Michelangelo Part 10

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LORENZO DE' MEDICI

The statue of Lorenzo de' Medici is the central figure on the tomb erected to the memory of this prince. He was the rather unworthy namesake of his ill.u.s.trious grandfather, who was known as Lorenzo the Magnificent. The Medici family was for many generations the richest and most powerful in Florence. They were originally merchants, and, as the name signifies, physicians, and, acc.u.mulating great wealth, they became powerful leaders, and really the rulers of the republic.

Some of them were munificent patrons of art and literature. There was one named Cosimo, who did so much to make his city famous that he was called _Pater Patriae_, the father of the country, as was, centuries afterwards, our own Was.h.i.+ngton. His grandson Lorenzo won the t.i.tle of the Magnificent for his lavish generosity and superb plans for the advancement of art and learning. So much power could not safely be in the hands of a single family. The Medici, from being benefactors, finally became tyrants.

The Lorenzo of this statue was one of the more insignificant members of the family. It is said that "he inherited the vices without the genius of the family, and was ambitious, unscrupulous, and dissipated. His uncle, Pope Leo X., after depriving the Duke of Urbino of his hereditary domains, bestowed them, with the t.i.tle of duke, on Lorenzo, whom he also made general of the pontifical forces."[29] In 1518 Leo united him in marriage to a French princess, and their daughter was the afterwards celebrated Catharine de' Medici, queen of the French king, Henry II. These are the main facts in the life of a man who is remembered only because he had ill.u.s.trious ancestors, a famous daughter, and a superb tomb.

[Footnote 29: Susan and Joanna Horner's _Walks in Florence_, vol. i. p.

125.]

It mattered nothing to Michelangelo that he had so poor a subject for a statue. It is supposed that he made no attempt at correct portraiture in the figure. The insignificant Lorenzo was transformed by the magic of his genius into a hero.

He wears a suit of Roman armor, in accordance with his career as a general in the wars with the Duke of Urbino, whose t.i.tle he took. His helmet is pulled well forward over the brow, the head is bent, the cheek rests upon the left hand, the elbow supported on a casket placed on the knee. With finger laid thoughtfully upon the lips, he is thinking intently. The right hand rests, palm out, against the knee in a characteristic position of inaction.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LORENZO DE' MEDICI. _Church of S. Lorenzo, Florence._]

His mood is not that of a dreamer lost to his present surroundings.

Rather he seems to be keenly aware of what is going on; his meditations have to do with the present. It is as if, having given an order, he awaits its execution, his mind still intent upon his purposes, satisfied with his decision, and calmly expectant of its success. His affair is one of serious importance; no trifling matter absorbs the thought of this grave man. "A king sits in this att.i.tude when, in the midst of his army, he orders the execution of some judicial act, like the destruction of a city. Frederic Barbarossa must have appeared thus when he caused Milan to be ploughed up."[30]

[Footnote 30: Taine, _Travels in Italy_.]

The lack of resemblance in the statue to the original duke Lorenzo made it for a long time doubtful whether it was intended to be his tomb. The Florentines, in their poetic way, fell into the habit of calling it _Il Pensiero_, that is, Thought, or Meditation, sometimes _Il Pensieroso_, The Thinker. These are, after all, the best names for the statue, which is allegorical rather than historical in its intention. The great English poet Milton has written a poem, which is like a companion piece to the statue, fitting it as words sometimes fit music. It begins in this way, in words which _Il Pensieroso_ himself might speak:--

"Hence, vain deluding Joys, The brood of Folly, without father bred!

How little you bested, Or fill the fixed mind with all your toys!

Dwell in some idle brain, And fancies fond with gaudy shape possess, As thick and numberless As the gay motes that people the sunbeams, Or likest hovering dreams, The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train.

But hail! thou G.o.ddess sage and holy, Hail, divinest Melancholy!"

Lorenzo's statue stands in a niche above the sarcophagus, or stone coffin, in which his body was laid. On the top of the sarcophagus are two reclining figures called Dawn and Twilight. The tomb itself is in a chapel, or sacristy, called the New Sacristy (to distinguish it from one still older), in the Church of S. Lorenzo, Florence. The entire sacristy is devoted to the memory of the Medici family, who had for several generations been benefactors of this church.

Now Michelangelo had a great deal to do with this family first and last, and his work on the tomb has an additional interest on this account. It was to Lorenzo the Magnificent that he owed his first start as a sculptor in an academy founded by this prince. He so pleased his patron that he was received into the duke's own household, and treated almost like a son. Years pa.s.sed; Lorenzo had long been dead, when, one after another, two members of the same family came to the papal throne, and they desired to honor their name by employing the greatest sculptor of Italy in this monumental work.

So Michelangelo began designs for the sacristy, the entire decoration of which was intrusted to him. The walls of the rooms were panelled with marble, set with niches, in the form of windows, in which the statues were to be placed.

As the work proceeded, it was interrupted by some strange incidents, of which we shall hear later. The whole plan was never fully carried out, but in spite of incompleteness the chapel is a grand and impressive place.

