Michelangelo

Master of Multiple Media

(Click on the image to zoom in.)
 

If Michelangelo's name pops up during an intellectual conversation, it's a good bet that someone will wax enthusiastic about the way a mere (ptui) stonecutter who without training in painting could singlehandedly render the fresco masterpieces in the Sistine Chapel. Surely such an achievement could only be through direct divine intervention.

Weeeeheeeelllllll, hold on there, Pilgrims. You see there's always going to be a problem when you start confusing the Renaissance artistic maestro Michelangelo Buonarroti with the American actor Charlton Heston.

First of all we must say it out loud:

Charlton Heston

was

NOT

Michelangelo!

True it was Charlton Heston who was carving statutes in the motion picture The Agony and the Ecstacy when Rex Harrison summoned him to the movie set mock-up of the Sistine Chapel. As the cameras rolled, Charlton ranted that he was a sculptor not a painter. If Rex wants paintings, go to Tomas Milian who played Raphael.

Cappella Sistina
Michelangelo
Creative Commons, Public Domain
(Released by Qypchak)

Click on Images to Open in New Windows.

We repeat. That was Charlton Heston.

And Michelangelo....?

In 1504 the gonfaloniere (i. e. head honcho) of Florence, Piero Soderini, wanted a mural commemorating the Battle of Cascina on a wall in the city hall, the Palazzo Vecchio. So he hired one of the best artists in town to do the painting. That was Michelangelo.

Hah????!!!!????

(To quote Shakespeare.)

Did we hear aright?

Did you say

that

Michelangelo

was

Working

on a

FRESCO

in

Florence

when

Pope Julius

summoned him to

Rome?

Yep, and we repeat. Michelangelo was working on a fresco when Pope Julius summoned him to Rome.

Indeed. (Also Shakespeare.) But first things first.

Just how do you pronounce Michelangelo's name, for crying out loud?

Well, most English speakers say mike-el-AN-jell-oh. But the proper Italian is more like meek-el-AHN-jell-oh where the EE in meek is spoken quickly. His last name Buonarroti is pronounced bwohn-ar-RAH-tee.

Buonorrati we must emphasize is a proper last name, something not everyone had in the 1500's. For instance, Michelangelo's near contemporary Leonardo da Vinci did not have a proper last name. Leonardo's - quote - "last name" - unquote - "Da Vinci" simply means "from Vinci".

But how, we ask, was it possible for some people to have last names and others not? That seems strange. And just how did Michelangelo end up with a family name? We've often wondered about this.

No doubt you have, as Captain Mephisto said to Sidney Brand. It's very simple really.

The complexity of names tends to evolve based on the size of the communities and the mobility of the people. In the earliest times there weren't many people around and people didn't wander very far from their homes. Cavemen and cavewomen might have only one name: Oogh, Brogh, Khog, Ur, or Umph. So one name would do fine, thank you.

But the population grew and travel increased. And while you went from one village to another, you might bump into someone with the same name. So for more exact identification you tacked a clarifier afterwards. It might be your dad's or granddad's name (John's son = Johnson, Son of Sween = MacSween, Grandson of Reilly = O'Reilly), a job (Farmer, Smith, Miller, Fisher), or even a personal characteristic or attribute (Grey, Small, White, Red, Giant, Small, Large), perhaps somewhat humorous or sarcastic (Smiley, Anger, Louder).

By the time the Romans had taken over, towns were large enough and people were mobile enough that multiple names had become the rule. Roman citizens - the men, that is - had three names - the praenomen, nomen and cognomen.

The praenomen was the personal name - what we call the "first" name. These were names like Gaius, Marcus, and Tiberius. In Rome there weren't too many praenomina. In fact, there were so few praenomina that they were rarely written out. Instead the initial was enough. The praenomen was also something only intimates used. If someone who was not family or an extremely close friend used the name, it was considered an insult.

Although the nomen looks just like a middle name to us, it was for the identification of a broad multi-family group. The Romans called this group the gens and is sometimes translated as "tribe" or "clan". Today the nomen is sometimes mistaken as a first name. So you'll sometimes hear Julius Caesar humorously referred to as "Julius". But his full name was Gaius Julius Caesar and his mom - who lived well into her son's adulthood - called him Gaius.

The third Roman name, the cognomen, was a surname in the modern sense and was used to indicate the immediate family within the gens. Professional acquaintances and even a lot of their friends would address men by "last names", a custom that endured into the 20th century. When Cicero wrote about Gaius Julius Caesar he would write "Caesar", when Honest Abe's friends spoke to him they called him "Lincoln", and when John Ronald Reuel Tolkien's friends addressed him they called him "Tolkien"¹.

In Rome the conventions used for naming the ladies varied over the centuries, but eventually they settled on only one name and that was the feminine form of their father's nomen. So the daughter of Gaius Julius Caesar was named Julia, and the daughter of Marcus Tullius Cicero was Tullia.

But what if the first daughter had sisters? For instance what would Tullia's sister be called?

Why, Tullia of course! And if Cicero and his wife had have had five daughters? Well, they would be named Tullia, Tullia, Tullia, Tullia, and Tullia.

To avoid confusion the Romans would often tack a number after the girls' names. So the first daughter might just be Tullia but if she then had a sister she would be called Tullia Prima. Then the second would be Tullia Secunda, the third Tullia Tertia, and on down the line. For brevity, the girls might just be addressed as Prima, Secunda, and Tertia.

Then after the quote - "Fall of Rome" - unquote - and the onset of the - quote - "Dark Ages" - unquote - the population dropped and extended travel became rare, particularly for the less well off. Again one name was fine: Alaric, Genevieve, Morcant, Erika, Godwin, Sigrid.

But those who were in charge and traveled the most there would still be more specific identification. So they began to tack on extra names or nicknames: Harold Godwinson, William Rufus, Henry Plantagenet. Sometimes the ladies also had an extra name, perhaps based on where they were from: Mary de Bohun, Elanor d'Aquitaine, Isabella de Valois, Elizabeth Woodville. By the mid-1400's what had been nicknames and clarifiers had become accepted as family names.

