Historic Boyhoods Part 2

For a long time Michael Angelo, stunned by his patron's loss, could do no work, and when at last he found the heart to take up his brush and palette it was no longer in the great house of the Medici, but in a little room he had arranged for himself as a studio under his father's roof.

He was not long left to work there in peace; the three sons of Lorenzo, boys of nearly his own age, who had been playmates with him in the gardens, and had studied with him under the same masters, needed his help. The great Medici had said, long before, that of his three sons one was good, one clever, and the third a fool. Giulio, now thirteen years old, was the good one; Giovanni, seventeen years old, already a Prince Cardinal of the Church, was the clever one, and Piero, the oldest, now head of the family in Florence, was the fool.

The storm raised by Savonarola was ready to break about Piero de'

Medici's head, and such friends as were still faithful to him he gathered about him at his house. Michael Angelo, his old playmate, was among the number, and so he again moved to the palace. For a brief time they sought to win back the favor of the people by a return to the old-time magnificence.

With no wise head to guide, the youths were soon in sore straits. Their love of art, their study of the poets, their attempt to revive the history of Greece and Rome were all scorned and mocked at as so much wanton dissipation. The boys drew closer together; the fate of their house hung trembling in the balance.

Then one morning a young lute-player named Cardiere came to Michael Angelo and, drawing him aside from the others, told him that in a dream the night before, Lorenzo had appeared to him, robed in torn black garments, and in deep, melancholy tones had ordered him to tell Piero, his son, that he would soon be driven out from Florence, never to return. Michael Angelo told the musician to tell Piero, but the latter was too frightened to obey.

A few days later he came again to Michael Angelo, this time pale and shaking with fear, and said that Lorenzo had appeared to him a second time, had repeated what he had said to him before, and had threatened him with dire punishment if he dared again to disobey his strict command.

Alarmed at the news Michael Angelo spoke his mind to Cardiere and bade him set off at once to see Piero, who was at Careggi, and give him his father's warning. Cardiere, half-way to Careggi, met Piero and some friends riding in toward Florence. The minstrel stopped their way and besought Piero to hear his story. The young Medici bade him speak, but when he had heard the warning he laughed, and his friends laughed with him.

Bibbiena, one of Piero's closest friends, and later to be the subject of one of Raphael's masterpieces, cried aloud in scorn to Cardiere: "Fool! Dost think that Lorenzo gives thee such honor before his own son that he would thus appear to thee rather than to Piero?" With laughter at Cardiere's crestfallen face the gay troop rode on, and the poor messenger of evil tidings returned slowly with his news to Michael Angelo.

By now the boy sculptor was thoroughly alarmed. Like almost every one else of that age he believed in portents and visions; he therefore took Cardiere's story to heart, and in addition he could see for himself that the foolish, headstrong Piero was taking no steps to turn the growing discontent. He hated to leave his friends, but knew that they would pay no heed to his warnings. So, after much hesitation, he decided, with two comrades of about his own age, to go to Venice and seek work in that quieter city.

Ordinarily it would have taken the three boys about a week to ride from Florence to Venice, but at that time French troops were scattered through the country, and they had to follow a roundabout course to reach the city by the sea. They had very little money, and had gone only a short distance when this small amount was exhausted. By that time they had reached the city of Bologna, and there they turned aside.

Like most of the Italian cities Bologna tried to keep itself independent, and to this end the ruling family had made a strange law with regard to foreigners. Every stranger entering the city gates had to present himself before the governor and receive from him a seal of red wax on the thumb. If a stranger neglected to do this, he was liable to be thrown into prison and fined.

The boy Michael Angelo and his two friends knew nothing of this odd law, and entered the city gaily, without having the necessary wax on their thumbs. As soon as this was noticed they were seized, taken before a judge, and sentenced to pay six hundred and fifty lire. They had not that much money between them, and so for a short time were placed under lock and key.

Fortunately news of the boys' arrest came to a n.o.bleman of the city who was much interested in art and who had already heard of Michael Angelo's ability. He at once had the boys set free, and invited Michael Angelo to visit him at his home. But Michael did not wish to leave his friends, and felt that it would be an imposition for the three of them to accept the invitation.

When he spoke in this fas.h.i.+on to the n.o.bleman the latter was very much amused. "Ah, well," said he, "if things stand so I must beg of you to take me also with your two friends to roam about the world at your expense." The joke showed the boy the absurd side of the matter. He gave his friends the little money he had left, said good-bye to them, and accepted the invitation to stay in Bologna.

A very short time after, Piero de' Medici, driven from Florence by an angry people, came to Bologna and met his old friend of Lorenzo's gardens. For a short time the boys were together, then the young Medici set out to seek aid from other cities, in an attempt to rebuild his family fortunes.

Meanwhile the n.o.bleman who had offered Michael Angelo a home was delighted with his young friend. He found him keenly interested in Dante and Petrarch, and equally gifted as a sculptor and painter. He gave him work to do in the Church of San Petronio, and Michael did so well there that the artists of Bologna grew jealous of him, and at the end of the year forced him to leave the city.

Then the boy artist went back to his home, only to find it changed unspeakably. Florence, that had been a city of delight, was now a city of dread. Savonarola held the people's ear, and had taught them to destroy what Lorenzo had led them to love. The monks of San Marco made bonfires of their paintings, priceless ma.n.u.scripts had met with the same fate, and Lorenzo's house had been robbed of all its sculpture. The gardens were strewn with broken statues that had once been Michael Angelo's delight. He walked through them sadly, and realized that he alone was left of that group who had found so much happiness there only a few years before. The words that he had spoken to Lorenzo on the day he chiseled the faun came back to him, "To Rome I shall go some day,"

and thither he now set his face.

