Story of Civilization ~ Will & Ariel Durant

[3kings(Trevor)]

Re kissing of a Pope's feet. My wife, a Polish catholic, tells me that it must be many centuries ago that kissing the feet of a Pope was stopped. She thinks that at Easter time the Pope washes the feet of several priests, and perhaps this leads many to believe that kissing of feet is a current practice.

However, there is still the current practice of kissing the Pope's ring, which contains an ancient relic of  Christendom. Sorry I can't be more informative about all this.. ++ Trevor

[Emily]

Thank you Frybabe and Trevor for answering the question of kissing the ring and feet in Catholicism. I do know there are passages in the new testament on foot washing. I will try to look it up tomorrow.

Emily

[3kings(Trevor)]

The Durants'  SoC
Volume V     The Renaissance
Pages 449-451




Of the architects outstanding in Rome in the pontificates of Alexander VI and Julius II were two brothers, and a third was their nephew. Giuliano da Sangallo began as a military engineer in the Florentine army; passed to the service of Ferrante of Naples; and became a friend of Giulliano della Rovere in the early days of the latter’s cardinalate. For Guiliano, the cardinal,Guiliano the architect  turned the abbey of Grottaferrata into a castle fortress; probably at Alexander’s behest he designed the great coffered ceiling of Santa Maria Maggiore, and gilded it with the first gold brought from America. He accompanied Cardinal della Rovere into exile, built a palace for him in Savona, went with him to France, and returned to Rome when  his patron at last became pope. Julius invited him to submit plans for the new St. Peter’s; when those of  Bramante were preferred, the old architect reproached the new Pope, but Julius knew what he wanted. Sangello outlived both Bramante and Julius, and was later appointed ‘administer et coadjutor’ to Raphael in the building of St. Peter’s; but he died two years later. Meanwhile his younger brother Antonio da Sangallo had also come from Florence, as architect and military engineer for Alexander VI, and built the imposing church of Santa Maria di Loreto for Julius; and a nephew, Antonio Picconi da Sangallo had begun (1512) the most magnificent of the Renaissance palaces of Rome-- the Palazzo Farnese.

The greatest name in the architecture of this age was that of Donato Bramante. He was already fifty-six when he came from Milan to Rome (1499), but his study of the Roman ruins fired him with youthful zeal to apply classical forms to Renaissance building. In the court of a Franciscan convent near San Pietro in Montorio he designed a circular Tempietto, or Little Temple, with columns and cupola so classical in form that architects studied and measured it as if it had been a newly discovered masterpiece of ancient art. From that beginning Bramante passed through a succession of chefs-d’oeuvre: the cloister of Santa Maria della Pace, the elegant cortile of San Damaso... Julius overwhelmed him with assignments, both as architect and as military engineer. Bramante laid out the Via Giulia, finished the Belvedere, began the Loggie of the Vatican and designed a new St. Peter’s. He was so interested in his work that he cared little for money, and Julius had to command him to accept appointments whose revenue would maintain him; some rivals, however, accused him of embezzling papal funds and using shoddy materials in his buildings. Others described him as a jovial and generous soul, whose home became a favourite resort of Perugino, Signorelli, Pinturicchio, Raphael, and other artists in Rome.

The belvedere was a summer palace built for Innocent VIII, and situated on a hill some hundred yards away from the rest of  the Vatican. It took its name from the beautiful view (bel vedere) that extended before it; and it gave its name to various sculptures that were housed in it or its court. Julius had long been a collector of ancient art; his prize possession was an Apollo discovered during the pontificate of Innocent VIII; when he became Pope he placed it in the Cortile of the belvedere. and the Apollo Belvedere became one of  the famous statues of the world. Bremante gave the palace a new facade and garden court, and planned to connect it with the Vatican proper by a series of picturesque structures and gardens, but both he and Julius died before the plan could be carried out.

