A Journey Into Michelangelo's Rome by Angela K Nickerson

Author:Angela K Nickerson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History/Europe Italy
ISBN: 18312
Publisher: Roaring Forties Press
Published: 2008-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

Charles V’s army plunders Rome in 1527.

A Cadre of Friends

Michelangelo has sometimes been painted as a stingy, friendless genius, too busy with work to maintain relationships. In 1509, while painting the Sistine Chapel, he wrote to his brother Buonarroto, “I live here in great toil and great weariness of body, and have no friends of any kind and don’t want any, and haven’t the time to eat what I need.

Michelangelo focused most of his energies on his art. A friend once remarked, “It’s a pity you haven’t taken a wife, for you would have had many children and bequeathed to them many honorable works.” Michelangelo replied, “I have too much of a wife in this art that has always afflicted me, and the works I shall leave behind will be my children, and even if they are nothing, they will live for a long while.”

In addition, over the years, Michelangelo developed a reputation for having a temper—his terribilità. Some acquaintances considered him arrogant; others found him eccentric, even bizarre. Yet he was fiercely loyal to those who won his respect. His relationships crossed socioeconomic, gender, and age boundaries to include members of the nobility and the privileged clergy, writers and fellow artists, men and women, and those older and those younger than himself. Many of Michelangelo’s friendships spanned decades.

His relationships with his employees were also longlasting. Michelangelo kept careful records of their names, wages, and the projects on which they worked. Many stayed with him for years. He paid them well, provided them with housing, and was involved in all aspects of their lives. His generosity helped ensure their loyalty and afforded him a stable workforce, committed to the quality he valued and familiar with his working style. He provided the basic tools they needed: benches, rulers, stools, and a smith to sharpen their tools. They, in turn, carried out his work and upheld his exacting standards. Many of his employees earned nicknames revealing their personalities or physiques and their employer’s affections for them: the She-Cat, Knobby, Fats, the Anti-Christ, and Little Liar.

When Michelangelo met the young artist Tommaso de’ Cavalieri (c. 1518–87), a handsome Roman gentleman with good breeding and a good education, he found a kindred spirit. Although Michelangelo was fifty-seven years old when they met, he presented the younger man with poetry and drawings. He wrote a letter from Florence, touchingly awed that Cavalieri had responded to his tokens: “If it is really true that you feel within as you write me outwardly, as to your judging my works, if it should happen that one of them as I wish should please you, I shall much sooner call it lucky than good.”

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