Michelangelo was born in 1475 in the town of Caprese about 40 miles southeast of Florence, where his dad, Ludovico Buonarroti, was the podesta or sort of the mayor. His mom, Francesca, was originally from Sienna.

Ludovico always maintained their family had connections to nobility and so merited their last name Buonarroti. Unfortunately historians haven't been able to confirm Ludovico's claim. But coming from a line of bankers, businessmen, and civic leaders the Buonarrotis might technically be considered fat cats and uppercrust and so merited a surname.

After Michelangelo was born, he was turned over to what was known as a wet-nurse. Although one popular informational website refers to this as a "nanny" that's not a completely accurate translation. But having the kids in their early years raised by a surrogate mother from a poorer family was typical for the higher class families. So Michelangelo's first memories were living with the family of a stone mason in Settignano (pronounced SET-in-YAH-noh). He always credited the bracing mountain air and the dust from the stones for giving him his healthy constitution.

Ludovico expected his kids to go into business such as the wool trade which was big in Florence. His four other sons, Lionardo, Buonarroto, Giovansimone, and Gismondo followed their dad's wishes but Michelangelo wanted to be an artist. Ludovico was most displeased but he realized his second son could be a stubborn cuss and finally agreed to let him pursue his artistic aspirations.

Artists didn't go to school - although in his pre-teen years Michelangelo did - and so when he was around fourteen, his dad had him join the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio. Domenico Ghirlandaio was the greatest fresco painter of the era.

What's this? [Measure for Measure, Act II, Scene II]

Did you say

that

Michelangelo

was

Apprenticed

to the

Greatest

Fresco

Painter

of

The Age?

Yes, that's true. And Michelangelo showed extraordinary ability in draftsmanship, copying almost exactly paintings of famous artists. His drawings are so accurate that they can literally be superimposed upon the originals.

So it's no surprise that Michelangelo's training - plus his talent - could produce some of the greatest paintings of all time. The real question is just where did he learn to be the world's greatest sculptor?

Well, to answer that question, we have to introduce the FFF. No we don't mean the Finest Family celebrated in the song of Oscar Brand. We mean the FFF - the First Family of Florence. That was the Medicis.

The Medici family (pronounced MED-ih-chee) were the leading bankers and the de facto if not always de jure rulers of Florence. They were what we would call oligarchs. That is, guys (and sometimes gals) that were so rich they could tell the politicians what to do.

By the late 1400's, the head of the Medicis - and hence of Florence - was Lorenzo di Piero de' Medici, also known as Lorenzo il Magnifico (i. e., the Magnificent). Sometimes his friends just called him "Il Magnifico".

The Casa Medici included not just the members of the family, but a lot of guests who stayed for long term visits. The visitors weren't just in-laws and relatives but included some of the most accomplished intellectuals of the day. Among the guests were philosophers (which included mathematicians and scientists) as well as artists, both painters and sculptors.

In his book The Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Architects, Painters, and Sculptors from Cimbaue Up to Our Own Times, Giorgio Vasari tells us that one of the sculptors living with Lorenzo was Bertoldo di Giovanni. Bertoldo had studied with who up til then was considered the greatest Renaissance sculptor, Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi, who everyone called Donatello.

As the sculptor in residence, Bertoldo was also what we'd call the curator of the Medici gardens which had lots of statues. These weren't just recent works but included ancient Roman sculptures that had been dug up over the years.

Lorenzo decided that his statues and paintings could be used to establish a school for the most promising young artists. So on Lorenzo's prodding, Bertoldo asked Ghirlandaio to send him his best students, particularly those who were interested in becoming sculptors. So Domenico tapped Michelangelo and Francesco Granacci who both moved into the Medici household.

Michelangelo began his sculpture studies by modeling in clay. Lorenzo saw that the kid had talent and suggested he try stone carving. Michelangelo - who Giorgio said never had touched a chisel in his life - got a block of marble and quickly copied a head of an antique sculpture of a faun.

Giorgio also said that Michelangelo had carved the statue to show the faun laughing. When Lorenzo saw the sculpture he joked that the teeth were too perfect. Someone as old as the faun wouldn't have such pristine choppers. So Michelangelo quickly redid the teeth to show them broken and rotted.

Lorenzo hadn't meant for Michelangelo to take him seriously but was nevertheless impressed both with the sculpture and the young man himself. So he asked Michelangelo's dad for permission to take his son into his household and raise him as one of his own children. Ludovico agreed readily. Not only was it an unmitigated honor and a great advantage for Michelagnelo's career, but you just didn't say no to Lorenzo the Magnificient.

Living with the Medicis, Michelangelo naturally became friends with Lorenzo's kids - particularly Lorenzo's #2 and #3 sons, Giovanni and Giuliano as well as their cousin Giulio, the son of Lorenzo's brother, who was also named Giuliano. Over the years his connections with the Medici family was both fruitful, lucrative, difficult, and at times terrifying.

It soon became evident that Michelangelo was going to be a top notch artist. Probably because of his experience in painting he first worked on reliefs rather than full three-dimensional statues. His earliest known artworks are the Madonna of the Stairs and the Battle of the Centaurs. The first is in what's called low relief and the latter is in high relief.

Of course, he didn't neglect drawing and painting. But he found that studying to be an artist could be hazardous to your health. Or at least it could if you got snooty.

Michelangelo was often rather harsh in his criticism of other artists, and once he razzed his fellow student Piero Torrigiano a bit too much. As Pietro himself later said:

When we were just kids, this Buonarroti and I would go into the Church of the Carmine to learn drawing in the Masaccio Chapel. It was Buonarroti's habit to bait everyone [lit. "catch birds"] who was drawing there. And one day when he was annoying me and the others with his jibes, I got more angry than usual and clenching my fist gave him such a blow on the nose that I felt the bone crush like a wafer under my knuckles, and this mark of mine he will carry with him to the grave.

