The artist as God
Excerpt from the book 'Michelangelo. Complete Works'
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Michelangelo's unique standing begins with his very birth.Whereas, in the case of many 15th-century masters, we do not even know the exact year in which they were born, and have only an approximate idea of their family ancestry, we are well informed about Michelangelo's origins and birth. Like other members of Florence's upper middle classes, his father, Ludovico di Leonardo Buonarroti Simoni, recorded important events in his family chronicle, including the birth, on 6 March 1475, of the second of his altogether five sons. Michelangelo was born in the town of Caprese, near Arezzo in the upper Tiber Valley, where his father had been appointed magistrate (podestà) for a term of one year. The family subsequently moved back to Florence, where they lived alternately on a small country estate in Settignano and in a city residence in the S. Croce district of the city. This information itself reveals that Michelangelo and his father belonged to a class of society whose members were eligible for public office. Ludovico Buonarroti was also a Guelph and as such part of a political tendency whose supporters sought to defend the city of Florence against the threat of foreign rule. This threat might come from outside, for example from the papacy or the emperor, but also from within, from Florentine families such as the Medici, whose claim to power clashed with the republican ideas of the Guelph middle classes.
Inevitably, Michelangelo's political proximity to the Guelph party provoked conflicts with important patrons on several occasions. In the first decades of his career, these patrons included first and foremost the Medici. This family had steered Florence's political fortunes in the 15th century in an indirect rather than direct fashion, via a broad network of political alliances, and also through lavish patronage of the arts. In the 16th century, on the other hand, the Medici increasingly opted to enforce their hegemony over republican tendencies quite openly and at times brutally. The potential conflict inherent in Michelangelo's position was heightened by the fact that he took the first steps of his career as a sculptor under the protection of Lorenzo de'Medici (1449–1492). Generally speaking, we are extraordinary well informed about Michelangelo's life, right up to his death on 18 February 1564. Only in the case of his very early years and his beginnings as an artist are we obliged to rely in part upon legend and conjecture. Our information about the artist's youth comes from the lives of Michelangelo published by Giorgio Vasari (1550 and 1568) and Ascanio Condivi (1553). Condivi in particular aims to portray the artist as a youthful prodigy who received no training of note. This biographer also tends to present Michelangelo's behaviour towards his patrons in a favourable light. This is particularly true in the case of the conflict lasting four decades over the completion of the Julius Tomb. The accusation that the artist had not always correctly disposed of the vast sums entrusted to him continued to hang over him nonetheless.
Michelangelo is also one of the first artists of the early modern era whose appearance is well known to us, thanks to numerous portraits by his artist colleagues. These likenesses show a bearded face with high, sharply defined cheekbones and a broad, somewhat flattened nose. Michelangelo's characteristics also emerge from the writings of his contemporaries: they evoke an untidily dressed, even somewhat unkempt, man who lived modestly, who could at times be generous towards his inferiors and also rude towards his employers. But there must also have been a well-dressed Michelangelo, who liked expensive shirts and afforded himself the luxury of a good horse. The earliest description of Michelangelo by a contemporary, and one that is probably plausible, is provided by Paolo Giovio around 1527, who writes: "The man with this talent was also so curt and uncouth by nature that, leaving aside the incredible filth of his domestic life, he granted posterity no successors in his art. For although implored to do so by the princes, he could never be persuaded to take on an apprentice or even allow onlookers in his workshop."
Page [1] [2] [3]
Page [1] [2] [3]
Michelangelo's unique standing begins with his very birth.Whereas, in the case of many 15th-century masters, we do not even know the exact year in which they were born, and have only an approximate idea of their family ancestry, we are well informed about Michelangelo's origins and birth. Like other members of Florence's upper middle classes, his father, Ludovico di Leonardo Buonarroti Simoni, recorded important events in his family chronicle, including the birth, on 6 March 1475, of the second of his altogether five sons. Michelangelo was born in the town of Caprese, near Arezzo in the upper Tiber Valley, where his father had been appointed magistrate (podestà) for a term of one year. The family subsequently moved back to Florence, where they lived alternately on a small country estate in Settignano and in a city residence in the S. Croce district of the city. This information itself reveals that Michelangelo and his father belonged to a class of society whose members were eligible for public office. Ludovico Buonarroti was also a Guelph and as such part of a political tendency whose supporters sought to defend the city of Florence against the threat of foreign rule. This threat might come from outside, for example from the papacy or the emperor, but also from within, from Florentine families such as the Medici, whose claim to power clashed with the republican ideas of the Guelph middle classes.
Inevitably, Michelangelo's political proximity to the Guelph party provoked conflicts with important patrons on several occasions. In the first decades of his career, these patrons included first and foremost the Medici. This family had steered Florence's political fortunes in the 15th century in an indirect rather than direct fashion, via a broad network of political alliances, and also through lavish patronage of the arts. In the 16th century, on the other hand, the Medici increasingly opted to enforce their hegemony over republican tendencies quite openly and at times brutally. The potential conflict inherent in Michelangelo's position was heightened by the fact that he took the first steps of his career as a sculptor under the protection of Lorenzo de'Medici (1449–1492). Generally speaking, we are extraordinary well informed about Michelangelo's life, right up to his death on 18 February 1564. Only in the case of his very early years and his beginnings as an artist are we obliged to rely in part upon legend and conjecture. Our information about the artist's youth comes from the lives of Michelangelo published by Giorgio Vasari (1550 and 1568) and Ascanio Condivi (1553). Condivi in particular aims to portray the artist as a youthful prodigy who received no training of note. This biographer also tends to present Michelangelo's behaviour towards his patrons in a favourable light. This is particularly true in the case of the conflict lasting four decades over the completion of the Julius Tomb. The accusation that the artist had not always correctly disposed of the vast sums entrusted to him continued to hang over him nonetheless.
Michelangelo is also one of the first artists of the early modern era whose appearance is well known to us, thanks to numerous portraits by his artist colleagues. These likenesses show a bearded face with high, sharply defined cheekbones and a broad, somewhat flattened nose. Michelangelo's characteristics also emerge from the writings of his contemporaries: they evoke an untidily dressed, even somewhat unkempt, man who lived modestly, who could at times be generous towards his inferiors and also rude towards his employers. But there must also have been a well-dressed Michelangelo, who liked expensive shirts and afforded himself the luxury of a good horse. The earliest description of Michelangelo by a contemporary, and one that is probably plausible, is provided by Paolo Giovio around 1527, who writes: "The man with this talent was also so curt and uncouth by nature that, leaving aside the incredible filth of his domestic life, he granted posterity no successors in his art. For although implored to do so by the princes, he could never be persuaded to take on an apprentice or even allow onlookers in his workshop."
Page [1] [2] [3]
Michelangelo, Complete Work
Hardcover, 29 x 44 cm (11.4 x 17.3 in.), 768 pages
$ 200.00
$ 200.00
Michelangelo's complete work — sculpture, painting, architecture, drawings
Prophet Jeremiah, detail from the Sistine Ceiling, 1511. (c) Archivio fotografico Musei Vaticani. Per gentile concessione dei Musei Vaticani, Roma
Bacchus (detail), 1496/97. (c) Aurelio Amendola, Pistoia