The agony and the ecstas.., p.22
The Agony and the Ecstasy, page 22
“We’ve already had an offer for the piece.”
“A patron? Someone wants to buy?”
“Not exactly. They want it as a contribution. From Savonarola, through my brother Lionardo, to offer it up to God on their bonfire.”
There was an almost imperceptible pause before Lorenzo said, “And you answered?”
“That I was not free to give it. The piece belonged to Lorenzo de’ Medici.”
“The marble is yours.”
“Even to give to Savonarola for burning?”
“If that is your wish.”
“But suppose, Excellency, that I had already offered the piece to God? The God who created man in His own image of goodness and strength and beauty? Savonarola says that man is vile. Would God have created us in hate?”
Lorenzo rose abruptly, walked about the room with only the barest indication of a limp. A groom came in, set a small table with two places.
“Sit down and eat while I talk to you. I too will eat, though I had no appetite before you came.” He reached for a crisp crust of bread. “Michelangelo, the forces of destruction march on the heels of creativity. The arts, finest flowering of each age, are torn down, broken, burned by the next. Sometimes, as you see here in Florence today, by erstwhile friends and neighbors in the same city in the same year. Savonarola is not only after what he calls the non-religious works and the ‘lascivious’ nudes; he also means to destroy the painting and sculpture that does not fit into his pattern: the frescoes of Masaccio, Filippo Lippi, the Benozzo Gozzolis here in the palace chapel, the Ghirlandaios, all of the Greek and Roman statuary, most of our Florentine marbles.
“Little will remain but the Fra Angelico angels in the San Marco cells. If he has his way, and his power is growing, Florence will be ravished, as was Athens by Sparta. The Florentines are a fickle people; if they follow Savonarola to the end of his announced road, everything that has been accomplished since my great-grandfather offered his prize for the Baptistery doors will be wiped out. Florence will slip back into darkness.”
Shaken by the intensity of Lorenzo’s emotion, Michelangelo cried;
“How wrong I was to think that Savonarola would reform only what was evil in Florentine life. He will destroy everything that is good as well. As a sculptor I would be a slave, with both hands cut off.”
“Nobody misses the loss of another man’s freedom,” replied Lorenzo sadly. Then he pushed aside his plate. “I want you to take a walk with me. There is something I must show you.”
They went to the rear of the palace and across a small enclosed square to the front of San Lorenzo, the family church of the Medici. Inside was buried Cosimo, Lorenzo’s grandfather, near one of the bronze pulpits designed by Donatello and executed by Bertoldo; in the Old Sacristy, designed by Brunelleschi, was a sarcophagus containing Cosimo’s parents, Giovanni di Bicci and his wife; and a porphyry sarophagus of Piero the Gouty, Lorenzo’s father, created by Verrocchio. But the principal face of the church remained of rough, unevenly spaced, earth-colored brick, obviously uncompleted.
“Michelangelo, this is the last great work of art I must complete for my family, a marble façade with some twenty sculptured figures standing in its niches.”
“Twenty sculptures! That’s as many as stand in the façade of the Duomo.”
“But not too many for you. One full-size statue for every figure suggested in your Battle. We must create something over which all Italy will rejoice.”
Michelangelo wondered whether the sinking feeling in his diaphragm was joy or dismay. Impetuously he cried, “I will do it, Lorenzo, I promise. But I will need time. I still have so much to learn… . I have not yet tried my first freestanding figure.”
When he reached his apartment he found Bertoldo wrapped in a blanket, sitting over a live-coal brazier in his half of the L, his eyes red and his face a pasty white. Michelangelo went quickly to his side.
“Are you all right, Bertoldo?”
“No, I’m not all right! I’m a stupid, blind, ridiculous old man who has outworn his time.”
“What leads you to this harsh conclusion?” asked Michelangelo lightly, trying to cheer him.
“Looking at your Battle in Lorenzo’s room, and remembering the things I said about it. I was wrong, terribly wrong. I was trying to turn it into a cast bronze piece; your marble would have been spoiled. You must forgive me.”