Michelangelo's life of ease ended in 1492. No, it wasn't because Christopher Columbus discovered America. It was because Lorenzo the Magnificent died at only age 43. So Michelangelo went back to live with his dad who had fallen on hard times and was even having to bake his own bread. For two years one of the few commissions Michelangelo got was to make a snowman for the Medicis.

The Medicis definitely had more things to worry about than helping out a fledgling sculptor. Things had definitely started getting rocky. Lorenzo's oldest son, Piero - prophetically known as Piero the Unfortunate - had become head of the household and so became the ruler of Florence. Two years later the King of France, Charles VIII, claimed that he was also King of Naples and invaded Italy. But since he had to lead his army from the north, that meant he had to pass through Tuscany and so was fast approaching Florence.

Piero didn't want to join Charles outright and tick off the King of Naples. But neither did he want to actively oppose the King of France with 60,000 troops heading his way. So Piero hemmed and hawed about which side he was on. This wishy-washy stance didn't sit well with Charles who attacked Fivizzano which was in Florentine territory.

Quickly finding no one in Florence wanted a war with France, Piero went to visit Charles to beg his pardon and cave in to his demands. He also turned over a number of other cities in Tuscany to Charles, and this included Pisa whose famous tower was already leaning.

But then when Piero got back to Florence he found people were ticked off because he had caved in! Che cosa diamine? But worse, the citizens decided to throw the Medici's out on their ears. So in 1494 and ruling only a bit more than two years, Piero got the boot and headed to Venice and later - living up to his name - ended up drowning when he tried to cross the Garigliano River about forty miles northeast of Naples.

The Florentines decided to replace the Medici rule with a - quote - "republic" - unquote. Naturally there were government officials who were nominally in charge but the real leader was the Dominican priest Girolamo Savonarola. Giroloamo was a firebrand preacher who decided Florence's problems were caused by the Medicis promoting "vanities" like art, particularly art that was based on pagan mythology and that showed naked people.

Now at age 19 Michelangelo was afraid that both his avocation and being a buddy of the Medicis would make him persona non grata in Florence. Since the Medici kids had already skinned out, Michelangelo decided for him departure would also be the better part of valor.

Like Piero he headed to Venice and then on to Bologna. There he found a bit of work carving some small statues for a tomb. The remuneration, though, wasn't really enough to support himself. So it looked like he'd have to pull up stakes and move on again.

But soon word got back that his fears about his standing in Florence had been unwarranted. So he decided to return. Even if Michelangelo didn't object to having a theocracy disguised as a republican government - he was quite religious - he did see that Savonarola's guidelines were putting a squeeze on the art market. Now past his 20th birthday, Michelangelo decided to relocate to Rome.

So in 1496 Michelangelo was in the Eternal City. Opportunities were definitely better and one of the richer cardinals, Raffaele Riario, wanted a sculpture for his garden. So Michelangelo carved a larger-than-life statue of the Roman God of Wine, Bacchus, holding a cup and about to fall over backwards. The cardinal didn't think that was too suitable for someone of his piety, but Jacopo Galli, one of Ruffio's more secular friends, bought the statue instead.

The Bacchus is a pretty good statue - the free standing pose isn't something you whack out every day - and it attracted the attention of Jean de Bilhères, a Cardinal who was also the French ambassador. He asked Michelangelo to carve a sculpture for his future sepulchre.

This time the Cardinal certainly got his money's worth since Michelangelo carved his famous Pietà. The statue was first placed in the Santa Petronilla Chapel and eventually moved to St. Peters Basilica where it remains today.

The Pietà is arguably the best statue Michelangelo ever carved. In fact it was so good that some people didn't even think a young whippersnapper from Florence could have created it. The story from Vasari is that after Michelangelo heard someone attributing it to another sculptor, he snuck back and carved "Made by Michelangelo Buonarotti the Florentine" in Latin along Mary's sash.

Things were looking up and in 1501 Michelangelo got an order for 15 statues for the Cathedral in Sienna. This was quite an important commission and with the Pietà this would have cemented Michelangelo as one of the most important of the younger artists in Rome.

But after starting to work on the first three statues he suddenly returned to Florence. It seems the times had a-changed. In 1498 Savonarola had fallen foul of Pope Alexander VI primarily because the priest wouldn't join in the fight against the French who seemed intent on invading Italy. The Pope banned Savonarola from preaching sermons, but Savonarola ignored him. So then the Pope had Savonarola excommunicated.

As the word suggests people who have been excommunicated can't receive communion and an excommunicated priest can neither administer a church ritual nor exercise an act of spiritual authority. Alexander even said he might place the whole city of Florence under interdict which meant that no one could participate in church functions. The citizens were worried. Would the interdict also prohibit services like Christian burials? So as they did for the Medicis, the people rose in revolt, and in 1498 Savonarola and two of his supporters were taken prisoner, tried, hanged, and burned in the Piazza della Signoria, Florence's town square.

Savonarola had ruled only a little more than three years and the new republic was run by Piero Soderini in a much more art friendly manner. So Michelangelo set up a studio in Florence where he continued both with his sculpture and his painting. He was doing fairly well and in 1501 the city commissioned him to make a statue for the roof of the city's cathedral.

Although the Pietà is perhaps Michelangelo's most artistically impressive statue, certainly the David is the most famous. The story that Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci argued about who would get the block of stone is probably apocryphal but it is true that the stone had been laying around in the courtyard of the Opera del Duomo for a quarter of a century. It had been abandoned after the original sculptor found a flaw in the marble. The dimensions of the block were also awkward. It was tall and wide enough for turning into a colossal statue but had little depth and required a lot of planning and finesse for the David to emerge.

