Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling
Page 35
14 Scholarly opinion diverges widely as to when exactly Raphael painted The Triumph of Galatea. Theories range from as early as 1511 to as late as 1514. However, the commission seems to have come in 1511, when Julius was absent from Rome and the Stanza della Segnatura nearing completion. Chigi appears to have taken advantage of Julius’s departure to secure Raphael’s services for himself.
15 For the identification of Ariosto in the fresco, see Gould, ‘The Chronology of Raphael’s Stanze’, pp. 174–5.
16 Ariosto, Orlando furioso, canto 33, line 2.
17 Shaw, Julius II, pp. 182–3.
18 Quoted in Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 6, p. 350.
19 Quoted in Klaczko, Rome and the Renaissance, p. 242.
20 Guicciardini, The History of Italy, p. 227.
21 Quoted in Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 6, p. 362.
23: A NEW AND WONDERFUL MANNER OF PAINTING
1 Condivi, The Life of Michelangelo, p. 57. In his diary entry for 15 August 1511, Paride de’ Grassi speaks of the Pope having gone to see the unveiled fresco for the first time on the previous evening.
2 The hour of the Mass is speculative, but Masses for holy days and feasts were customarily held at nine in the morning. See The New Catholic Encyclopedia, 15 vols (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967), vol. 9, p. 419.
3 Condivi, The Life of Michelangelo, p. 57.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid.
6 The room was finished sometime during the year 1511, according to inscriptions on the window recesses giving that year as the terminus ad quem and specifying completion in the eighth year of the pontificate of Julius II, that is, sometime before 1 November 1511.
7 For Raphael’s technique in adding the pensieroso, see Nesselrath, Raphael’s ‘School of Athens’, p. 20. The pensieroso is known to be a later addition, firstly because it does not appear in Raphael’s cartoon for The School of Athens (now in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan), and secondly, because examination of the plaster has proved that it was painted on intonaco added to the wall at a later date. The exact timing of this addition is speculative, but it seems most likely that Raphael painted it as he finished work in the Stanza della Segnatura, that is, sometime in the summer or autumn of 1511 (ibid., p. 21).
8 This intriguing theory was first suggested by Deoclecio Redig de Campos in Michelangelo Buonarroti nel IV centenario del ‘Giudizio universale’ (1541–1941) (Florence: G.C. Sansoni, 1942), pp. 205–19, and repeated in his Raffaello nelle Stanze (Milan: Aldo Martello, 1965). Roger Jones and Nicolas Penny find the argument ‘implausible’ without, however, offering strong counter-arguments; see their Raphael (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), p. 78. Ingrid D. Rowland, on the other hand, states that Heraclitus ‘presents a simultaneous portrait of Michelangelo’s face and Michelangelo’s artistic style’ (‘The Intellectual Background’, in Marcia B. Hall, ed., Raphael’s ‘School of Athens’, p. 157); and Frederick Hartt claims that his features ‘are clearly those of Michelangelo’ (History if Italian Renaissance Art, p. 509).
9 Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, ed. James T. Boulton (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1986), esp. pp. 57–125.
24: THE FIRST AND SUPREME CREATOR
1 Quoted in Klaczko, Rome and the Renaissance, p. 246.
2 Quoted in Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 6, p. 369.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid., p. 371.
6 Quoted in Klaczko, Rome and the Renaissance, p. 253.
7 The identity of this fresco is a matter of debate. For a discussion, see p. 235.
8 Quoted in Hartt, ‘Lignum vitae in medio paradisi: The Stanza d’Eliodoro and the Sistine Ceiling’, Art Bulletin 32 (1950), p. 191.
9 Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, vol. 2, p. 670.
10 Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron, trans. G.H. McWilliam, 2nd edn. (London: Penguin, 1995), p. 457.
11 Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, vol. 2, p. 642.
12 For a history of the debate over this young woman’s identity, see Leo Steinberg’s ‘Who’s Who in Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam: A Chronology of the Picture’s Reluctant Self-Revelation’, Art Bulletin (1992), pp. 552–66. Other candidates are the Virgin Mary and Wisdom (Sapientia). Steinberg also identifies what he thinks is Lucifer and a devilish companion likewise enfolded in the Almighty’s capacious cloak.
