Michael Angelo Buonarroti

that had waited in silence for his liberating hand began to resound with the clink of the iron. The two Slaves in the Louvre a

chief architect, sculptor, and painter at the Vatican; he became a member of the Pope's household, with a pension of 1200 golden crowns, raised on the revenue from a ferry across the river Po, at Piacenza. This wa

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uffered from damp and dirt. Vasari says Fra Sebastiano del Piombo prepared the wall for Michael Angelo, and secretly had it grounded for oil painting, no doubt hoping himself to be employed in the work, as oil was his special medium. Michael Angelo wa

r designed for him by Michael Angelo. This prince was afterwards a good friend to the master, and his letter of September 7, 1539,

isto; not being able or willing, but by our duty and our natural inclination in this as in all things to otherwise than comply with his wishes, we are contented to agree with a good grace, on reflection and by the reverence we bear to His Holiness. You may, therefore, fairly go on with the painting until the work is finished; but with a firm hope and belief that when it is done you will give yourself up entirely to finishing the said Tomb, redoubling your diligence and care to make up for the loss of time, as His Holiness has also promised you shall, kindly offering himself to urge you to do it; and to this end we have written you this letter. So long a time has pass

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n his house, and would not allow any doctor to come near [pg 219]him or even enter the house. A certain Florentine physician and lover of the arts, Baccio Rontini, contriv

y have passed, with a fearful joy, from the judgment seat. Michael Angelo has followed the traditional composition of the subject in all its lines and details, adapting it with the least change possible to the space at his command, and to the superior knowledge of the drawing of the human form that he possessed. It is most interesting to compare this rendering with the same subject in the Campo Santo at Pisa. Every part of the composition is repeated, the action of the Judge, the [pg 220]Madonna beside Him on His right, Apostles on either side, the resurrection of the dead, the descent into hell, the angels blowing the trumpets in the centre of the lower part, the angels bearing the cross and other implements of the Passion in the upper corners. This crowded mass of figures is divided into nine several parts, all the figures and groups having room enough to move, and to spare. The more this work is studied in detail the more beautiful the forms appe

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t side by side in almost exactly parallel actions. Nothing gives so much sense of rush, as may be seen in many of the compositions in the Loggia. One instance here is the angel bearing the Crown of Thorns and the figure near him. Another is just below, two figures near the right arm of the Judge. One of the finest and most superb groups ever designed by Michael Angelo is the group of angels blowing the trumpets of doom in the forefront of the fresco. Their energy and power, compared with the placid angels of Pisa and Orvieto, exhibit the different aims of the artist most effecti

now covered by the larger composition. The colour of this fresco is very much darkened by dust and by smoke from the altar candles; and, as it is more within reach than the vault, it has been retouched. It should be a source of comfort to those who get tired with looking upward at pictures in high places, i

buted to Michael Angelo in collections are their studies from it, and not his studies for it, as they are called. As a general rule, whenever there are two or

ft the chapel he set to work and drew Messer Biagio's portrait, from memory, in hell as Minos, with a great serpent twisted round his legs, surrounded by a crowd of devils. Messer Biagio complained to the Pope, who asked him where he was placed? "In hell," was the reply. "Then I can do nothing to help you," said the Pope; "had the painter sent you to purgatory I would have used my best efforts to get you released, but I exercise no influence in hell, ubi nulla est redemptio." Some years afterwards Paul IV. objected to the naked figures, and employed Daniele da Volterra to patch draperies on to some of them, with Michael Angelo's consent, whereby Daniele obtained the nickname of Il Braghettone, or the breeches-maker. Daniele did his work with a good deal of discretion, hiding as little of the original fresco as possible: the additions are unfortunately offensive in colour. The e

la Paolina. Michael Angelo had hoped to complete the Tomb of Julius at once, with his own hand, but the Pope's determination necessitated further negotiations with the Duke of Urbino. The Duke wrote to Michael Ange

's own hand, that is to say, a Moses and two captives. But as the two said captives were designed for the work when it was to have been on a much larger scale, they would not fit in the reduced design, nor could they in any way be made to look well there. Accordingly the said Messer Michael Angelo, not to lose his honour, had blocked out two new statues to go on either side of the Moses, representing the Active and Contemplative Life, which are well advanced, so that they may be easily finished by another master. Michael Angelo desires and supplicates his Holiness our Lord the Pope Paul the Third, in order that he may work in his chapel, which needs all his energies and his entire care, and he being aged, and desiring to serve the Pope with all his power, to free h

to Raffaello da Montelupo to be carved. "Of these five statues my Lord the Pope having at my earnest prayer and for my satisfaction conceded to me a little time, I finished two of them with my own hand, that is to say, the Contemplative Life and the Active Life for the same sum that the said Raffaello was to have had." From the works themselves we may be sure that there is a good deal of Raffaello da Montelupo about these

effect of the whole is the change in the architectural treatment and decorations. The lower part belongs to the period when the work was begun in 1505, [pg 227]and the upper, with no transition but a joint in the stone, to the heavier and coarser style of the period when it was finished, 1545. T

Strozzi, because, when the sculptor was ill in 1544, Luigi del Riccio, his friend, nursed him and looked after him in the Strozzi Palace. They were taken to France and offered to the King of

emes for the Tomb make it possible for them to have been worked in somehow. It is [pg 228]very probable that when he was at Florence, and after some of the more threatening letters of the executors, he set savagely to work upon some blocks ready to his hand, with the idea of having them conveyed to Rome afterwards. They belong to about the time of the siege of Florence, and are more suggestive of his method of work, and of his thoughts in the presence of the stone, than any other of his statues. If they were removed from their ugly surroundings and placed, say, in the Trib

hed the torso so exquisitely. It may have been left a mere block, like the head of one of the captives of the Boboli. The man who carved the head, and also worked on other portions of the group, turned the neck round too much. If we imagine the head less turned and looking down towards the crouching figure, conquered by the young genius of beauty and [pg 229]victory, we shall see the grace in the

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