Thereafter the Eternal City claimed Michael Angelo. Cardinal after cardinal, pope after pope, employed his marvelous genius to beautify the capital of the world. As he had said, he found work to do in the Holy Father's house. Whatever else they might do, the Italians of that age wors.h.i.+ped art, and there were two stars in their sky, Raphael and Michael Angelo.

Again Fate's wheel turned, and at last Michael Angelo returned to Florence, loaded with honors, this time again the guest of a Medici, Giulio, the playmate of his youth, ruling as autocrat where his father had ruled as a mere citizen. A little later, and the shrewdest of the three boys, Giovanni, became Pope Leo X.

As men the friends of boyhood differed, but they were alike in their devotion to Florence and the things they had learned in her school years before. At the height of his power Michael Angelo turned his hand to the Medici Chapel and built there lasting monuments to their glory and his genius, a wonderful return for the rare days of his boyhood in their gardens.

III

Walter Raleigh

The Boy of Devon: 1552-1618

Summer was over England, and the county of Devon, running down to Cornwall between two seas, was painted in bright hues. The downs were softly carpeted with purple and yellow gorse and heather that made a wonderful soft mist as one looked across the fields. Low hills, brilliant green ridges against the sky, ran inland from the sea, and in the little hollows here and there nestled small straw-thatched cottages with s.h.i.+ning white walls, or the more pretentious Tudor farmhouses with red or brown roofs, and much half-timbered decoration.

The Devon winters were long, with heavy snow, and men had to build so that they might have all possible protection from the winds that swept across the open upland country. So they built down in the valleys and in the long low inlets from the sea that were called combes, and as a result one might stand on the high moors looking across country, and never know there was a house within a mile. It is a country full of surprises.

On a fine morning when Devon was looking its best, a boy came out of a dwelling that was half farmhouse, half manor-house, and that lay in a cup of low hills on the edge of a tract of moorland. The house belonged to a man named Walter Raleigh, of Fardell, a gentleman of good family whose fortunes had sunk to a low ebb. It was one-storied, with thatched roof, gabled wings, and a projecting central porch. Here lived Mr.

Raleigh of Fardell with his wife Katherine, four sons and a daughter. It was a large family for such a small estate, and already the father was wondering what would happen to the younger boys when the little property should have descended, according to the law of the land, to the oldest son.

It was the boy Walter, youngest of the sons, who had come out of the house, and stood looking about him. He was a good-looking fellow, with fair hair, blue eyes, and the ruddy English skin. It did not take him long to decide which way to go this morning. He made straight for an oak wood that lay before the house, and followed a little path that led through it. Two miles and a half through the wood lay Budleigh Salterton Bay, and Walter liked that best of all the places near his home.

He pa.s.sed the oaks and came out into open country. Here, where the gorse made a soft carpet on the ground, the salt of the sea blew freshly in to him. He gave a great shout, and pulling off his cap, ran as fast as he could, down to the sh.o.r.e of the bay. A few boats swung at anchor there, and an old man sat on the beach, mending a fis.h.i.+ng net.

The boy swept the sea with his eyes from point to point of the bay, looked longingly at the boats, then walked over to the old mariner.

"Good-morning, gaffer," said he. "It's a fine sailing breeze out on the bay."

"And good-morning to ye, Master Walter," said the old man, glancing up from his nets. "A fine breeze it be, an' more's the pity when there's work to be done on sh.o.r.e."

"So say I," said the boy, throwing himself down on the sand by the sailor. "I'd dearly like to sail across to France to-day."

"How comes it you're not to school?" asked the man.

"School's done. Next month I go to Oxford, to Oriel College. Methinks 'tis a great shame to spend one's time studying when there's so much else to be done in the world. The only books I like are those that tell of far-away lands and adventures and such things. But to Oxford I must go, says father, like a gentleman's son, and so I suppose I must."

He lay out on the sand, his head resting in his hands, his eyes gazing up to the sky. "Tell me, gaffer, if you had your choice of the two, would you rather be a sailor, or a gentleman of the court, and live at London, near Queen Elizabeth?"

The man laughed. "I a courtier!" he cried. "I'd die of fright most like.

I've never been to London town, but they say it's a terrible place!"

"Would you rather sail out to the west,--to the Indies, or perhaps to Guiana?" asked Walter.

The man nodded. "The savages be'nt so terrifyin' to a sailor as the folk o' London town."

"And in London they might throw you into the Tower," mused Walter.

"You're right, gaffer. 'Tis better to be free, and your own man, even if 'tis only among savages. Think you England will be at war soon?"

The sailor looked up from his net, and glanced out across the bay. "I figure you'll live long enough to do some fightin', lad. Them Spanish dons be plannin' for to sweep the seas of Englishmen."

Walter sat up, and followed the man's gaze out to sea. "That they'll never do," said he, "as long as there are Devon men to build a boat and man it. But if there is a war I'm going to it, aye, as certain as we two be sitting here in Budleigh Bay."

"War's a fearsome thing, lad," said the sailor. "I've fought the pirates in the south, and I've seen sights would turn a man's hair gray in a night. 'Tis no holiday work to fight across your decks."

"Tell me about it," begged the boy, sitting up and clasping his knees in his hands. "I love to hear of fights and strange adventures."

So, while the sailor worked over his net he talked of his wanderings, of his cruises, of his battles, of his flights, and the boy, his eyes wide with admiration, drank in the yarns. Mariner never found a better audience than this small boy of the Devon coast.

It was long past noon when the sailor and Walter left the beach. The boy went back through the wood to the house, and made his lunch in the pantry off of bread and cheese. The family were used to Walter's wanderings, and never waited for him. Now, in his holiday time, he was free to go where he would.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WALTER RALEIGH AND THE FISHERMAN OF DEVON]