David - Pre-1873
A Bit Battered and Covered
(Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons)

The statue was completed in 1504. But when it came time to put the statue up on the buttress of the Cathedral the town fathers balked. Certainly hefting six tons of marble to the top of a building was not impossible for Renaissance engineers but doing so posed a real risk of damage both to the statue and the building. Then after - to quote one docudrama narrator - a "contentious meeting" where Leonardo da Vinci argued for shuffling the statue away under an awning (he didn't like Michelangelo at all), it was placed outside the Palazzo della Signoria.

We'll jump ahead a bit and mention how the David fared over the years. As time rolled on the Medicis kept coming back to Florence like bad pennies and by the 1520's they had re-established themselves as rulers. No more of that "republic" jazz, either They were in charge and what they said stood as law.

Still the Medicis had a tendency to tick people off. Worse, they showed little effectiveness when Charles V invaded Italy. No, this wasn't the King of France who lopped off a few years from his name. This Charles had been born in the Holland but he wasn't just Lord of the Netherlands. He was also the Archduke of Austria and the King of Spain to boot! But most of all, by wearing all of these hats at once, he was also the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire which was a somewhat fluid conglomeration of countries, principalities, and territories that is usually described as being neither holy nor Roman nor an empire.

But that wasn't enough! Now Charles, just like his namesake French counterpart, wanted to be King of Naples, for heaven's sake! So he invaded Italy and in 1527 some of his troops - which included both Protestant and Catholic soldiers - besieged and sacked Rome.

Estimates of the civilians killed was over 30,000 and Pope Clement VII - who was Michelangelo's childhood chum Giulio de Medici - survived only by barricading himself in the Mausoleum of Hadrian which had been renovated as the fortified Castel Sant'Angelo. Charles claimed the troops had acted without his orders but he never took action to stop them.

The fallout of such an invasion was felt in Florence. Naturally the citizens blamed the rulers and decided to have a few riots to drive the rapscallion Medicis out again. But as often happens in riots, stuff got thrown about, and during one mêlée a stone struck the left arm of the David breaking off the lower arm and hand.

At the time of the riot Giorgio Vasari was a kid and he was in his house near the Palazzo della Signoria when he saw the statue get smacked. Then once things simmered down he and his brother ran outside and gathered up the pieces. Later their dad helped restore the statue although as later photographs attest not to pristine condition.

Alas, the unclothed state of the David shocked! shocked! some of Florence's more delicate citizens and the offending part of the statue was tucked out of sight. Finally in 1873 the David was moved inside to the Accademia Gallery where it remains today in it's original uncovered state. In 1910, a full size replica (also sans fig leaf) was installed in the original spot.

The statue of David is probably the highest artistic example of the male nude. Of course, Michelangelo also rendered females in his art but the viewer will notice that when he painted or sculpted the ladies they are extremely sturdy, muscular in fact. They sometimes harken to how Leonardo da Vinci advised artists not to paint figures where

"... you would think you were looking at a sack of walnuts rather than the human form, or a bundle of radishes rather than the muscles of figures.

There might be a tendency to interpret Michelangelo's tendency as a tendency (as Edward Carson put it when he was questioning Oscar Wilde). But the simple truth is that because of the strict standards of separating the genders in Renaissance Italy, most of the models for artists were men and were usually chosen from the artists' students or assistants. Then the necessary feminine accoutrements would be added and so would often produce the typical Rosy the Riveter physique. In fact Norman Rockwell followed Michelangelo's practice when he used Michelangelo's painting from the Sistene Chapel of the prophet Isaiah - a guy - as the model for Rosy.

As far as Michelangelo's gender preference - a topic of interest today although it was really no one's business but his own - this is a bit difficult to decipher due to cultural differences in the 1500's compared to today. In the Renaissance it was less the preference that was forbidden as much as the physicality, and it wasn't improper for men to develop strong friendships with each other and to express themselves in ways that would raise eyebrows today. And one of Michelangelo's friendships was with the young nobleman Tommaso dei Cavalieri.

It's certainly true that Michelangelo wrote letters to his young friend that expressed passionate feelings. He also wrote poems for him and sent him drawings. Michelangelo's other friends were well aware of his feelings toward Tommaso and assured him the feelings were mutual. No one thought anything about it.

Another monkey wrench in classifying Michelangelo to fit today's are-or-aren't culture is he had a nearly equally passionate friendship with a woman. No, it wasn't the daughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent like in the movie. His special lady friend was Vittoria Colonna who like Tommaso came from an elite family. In fact Vittoria was the Marchioness of Pescara.

After her husband died in 1525, Vittoria moved into a convent. But she never took holy orders and scarcely sundered herself away. She and Michelangelo visited each other frequently and Michelangelo was her favorite dinner guest. As he did for Tommaso, Michelangelo also sent Vittoria poems (as she did for him) and he also presented her with drawings. But again it's extremely unlikely they had any kind of physical relationship.

Michelangelo had begun writing poetry when he was a kid. The famous writers in the Medici household encouraged him to keep up with his literary efforts. He himself looked a bit askance at his poems, calling them "foolish" although today's critics are far more charitable and consider him a poet of no little merit.

But Michelangelo thought of himself primarily an artist and yes, he preferred sculpture. Sometimes he would try to get out of painting commissions by saying that wasn't his art, "Questa non è la mia arte." But if he liked the offer it didn't matter what it was or who it was from.

The only hang-it-up painting we have of Michelangelo's is called the Doni Tonto. A tonto is a circular painting generally of a religious topic. Michelangelo painted the picture for Angelo Doni for his marriage to Maddalena Strozzi.

Michelangelo sent the picture to Angelo and he wanted 100 ducats for it. But Angelo sent him only 40 (actually Angelo wasn't that flush with cash at the time). Michelangelo told Angelo send him the hundred or give the picture back.

Angelo still thought that was too much and said he'd pay 70. Nope, said Michelangelo, and in fact the painting was worth even more than 100 ducats. If Angelo wanted to keep it he had to pay 140 ducats - a hundred more than his first offer. Angelo finally paid he higher price.

