Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling

by Ross King

  4 The Letters of Michelangelo, vol. 1, p. 41.

  5 Vasari, Vasari on Technique, p. 222.

  6 Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo, Scritti sulle arti, 2 vols, ed, Roberto Paolo Ciardi (Florence: Marchi & Bertolli, 1973–4), vol. 1, p. 303.

  7 Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, vol. 1, p. 57. Vasari is unreliable in his comments on Cavallini. Anxious to root fresco painting in Tuscany, he conveniently ignores the influence of Cavallini, making him, erroneously, a pupil of Giotto.

  8 Cavallini himself might have worked in the Upper Church of San Francesco, about whose frescoes there are numerous unresolved questions of attribution. Some art historians credit him with two of the church’s frescoes – Isaac Blessing Jacob and Isaac and Esau – therefore making him the so-called ‘Isaac Master’. Vasari claims that Cimabue painted these particular frescoes, while other art historians point to Giotto.

  9 Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, vol. 1, p. 114.

  10 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 915.

  11 Quoted in William E. Wallace, ‘Michelangelo’s Assistants in the Sistine Chapel’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts 11 (December 1987), p. 204.

  12 Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, vol. 2, p. 665.

  13 See Frederick Hartt, ‘The Evidence for the Scaffolding of the Sistine Ceiling’, Art History 5 (September 1982), pp. 273–86; and Fabrizio Mancinelli, ‘Michelangelo at Work: The Painting of the Lunettes’, in Paul Holberton, ed., The Sistine: Chapel Michelangelo Rediscovered (London: Muller, Blond & White, 1986), pp. 220–34. For an alternative view of what the scaffold may have looked like, see Creighton E. Gilbert, ‘On the Absolute Dates of the Parts of the Sistine Ceiling’, Art History 3 (June 1980), pp. 162–3; and idem, Michelangelo On and Off the Sistine Ceiling (New York: George Braziller, 1994), pp. 13–16.

  14 Condivi, The Life of Michelangelo, p. 101.

  15 Quoted in de Tolnay, Michelangelo, vol. 2, p. 219.

  6: THE DESIGN

  1 I Ricordi di Michelangelo, p. 1.

  2 For an argument in favour of Alidosi’s active participation in the decorative scheme, see Beck, ‘Cardinal Alidosi, Michelangelo, and the Sistine Ceiling’, pp. 67, 74. Beck notes how a few years later, in 1510, the cardinal would try to hire Michelangelo to paint another fresco, one for whose complex blueprint he himself was the designer. This fact suggests that he may have had some experience composing decorative schemes for the Sistine Chapel frescoes.

  3 For the contract, see Gaetano Milanesi, ‘Documenti inediti dell’arte toscana dal XII al XVI secolo’, Il Buonarroti 2 (1887), pp. 334–8.

  4 Bernard Berenson, Italian Painters of the Renaissance, 2 vols (London: Phaidon, 1968), vol. 2, p. 31.

  5 Quoted in Lione Pascoli, Vite de’ pittori, scultori ed architetti moderni (1730), facsimile edition (Rome: Reale Istituto d’Archaeologia e Storia dell’Arte, 1933), p. 84. For the gradual liberation of the artist from the constraints of the patron, see Vincent Cronin, The Florentine Renaissance (London: Collins, 1967), pp. 165–89; and Francis Haskell, Patrons and Painters: A Study of the Relations Between Italian Art and Society in the Age of the Baroque, revised edn (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), pp. 8–10.

  6 A point made by Vasari and supported by Sven Sandström in Levels of Unreality: Studies in Structure and Construction in Italian Mural Painting during the Renaissance (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell, 1963), p. 173.

  7 The Litters of Michelangelo, vol. 1, p. 148.

  8 Ibid.

  9 For the career of Andreas Trapezuntius and the intellectual climate of Sixtus IV’s Rome, see Egmont Lee, Sixtus IV and Men of Letters (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1978).

  10 For a summary of the thought and career of Egidio da Viterbo – one which does not entertain ideas of his participation in the design of the Sistine Chapel frescoes – see John W. O’Malley, Giles of Viterbo on Church and Reform: A Study in Renaissance Thought (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1968). For an argument in favour of his participation, see Esther Gordon Dotson, ‘An Augustinian Interpretation of Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling’, Art Bulletin 61 (1979), pp. 223–56, 405–29. Dotson claims that Egidio was ‘the formulator of the programme’, which she claims is based on St Augustine’s City of God. She notes, however, that there is no documented link between Michelangelo and Egidio. Another possible adviser has been offered by Frederick Hartt, who claims that the Pope’s cousin, Marco Vigerio della Rovere, was involved in design of the project. See Hartt, History of Italian Renaissance Art: Painting, Sculpture, Architecture (London: Thames & Hudson, 1987), p. 497.