13 Scritti d’arte del cinquecento, vol. 1, p. 10.
14 Such as in the Old Testament scenes in the sixth-century mosaics in San Vitale, Ravenna.
15 An example is the God the Father in the carvings on the Genesis pilaster of the cathedral in Orvieto, done (probably by the architect Lorenzo Maitani) in the early decades of the fourteenth century. A very early example is the youthful-looking God the Father in the fifth-century Old Testament mosaics in Santa Maria Maggiore, Rome.
16 Another depiction with which Michelangelo was no doubt familiar – the Genesis pilaster on the cathedral in Orvieto – does show God pointing His index finger, though He does so while standing erect over a prostrate and unresponsive Adam.
17 Condivi, The Life of Michelangelo, p. 42.
18 Lionello Venturi and Rosabianca Skira-Venturi, Italian Painting: The Renaissance, trans. Stuart Gilbert (New York: Albert Skira, 1951), p. 59. For the significance of this publication in relation to Michelangelo, see Steinberg, ‘Who’s Who in Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam,’ pp. 556–7.
25: THE EXPULSION OF HELIODORUS
1 Guicciardini, The History of Italy, p. 237.
2 The statue’s head remained at Ferrara for some time, though it finally disappeared. No doubt it, too, was melted down for artillery.
3 Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 6, p. 397.
4 Condivi, The Life of Michelangelo, p. 94.
5 As with The School of Athens, Raphael made and preserved intact a large-scale cartoon for The Expulsion of Heliodorus, which was possibly intended to disseminate his design more widely. Later given away as a gift, this cartoon still existed in the time of Vasari, who claims it was in the possession of a man from Cesena named Francesco Masini. It has since disappeared.
6 Document reproduced in facsimile in the exhibition catalogue, Raffaello, Elementi di un Mito: le fonti, la letteratura artistica, la pittura di genere storico (Florence: Centro Di, 1984), p. 47.
7 Vasari, who is often unreliable and confused in his discussion of Raphael’s Vatican frescoes, identifies Federico in The School of Athens. (Even more dubiously, he identifies as Giulio Romano, then a boy of twelve, as one of the bearded men carrying the Pope’s litter in The Expulsion of Heliodorus.) Cecil Gould has likewise proposed The School of Athens as the fresco in question, albeit seeing Federico’s features in a different figure (‘The Chronology of Raphael’s Stanze’, pp. 176–8). Gould’s argument depends on the assumption that this fresco – which he argues was the last of the four in the Stanza della Segnatura to be finished – was not painted until after the summer of 1511.
8 Identification of the sitter for La Fornarina with Margherita Luti is by no means certain. The sitter was first identified as Raphael’s mistress a century after the fact, in 1618, when she was referred to as a prostitute. She has also been identified as Imperia, as Beatrice of Ferrara (another courtesan) and as Albina (yet another courtesan). See Carlo Cecchelli, ‘La “Psyche” della Farnesina’, Roma (1923), pp. 9–21; Emilio Ravaglia, ‘Il volto romano di Beatrice ferrarese’, Roma (1923), pp. 53–61; and Francesco Filippini, ‘Raffaello e Bologna’, Cronache d’Arte (1925), pp. 222–6. For a sensible discussion of the painting and its myths, see Lawner, Lives of the Courtesans, pp. 120–3. For a sceptical view of the myth of La Fornarina, see Oppé, Raphael, p. 69.
9 Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, vol. 1, p. 722. The painting is now in the National Gallery, London, with sixteenth-century copies in the Uffizi and the Palazzo Pitti in Florence.
1 Ottavia Niccoli, ‘High and Low Prophetic Culture in Rome at the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century’, pp. 217–18.
2 Guicciardini, The History of Italy, p. 250.
3 The inspection is reported by Isabella d’Este’s envoy to Rome, Grossino. See Alessandro Luzio, ‘Isabella d’Este di fronte a Giulio II’, Archivio storico lombardo, 4th series (1912), p. 70.
4 The Letters of Michelangelo, vol. 1, p. 64.
5 Ibid., p. 67.
6 Condivi and Vasari disagree over the subject. Condivi identified it as the fifth day of Creation, showing the Creation of the Fishes, while Vasari stated that it showed the Separation of Land and Water on the third day.
7 Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, vol. 2, p. 670.
8 Quoted in Martin Kemp, The Science of Art: Optical Themes in Western Art from Brunelleschi to Seurat (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), p. 41.
9 See Alberti, On Painting, pp. 65–7. For perspective machines in the Renaissance, see Kemp, The Science of Art, pp. 167–88.