“Let me put you to bed.”
He settled Bertoldo under the feather-bed quilt, went down to the basement kitchen and ordered a mug of wine heated on the dying embers. He held the silver cup to Bertoldo’s lips, feeding consolation with the hot liquid.
“If the Battle is good, it’s because you taught me how to make it good. If I couldn’t make it like bronze, it was because you made me aware of the differences between solid marble and fluid metal. So be content. Tomorrow we will start a new piece, and you will teach me more.”
“Yes, tomorrow,” sighed Bertoldo. He closed his eyes, opened them again briefly, asked, “Are you sure, Michelangelo, there is a tomorrow?” and dropped off to sleep.
In a few moments there was a change in his breathing. It seemed to become heavy, labored. Michelangelo went to wake Ser Piero, who sent a groom for Lorenzo’s doctor.
Michelangelo spent the night holding Bertoldo so that he could breathe a little more easily. The doctor confessed that he could think of nothing to do. At first light Bertoldo opened his eyes, gazed at Michelangelo, the doctor and Ser Piero, understood his plight and whispered:
“… take me to Poggio … it’s so beautiful …”
When a groom came to announce that the carriage was ready, Michelangelo picked Bertoldo up, blankets and all, and held him on his lap for the drive out toward Pistoia to the most exquisite of the Medici villas, formerly owned by Michelangelo’s cousins, the Rucellai, and remodeled with magnificent open galleries by Giuliano da Sangallo. Rain lashed at their carriage all the way, but once Bertoldo was installed in the high bed in his favorite room, overlooking the Ombrone River, the sun emerged and lighted the lush green Tuscan landscape. Lorenzo rode out to comfort his old friend, bringing Maestro Stefano da Prato to try some new medicines.
Bertoldo died in the late afternoon of the second day. After the priest had given him extreme unction, he uttered his last words with a little smile, as though trying to make his exit as a wit rather than a sculptor.
“Michelangelo … you are my heir … as I was Donatello’s.”
“Yes, Bertoldo. And I am proud.”
“I want you to have my estate …”
“If you wish.”
“It will make you … rich … famous. My cookbook.”
“I shall always treasure it.”
Bertoldo smiled again, as though they shared a secret joke, and closed his eyes for the last time. Michelangelo said his good-bys silently, turned away. He had lost his master. There would never be another.
15.
The disorganization of the garden was now complete. All work stopped. Granacci gave up the painting of a street festival scene that he had almost completed and spent his time feverishly supplying models, finding marble blocks, scaring up small commissions for a sarcophagus, a Madonna.
Michelangelo cornered his friend late one afternoon.
“It’s no good, Granacci. School is over.”
“Don’t say that. We have only to find a new master. Lorenzo said last night I could go to Siena to seek one …”
Sansovino and Rustici drifted into the studio.
“Michelangelo is right,” said Sansovino. “I’m going to accept the invitation from the King of Portugal, and go there to work.”
“I think we’ve learned all we can as students,” agreed Rustici.
“I was never intended for cutting stone,” said Bugiardini. “My nature is too soft, it’s made for mixing oil and pigment. I’m going to ask Ghirlandaio to take me back.”
Granacci snapped at Michelangelo, “Don’t tell me you’re leaving too!”
“Me? Where would I go?”
The group broke up. Michelangelo walked home with Granacci to report the death of Bertoldo to the family. Lucrezia was excited by the cookbook, reading several of the recipes aloud. Lodovico showed no interest.
“Michelangelo, it is finished, your new sculpture?”
“Sort of.”
“Il Magnifico, he has seen it?”
“Yes, I took it to him.”
“Did he like it?”
“Yes.”
“That’s all, just yes? Didn’t he show pleasure, approval?”
“Yes, Father, he did.”
“Then where is the money?”
“What money?”
“The fifty florins.”
“I don’t know what …”
“Come now. Il Magnifico gave you fifty florins when you finished the Madonna and Child. Hand over the purse.”
“There is no purse.”
“No purse? You worked for a whole year. You’re entitled to your money.”