If we attribute the Reformation proximately to the sale of indulgences for the building of St. Peter’s, the most momentous event in the pontificate of Julius was the demolition of the old St.Peter’s and the beginning of the new. According to the received tradition the old church had been built by Pope Syvester I (326 ) over the grave of the Apostle Peter near the Circus of Nero. In that church many emperors, from Charlemagne onward, had been crowned, and many popes. Repeatedly enlarged, it was in the fifteenth century a spacious basilica with nave and double aisles, flanked with smaller churches, chapels, and convents. By the time of Nicholas V it showed the wear of eleven centuries; cracks veined its walls, and men feared that it might at any moment collapse, perhaps upon a congregation. So in 1452 Bernardo Rossellino and Leon Battista Alberti were commissioned to strengthen the edifice with new walls. The work had hardly begun when Nicholas died; and succeeding popes, needing funds for crusades, suspended it.  In 1505 after considering and rejecting various other plans, Julius II determined to tear down the old church, and build an entirely new shrine over what was said to be St. Peter’s grave. He invited several architects to submit designs. Bramante won with a proposal to rear a new basilica on the plan of a Greek cross ( with arms of equal length ), and to crown its transept crossing with a vast dome; in the famous phrase ascribed to him, he would raise the dome of the Pantheon upon the basilica of Constantine. In Bramante’s intent the new majestic edifice would cover 28,900 square yards-- 11,600 more than the area covered by St. Peter’s today. Excavation began in April 1506. on April 11 Julius, aged 63 descended a long and trembling rope ladder to a great depth to lay the foundation stone. The work progressed slowly as Julius and his funds were more and more absorbed in war. In1514 Bramante died, happily not knowing that his design would never be carried out.

Many good Christians were shocked at the thought of destroying the venerable old Cathedral. Most of the cardinals were strongly opposed, and many artists complained that Bramante had recklessly shattered the fine columns and capitals of the ancient nave when with better care he might have taken them down intact.

A satire published three years after  the architects death told how Bramante on reaching St. Peter’s gate, had been severely rebuked by the Apostle, and had been refused admittance to Paradise. But, said  the satirist, Bramante did not like the arrangement of Paradise anyway, nor the steep approach to it from the earth.” I will build a new, broad, and commodious road, so that old  and feeble souls may travel on horseback. And then I will make a new paradise with delightful residences for the blessed”  When Peter rejected this proposal Bramante offered to go down to hell and build a better inferno, since the old one by this time be almost burned out. But Peter returned to the question: “Tell me, seriously, what made you destroy my church?” Bramante tried to comfort him: “Pope Leo will build you a new one.” “Well, then, “ said the Apostle, you must wait at the gate of paradise until it is finished.” 

It was finished in 1626. 

[Brian]

The Old St Peters was in itself quite an edifice, and it is not hard to understand
why there was a strong feeling that it should not have been pulled down.



Brian

[JoanK]

Funny, how the names of artists from that period are household words, but we rarely think about the architects.

Did anyone see the PBS program describing how the Gothic cathedrals worked: and why some of them are in danger of falling down?

[mabel1015j]

Was that program broadcast recently, Joan?

[JoanK]

No: several months ago, if I remember correctly. The days kind of slide into each other.

[3kings(Trevor)]