But Michelangelo liked sculpture best and he did most of the carving himself. Believe it or not, there are world famous sculptors who after creating il disegno then turn the grundge work over to students, assistants, or hired contractors. For instance Auguste Rodin never carved in marble. Instead he would model in clay and to make a stone statue he had able artists like Camille Claude, Malvina Hoffman, and Charles Despiau to do the carving. Camille, Malvina, and Charles all became recognized artists in their own time.

But the biggest surprise is that according to one knowledgeable source even the great Gian Lorenzo Bernini who is universally praised for his amazing technique in the handling of the stone turned a lot of the actual carving to his assistants. Even then the carving was collaborative with different parts being handled by different people. One might be a specialist in "roughing out" the basic form. Another would be expert in carving hair; another the muscle forms; yet another the clothes and drapery.

That Gian got the praise for being such a fantastic stone sculptor sometimes miffed the assistants. Giuliano Finelli, who carved intricate detail for the Apollo and Daphne, finally got fed up with not getting proper credit and went out on his own.

And yes, Michelangelo had full time assistants but not that many. Sometimes he would supplement his workforce as needed but he always said he never had a true workshop or bottega. And unlike Auguste or Gian, he did much of the sculpting with his own hands, both roughing out and finishing. According to an eyewitness Michelangelo was both fast and accurate, knocking of large chunks faster than men half his age. The witness said it was amazing to watch. Any slip of the hammer or chisel would ruin the work, but when Michelangelo knocked off a chunk of stone it was the right piece at the right place.

That said, Michelangelo didn't do everything himself. He might have the basic shape of a statue roughed out at the quarry - he particularly liked the marble from Carrara - and would laugh that some of the quarrymen considered themselves accomplished sculptors. But as long as they could hammer out the general outline that would save time and money since the cost of shipping was by weight.

Sometimes he even delegated the final finishing to others as well. When Michelangelo had carved most of The Risen Christ he then shipped it to Rome. There he figured to have his assistant, Pietro Urbano, add the final details. But when another artist living in Rome, Sebastiano Luciani, saw the statue he wrote to Michelangelo:

First, you sent [Pietro] to Rome with the figure to finish it and put it in place. But I must let you know that all that he has worked on is completely disfigured, and especially he has shortened the right foot, where it's manifest the toes have been mutilated, and he has cut short the fingers of the hands, especially that holding the cross, the right one, so that Frizzi says they look as if they have been made by a confectioner. They do not look made of marble, but as if they had been fashioned by pastry cooks, they are so clumsy. I do not understand about this, not knowing how marble is worked, but I assure you that to me the fingers seem mutilated. I also tell you how it is manifest that he has so executed the head that I think my little boy would have shown more discretion, since he seems to have used a knife without a point to chisel the hairs - though it will be easy to remedy this. He has mutilated one of the nostrils, and if he had spoiled any more of the nose, only God could have mended it.

Despite Sebastiano's apprehensions, the Risen Christ is one of Michelangelo's best sculptures. He sold it to the monks at the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in Rome where it remains to this day.

Instead what caused the problems with The Risen Christ was its full frontal nudity. The sculpture was unique as the figures of Christ inevitably had some sort of garment. So as was done with the David a covering was fashioned and unlike the David it's still in place today. Ironically the cover draws more attention to the region than if they had just let it be.

But if you ask what was Michelangelo's most famous artwork, it's not a statue. It's the paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

We have to reiterate that someone who sees Charlton Heston in The Agony and the Ecstasy and then reads a book about Michelangelo is in for a surprise. Michelangelo wasn't working on statues in Florence and summoned to Rome to work on a painting. He was working on a fresco in Florence when Julius called him to Rome to work on some statues.

It was a big project, too. Pope Julius II wanted Michelangelo to create the Tomb of, yes, Pope Julius II.

The contract called for a free standing structure with 40 statues. It was to be erected in St. Peter's Basilica. Michelangelo would get 10,000 ducats and he was to finish the tomb in 5 years. Obviously Julius was a man who planned ahead.

It's an interesting exercise trying to translate Michelangelo's fees into terms of modern purchasing power. Rome was the principal Papal State and its primary unit of currency was the ducat. Originally from Venice, a ducat had about 3½ ounces of gold which was essentially the same as the florin which as the name indicates originated in Florence. So the ducat and florin had the same value.

Exchange rates vary over time, of course, but in the 1500's there were officially 20 soldi to a florin and so to the ducat. Leonardo da Vinci gives us the best idea of the purchasing power of the coins when he mentioned in his notes that a canal digger would make 4 soldi a day.

In the Renaissance people worked about 5½ days a week, and holidays were surprisingly plentiful. On some of these "holy days" people worked half a day and on others they got the whole day off. There were so many holidays and festivals that in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance people worked no more than 3 days out of 4.²

So a canal digger made about 55 ducats a year. With the 10,000 ducats spread out over 5 years, Michelangelo would receive 2000 a year. And so Michelangelo's yearly pay was about that of 35 canal diggers.

We can compare Michelangelo's income with today's salaries by looking at the modern equivalent of a canal digger. Fiddling with the numbers: days worked, yearly median salary, and such stuff, you come up that for making Julius's tomb today, Michelangelo would be earning $1,120,000 per year. Sounds pretty good.

But ... (you knew there would be a "but).

Of course Michelangelo had to pay for the cost of the marble (including shipping and transportation) and the pay for his assistants. Finding the cost of the overhead can be a taxing exercise but fortunately Michelangelo gave us an idea of his out-of-pocket expenses.

In a letter beefing about the cost of a project, Michelangelo mentioned that he was paid 2300 ducats up to that point. But due to expenses he only had about 500 ducats left. Although from his exasperated tone, we can accept this as being a lower than expected profit, we'll take Michelangelo's margin at about 20%. So at 2000 ducats a year equalling $1,120,000, he would clear about $224,000 a year in today's money. For comparison that's about 20% more than what a psychiatrist was making in the early 21st century in a town that celebrates Jim Hogg as one of its exemplary residents.