“I’m not entitled to anything, Father, beyond what I have had.”
“Il Magnifico paid you for the other and not for this one.” Lodovico was emphatic. “That can only mean that he does not like this one.”
“It can also mean that he is ill, worried about many things…”
“Then there is still a chance that he will pay you?”
“I have no idea.”
“You must remind him.”
Michelangelo shook his head in despair; returned slowly through the cold wet streets.
An artist without ideas is a mendicant; barren, he goes begging among the hours. For the first time since he had entered Urbino’s school seven years before, he had no desire to draw. He avoided the formation of the word “marble” in his mind. His broken nose, which had given him no trouble while he was working, began to pain him; one nostril was closed completely, making it difficult for him to breathe. Again he became conscious of his ugliness.
The garden was lonely. Lorenzo had suspended work on the library. The stonemasons were gone, and with them the rhythmical chipping of building blocks that was the most natural ambiente for his work. There was a feeling of transition in the air. The Plato group rarely came in to Florence to lecture. There were no more evenings in the studiolo. Lorenzo decided that he must take a complete cure in one of his villas, with six months away from the palace and its duties. There he could not only eradicate his gout but lay his plans to come to grips with Savonarola. This was to be a battle to the death, he said, and he would need his full vitality. Though all the weapons were in his hands: wealth, power, control of the local government, treaties with outside city-states and nations, firm friends in all the neighboring dynasties; and Savonarola had nothing but the cloak on his back; yet Savonarola, living the life of a saint, dedicated, uncorruptible, a brilliant teacher, an executive who had already effected serious reforms in the personal life of the Tuscan clergy as well as the indulgent life of the rich Florentines who were flocking to his side to renounce the pamperings of the flesh, Fra Savonarola seemed to have the upper hand.
As part of his plan to put his affairs in order, Lorenzo made arrangements for Giovanni to be invested as cardinal, worried lest Pope Innocent VIII, an old man, should die before fulfilling his promise, and the succeeding Pope, perhaps hostile to the Medici as former ones had been, refused to accept the sixteen-year-old youth into the ruling hierarchy of the Church. Lorenzo also knew that it would be a strategic victory with the people of Florence.
Michelangelo was troubled by Lorenzo’s preparations for his departure to Careggi, for he had begun to hand over important business and governmental matters to Piero. If Piero were to be in command, what would life be like for him here? Piero could order him out of the palace. For that matter, what was his status, now that the sculpture garden had virtually closed down?
Nothing had been said about completion money for the Battle, so he could not go home. The three florins spending money was no longer being deposited on his washstand. He had no need for the money, but its sudden disappearance unnerved him. Who had ordered this? Lorenzo? Ser Piero da Bibbiena, perhaps thinking that it was no longer necessary since the garden was not functioning? Or was it Piero?
In his irresolution, Michelangelo turned to Contessina, seeking out her company, spending hours talking to her; picking up The Divine Comedy and reading aloud to her the passages he liked best, such as the one in Canto XI of the Inferno:
“Art, as best it can, doth follow nature,
As pupil follows master; industry
Or Art is, so to speak, grandchild to God.
From these two sources (if you will call to mind
That passage in the Book of Genesis)
Mankind must take its sustenance and progress.”
The Platonists had urged him to write sonnets as the highest expression of man’s literary thought, and had read from their own poetry in the hope of giving him insight into the art. While he was expressing himself fully in drawing, modeling and carving, he had had no need for a supplementary voice. Now in his solitude and confusion he began putting down his first stumbling lines … to Contessina.
Heavenwards I am borne by an enchanting face,
Nought else on earth can yield me such delight.
And later:
A soul none sees but I,
Most exquisite, my spirit sees …
He tore up the fragments, knowing them to be high-flown and adolescent; went back to the deserted garden to wander along the paths, visit the casino from which Piero had ordered all the cameos, ivories and folios of drawings to be returned to the palace. He was aching to work, but felt so empty he did not know what to work at. Sitting at his drawing board in the shed, hearing only the buzzing of insects in the wild-growing flowers, there welled up in him a sadness and sense of being alone in the world.
