746–47.
“Before dressing a man we first draw him nude”: Alberti, On Painting, 73.
“turned his stomach”: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 157.
“[A]ll sciences are vain and full of errors”: Leonardo, Paragone, I, 26–27.
“O Florence, O Florence”: Ridolfi, Life of Girolamo Savonarola, 80.
“I want to give you some good advice”: Campbell, “Fare un Cosa Morta Parer Viva,” 606–7.
“such a partisan of that sect”: Vasari, Le Vite, 477.
“There was made on the Piazza de ’ Signori”: Landucci, Diary, 130–31.
“Whoever was more religious”: Michelangelo, Letters, II, liii.
I want to want, O Lord: Michelangelo, Rime e Lettere, 149.
“I shall spill flood waters”: Martines, Fire in the City, 94.
“his hair stand on end”: Ibid.
“[I]t is known to all Italy”: Pastor, History of the Popes, VI, 7.
“do as you would in the case of the plague”: Michelangelo, Carteggio, I, 135.
“a god of Love”: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 60.
“If you can manage”: Ibid.
“he admired them for the excellence”: Vasari, Lives, II, 646.
“being made a fool”: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 60–61.
“he did not recognize the value of the work”: Vasari, Lives, II, 651.
“without a peer among the works”: Michelangelo, Letters, I, xxx.
“Now this event brought so much reputation”: Vasari, Lives, II, 651.
II. PIETÀ
“You may turn all the pages of history”: Bracciolini, “The Ruins of Rome”, in The Portable Renaissance Reader, 380–81.
“that sink of all iniquities”: Ross, Lives of the Early Medici, 333.
“[E]very evening”: Machiavelli et al., Machiavelli and His Friends: Their Personal Correspondence, 38.
“If there is a hell”: Scotti, Basilica, 147.
“These are the days of the Antichrist”: Pastor, History of the Popes, VI, 114.
“Flee from Rome”: Ibid., 13.
“Here one sees chalices”: Michelangelo, Rime e Lettere, 75–76.
“the widest field for a man”: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 61.
“the Cardinal di San Giorgio understood little”: Ibid., 62.
Magnificent Lorenzo, etc: Michelangelo, Rime e Lettere, 307–8.
“a Roman gentleman of good understanding”: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 62.
“I have not yet been able to settle”: Michelangelo, Letters, I, 4.
“He has also loved the beauty of the human body”: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 166–67.
“[I]t was a strange place and time”: Castiglione, The Book of the Courtier, 248.
“that if I were but to see him”: Michelangelo, Letters, I, 186.
“You are quite wrong”: Ibid., xlvii.
“not to go out at night”: Michelangelo, Carteggio, II, 337.
“[a]lthough I have very little money”: Michelangelo, Letters, I, 5.
“You must realize”: Michelangelo, Carteggio, I, 4.
“It often happens that the rich”: Alberti, On Painting, 89–90.
Let it be noted and made manifest: Michelangelo, Contratti, I, 5.
“Sculptors, when they wish to make a figure in marble”: Vasari, On Technique, 148.
“white and without any veins”: Hirst, “Michelangelo, Carrara, and the Marble for the Cardinal’s Pietà,” Burlington Magazine, 154.
We have recently agreed: Bull, Michelangelo: A Biography, 39.
“As to the marbles”: Michelangelo, Rime e Lettere, 417.
“as beautiful”: Hirst, “Michelangelo, Carrara, and the Marble for the Cardinal’s Pietà,” 156.
“By sculpture I mean”: Michelangelo, Letters, II, 75.
Just as by removing: Michelangelo, Rime e Lettere, 198–99.
The greatest artist has no concept: Michelangelo, Rime e Lettere, 196–97.
“[O]nce our souls leave this prison”: Heiser, Prisci Theologi, 84.
[I]n a quarter of an hour: Bull, Michelangelo: A Biography, 325.
“he acquired very great fame”: Vasari, Le Vite, 886.
“gained great fame”: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 67.
“Virgin mother, daughter of thy Son”: Hartt and Finn, Michelangelo’s Three Pietàs, 29.
“[I]t derives from that inventor of obscenities”: Wang, “Michelangelo’s Signature,” Sixteenth Century Journal, vol. 35, no. 2 (2004): 469.
“Do you not know”: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 65.
“At Vespers”: Ziegler, Sculpture of Compassion, 39.
Such were Michelangelo’s love and zeal: Vasari, Lives, II, 652.
I should like to be accepted: Goffen, Renaissance Rivals, 114.
“Giovanni carved it”: Wang, “Michelangelo’s Signature,” 463.
“Antonio Pollaiuolo, famous in gold”: Wang, “Michelangelo’s Signature,” 463.
It was the wont of the finest spirits: Vasari, Lives, I, 13.
O empty glory of human powers!: Dante, Purgatory, 147.
III. THE GIANT
Michelangelum Lodovici Bonarroti: Michelangelo, Contratti, iv, 12.
