The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti | Page 8

artists, scholars,
students innumerable, all in their own departments capable of satisfying
a youth's curiosity, by explaining to him the particular virtues of books
discussed, or of antique works of art inspected. During those halcyon
years, before the invasion of Charles VIII., it seemed as though the
peace of Italy might last unbroken. 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.

VI
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