Michelangelo by Forty Sandra

Author:Forty, Sandra [FORTY, SANDRA]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781844062973
Publisher: TAJ Books International

Interior of the Sistine Chapel, Vatican City, Rome

From 1515 onward, for the next 20 years or so, Michelangelo spent much of his time working directly for the Medici family in Florence. There he designed the Medici Chapel for Pope Leo X (but because of the fall of the Medici it remained unfinished) and designed and carved the Medici family tombs, although he only completed two of the four.

In September 1534 he left Florence for the last time at the age of 57 after the death of his father. He was overwhelmed with grief and moved to Rome where he met 23-year-old Tommaso de’ Cavalieri and gave him gifts of drawings and poems. Around 1545 Michelangelo met and befriended the painter Ascanio Condivi in Rome. He became Michelangelo’s pupil. The son of a nobleman he was a better writer than artist and in 1553 he published the authorized biography of Michelangelo, Vita di Michelangelo Buonarroti. Michelangelo had agreed to the work and maybe even commissioned it to refute persistent rumors spread by his jealous rivals that he was difficult, arrogant, and financially greedy—even his biggest patrons were wary of his renowned irascibility. He was also irked by erroneous accounts about him in Giorgio Vasari’s Vite de’ piit eccellenti architetti, pittori, et scultori Italiani (Lives of the Most Excellent Architects, Painters, and Sculptors), which had been published in 1550.

For the rest of his life Michelangelo mainly worked for the papacy. The new pope, Clement VII, commissioned him to paint a fresco of the Resurrection for the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel and then died within a few months. Regardless, work started in 153 6 after the new pope, Paul III, confirmed the commission but changed the subject to the Last Judgement to reflect the prevailing penitential mood of the Counter Revolution. This hugely ambitious project took Michelangelo five years to complete and showed multiple male nudes against a deep blue sky. The central figure is a naked militaristic Christ surrounded by Christian saints, each holding their instruments of martyrdom—alluding to the new Catholic militancy—while the earthbound sinners await his judgement.

Unlike Michelangelo’s first ceiling painting at the Sistine Chapel, the new project quickly drew criticism for its male nudes, whose loins some prudes demanded be covered with draperies. Michelangelo was accused of turning the Vatican into a brothel and many called for the painting’s destruction altogether. Luckily, he was too eminent a talent for anything to happen to the Last Judgement until after his death, when in January 1564, Daniele da Volterra—a former apprentice of Michelangelo—was ordered to paint modesty draperies over the buttocks and genitals of the nudes. These remain to this day despite extensive “restoration” between 1980 and 1994.

The rebuilding of St. Peter’s Basilica had been ongoing since 1506 when Pope Julius II pulled down the old cathedral. By 1546 Pope Paul III was in charge and decided to appoint the very reluctant Michelangelo as his Chief Architect, even though the artist was in his 70s and in declining health. His main challenge was to design a dome to fit on top of the existing building.

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