Durants' SoC
Vol. V  The Renaissance
pages 457-459



Raphael and Julius II:   1508-13


Rarely since Pheidias had so many great artists gathered in one city and year. Michelango was carving figures for Julius’ gigantic tomb, and was painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling; Bramante was designing the new St. Peter’s; Fra Giovanni of Verona, master woodworker, was carving doors and chairs and bosses for the ‘stanze’; Perugino, Signorelli, Peruzzi, Sodoma, Lotto, Pinturicchio had already painted some of the walls; and Ambrogio Foppa, called Caradosso, the Cellini of his age, was making gold in every way.
Julius assigned to Raphael the  ‘Stanza della Segnatura’, so called because usually in this room the Pope heard appeals and signed pardons. He was so pleased with the youth’s first paintings here, and saw in him so excellent and pliable an agent to execute the grand conceptions that seethed in the papal brain, that he dismissed Perugino, Signorelli, and Sodoma, ordered their paintings whitewashed, and offered Raphael the opportunity to paint all the walls of the four rooms. Raphael  persuaded the pope to retain some of the work done by the earlier artists; most of it however, was covered over, so that the major paintings might have the unity of one mind and hand. For each room Raphael received 1200 ducats and on the two rooms that he did for Julius he spent four and a half years. He was now twenty-six.
The plan for the Stanza Della Segnatura was lordly and sublime; the paintings were to represent the union of religion and philosophy, of classic culture and Christianity, of Church and State, of literature and law, in the civilization of the Renaissance. Probably the Pope conceived the general plan, and chose the subjects in consultation with Raphael and the scholars of his court—Inghirami and Sadoleto,-- later Bembo and Bibbiena. In the great semicircle formed by one side wall Raphael pictured religion in the persons of the Trinity and the saints, and theology on the form of Fathers and Doctors of the Church discussing the nature of the Christian Faith as centered in the doctrine of the Eucharist. How carefully he prepared himself for the first test of his ability to paint on a monumental scale may be seen from the thirty preliminary studies that he made for this Disputa del Sacramento. He recalled Fra Bartolomeo’s Last Judgement in Santa Maria Nuova at Florence, and his own Adoration of the Trinity in San Severo at Perugia; and on them he modelled his design.
The result was a panorama so majestic as almost to convert the most obdurate skeptic to the mysteries of the faith. The top of the arch, radial lines, converging upward, make the uppermost figures seem to bend forward; at the bottom the converging lines of a marble pavement give the picture depth. At the summit God the Father—a solemn, kindly Abraham—holds up the globe with one hand, and with the other blesses the scene; below Him the Son sits, naked to the waist, as in a shell; on His right Mary in humble adoration, on his left the Baptist still carrying his shepherd’s staff crowned with a cross; beneath Him a dove represents the Holy Spirit, third person of the Trinity; everything is here. Seated on a fluffy cloud around the Saviour are twelve magnificent figures of Old Testament or Christian history. Adam, a bearded Michalangelesque athlete, almost nude; Abraham; a stately Moses holding the tables of the Law; David, Judas Maccabaeus, Peter and Paul, St. John writing his evangel, St. James the greater, St. Stephen, St. Lawrence, and two others of debated identity; among them, and in the clouds—everywhere except in the beards—cherubim and seraphim dart in and out, and angels weave through the air on the wings of song. Dividing and uniting this celestial assembly from an earthly throng below are two cherubim holding the Gospel, and a monstrance displaying the Host. Around this a varied assemblage of theologians gathers to consider the problems of theology: St. Jerome with his Vulgate and his lion;  St. Augustine dictating The City of God; St. Ambrose in his episcopal robes; Popes Anacletus and Innocent III; the philosophers Aquinas, Bonaventura, and Danes Scotus; the dour Dante crowned as if with thorns; the gentle Fra Angelico; the angry Savonarola  (another Julian revenge on Alexander VI ); and finally in a corner, bald and ugly, Raphael’s protecting friend Bramante. In all these human figures the young artist has achieved an astonishing degree of individualization, making each face a credible biography; and in many of them a degree of superhuman dignity ennobles the whole picture and theme. Probably never before had painting so successfully conveyed the epic sublimity of the Christian creed.

[3kings(Trevor)]

I'm surprised to find that the name Michelangelo is some times spelled as Michelango throughout the volume. I think the former is the correct version. Trevor

[Emily]

Here is a link to Raphael's 'Stanza della segnatura' that Durant has just described. Click on the art for larger. There is a short description of each.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raphael_Rooms#Stanza_della_Segnatura

Emily

[JoanK]

WOW!

There's so much there, it's overwhelming! It would take years to really appreciate it.

[mabel1015j]

Yea! Wow! The Durant exclamation was interesting to read......... Jean

[3kings(Trevor)]

Durants' SoC
Vol V  The Renaissance
Pages 459-463

                                           Raphael and Julius (1508-1513)

But could the same youth, now twenty-eight, represent with equal force and grandeur the role of science and philosophy among men? We have no evidence that Raphael had ever done much reading; he spoke with his brush and listened with his eyes; he lived in a world of form and colour in which words were trivial things unless they issued in the significant actions of men and women. He must have prepared himself by hurried study’ by dipping into Plato and Diogenes Laertius and Marsilio Facino, and by humble conversation with learned men, to rise now to his supreme conception.The School of Athens-- half a hundred figures summing up the rich centuries of Greek thought, and all gathered in an immortal moment under the coffered Arch of a massive pagan portico.

There, on the wall directly facing the apotheosis of theology in the Disputa, is the glorification of philosophy: Plato of the Jove like brow, deep eyes, flowing white hair and beard, with a finger pointing upward to his perfect state; Aristotle walking quietly beside him, thirty years younger, handsome and cheerful, holding out his hand with downward palm, as if to bring his master’s soaring idealism back to earth and the possible; Socrates counting off his arguments on his fingers, with armed Alcibiades listening to him lovingly; Pythagoras trying to imprison in harmonic tables the music of the spheres; a fair lady who might be Aspasia; Heraclitus writing Ephesian riddles; Diogenes lying carelessly disrobed on the marble steps; Archimedes drawing geometries on a slate for four absorbed youths; Ptolemy and Zoroaster bandying globes; a boy at the left running eagerly with books, surely seeking an autograph; an assiduous lad seated in a corner taking notes; peeking out at his left, little Federigo of Mantua, Isabella’s son and Julius’ pet; Bramante again; and hiding modestly, almost unseen, Raphael himself, now sprouting a moustache.

