The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti | Page 8

No one foresaw the apocalyptic vials of wrath which were about to be poured forth upon her plains and cities through the next half-century. Rarely, at any period of the world's history, perhaps only in Athens between the Persian and the Peloponnesian wars, has culture, in the highest and best sense of that word, prospered more intelligently and pacifically than it did in the Florence of Lorenzo, through the co-operation and mutual zeal of men of eminence, inspired by common enthusiasms, and labouring in diverse though cognate fields of study and production.
Michelangelo's position in the house was that of an honoured guest or adopted son. Lorenzo not only allowed him five ducats a month by way of pocket-money, together with clothes befitting his station, but he also, says Condivi, "appointed him a good room in the palace, together with all the conveniences he desired, treating him in every respect, as also at his table, precisely like one of his own sons. It was the custom of this household, where men of the noblest birth and highest public rank assembled round the daily board, for the guests to take their places next the master in the order of their arrival; those who were present at the beginning of the meal sat, each according to his degree, next the Magnificent, not moving afterwards for any one who might appear. So it happened that Michelangelo found himself frequently seated above Lorenzo's children and other persons of great consequence, with whom that house continually flourished and abounded. All these illustrious men paid him particular attention, and encouraged him in the honourable art which he had chosen. But the chief to do so was the Magnificent himself, who sent for him oftentimes in a day, in order that he might show him jewels, cornelians, medals, and such-like objects of great rarity, as knowing him to be of excellent parts and judgment in these things." It does not appear that Michelangelo had any duties to perform or services to render. Probably his patron employed him upon some useful work of the kind suggested by Condivi. But the main business of his life in the Casa Medici was to make himself a valiant sculptor, who in after years should confer lustre on the city of the lily and her Medicean masters. What he produced during this period seems to have become his own property, for two pieces of statuary, presently to be described, remained in the possession of his family, and now form a part of the collection in the Casa Buonarroti.
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Angelo Poliziano, who was certainly the chief scholar of his age in the new learning, and no less certainly one of its truest poets in the vulgar language, lived as tutor to Lorenzo's children in the palace of the Medici at Florence. Benozzo Gozzoli introduced his portrait, together with the portraits of his noble pupils, in a fresco of the Pisan Campo Santo. This prince of humanists recommended Michelangelo to treat in bas-relief an antique fable, involving the strife of young heroes for some woman's person. Probably he was also able to point out classical examples by which the boyish sculptor might be guided in the undertaking. The subject made enormous demands upon his knowledge of the nude. Adult and youthful figures, in attitudes of vehement attack and resistance, had to be modelled; and the conditions of the myth required that one at least of them should be brought into harmony with equine forms. Michelangelo wrestled vigorously with these difficulties. He produced a work which, though it is imperfect and immature, brings to light the specific qualities of his inherent art-capacity. The bas-relief, still preserved in the Casa Buonarroti at Florence, is, so to speak, in fermentation with powerful half-realised conceptions, audacities of foreshortening, attempts at intricate grouping, violent dramatic action and expression. No previous tradition, unless it was the genius of Greek or Greco-Roman antiquity, supplied Michelangelo with the motive force for this prentice-piece in sculpture. Donatello and other Florentines worked under different sympathies for form, affecting angularity in their treatment of the nude, adhering to literal transcripts from the model or to conventional stylistic schemes. Michelangelo discarded these limitations, and showed himself an ardent student of reality in the service of some lofty intellectual ideal. Following and closely observing Nature, he was also sensitive to the light and guidance of the classic genius. Yet, at the same time, he violated the aesthetic laws obeyed by that genius, displaying his Tuscan proclivities by violent dramatic suggestions, and in loaded, overcomplicated composition. Thus, in this highly interesting essay, the horoscope of the mightiest Florentine artist was already cast. Nature leads him, and he follows Nature as his own star bids. But that star is double, blending classic influence with Tuscan instinct. The roof of the Sistine