“You say”: Donato, “Hercules and David in the Early Decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. 54 (1991): 95.
“From Florence”: Vasari,
Le Vite, 886.
“Buonarroto tells me”: Michelangelo, Carteggio, I, 9.
“Ascanio, rich man”: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 167.
It seems to you that I am unhappy: Michelangelo, Carteggio, I, 7.
“declaring that Michelangelum”: Michelangelo, Contratti, 12.
“they are to be of greater quality”: Michelangelo, Contratti, 8–9.
“men and women”: Vasari, Lives, I, 635.
“an enclosure of planks and masonry”: Vasari, Lives, II, 654.
“Michelangelo began to work”: Gill, Il Gigante, 226.
like a bather rising from the tub: a sculptor can profit by the simple expedient of a wax model and a pail of water: “Let the artist proceed to carve out the figure from these measurements, transferring them to the marble from the model, so that measuring the marble and the model in proportion he gradually chisels away the stone till the figure thus measured time after time, issues forth from the marble, in the same manner that one would lift a wax figure out of a pail of water, evenly and in a horizontal position. First would appear the body, the head, and the knees, the figure gradually revealing itself as it is raised upwards, till there would come into view the relief more than half completed and finally the roundness of the whole.” [Vasari on Technique, no. 48, p. 151.] Such a technique would have been helpful in visualizing the form emerging from the block, but on the evidence of his unfinished sculptures, Michelangelo appears to have worked from more than one plane.
“a very mechanical exercise”: Leonardo, Paragone, 95.
“was not so skillful”: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 68.
“had been badly blocked”: Vasari, Le Vite, 886.
Michelangelo’s bronze: Not everyone agrees that the drawing is of the lost bronze David. Saul Levine believes that it represents Michelangelo’s first thoughts for the marble statue. He sets out his argument in “Michelangelo’s Marble ‘David’ and the Lost Bronze ‘David’: The Drawings” in Artibus et Historiae, vol. V, no. 9 (1984): 91–120. In truth, despite the obvious differences between the drawing and the famous David, there are also notable differences between the drawing and what we know of the bronze statue.
“Withdraw into yourself”: Seymour, Michelangelo’s David, 15.
It happened at this time: Vasari, Lives, II, 654.
“The victor is”: Sperling, “Donatello’s Bronze ‘David’ and the Demands of Medici Politics,” Burlington Magazine, 219.
“To those who fight bravely”: Gill, Il Gigante, 235.
“to be placed at a great height”: Vasari, On Technique, 145.
“Seeing that the statue of David”: Goffen, Renaissance Rivals, 124.
“it was made to be placed”: Parks, “The Placement of Michelangelo’s David: A Review of the Documents,” 560.
“I advise that”: Levine, “The Location of Michelangelo’s David: The Meeting of January 25, 1504,” Art Bulletin, 44.
“I believe that he who made it”: Ibid., 43.
“because Judith is a deadly sign”: Ibid., 36.
“Piero Son of Cosimo Medici”: Ibid., 38.
“would here be most highly regarded”: Ibid., 40.
“where some wretch”: Ibid., 39.
[t]he marble giant was taken out: Landucci, Diary, 213–14.
“It is most foolish”: Donato, “Hercules and David in the Early Decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio,” 94.
“O highest and most wonderful felicity of man!”: Pico della Mirandola, “The Dignity of Man,” in The Portable Renaissance Reader, 478.
“Neither an established place”: Ibid.
“each [in] a white waistcoat”: Landucci, Diary, 218.
“beautiful contours”: Vasari, Lives, II, 655.
“defend her [Florence] valiantly”: Vasari, Lives, II, 654.
“the famous painters and sculptors”: Vitruvius, Ten Books on Architecture, 72.
“the eye must give final judgment”: Vasari, On Technique, 146.
“celestial”: Vasari, Lives, I, 625.
“[S]o great was his genius”: Vasari, Lives, I, 625.
“This man will never do anything”: Bull, Michelangelo: A Biography, 117.
Leonardo . . . was walking by: Goffen, Renaissance Rivals, 148.
“[T]he painter sits in front of his work”: Leonardo, Paragone, 95.
“the beastly madness of war”: Unger, Machiavelli: A Biography, 151.
“[R]age, fury, and revenge”: Vasari, Lives, I, 637.
“Leonardo da Vinci”: Goffen, Renaissance Rivals, 155.
“enacted in the palace”: Unger, Machiavelli: A Biography, 151.
“in competition with Leonardo”: Vasari, Lives, II, 657.
“The reason [Raphael]”: Vasari, Lives, I, 712–13.
“The bearer of this”: Jones and Penny, Raphael, 5.
“with natural sweetness”: Vasari, Lives, I, 710.
“On Friday, 6 June 1505”: Goffen, Renaissance Rivals, 154–55.
[W]hen he sent for me from Florence: Michelangelo, Letters, I, 148.