There are many more, about whose identity we shall let leisurely pundits dispute; all in all, such a parliament of wisdom had never been painted, perhaps never been conceived, before. And not a word about heresy, no philosophers burned at the stake; here under the protection of a Pope too great to fuss about the difference between one error and another, the young Christian has suddenly brought all these pagans together, painted them in their own character and with remarkable understanding and sympathy, and placed them where the theologians could see them and exchange fallibilities, and where the Pope, between one document and another, might contemplate the co-operative process and  creation of human thought. This painting and the Disputa are  the ideal of the Renaissance-- pagan antiquity and Christian faith living together in one room and harmony. These rival panels, in the sum of their conception, composition, and technique, are the apex of European painting, to which no man has ever risen again.

A third wall remained, smaller than the other two, and so broken by a casement window that unity of pictorial subject seemed impossible there. It was a brilliant choice to let the surface picture poetry and music; so a chamber heavily laden with theology and philosophy was made light and bright with the world of harmonious imagination, and gentle melodies could sing silently through the centuries across the room where unappealable decisions gave life or death. In this fresco of Parnassus, Apollo seated under some laurel trees atop the sacred mount, draws from his  viol “ditties of no tone”; and at his right a muse reclines in graceful ease, baring a lovely breast to the saints and sages on the adjacent walls; and Homer recites his hexameters in blind ecstasy, and Dante looks with unreconciled severity even at this goodly company of graces and bards; and Sappho, too beautiful to be Lesbian, strums her cithara; and Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Tibullus and other singers chosen by time mingle with Petrarch, Boccaccio, Ariosto, Sannazaro, and lesser voices of more recent Italy. So the young artist suggested that “life without music would be a mistake”, and that the strains and visions of poetry might lift men to heights as lofty as the myopia of wisdom and the impudence of theology.

Finally Raphael in this period raised portrait painting to a height that only Titian would reach again. The portrait was a characteristic product of the Renaissance, and corresponds to the proud liberation of the individual in that flamboyant age. Raphael’s portraits are not numerous but they all stand on the highest level of the art. One of the finest is Bindo Altoviti. Who could surmise that this gentle but alert youth, healthy and clear eyed, and as pretty as a girl, was no poet but a banker, and a generous patron of artists from Raphael to Cellini? He was twenty-two when so portrayed; in 1556 hr died at Rome after a noble but disasterous and exhausting effort to save the independence of Siena from Florence. And of course to this period belongs the greatest of all the portraits, the Julius II of the Uffizi Gallery ( c. 1512 ) We cannot say that this is the original that first came from Raphaels hand; possibly it is a studio replica; and the marvelous copy in the Pitti Palace was made by none other than that rival portraitist, Titian. The fate of the original is unknown.

Julius himself died before the Stanza d’Eliodora was finished, and Raphael wondered whether the great plan of the four stanze would be carried out. But how could a pope like Leo X, wedded to art and poetry almost as deeply as to religion, hesitate? The young man from Urbino was to find in Leo his most loyal friend; the living genius of happiness was to know under a happy pope his happiest years.

[mabel1015j]

There's a new novel, Sins of the House of Borgia by Sarah Bower. My library is processessing it, i'm on their hold list. Here's the rsviews of it from Amazon.....

http://www.amazon.com/Sins-House-Borgia-Sarah-Bower/dp/1402259638

Showtime is showing a series called "The Borgias" here is the schedule. I don't have Showtime, but they've been producing some good historical series.

http://www.sho.com/site/borgias/schedule.sho

Jean

[JoanK]

" He (Raphael) must have prepared himself by hurried study’ by dipping into Plato and Diogenes Laertius and Marsilio Facino, and by humble conversation with learned men, to rise now to his supreme conception.The School of Athens--. "

For the Durants, that must seem like hurried study. For us, it would be a major effort!!

[Emily]

Since Durant mentions the portrait of Bindo Altoviti by Raphael as being one of his best, below is a link to the portrait.