In The Agony and the Ecstasy Charlton and Rex keep shouting at each other and Rex keeps asking when the heck the painting will be done. Charlton says when he's finished.

But when Charlton first got to work, the plan was simply to make some paintings of the Apostles along with "appropriate designs". But fed up with what he saw as simply interior decorating, Charlton destroys the frescos and leaves Rome. After a while he returns and he and Rex agree on a new plan for the ceiling.

It is true that Michelangelo stormed out of Rome. But it wasn't because of the Sistine Chapel. It was because of the Tomb.

The Tomb of Julius was way too ambitious a project. The David took four years to complete and carving forty statues along with the facade in five years was an impossibility.

Michelangelo spent nine months in Carrara just supervising the quarrying of the marble and shipping it to Rome (he was almost killed when a block slipped from its cables). Then back in Rome he was roughing out the first statues when he got word that Julius, for reasons that today still aren't clear, decided to abandon the project. Extremely irritated, Michelangelo returned to Florence without asking the Pope's permission to leave. This was a scandalous act and was tantamount to treason.

Eventually word got back that Julius had calmed down and Michelangelo went to Bolonga where the Pope was staying. When one of the cardinals intervened in the artist's behalf, saying that men of such creativity act impulsively and irrationally and can't help themselves, Julius whacked him with his staff and told him to keep his nose out of it.

But in the end Julius "pardoned" Michelangelo. As a compensation for the canceled tomb, he asked for a bronze statue of himself and said to heck with the expense. Just make the statue, cast it in bronze, and they'd worry about the price later.

It was a hassle - he had to do the casting twice - but finally he got the sucker finished. But then at some point during the course of the never ending Renaissance wars the statue was melted down to make cannons.

It was at this point that Julius offered Michelangelo the job of decorating the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. And he wanted it il più presto possibile. Michelangelo began to paint the frescoes in 1508 and it was completed in 1512.

The paintings in the Sistine Chapel generated some controversy particularly with the nudity in some of the scenes. Of course, Adam and Eve were shown unclothed as were some of the people in the scene picturing the Flood. Noah was not just nude but also under the influence.

But there was one figure that was - and sometimes still is - highly controversial even though the anatomy in question was just partly "revealed". This particular scene will be left for the reader to identify and it is in fact a literal rendition of a particular verse in the Bible.

But then there was a real need for the Tomb of Julius II. Julius died only a year after the completion of the Sistine frescos (Julius's poor health at this point is alluded to in the movie). So Julius's family ask him to recommence work on the tomb. That was fine but things became complicated since Michelangelo's old buddy from Florence, Giovanni de Medici, was elected as Pope Leo X.

Leo was determined to take advantage of having the world's greatest artist in his employ. He immediately hired Michelangelo to gussy up the front of the family church of San Lorenzo in Florence. Michelangelo was to provide a new overall architectural design plus 10 statues to be set up on the outside wall. As far as the Tomb of Julius, well, it could wait.

Things weren't made easier when Leo and his advisors laid the framework for modern business managers and decided to micromanage operations when they didn't know what they were doing. They told Michelangelo that he shouldn't use the quarry at Carrara. Instead, there was cheaper stone at a new quarry in Pietrasanta. He was informed that if he used any other marble it would "be against the will of His Holiness [ergo, Leo] and ourselves [Leo's cousin Guilio] and we shall have cause to complain of you greatly."

Actually Pietrasanta was close to Carrara so costs of shipping wouldn't be that much different. But Pietrasanta was in Florentine territory while Carrara was outside its jurisdiction. So using Pietrasanta marble would be the equivalent of shopping locally.

Of course, you had to ignore the fact that there weren't roads to the Pietrasanta quarry. Finally, after much back and forth, Leo finally gave in and said Carrara marble was fine. Then in 1520 after more than two years and with no explanation, Leo canceled the project leaving Michelangelo full of choler.

There was nothing now but to finish up the Tomb of Julius. But before Michelangelo could get back to work, Leo drummed up yet another project. In 1516 the namesake grandson of il Magnifico had died at age 27 and he followed three years later by his uncle, Giuliano, who was 37. They were buried in the Chapel of the Basilica of San Lorenzo, the same church of the abandoned facade. This was also where Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother Giuliano were interred. So now Leo decided the family tombs needed renovation and called on Michelangelo.

This was a job that finally Michelangelo was allowed to complete. Of course, the fact that he had over a hundred assistants for the job helped. Even then it was a long term project and wasn't completed until 1534.

But the Tomb of Julius still hung like a Carrara marble albatross about Michelangelo's neck. Julius's family still wanted it done and kept harping about it. But as always the current pope called the shots.

But almost as soon as Michelangelo began working on the Medici Chapel, Pope Leo died. We have to be honest and say that Leo had been a bit loose with the Church's coffers and the new Pope, Adrian VI, in addition to sticking with his real name decided to embark on an austerity program.

But like a lot of austerity programs, this ended pretty soon. Adrian lived only about a year and a half after his election, dying in 1523. All in all the Church historians don't consider his papacy a great success at least in part because he completely underestimated the influence of Martin Luther who Adrian thought was a flash in the pan. So the College of Cardinals turned once again to a Medici. This time they picked Michelangelo's friend, Giulio, the nephew of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Giulio did change his name and became Pope Clement VII.

Almost immediately Clement handed his old friend the task of designing what is now called the Laurentian Library. Fortunately Michelangelo didn't have to do much hands-on labor. The location was also convenient since it was in Basilica of San Lorenzo where he was working on the Medici Chapel. Ultimately the library was opened for scholars and it remains one of the world's most important repositories for historical manuscripts and books.

But once more the Florentines were turning fickle! They just couldn't decide what type of government they wanted. First they were ruled by the Medicis. But they threw them out for the theocracy ruled by Savonarola in 1494! Then after three years they booted Savonarola out for the republic under Piero Soderini. But then Piero found that Pope Julius II and his friends were irritated that Florence was too friendly with the French who still occupied the northern parts of Italy. So Julius sent an army against Florence and they gave Piero the old heave-ho. So by 1512, the Medicis were back in town.