  11 Condivi, The Life of Michelangelo, p. 15.

  12 De Tolnay is in no doubt that Michelangelo reaped the full benefit of life in the Garden of San Marco: ‘This inspiring group served as a sort of spiritual fount to Michelangelo. To them he owes his concept of aesthetics, which is based on the adoration of earthly beauty as the reflection of the divine idea; his ethics, which rests upon the recognition of the dignity of mankind as the crown of creation; his religious concept, which considers paganism and Christianity as merely externally different manifestations of the university truth’ (Michelangelo, vol. 1, p. 18). For a study of Neoplatonic symbolism in Michelangelo’s work, see Erwin Panofsky, ‘The Neoplatonic Movement and Michelangelo’, Studies in Iconography: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance (New York: Oxford University Press, 1939), pp. 171–230.

  13 De Tolnay argues that Michelangelo’s biblical histories, as a genre, ‘have their origins in relief representations of the early Renaissance … but it is the first time that such large historical “reliefs” appear on a ceiling. Until that time they had been placed on walls and doors’ (Michelangelo, vol. 2, pp. 18–19). Another influence could have been Paolo Uccello’s (now badly damaged) frescoes in the Chiostro Verde in Santa Maria Novella, which likewise depict a number of the same scenes as those in the Sistine Chapel: The Creation of Adam, The Creation of Eve, The Temptation of Eve, The Flood, The Sacrifice and The Drunkenness of Noah. Michelangelo would have been familiar with these images through his work with Ghirlandaio in Santa Maria Novella.

  7: THE ASSISTANTS

  1 See Ezio Buzzegoli, ‘Michelangelo as a Colourist, Revealed in the Conservation of the Doni Tondo’, Apollo (December 1987), pp. 405–8.

  2 The Letters of Michelangelo, vol. 1, p. 45.

  3 I Ricordi di Michelangelo, p. 1. Preserved in the Buonarroti Archive in the Biblioteca Laurenziana-Medici in Florence, this document has been dated by Michael Hirst to April 1508. See ‘Michelangelo in 1505’, p. 762.

  4 For Urbano’s participation in the Sistine Chapel project, see Wallace, ‘Michelangelo’s Assistants in the Sistine Chapel’, p. 208.

  5 Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, vol. 2, p. 51.

  6 Ibid., p. 54.

  7 Ibid., p. 51.

  8 Quoted in de Tolnay, Michelangelo, vol. 1, p. 31.

  9 Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, vol. 2, p. 310.

  10 Quoted in Charles Seymour, ed., Michelangelo: The Sistine Chapel Ceiling (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1972), p. 105.

  8: THE HOUSE OF BUONARROTI

  1 See Condivi, The Life of Michelangelo, p. 5.

  2 Il Carteggio di Michelangelo, vol. 2, p. 245.

  3 Condivi, The Life of Michelangelo, p. 9.

  4 The Letters of Michelangelo, vol. 1, pp. 45–6.

  5 Ibid., p. 13.

  6 Ibid., p. 39.

  7 Lodovico’s first wife, Francesca, the mother of Michelangelo, had brought 416 ducats into the marriage. His second marriage, in 1485, brought him a larger dowry of six hundred florins.

  8 For dowries in Florence, see Christiane Klapische-Zuber, Women, Family and Ritual in Renaissance Italy, trans. Lydia Cochrane (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), pp. 121–2.

  9 Only 11 per cent of women widowed in their thirties remarried, and so it is safe to assume that after the age of forty they had virtually no chance of remarrying. See ibi
d., p. 120.

  10 See Wallace, ‘Michelangelo’s Assistants in the Sistine Chapel’, pp. 204–5.

  11 The Letters of Michelangelo, vol. 1, p. 46.

  12 Fabrizio Mancinelli has speculated that Michi was a sculptor (‘Michelangelo at Work: The Painting of the Lunettes’, p. 253) only to retract the statement a few years later: ‘In truth there is nothing that indicates one way or another what his profession was’ (‘The Problem of Michelangelo’s Assistants’, in Pierluigi de Vecchi and Diana Murphy, eds, The Sistine Chapel: A Glorious Restoration [New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1999], p. 266, n. 30). However, Michelangelo reports in a letter that Michi was at work in San Lorenzo (The Letters of Michelangelo, vol. 1, p. 46), where decorations were being done in the north transept, a fact which seems to indicate that he was a frescoist.