This work is at the museum in Washington D.C. 'The National Gallery'. I have been to the museum, but never saw the portrait of Bindo Altoviti.

Families will sometimes keep portraits of ancestors for years and other generations come along and 'sell them off to the highest bidder', or get bilked out of it by some shyster art dealer.

I am acquainted with a woman who had a large full sized portrait painted about forty years ago by a prominent artist. She was concerned about what her children would do with her portrait after she died. First they had no room big enough to hang such a large portrait. There are two local museums who would probably take it as a donation or perhaps purchase, since it was painted by a well known artist. She was concerned it would wind up in storage or an attic somewhere.

My mother remembers a portrait of her great-grandmother (my mother is 98 years old). The painting disappeared after the death of her grandparents (who had the portrait in their home)
and no one in the family knows what happened to it.

The value of a portrait has more to do with the artist than the subject.

Raphael's work is listed at the bottom of this page. Click on any work to view.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portrait_of_Bindo_Altoviti_(Raphael)

Emily 

[JoanK]

I think I'm going to have to argue with Durant's statement that Raphael was the best portrait painter, and stick up for Rembrandt. Raphael's portrait above is interesting, but I don't get the feeling of "Oh, noW I know him" that I do with some of Rembrandt's. What do you all think?

Shama in his biography of Rembrandt that we read together on Seniornet makes an interesting comparison between the two of them.

[Emily]

Joan, Durant may have been comparing Raphael to other artists in his own era (late Renaissance). In his bio it does state that as a draftsman his drawings knew no peer.

Since Rembrandt lived a century after Raphael and lived into his sixties, where as Raphael died at age 37, there may have been no comparison outside the Renaissance. They both began painting at a very young age. Durant states that Raphael worked four and a half years on the Stanza for Pope Julius painting two rooms and was only then 26 years. That would make him twenty one when he started. Perhaps had he lived longer he would have perfected his portrait painting.

I agree that Rembrandt's portraits have more intrigue and catch the eye in a way that Rahpael does not. Some of Rembrandt's work seems all darkness and shadow, there is little there to actually see and what one does see is impressive. I see Raphael as light and Rembrandt as dark with only a flicker of light. Can one compare the School of Athens with Night Watch. I think they are so different that they are not comparable.

I vote Rembrandt for single portraits and Raphael for painting an entire wall with half a hundred portraits all in the brilliant light of the Greek forum. Perhaps their access to 'light' had an influence on their selection of color.

I am simply a novice in the art world, one of those 'I know it when I see it type'. Realism appeals to me and I won't waste one minute of my time trying to figure out what a painting is or means unless it is obvious at first glance.

I hope others will chime in and answer Joan's question.

Emily 

[JoanK]

I'm definitely a novice of the "I know it when I see it. I agree with you on this: "I vote Rembrandt for single portraits and Raphael for painting an entire wall with half a hundred portraits all in the brilliant light of the Greek forum. Perhaps their access to 'light' had an influence on their selection of color."

I wonder how much of Rembrandt's darkness is due to the darkening of the paints he used?

[Frybabe]

If you are asking which I like better, I would have to say Rembrandt, overall. I love his use of light and dark. Is there much call for giant wall art painted directly on the wall these days? I wonder that the great masters would be dabbling into if they lived now. Computer art? Graphic design/illustrations? Film? Broadway or opera set design? Now there is a fun speculation, however, as they likely were then, I suspect they would in a category all their own.

[Emily]

Is there much call for giant wall art painted directly on the wall these days? I wonder that the great masters would be dabbling into if they lived now. Computer art? Graphic design/illustrations? Film? Broadway or opera set design? Now there is a fun speculation, however, as they likely were then, I suspect they would in a category all their own.

Interesting question Frybabe. Today artists can digitally photograph ancient frescos or murals and reproduce them and cover a wall with the result. I think they call it digitalfrescography or some such.

Today murals can be painted and produced in many ways. I watched the progress of a young painter from NYC in a private home. He painted a mural on the dining room walls. It was in the Chinese style, in which less is more. He put his cat (from South East Asia, which is larger than an average house cat) in the corner of one wall erect as climbing up a vine. Since he lived in an apartment on the upper west side, I asked if the poor cat ever got outside to see a vine or climb. He was very young and I was impressed with his work.

Eric worked for the interior design firm of Parrish Hadley.