In 1527 Florence was being run by Ippolito, whose dad Giuliano was the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. But by now Italy was in turmoil with invading armies going pretty much anywhere. The invaders plus the inter-province squabbling was what ended up getting sacked by the army of Charles V. Once more the Florentines blamed the city's bigwigs for being too easy with Charles and they drove Ippolito and his nephew Alessandro out of town.

So yet another republic was established! But Pope Clement was still holed up in the Castel Sant'Angelo while Rome was being pillaged and tens of thousands of its citizens murdered. Stewing on his situation he became more and more miffed that Florence's new government wasn't doing much to help. So he sent Alessandro back to Florence and his forces surrounded the city and laid siege from 1529 to 1530.

And Michelangelo?

Well, despite his association and even his friendship with the Medici's - not the least with Pope Clement - he threw his lot in with the Florentine Republic. He helped organize the city's defenses but it was to no avail. So when Florence finally surrendered, Michelangelo realized he had to "git".

But git to where? Virtually every other town, if not under the direct control of Clement, was at least back on the Pope's side. So what was Michelangelo to do? Go hide in a basement?

Yep. That's exactly what he did. For three months Michelangelo took refuge in a room beneath the Medici Chapel. He kept himself occupied by drawing on the walls and he came out when he learned that Clement was willing to let bygones be bygones.

The Last Judgement
Michelangelo
Public Domain, Wikimedia Foundation

So Michelangelo restarted the work on the Medici Chapel. He accepted other commissions, of course, including a statue of Hercules which he either didn't complete or it got lost.

And of course, there was the Tomb of Julius II which made the labors of Sisyphus look like building sand castles on the Riviera. He began carving more statues - including his famous (and incomplete) The Dying Slave and The Rebellious slave.

But other things kept coming up and eventually Julius's family realized that the original order of 40 statues was and had been ridiculous. They kept pairing the order down and renegotiated the contract, not once, not twice, not even thrice, but four times.

The final agreement was that they'd pretty much accept whatever Michelangelo had already done. So by 1545 instead of a free standing structure with 40 statues, the tomb had finally been built into a wall with only seven statues in the round.

Without doubt the main attraction of the Tomb was and is the central figure of Moses. Sitting in an impressive and formidable pose, the leader of the Israelites is holding the Ten Commandments tucked under his arm. But what raises eyebrows are the two horns on Moses's head.

Naturally everyone wanted to know what the heck Michelangelo was thinking when he put two corni on the prophet's head and why no one at the time thought anything amiss.

In this case, the answer is pretty simple and to clear the matter up, all you have to do is look at the Biblical text of Exodus 34: 29-30:

וַיְהִ֗י בְּרֶ֤דֶת מֹשֶׁה֙ מֵהַ֣ר סִינַ֔י וּשְׁנֵ֨י לֻחֹ֤ת הָֽעֵדֻת֙ בְּיַד־מֹשֶׁ֔ה בְּרִדְתֹּ֖ו מִן־הָהָ֑ר וּמֹשֶׁ֣ה לֹֽא־יָדַ֗ע כִּ֥י קָרַ֛ן עֹ֥ור פָּנָ֖יו בְּדַבְּרֹ֥ו אִתֹּֽו׃

וַיַּ֨רְא אַהֲרֹ֜ן וְכָל־בְּנֵ֤י יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ אֶת־מֹשֶׁ֔ה וְהִנֵּ֥ה קָרַ֖ן עֹ֣ור פָּנָ֑יו וַיִּֽירְא֖וּ מִגֶּ֥שֶׁת אֵלָֽיו׃

... which is traditionally translated as:

And it came to pass, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him. And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him.

But put the Hebrew into one of the fancy pants automatic translators and you get:

And it came to pass, when Moses was come from the Mount of Sinai, and the second part of the ark of the testimony was in the hand of Moses, and Aaron and all the children of Israel looked upon Moses, and, behold, the horn of the skin of his face shone.

Although the - quote - "artificial intelligence" - unquote - garbles the stuff about the two tablets, it makes another mistake which is exactly as the human translators did when writing the Vulgate - the Latin Bible used in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. And that's translating the Hebrew into Latin as:

Cumque descenderet Moyses de monte Sinai, tenebat duas tabulas testimonii, et ignorabat quod cornuta esset facies sua ex consortio sermonis Domini.

Videntes autem Aaron et filii Israel cornutam Moysi faciem, timuerunt prope accedere.

...which the official translation into English is:

And when Moses came down from the Mount Sinai, he held the two tables of the testimony, and he knew not that his face was horned from the conversation of the Lord. And Aaron and the children of Israel seeing the face of Moses horned were afraid to come near.

We see, then, that the problem is that the Hebrew word which should be translated correctly as "shone", קָרַ֛ן, is similar and etymologically related to the word for "horn", קֶרֶן. Why the translators didn't consult some rabbis to get the meaning correct remains a mystery.

One of the "other things" that kept interfering with making the Tomb came up in 1534 when Clement decided on another small, nay, trifling endeavor for his favorite artist. Although the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was now replete with Michelangelo's masterpieces, the Pope thought the back wall was a little too drab. So he thought another fresco would brighten the place up.

The trouble is Clement died almost as soon as Michelangelo got started. Happily the new Pope, Paul III, agreed to continue with the commission. But it wasn't until 1536 that Michelangelo was able to actually start the painting.

This painting was, if anything, more controversial than the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel. For one thing, he painted Christ, not as the bearded wandering preacher of tradition. Instead, He looked more like a pagan and wrathful Apollo. And the figure of Christ was - like in The Risen Christ - totally nude.