  13 When he offered his services to Michelangelo, Giovanni Michi also mentioned that someone else wished to come to Rome and work in the Sistine Chapel: a painter from Florence named Raffaellino del Garbo. However, no evidence suggests that Michelangelo ever accepted his offer. De Tolnay argues that it seems unlikely that Raffaellino did any work on the Sistine Ceiling since his paintings show a ‘pronounced Filippinesque style’ – i.e. that of his master, Filippino Lippi – that is undetectable on any part of the ceiling. See Michelangelo, vol. 2, p. 115. However, Wallace points out that Michi’s letter dates from the very beginning of the project, ‘at a time when Michelangelo and Granacci were actively seeking assistants’, and so Raffaellino’s presence should not automatically be discounted (‘Michelangelo’s Assistants in the Sistine Chapel’, p 216). Neither Vasari nor Condivi makes any reference to Raffaellino’s participation, which might indicate that he was not involved. Yet neither of these biographers refer to Giovanni Michi either, someone who definitely did work with Michelangelo; nor do they mention other of Michelangelo’s assistants whose work is clearly documented.

  14 Quoted in de Tolnay, Michelangelo, vol. 2, p. 9.

  9: THE FOUNTAINS OF THE GREAT DEEP

  1 On this working practice, see Michael Hirst, Michelangelo and His Drawings (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), pp. 35–6, and Catherine Whistler, Drawings by Michelangelo and Raphael (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 1990), p. 34.

  2 See Scritti d’arte del cinquecento, 3 vols, ed. Paola Barocchi (Milan and Naples: Ricciardi, 1971–7), vol. 1, p. 10.

  3 Genesis 7:10. All quotations from the Bible, unless otherwise indicated, are from the Revised Standard Edition (London: William Collins, 1946).

  4 For details, see de Tolnay, Michelangelo, vol. 1, p. 218, and vol. 2, p. 29. He claims that some of the figures in the background of the fresco ‘are modified repetitions of figures of the bathing soldiers in his own Battle of Cascina’ (vol. 2, p. 29).

  5 See Mancinelli, ‘The Problem of Michelangelo’s Assistants’, pp. 52–3.

  6 Carmen C. Bambach, Drawing and Painting in the Italian Renaissance Workshop: Theory and Practice, 1300–1600 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), p. 366.

  7 The Letters of Michelangelo, vol. 2, p. 182.

  8 Quoted in Lene Østermark-Johansen, Sweetness and Strength: The Reception of Michelangelo in Late Victorian England (Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate, 1998), p. 194.

  9 Condivi, The Life of Michelangelo, p. 105.

  10 Quoted in Roberto Ridolfi, The Life and Times of Girolamo Savonarola, trans. Cecil Grayson (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1959), p. 80.

  11 Quoted in Edgar Wind, ‘Sante Pagnini and Michelangelo: A Study of the Succession of Savonarola’, in Gazette des Beaux-Arts 26 (1944), pp. 212–13.

  12 For Savonarola’s almost exclusive use of the Old Testament, see Donald Weinstein, Savonarola and Florence: Prophecy and Patriotism in the Renaissance (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), p. 182.

  13 For discussions of Savonarola’s influence on Michelangelo’s art, see: Julian Klaczko, Rome and the Renaissance: The Pontificate of Julius II, trans. John Dennie (London: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1903), p. 283; Charles de Tolnay, The Art and Thought of Michelangelo (New York: Pantheon, 1964); Ronald M. Steinberg, Fra Girolamo Savonarola, Florentine Art, and Renaissance Historiography (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1977), pp. 39–42; and Vincent Cronin, The Florentine Renaissance, p. 296. Cronin, for example, argues that Savonarola’s writings and sermons produced among a number of Florentine painters, including Botticelli and Signorelli, a ‘retrograde’ art that regarded Christianity in terms of vengeance, terror and punishment. De Tolnay likewise finds in Michelangelo’s art a ‘profound echo’ of Savonarola’s words (pp. 62–3). Steinberg, however, is somewhat more cautious in attributing influences, claiming that direct links between Michelangelo’s iconography and Savonarola’s sermons are difficult to prove. This difficulty is partly due to Michelangelo’s silence on the subject as well as our lack of knowledge about his theological mentors. For the possible influence of Savonarola through his successor at San Marco, Sante Pagnini, see Wind, ‘Sante Pagnini and Michelangelo’, pp. 211–46.

  14 Antonio Paolucci has argued that even the Vatican Pietà, with its ‘chaste beauty’, was influenced by Savonarola’s teachings. See Paolucci, Michelangelo: The Pietàs (Milan: Skira, 1997), pp. 16–17.