10 The Letters of Michelangelo, vol. 1, p. 64.
11 Quoted in Michael Mallett, Mercenaries and their Masters: Warfare in Renaissance Italy (London: Bodley Head, 1974), p. 196.
12 Mallett claims that in fact the losses on both sides amounted to about nine hundred (ibid., p. 197).
13 F.L. Taylor, The Art of War in Italy, 1494–1519 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1920), p. 188.
14 Quoted in Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 6, p. 400.
15 Ariosto, Orlando furioso, canto 33, line 40.
16 Ibid., canto 11, line 28.
27: MANY STRANGE FORMS
1 Guicciardini, The History of Italy, p. 244.
2 For example, Michelangelo makes no mention of the statue in letters written to Lodovico and Buonarroto in the week after its destruction.
3 Kenneth Clark notes that psychologists have occupied themselves with the question ‘why this man of immense moral courage, who was utterly indifferent to physical hardship, should have suffered from these recurrences of irrational fear’, though he speculates that the sculptor probably had good reasons for escaping and may even have felt an obligation to preserve his genius (‘The Young Michelangelo’, in J.H. Plumb, ed., The Penguin Book of the Renaissance [London: Penguin, 1991], p. 102).
4 Klaczko, Rome and the Renaissance, p. 354.
5 De Tolnay, Michelangelo, vol. 2, p. 68. De Tolnay argues, in his Neoplatonist reading of the ceiling, that in such figures Michelangelo represents, in contrast to the angelic Ignudi, ‘the lowest degree of human nature, the natura corporale’ (p.67).
6 For one of the few studies that pays heed to what he calls the ‘playful elements’ of the Sistine ceiling – as well as to the underrated role of humour in Michelangelo’s work more generally – see Paul Barolsky, Infinite Jest: Wit and Humour in Italian Renaissance Art (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1978).
7 Condivi, The Life of Michelangelo, p. 9.
8 Complete Poems and Selected Letters of Michelangelo, p. 142. For Michelangelo’s vision of his own ugliness, see Paul Barolsky, Michelangelo’s Nose: A Myth and its Maker (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1990).
9 Complete Poems and Selected Letters of Michelangelo, pp. 149–51.
10 Condivi, The Life of Michelangelo, p. 108.
11 Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, vol. 1, p. 639.
12 Boccaccio, The Decameron, p. 457.
28: THE ARMOUR OF FAITH AND THE SWORD OF LIGHT
1 Guicciardini, The History of Italy, pp. 251–2. In Orlando furioso, Ariosto likewise described the despair that overcame the French army following its bloody victory: ‘The victory afforded us encouragement, but little rejoicing – for the sight of the leader of the expedition, the Captain of the French, Gaston of Foix, lying dead dampened our spirits. And the storm which overwhelmed him carried off so many illustrious princes who had crossed the cold Alps in defence of their realms and of their allies’ (canto 14, line 6).
2 Quoted in Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 6, pp. 407–8.
3 For Penni’s presence in Raphael’s workshop at this point, see Shearman, ‘The Organization of Raphael’s Workshop’, pp. 41, 49.
4 See Tom Henry, ‘Cesare da Sesto and Baldino Baldini in the Vatican Apartments of Julius II’, Burlington Magazine (January 2000), pp. 29–35.
5 Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, vol., 1, p. 819.
6 On Michelangelo’s antipathy to running a workshop, see George Bull, Michelangelo: A Biography (London: Viking, 1995) p. 16.
7 Condivi, The Life of Michelangelo, p. 107.
8 The corporal is still preserved in Orvieto. A different explanation of the miracle at Bolsena holds that the blood on the altar cloth was the result of the priest accidentally spilling wine from the chalice after consecration. He folded the cloth to hide his carelessness, but the stain spread through the folds, leaving an impression of the Host. See Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 6, p. 595 n.
9 On this topic, see Klaczko, Rome and the Renaissance, p. 11, and Hartt, ‘Lignum vitae in medio paradisi’, p. 120. The altar cloth and its shrine probably had a further significance for Julius, because in 1477 his uncle, Sixtus IV, had granted indulgences to promote both the adoration of the relic and the construction of the cathedral.
10 Quoted in Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 6, p. 416.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid., p. 417.
