Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 3.djvu/87

 BUONARROTI

"My people, what have ye done to Me?" Properly, however, the figure is not that of the suffering Saviour, but of the risen Saviour and therefore nude, according to the desire of the patron who gave the commission. The age of the Renaissance, in its ardour for the nude, paid no regard to decorum. At a later date a bronze loin cloth, unfortunately too long, was placed on the statue. In conformity with the spirit in which the whole composition is conceived, the figure of Christ is not stiff and severe like the statue of an antique god, but expresses a resigned humanity. A youthful Apollo produced at about the same time has also little of the classic in its design. A dying Adonis comes nearer to classic models in its* conception. But the gigantic David, the em- bodiment of fresh young daring, in reality a repre- sentation of a noble boy, re- sembles an an- tique god or hero. It can hardly be said dial the co- lossal size, over twi Ive and a half feet, is suitable forayouth; how- ever, the deed for which David is preparing, or more probably, the action which he has just com- pleted, is a deed of courage. The right hand is half closed, the left hand with the sling stems to be going back to the shoulder, while i he gaze follows the stone. The figure resembles that of an ancient athlete. The body is nude, and the full beauty of the lines of the human form is strik- ingly brought out. In 1508 Michelangelo agreed to carve the twelve Apostles in heroic size (al>out nine and a half feet high) for the church of Santa Maria del Fiore, but of the whole number only the figure of St. Matthew, a great and daring design, was hewn in the rough. Similarly, he executed but four of the saints which were to decorate the memorial chapel to Pius II and left the rest of the work unfinished. A bronze statue of David with the head of Goliath under his feet was sent to France and has since disappeared. A pen-and-ink sketch of this statue is still in the Louvre.

His powers fully matured, Michelangelo now entered the service of the popes and was entrusted with the carrying out of two great undertakings. In 1505 Julius II called him to Rome to design and erect for the pope a stately sepulchral monument. The monument was to be a four-sided marble struc- ture in two courses, decorated with some forty figures of heroic size. Michelangelo spent eight months in Carrara superintending the sending of the marble to Rome. He hoped in carrying out this commission to execute a work worthy of classic times, one containing figures that would bear com- parison with the then newly discovered Laocoon. His plans, however, were brought to nought by a sudden change of mind on the part of Julius, who now began to consider the rebuilding of St. Peter's after the designs of Hramante. Julius may be said to have driven Michelangelo from the Roman court. Fearful of the malice of enemies, Buonarroti fled in despair to Florence and. turning a deaf ear to the pope's entreaties to return to Rome, offered to go

61 BUONARROTI

on with the work for the monument at Florence. To this, however, Julius would not listen. In his exasperation Michelangelo was on the point of going to Constantinople. However, at the invitation of the pope, in the latter part of 1506, he went to Bo- logna, where, amid the greatest difficulties and in straitened circumstances, he cast a bronze statue of Julius II, of heroic size. This effigy was de- stroyed during a revolt against Julius in 1511. Once more in Rome, he was obliged for the time being to abandon the scheme for the monument to Julius and, against his will, to decorate the Sis- tine Chapel with frescoes. Julius II lived only long enough after the completion of the frescoes to arrange for his monument in his will. After his death in 1513 a formal contract was made for the construction of the memorial. According to this new agreement the monument was no longer to be an independent structure, but was to be placed against the church wall in the form of a chapel. The plan for the structure was even more magnificent than the original design, but was in the end abandoned, both on account of its size and of other circum- stances which arose. The new pope, Leo X, of the Medici family, was a friend of Michelangelo's youth and looked on him with much favour, but had new designs in reference to him. After Michelangelo had laboured for two years on the monument to Julius, Pope Leo, during a visit to Florence, com- manded him, to construct a stately new facade for the church of San Lorenzo, the family burial place of the Medici. With tears in his eyes, Michelangelo agreed to this interruption of his great design. The building of the new facade was abandoned in 1520, but the sculptor returned to his former work for a time only. The short reign of Adrian VI was followed by the election to the papal throne of another early friend of Michelangelo, Giulio de' Medici, who took the name of Clement VII. Sinci 1520 Giulio de' Medici had desired to erect a family mortuary chapel in San Lorenzo. When he became pope he obliged Michelangelo to take up this task. The new commission was not unworthy of the sculptor's powers, yet an evil fate prevented this undertaking also from reaching its full completion. .Michelangelo suffered unspeakably from the con- stant alteration of his plans: he- was, moreover, beset by many detractors; the political disorders in his native city filled him with grief, and the years brought with them constantly increasing infirm- ities.

In 1545 the designs, some of which still exist, for the monument to Julius II were carried out on a much reduced scale. The monument is in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli; in the centre of the lower course of the monument between two smaller figures is placed the gigantic statue of Moses, which was originally intended for the upper course, where it would have made a much more powerful im- pression. When seen close by, the criticism may be made that the expression is too violent, there is no sufficient reason for the swollen veins in the left arm, the shoulders are too massive in comparison with the neck, the chin, and the forehead; thai even the folds of the robe are unnatural. Vt seen from a distance, it is precisely these features that produce the desired effect. The great statue, which is double life size, was intended to express the painfully restrained and mighty wrath of the leader of a stiff-necked people. It is plain that an allusion to the warlike prowess of Julius II was intended and that the sculptor here-, as in many of his other undertakings, lias embodied his own tremendous conception of force. The way in which the Tables of the Law are grasped, the bare arm and right knee, the heavy beard and the "horns'' heighten the effect^ that is aimed at. The Hank-