Michelangelo's Story
Michelangelo's Story
He is one of the greatest artists of
all time, a man whose name has become synonymous with the word "masterpiece":
Michelangelo Buonarroti. As an artist he was unmatched,the creator of works
of sublime beauty that express the fullbreadth of the human condition.
Yet in a world where art flourished only with patronage, Michelangelo was
caught between the conflicting powers and whims of the Medici family in
Florence, and the Papacy in Rome.
The second of five brothers, Michelangelo was born on March 6, 1475, at
Caprese, in Tuscany, to Ludovico di Leonardo di Buonarotto Simoni and
Francesca
Neri. Buonarroti's mother died young, when the child was only six years
old. Buteven before then, Michelangelo's childhood had been grim and lacking
in affection, and he was always to retain a taciturn disposition. Touchy
and quick to respond with fierce words, he tended to keep to himself, out
of shyness according to some but also, according to others, a lack of trust
in his fellows. His father soon recognized the boy's intelligence and "anxious
for him to learn his letters, sent him to the school of a master, Francesco
Galeota from Urbino, who in that time taught grammar." While he studied
the principles of Latin, Michelangelo made friends with a student, Francesco
Granacci six years older than him, who was learning the art of painting
in Ghirlandaio's studio and who encouraged Michelangelo to follow his own
artistic vocation.
When Michelangelo turned 13-years old he shocked and enraged his father
when told that he had agreed to apprentice in the workshop of the painter
Domenico Ghirlandaio. After about one year of learning the art of fresco,
Michelangelo
went on to study at the sculpture school in the Medici gardens.
In April 1508, Michelangelo was summoned back to Rome by Julius II, but
he was still not able to start on the papal tomb. In fact Julius II had
a new job for him: painting twelve figures of apostles and some decorations
on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. In May 1508, Michelangelo began to
make the preparatory designs for the Sistine ceiling. The project was physically
and emotionally torturous for Michelangelo. With the Medici driven out
in 1526, Florence proclaimed itself a republic for the last time. However,
Clement VII ordered the city to be surrounded byhe same terrible German
mercenary soldiers who had put the city of Rome to fire and sword in 1527.
Michelangelo was forced to stop working on all the projects he had under
way.
In 1534, Michelangelo left Florence forever. His decision never to return
was certainly influenced by the open hostility of Duke Alessandro de Medici
and the misunderstandings with his fellow citizens that had arisen during
the siege, which led him to say: "I never knew a people more ungrateful
and arrogant than the Florentines." In Rome, Michelangelo was able to count
on the esteem, protection, and affection of Pope Clement VII who, shortly
before his death, commissioned him to paint the fresco of the Last Judgment
in the Sistine Chapel.
Mentioned by Vasari in his first edition
in 1550, it was therefore begun before that date. According to Blaise de
Vigenre, a French traveler, who saw Michelangelo work on this statue that
very year, the sculptor (who was in his seventies and not very robust)
chipped off more splinters from a very hard lump of marble, than three
young stone-cutters in triple the time. He attacked the stone with such
fiery energy that one expected to see the block shattered to pieces. With
one blow he sent chips three to four fingers thick flying into the air,
and penetrated to a point indicated by a drilling with such precision that
he might have destroyed the whole stone, had he cut slightlydeeper into
it.Michelangelo who could no longer sleep, got up at night to work with
his chisel. As he used to do in the past, he had made himself a cardboard
helmet upon which he fixed a candle to light up his work and keep his hands
free. As he grew old, he wished more and more to be alone. He needed solitude,
and when Rome was fast asleep, he sought refuge in nightly labor. Silence
was a blessing to him and night was his friend.
Michelangelo Buonarroti died, giving himself up to God, on February 18th,1564,
after a "slow fever." As Vasari tells us, he made his will in three sentences,
in front of his physician and his friends Tommaso Cavalieri and Daniele
da Volterra, saying that he left "his soul to God, his body to the earth,
and his material possessions to his nearest relations." In reality, there
was little left in his house, since some time earlier he had burned much
of his artistic material, including, to the great displeasure of Cosimo
I, the designs for the facade of San Lorenzo.
The body of the dead artist was deposited in a sarcophagus in the church
of Santi Apostoli, but a few days after the burial his nephew Lionardo
Buonarroti, who had arrived in Rome, took possession of his uncle's
property and carried off the corpse, concealed in a bale. As soon as they
reached Florence, the mortal remains of the "divine artist" were taken
to Santa Croce (where Michelangelo himself had wanted to be buried). The
inhabitants of Florence turned out in large numbers, venerating the body
of their illustrious fellow citizen, "father and master of all the
arts," as if it were a sacred relic.