Watched an English artist do Trompe l' oeil in a hallway and bathroom, I saw him turn unfinished baseboards and floors into the look of dark green marble. It seemed effortless for him (it's all about mixing the paint) except for the bending and stooping.

Once spent the summer in a gatehouse on a large estate in Southampton (hey, it was free), and the entire small house was Trompe l' oeil and murals in the French style. It seemed claustrophobic to me, and it only works in large rooms or spaces in my opinion. A large armoire in the sitting room was done in Trompe l' oeil as a bookcase with lots of books and figurines, and when opened contained a television and electronic equipment. Climbing the stairs to the bedroom was enough to give one vertigo with the scenes painted on the walls of the curved staircase.

Here is a link from wikipedia on murals, and about half way down 'murals in comtemporary interior design'. That is where many artists today get their patronage, from Interior designers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mural

Emily   

[Emily]

Here is a type of art that seems to be a new way of expression. It is called 3D sidewalk art. It is all painted on a flat surface such as a sidewalk or street, but gives the illusion of three dimensions. The artist is Julian Beever who is British. Viewed from a certain angle it seems real, but is actually an illusion.

There are twenty photographs in this view. Click on the next button at the top of each photo to see the next one.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/01/3d-sidwalk-art-that-will_n_478649.html#s71257&title=Rocky_Road

Emily

[Emily]

Here is another link to sidewalk 3D art. It may have repeats of the other link but is worth a look just for the sidewalk art painted in front of the Bank of England of a manhole with two politicians falling inside the hole. It too is by the British artist Julian Beeber.

http://villageofjoy.com/amazing-3d-sidewalk-art/

Emily

[Frybabe]

Aren't they great? I've not seen one in person, but there was one at the beginning of the PBS Masterpiece Contemporary program, Framed.

[mabel1015j]

Here is a link to the Philadelphia wall murals

http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1649278_1421152,00.html

[3kings(Trevor)]

Durants' Soc
Vol. V  The Renaissance
Pages 463-466

Michelangelo
Youth: 1475-1505


We have left to the last Julius’ favorite painter and sculptor, a man rivaling him in temper and teribilita, in power and depth of spirit -- the greatest and saddest artist in the records of mankind.

Born at Caprese on march 6 1475, and named, like Raphael after an archangel, Michelangelo was the second of four brothers. When he was six months old the family moved to Florence. He received some schooling there, enough to enable him, in after years, to write good Italian verse. He learned no Latin, and never fell so completely under the hypnosis of antiquity as did many artists of the time; he was Hebraic not classic, Protestant in spirit rather than Catholic.

His father apprenticed Michael, aged thirteen, to Domenico Ghirlandaio, then the most popular painter in Florence. The contract bound the youth to stay with Domenico three years “ to learn the art of painting"; he was to receive six florins the first year, eight the second ten the third, and presumably shelter and food. He had been with Ghirlandaio hardly a year when a combination of nature and chance turned him to sculpture. Like many other art students he had free  access to the gardens in which the Medici had disposed their  collections of antique statuary and architecture.He must have copied some of these marbles with special interest and skill, for when Lorenzo, asked Ghirlandaio to send him some students of promise in that direction, Domenico gave him Francesco Granacci and Michelangelo Buonarroti. The boy’s father hesitated to let him make the change from one art to another; he feared his son would be put to cutting stone; and indeed Michael was so used for a time, blocking out marble for the Laurentian Library. But soon the boy was  carving  statues. All the world knows the story of Michael’s marble faun: How he chiseled a stray piece into the figure of an old faun: how Lorenzo, passing’ remarked that so old a faun would hardly have so complete a set of teeth; and how Michael remedied the fault with one blow by knocking a tooth out of the upper jaw, Pleased with the boy’s product and aptitude, Lorenzi took him into his home and treated him as his son. For two years the young artist lived in the Palazzo Medici, regularly ate at the same table with Lorenzo, Politian, Pico, Ficino, and Pulci, heard the most enlightened talk about politics, literature, philosophy and  art.

These years in the Medici Palace might have been a period of pleasant growth had it not been for Pietro Torrigiano. Pietro one day took offense at Michael’s banter, and so “Clenching my fist, I gave him such a blow on the nose that I felt bone and cartilage go down like biscuit beneath my knuckles; and this mark of mine he will carry to the grave.” It was so: Michelangelo for the next seventy four years showed a nose broken at the bridge. It did not sweeten his temper.