  10: COMPETITION

  1 Quoted in Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 6, p. 308.

  2 Quoted in Klaczko, Rome and the Renaissance, p. 151.

  3 Ibid.

  4 This point is made in Michael Levey, Florence: A Portrait (London: Pimlico, 1996), pp. 265–6.

  5 For this story, see Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, vol. 1, p. 593. André Chastel has pointed out that the Perugino anecdote ‘is not confirmed by any police document or judicial record. But there is little reason to doubt it.’ See Chastel, A Chronicle of Italian Renaissance Painting, trans. Linda and Peter Murray (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1984), p. 137.

  6 For Bramante’s role in fostering the various artists on the Vatican team, see Arnaldo Bruschi, Bramante, p. 178.

  7 For Bramante’s participation in the decoration, see ibid., p. 166.

  8 The precise details of Raphael’s training and apprenticeship are a matter of speculation among art historians, in particular where, and from whom, he learned perspective construction. Since his ability to construct perspective schemes dramatically surpasses Perugino’s, critics have been led to suppose the presence of another teacher as well.

  9 For Raphael’s early career in Città di Castello, see Tom Henry, ‘Raphael’s Altarpiece Patrons in Città di Castello’, Burlington Magazine (May 2002), pp. 268–78.

  10 Raphael’s participation in the Collegio del Cambio campaign is a matter of debate among art historians. For the arguments in favour, see Adolfo Venturi, Storia dell’arte italiana, 11 vols (Milan: Ulrico Hoepli, 1901–39), vol. 7, parte seconda, pp. 546–9. For reservations, see Alessandro Marabottini et al., eds, Raffaello giovane e Città di Castello (Rome: Oberon, 1983), p. 39.

  11 He might also have wished to complete the frescoes in the Sala dei Gigli, begun by Perugino, Ghirlandaio and Botticelli immediately after their work in the Sistine Chapel, but never finished.

  12 For another instance of Tuscan jingoism, the case of the Baptistery Doors competition a century earlier, see Levey, Florence: A Portrait, p. 120.

  13 According to Arnaldo Bruschi, Bramante was ‘instrumental in bringing Raphael to Rome’ (Bramante, p. 178).

  14 The precise date of Raphael’s arrival in Rome is unknown. His presence is not definitively recorded before January 1509, though he may have been there as early as the previous September, when he wrote to the artist Francesco Francia referring to a commission about which he is ‘seriously and constantly worried’ – a work that some art historians interpret as the Vatican apartments. He is not, however, listed in the original set of accounts recording the activities of Sodoma, Perugino and the other artists, and so he was probably a late addition to the team. For an argument in favour of Raphael having visited Rome earlier than 1508, see John Shearman, ‘Raph
ael, Rome and the Codex Excurialensis’, Master Drawings (Summer 1977), pp. 107–46. Sherman speculates that Raphael may have visited Rome as early as 1503 and then again in 1506 or 1507.

  11: A GREAT QUANDARY

  1 The Letters of Michelangelo, vol. 1, p. 48.

  2 Condivi, The Life of Michelangelo, p. 57.

  3 John Shearman, ‘The Chapel of Sixtus IV’, in The Sistine Chapel: Michelangelo Rediscovered, ed. Paul Holberton (London: Muller, Blond & White, 1986), p. 33. The roof leaked stubbornly for the next four centuries, until it was completely rebuilt in 1903 and then restored in 1978.

  4 Vasari on Technique, p. 222.

  5 See Steffi Roettgen, Italian Frescoes, 2 vols, trans. Russell Stockman (New York: Abbeville Press, 1997), vol. 2, The Flowering of the Renaissance, 1470–1510, p. 168. Likewise, when Filippino Lippi painted his frescoes in the Strozzi Chapel in Santa Maria Novella (1487–1502) he was also under contract (with Filippo Strozzi) to paint only in buon fresco. Eve Borsook argues that by 1500 buon fresco was taken up as ‘an academic point of honour … For Vasari and many others, fresco painting was the test of an artist’s virtuosity in speed and power of improvisation’. See Borsook, The Mural Painters of Tuscany (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), p. xxv.

  6 Mancinelli, ‘The Problem of Michelangelo’s Assistants’, p. 52.

  7 Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, vol. 2, p. 667.

  8 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 666.

  9 Condivi, The Life of Michelangelo, p. 58.

  10 For a sensible corrective to Vasari, see Wallace, ‘Michelangelo’s Assistants in the Sistine Chapel’, pp. 203–16.

  11 The Letters of Michelangelo, vol. 1, p. 48.

  12 Condivi, The Life of Michelangelo, p. 106.

  13 Ibid.

  14 Scritti d’arte del cinquecento, vol. 1, p. 10.

  15 Quoted in de Tolnay, Michelangelo, vol. 1, p. 5.

  16 Condivi, The Life of Michelangelo, p. 106.

  17 Ibid., p. 102.