In fact most of the figures were nude, and some were in what appeared to be rather compromising positions. When Biagio de Cesena, the Papal Master of Ceremonies, saw the work in progress he snorted that the paintings were more suitable to a barroom or a bath house than a House of God. So as a bit of payback Michelangelo painted Biagio as Minos, the guardian of the Underworld, complete with asses ears and a serpent wrapped around his waist and taking a bite of ...

Well, the readers can look at the painting for themselves. Supposedly Biagio complained to the Pope who simply smiled and said, "If he had located you in Purgatory, I would have made every effort to content you. But since he has placed you in Hell, it is useless for you to turn to me, for there nulla est redemptio." Or at least that's the story.

Moving ahead a bit, the criticism of the nudity didn't abate and so the subject was broached whether Michelangelo could, well, maybe paint in some "garments". They didn't have to be extensive, mind you, just to cover the "privities" of the figures. Michelangelo snorted this was a small matter and the Vatican could hire small artists if that's what they wanted.

Well, that's what they wanted and over the years the painting was gradually rendered to be more family oriented. Most of the drapery you see in the picture was added later.

By the time Michelangelo finished the painting - it took four years - he was 65. You'd think this was time to retire, but that wasn't even on his radar screen. Pope Paul hired him for two more frescos - yes, frescos - The Conversion of St Paul and The Crucifixion of St. Peter, both in the Vatican.

These frescos are not considered among Michelangelo's best. Even at the time they were criticized. Certainly they seem to have been completed rather hastily and some of the proportions seem off as well as the compositions being a bit crowded. Also most of the people are wearing clothes. We have to admit that Carravagio (whose first name was Michelangelo) did a better job on these topics.

It seems that Michelangelo wasn't going to slow down unless he was forced to. Perhaps it was to help ease the burden that in 1546 when Michelangelo was 75 that Pope Paul appointed him the Chief Architect of St. Peter's Basilica. This required little on-hands work and was largely supervisory.

But Michelangelo did keep carving statues, if sometimes for his own purposes. Being seventy-five at a time where the median life expectancy of a Renaissance artist was 64, he began carving a new Pietà probably for his own tomb. Although critics point out that the statue is properly a Deposition and not a Pietà since it represents Jesus and Mary together with Nicodemus who with Joseph of Arimathea helped prepare the body for burial. Most critics identify Nicodemus as a self-portrait of Michelangelo.

Michelangelo's last sculpture was The Rondanini Pietà. Compared to most of Michelangelo's statues this looks unfinished but it looks so unfinished that some critics think it really is finished. That is, it is an example of the non-finito, the unfinished style that was becoming the Renaissance avant-garde.

Another change in Michelangelo's style that occurred over the years - particularly if you look at the statues of Lorenzo and Guiliano in the Medici Chapel - shows hints of the style called Mannerism. Although the name is a modern neologism, it's applied to the artistic style that arose in the sixteenth century characterized by elongated legs, arms, and necks along with bright colors and complex compositions. Among the Mannerists were painters like El Greco (Doménikos Theotokópoulos), Pontormo (Jacopo Carucci), Parmigianino (Girolamo Francesco Maria Mazzola), and the sculptor Benvenuto Cellini who seems to have been satisfied with his own name.

Altough Michelangelo sometimes dismissed sculptures now termed Mannerist as "snuff box ornaments", he praised the work of Benvenuto. His most famous statue is Perseus with the Head of Medusa which today stands close to the statue of the David that's outside the Piazza della Signoria. But unlike the David there, the Perseus is the original.

Another of Benvenuto's famous works is a small gold statue that wasn't cast but where the metal was "smithed" over an ivory surface. The statue is of two figures, female and male, which represent the gods Tellus (the Earth) and Neptune (the Sea).

The sculpture was highly praised during Benvenuto's lifetime and is the sole example of his goldwork still around. Moreover it is an pristine example of Renaissance "functional" art.

It's a salt and pepper shaker.

References and Further Reading

Michelangelo: A Biography, George Bull, St. Martin's Press, 1998.

Michelangelo: The Artist, the Man and his Times, William Wallace, Cambridge University Press, 2011.

The Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Architects, Painters, and Sculptors from Cimbaue Up to Our Own Times (Le vite de piu eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori italiani, da Cimabue insino a' tempi nostri, 1550), Giorgio Vasari, Philip Lee Warner (Publisher), Medici Society, Ltd.. 1912-1915.

"The Story Behind Michelangelo's David", Italy Magazine.

"Bernini: Sculpting in Clay at the Kimbell", J. R. Compton (author and photographer) and Anna Palmer (photographer), Kimbrell Art Museum.

Bernini: Sculpting in Clay, C. D. Dickerson III, Anthony Sigel, and Ian Wardropper, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Yale University of Press, 2012.

"Antico and the Development of Bronze Casting in Italy at the End of the Quattrocento", Richard Stone, Metropolitan Museum Journal, Volume 16, 1981, pp. 87-116.

The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, Benvenuto Cellin (author), John Addington Symonds (Translator), Collier and Son, 1910.

La Vita di Benvenuto Cellini, Benvenuto Cellini, Firenze, 1866.

"Michelangelo's Snowman and Other Great Lost Works of Art", Philip Hensher, The Guardian, April 4, 2014.

"Michelangelo's Secret Room", Silvia Donati, Italy Magazine, March 4, 2020.

"A Concise History of the Tale of Michelangelo and Biagio da Cesena", Notes of the History of Art, Vol. 32, Issue 4, 2013, pp. 15-19.

The Michelangelo Experience.

The Renaissance, John Hale, Great Ages of Man/Time-Life Books, 1965.

"Perseus and the Head of Medusa – A Very Florentine Story", James Wray, Daily Art Magazine., May 22, 2019.

"Sogenannte Saliera", Kunsthistorisches Museum"

"What Was The Price of Gold in 1522 in Relation to Today’s Dollar?", Ancient Finances.

"Life Expectation of Italian Renaissance Artists", I. C. McManus, Lancet, Vol. 306, Number 7901, 1975, p. 266-267.

Return to CooperToons Caricatures

Return to CooperToons Homepage