At last Lorenzo sent for him.
“Would you like to come to Fiesole with us? We are spending the night in the villa. In the morning Giovanni is to be invested in the Badia Fiesolana. It would be well for you to witness the ceremony. Later, in Rome, Giovanni will remember that you attended.”
He rode to Fiesole in a carriage with Contessina, young Giuliano and the nurse. Contessina asked to get off at San Domenico, halfway up the hill, for she wanted to see the Badia to which, as a woman, she would be denied admittance to her brother’s investiture.
Michelangelo knew the little church intimately, having stopped off to visit it during his walks to Fiesole and the Cave Maiano. The Romanesque lower part of the façade dated back to 1050, but for Michelangelo its great beauty was in the interior, remodeled in the style of Brunelleschi, every tiny detail of stonework: the walls, pillars, windows, altars, flawless works of art of the stonecutters of Fiesole and Settignano, including his own Topolinos. When he exclaimed over this perfection, Contessina retorted laughingly:
“You’re a heretic, Michelangelo; you think the importance of a church is in its art works.”
“Isn’t it?”
He was awakened two hours before morning light, dressed himself and joined the procession going down the hill to the Badia, where Giovanni had spent his night in prayer. His heart sank when he saw that Lorenzo was being carried on a litter.
The little church sparkled in the light of a hundred candles. Its walls were covered with the emblems of Giovanni’s Medici ancestors. Michelangelo stood by the open door, watching the sun come up over the valley of the Mugnone. With the first streaks of dawn Pico della Mirandola passed him with a solemn nod, followed by the public notary from Florence. Giovanni knelt before the altar to receive the sacrament. High mass was sung, the superior of the abbey blessed the insignia of Giovanni’s new rank: his mantle, broad-brimmed hat with the long tassle. The Papal Brief was read, ordering the investment, after which a sapphire ring, emblematic of the Church’s celestial foundation, was slipped onto Giovanni’s finger by Canon Bosso.
Michelangelo left the Badia and began walking down the road to Florence. In the early spring sunlight the red roofs of the city formed a tightly interwoven pattern beneath him. At the Ponte di Mugnone he met a gaily clad deputation of the most prominent Florentine citizens, some of whom he recognized from Lorenzo’s dinner table, followed by a throng of plain citizens and, as a sign that the worst of Lorenzo’s troubles might be over, a large portion of Florence’s clergymen, some of whom, he knew, had sworn allegiance to Savonarola, coming up to the Badia with songs and cheers to ask for a blessing from the new Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici.
That night at the palace there were music and dancing and pageantry and song. That night, too, the whole of Florence was fed, supplied with wine and lavish entertainment by the Medici.
Two days later Michelangelo stood in a reception line to bid farewell to the cardinal and his cousin Giulio, who was accompanying him. Giovanni blessed Michelangelo and invited him to visit if he should ever come to Rome.
All gaiety left the palace with the cardinal. Lorenzo announced his departure for Careggi. During his absence his son Piero would be in charge.
16.
It was two weeks since Lorenzo had left the palace. Michelangelo was sitting alone in his bedroom when he heard voices in the corridor. A thunderbolt had struck the lantern atop the Duomo and it had fallen in the direction of the Medici palace. The city went out into the streets to gaze at the smashed lantern, then turn sorrowfully toward the palace as though in mourning. The following day Savonarola seized the opportunity to preach a sermon presaging such calamities for Florence as destruction from invasion, from earthquake, fire and flood. Michelangelo stood in the dense throng listening, dug his nails into Granacci’s arm.
That night a rumor came to him in the palace, brought by the groom of Lorenzo’s secretary: instead of getting better, Lorenzo was failing. A new doctor had been sent for, Lazzaro of Pavia, who had administered to Lorenzo a pulverized mixture of diamonds and pearls. This hitherto infallible medicine had failed to help. Lorenzo had sent for Pico and Poliziano to read from his favorite authors to ease his pain.