29: IL PENSIEROSO
1 Grossino to Isabella d’Este, quoted in de Tolnay, Michelangelo, vol. 2, p. 243.
2 Ibid.
3 Ariosto, Orlando furioso, canto 33, line 2.
4 The Letters of Michelangelo, vol. 1, p. 70.
5 Ibid., p. 71.
6 For Savonarola’s identification of himself with Jeremiah, see Ridolfi, The Life and Times of Girolamo Savonarola, p. 283, and Weinstein, Savonarola and Florence, p. 285.
7 Complete Poems and Selected Letters of Michelangelo, p. 150.
8 Ibid., pp. 12–13.
9 Ibid., p. 31.
10 Guicciardini, The History of Italy, p. 257.
30: IN EVIL PLIGHT
1 Machiavelli, The Chief Works and Others, vol. 2, p. 893.
2 Guicciardini, The History of Italy, p. 262.
3 The Letters of Michelangelo, vol. 1, p. 71.
4 Machiavelli, The Chief Works and Others, vol. 2, p. 894.
5 Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. George Bull (London: Penguin, 1999), p. 6
6 The Letters of Michelangelo, vol. 1, pp. 71, 74.
7 Ibid., p. 81.
8 Ibid., vol. 1, Appendix 9, p. 245.
9 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 75.
10 Dante, The Divine Comedy, vol. 2, Purgatorio, canto 17, line 26.
11 For an example of one such interpretation, see Hartt, ‘Lignum vitae in medio paradisi: The Stanza d’Eliodoro and the Sistine Ceiling’, p. 198.
12 Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, vol. 2, p. 674.
13 De Tolnay, Michelangelo, vol. 2, p. 182.
14 Ibid., p. 97.
15 The Letters of Michelangelo, vol. 1, p. 74.
16 These two lunettes were destroyed decades later by Michelangelo when he painted The Last Judgement on the altar wall. The subjects of these two lunettes are known through engravings.
17 The Letters of Michelangelo, vol.1, p. 75.
31: FINAL TOUCHES
1 Condivi, The Life of Michelangelo, p. 48.
2 Ibid.
3 De Tolnay, Michelangelo, vol. 2, p. 151.
4 Alberti, On Painting, pp. 77–8.
5 Condivi, The Life of Michelangelo, p. 58.
6 Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, vol. 2, p. 675.
7 Condivi, The Life of Michelangelo, p. 58. Vasari tells a slightly different version of this anecdote in which it is Michelangelo, and not the Pope, who first plans to retouch the painting a sec
co (Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, vol. 2, p. 668).
8 Condivi, The Life of Michelangelo, p. 58.
9 The Letters of Michelangelo, vol. 1, p. 149.
10 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 62.
11 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 149.
12 For the story of these two thousand ducats, see ibid., vol. 1, pp. 243–4.
13 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 85.
14 Quoted in Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 6, p. 434.
15 Ibid., p. 437.
16 Ibid.
17 Inghirami, Thomae Phaedri Inghirami Volterrani orationes, ed. Pier Luigi Galletti (Rome, 1777), p. 96.
EPILOGUE
1 Michelangelo’s design for the dome of St Peter’s was revised after his death by Giacomo della Porta, under whom it was completed, in collaboration with Domenico Fontana, in 1590.
2 Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, vol. 1, p. 745.
3 Ibid. The truth of Vasari’s statement is open to question. He reports that Raphael’s doctors, mistakenly diagnosing sunstroke, bled him, an operation that frequently caused the death of patients.
4 Pandolfo Pico della Mirandola to Isabella Gonzaga, quoted in J.A. Crowe and G.B. Cavalcaselle, Raphael: His Life and Works, 2 vols (London: John Murray, 1885), vol. 2, pp. 500–1.
5 In the Sposalizio, however, Raphael portrays Joseph preparing to slip the ring on to the fourth finger of the Virgin’s right hand – an action repeated from Perugino’s Marriage of the Virgin, where Mary likewise offers her right hand to Joseph.
6 Complete Poems and Selected Letters of Michelangelo, p. 61.
7 For Michelangelo’s death and funeral, see Rudolf and Margot Wittkower, eds, The Divine Michelangelo: The Florentine Academy’s Homage on His Death in 1564 (London: Phaidon Press, 1964).
8 On this borrowing, see Johannes Wilde, Venetian Painting from Bellini to Titian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 123; and Creighton Gilbert, ‘Titian and the Reversed Cartoons of Michelangelo’, in Michelangelo On and Off the Sistine Ceiling, pp. 151–90.