“a light to all those”: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 85.
“preserved with the greatest care”: Ibid.
“Rome, once queen of the world”: Klaczko, Rome and the Renaissance, 148.
IV. CREATION
It is almost impossible to describe: Pastor, History of the Popes, VI, 214.
“We have a pope”: Bull, Michelangelo: A Biography, 63.
“[H]e had gained the reputation”: Guicciardini, History of Italy, 172.
“infinite vexations”: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 107.
“the tragedy of the tomb”: Ibid., 107.
“mirror of all Italy”: Michelangelo, Letters, I, xxx.
“a very merry and likable fellow”: Vasari, Le Vite, 577.
“I think I shall demolish this paradise”: Bruschi, Bramante, 115.
“which in beauty and magnificence”: Vasari, Lives, II, 658.
“[A]gain and again”: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 73.
“As to my affairs here”: Michelangelo, Letters, I, 11.
I learn from a letter of yours: Michelangelo, Letters, I, 13.
“One cannot count upon him”: Pastor, History of the Popes, VI, 214.
“[f]ear as well as envy”: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 73.
“You may tell the Pope”: Ibid., 80.
“But overtaking him”: Ibid., 81.
“that his good and faithful service”: Ibid.
Michelangelo, the sculptor: Scotti, Basilica, 64.
Giuliano, I understand: Michelangelo, Carteggio, I, 14.
“by fair means or force”: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 81.
Dearest, almost as a brother: Michelangelo, Carteggio, I, 16.
“You have braved the Pope”: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 82.
“[l]eaving S. Peter’s chair”: Klaczko, Rome and the Renaissance, 47.
“Michelangelo is so frightened”: de Tolnay, Youth of Michelangelo, 37.
“The bearer is the sculptor Michelangelo”: Bull, Michelangelo: A Biography, 73–74.
“I was forced to go there”: Michelangelo, Letters, I, 148.
“he had not erred maliciously”: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 86.
“[O]n Friday afternoon”: Michelangelo, Letters, I, 21.
“What! a book?”: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 87.
“[S]ince I have been here”: Michelangelo, Letters, I, 38.
“I am living in a mean room”: Michelangelo, Letters, I, 19.
“Lapo I threw out”: Michelangelo, Carteggio, I, 22.
“Everyone here is smothered in armor”: Michelangelo, Letters, I, 34.
“[L]et it suffice that the thing has turned out badly”: Michelangelo, Letters, I, 35.
“could have turned out better”: Michelangelo, Letters, I, 37.
“To me it seems like a thousand years”: Michelangelo, Letters, I, 41.
From whom do you flee: Hirst, Michelangelo: The Achievement of Fame
, 82.
“peace and quiet”: de Tolnay, Youth of Michelangelo, 41.
After I installed the figure: Michelangelo, Rime e Lettere, 442–43.
“It would please me”: Alberti, On Painting, 90.
“a more formidable task”: Vasari, On Technique, 216.
“which passeth all understanding”: Philippians 4:7.
“I record how today”: Michelangelo, Ricordi, 1–2.
“[W]hen they have come here”: Michelangelo, Ricordi, 1.
“in any case I will come”: Michelangelo, Carteggio, I, 64–65.
“[S]eeing how their work”: Vasari, Le Vite, 892–93.
“been hired to design certain schemes”: Michelangelo, Carteggio, I, 66.
“Of all the methods that painters employ”: Vasari, On Technique, 221.
“There is needed a hand”: Vasari, On Technique, 221.
“In this manner it seemed possible”: Vasari, Lives, II, 665.
“I’ve already got myself a goiter”: Goffen, Renaissance Rivals, 218.
“I have already told your Holiness”: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 100.
“made [Michelangelo] proceed”: Ibid.
“Your Michelangelo”: Michelangelo, Letters, I, 45.
“I am still in a bind”: Michelangelo, Carteggio, I, 88.
“Here, I am ill content”: Michelangelo, Ibid., 91.
“determined to demonstrate”: Vasari, Lives, II, 666.
“a vehement nature”: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 103.
refused him entry: See Vasari, Lives, II, 667. Condivi, by contrast, insists that Michelangelo was happy to show him the work in progress. (See Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 103.) It is likely that both characterizations are accurate and reflect different periods of time and Michelangelo’s unpredictable humors.
the pontiff threatened to have the artist tossed: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 104.
“[T]he sight of it”: Vasari, Lives, I, 723.
“He was not obliged like so many other geniuses”: Scotti, Basilica, 90.
“the virtues [who] were the prisoners of Death”: Condivi, Life of Michelangelo, 75.
“the provinces subjugated”: Vasari, Lives, II, 659.
“And thus, from the bad use of free will”: Augustine, City of God, 423.
“[W]e all hold confidently”: Dotson, “An Augustinian Interpretation of Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling, Part I,” The Art Bulletin, vol. 61, no. 2 (June, 1979), 224.
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