XIV

THE TOMB OF GIULIANO DE' MEDICI

The tomb of Giuliano de' Medici is the companion to the tomb of Lorenzo, and stands on the opposite side of the altar which separates them. Our ill.u.s.tration shows the entire work, the statue being in the niche above, and the sarcophagus standing below with two reclining figures on it.

Giuliano de' Medici, duke of Nemours, was the youngest son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and consequently the uncle of the younger Lorenzo. In reality he was greatly superior to his nephew, but curiously enough his appearance in Michelangelo's statue is more commonplace, though his att.i.tude is graceful. He was a thoughtful man, somewhat melancholy in disposition, and the author of a poem on suicide. He wears the costume of a Roman general, but his small head and slender throat are not those of a warrior.

You will notice that the att.i.tude of the duke Giuliano is somewhat similar to that of Moses. Both sit with left foot drawn back and right knee extended. Both turn the head in profile, looking intently toward the left. In either case it is easy to imagine the figure suddenly springing up.

Now this fact emphasizes the difference we have already noted between the sculpture of Michelangelo and that of the Greeks. The leading idea in Greek sculpture was that of repose, while, as we have seen in the David and the Cupid, Michelangelo chose for his figures a moment of action. To give this suggestion of motion to a seated figure is even more remarkable than in the case of one standing, for the sitting posture naturally has an effect of stability.

The reclining figures on the sarcophagus of the Duke Giuliano represent Night and Day, and are supposed to be symbolic of death and resurrection. Night is a woman lying with head sunk upon the breast in a deep sleep. She is crowned with a crescent moon and star, and an owl is placed at her feet. The mask beneath her pillow symbolizes the body from which the spirit has departed. Though the figure is not beautiful in the Greek sense, it is grand and queenly. Opposite is Day, an unfinished captive, his head half freed from the stone, the arms rigid, the body contorted.

These two figures, together with Dawn and Twilight on Lorenzo's tomb, have an allegorical meaning which must be read in the light of Michelangelo's own life history. "Life is a dream between two slumbers; sleep is death's twin-brother; night is the shadow of death; death is the gate of life--such is the mysterious mythology wrought by the sculptor."[31]

[Footnote 31: Symonds, in _Renaissance in Italy: the Fine Arts_.]

The work on the Medicean tombs covered a period of about twelve years.

During this time the Medici family pa.s.sed through varying fortunes, and in consequence the fate of the tombs, and indeed that of the sculptor himself, hung in the balance. Florence became weary of tyranny and rose in a revolution which drove the Medici from the city in 1527.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TOMB OF GIULIANO DE' MEDICI. _Church of S. Lorenzo, Florence._]

Success was of short duration: the republic soon "found herself standing out against a world of foes," the Pope, Clement VII. (himself a Medici), "threatening fire and flame," and all the Medici family "getting ready to return in double force." The Florentines prepared to fight for their liberty, and Michelangelo was found among the patriots. No sense of personal grat.i.tude to the Medici could shake his love of liberty. He forsook the monuments and turned his skill to the fortification of the city.

For eleven months Florence was besieged, and in the end the city was captured. The Medici returned conquerors. Mercenaries now broke into the houses, killing the best citizens. Had not Michelangelo been in hiding, he too would have perished. But the Pope could not afford to lose his best sculptor, and, calling him forth from his hiding-place, again set him to work in the Medici chapel. It is not strange that the sculptor's proud spirit rebelled at having to work on that which was to honor the enemies of his beloved Florence.

Thus it was that his sculpture told the story of "the tragedy of Florence: how hope had departed, how life had become a desert, and how it was hard to struggle with waking consciousness, but good to sleep and forget--nay, best of all, to be stone and feel no more."

The old writer Vasari, who was once a pupil of Michelangelo, and tells us many anecdotes of the sculptor, relates that when the statue of Night was first shown to the public, it called forth a verse from a contemporary poet (Giovan Battista Strozzi). This is the verse:--

"Night in so sweet an att.i.tude beheld Asleep, was by an angel sculptured In this stone; and sleeping, is alive; Waken her, doubter; she will speak to thee."[32]

To this Michelangelo replied in the following lines:[33]--

"Welcome is sleep, more welcome sleep of stone Whilst crime and shame continue in the land; My happy fortune not to see or hear; Waken me not;--in mercy whisper low."[32]

The artist's verse may be taken as a keynote to the solemn tragedy of the work. In fact, the monuments are not really to Lorenzo and Giuliano, but to Florence, to "the great city which had struggled and erred so long, which had gone astray and repented, and suffered and erred again, but always mightily, with full tide of life in her veins and consciousness in her heart, until now the time had come when she was dead and past, chained down by icy oppression in a living grave."[34]

[Footnote 32: Both translations are from Horners' _Walks in Florence_.

Symonds has also translated the verses, but less literally.]

[Footnote 33: Swinburne in his lines, "In San Lorenzo," answers these lines, "Is thine hour come to waken, slumbering Night?"]

[Footnote 34: This and the preceding quotations are from Mrs.

Oliphant's _Makers of Florence_.]

XV