In those same years Savonarola was preaching his fiery gospel of puritan reform. Michael went often to hear  him, and never forgot those sermons, or the cold thrill that ran through his youthful blood at the prior’s angry cry, announcing the doom of corrupt Italy, pierced the stillness of the crowded cathedral. When Savonarola died , something of his spirit lingered in Michelangelo: a horror of moral decay about him, a fierce resentment of despotism, a somber presentiment of doom. Those memories and fears shared in forming his character, in guiding his chisel and his brush; lying on his back under the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, he remembered Savonarola; painting The Last Judgment, he resurrected him, and hurled the friar’s fulminations down the centuries.

In 1492 Lorenzo died, and Michael returned to his father’s house. He continued his sculpture and painting, and now added a strange experience to his education. The prior of the hospital of Santo Spirito allowed him, in a private room, to dissect corpses. Michael performed so many dissections that his stomach revolted, and for a time he could hardly hold any food or drink. But he learned anatomy.
He had an absurd chance to show his knowledge when Piero de’ Medici asked him to mold a gigantic snowman in the court of the palace. Michael complied, and Piero persuaded him to live again in the Casa Medici ( January 1494)

Late in 1494 Michelangelo, in one of his many hectic moves, fled through the winter snow of the Apennines to Bologna. At Bologna he studied carefully the reliefs by Iacopo della Quercia on the facade of San Petronio. he was engaged to finish the tomb of St Dominic, and carved for it a graceful Kneeling Angel; then the organized sculptors of Bologna sent him warning that if he, a foreigner and interloper, continued to take work out of their hands, they would dispose of him by one or another of the many devices open to Renaissance initiative. Meanwhile Savonarola had taken charge of Florence, and virtue was in the air. Michael returned there in1495.

He found a patron in Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, of the collateral branch of the Medici. For him he carved a 'Sleeping Cupid ' which had a strange history. Lorenzo suggested that he treat the surface to make it look like an antique; Michael complied; Lorenzo sent it to Rome, where it was sold for thirty ducats to a dealer who sold it for two hundred to Raffaello Riario, Cardinal di San Giorgio. The Cardinal discovered the cheat, sent back the 'Cupid',  recovered his ducats. It was later sold to Caesar Borgia, who gave it to Guidobaldo of Urbino; Caesar reclaimed it on taking that city, and sent to Isabella d'Este, who described it as 'without a peer among the works of modern times.' Its later history is unknown.

[Brian]

Kneeling Angel - - -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Angel_by_Michelangelo_-_1.JPG

Interestingly enough, people are still making copies of this and they find ready sale.

Brian

[JoanK]

When I was in the Sistene Chapel, the criling from the ground is so detailed and so far away, you really can't appreciate the details. It needs the close-up photos to appreciate it. But the story of M lying on his back, painting it is endlessly appealing.

David is another story. You're on a narrow street in Florence, round a corner, and there it is! With people going by paying no attention (I think when I was there, the real one was still outside: they hadn't taken it in and put up a substitute yet)

[mabel1015j]

I remember reading Irving Stone's The Agony andthe Ecstasy decades ago and most non-fiction i've read abt him since has been bery similar. Do any of you art historians have an opinion abt that book? .....I was less fond of the movie, but i think Charleston Heston had some say in how he portrayed Michelangelo and was less concerned w/ accuracy than how he wld look to the audience. .....

I have begun reading Sins in the House of Borgia that i mentioned some time ago.....here is what i posted in " fiction".

Just starting an interesting and well written book: Sins of the House of Borgia, by Sarah Bower. The protagonist is a Jewish woman who "converts" to Christianity to bcm a lady-in-waiting to Lucrezia Borgia.  The detail is very interesting and appears to be factual.  The
cruelty of the powerful to the non-powerful makes me very glad i live in 21st century America.
But then reading any history has always made me feel that way. At this point -80 pages in-  i
wld say if you like historical fiction to give it a try. It is one of those books where i have to sit
w/ my ipad near by to look up some words that are not familiar to me - usually something of
the time.

I mentioned her conversion bcs she has interesting questions about both religions as she lives in her new " Christian world". It is only a small part of the story, at least at this point........Jean

[mabel1015j]

7 answers to questions abt Sistine ceiling

http://arthistory.about.com/od/famous_paintings/a/sischap_ceiling.htm

The whole ceiling

http://arthistory.about.com/od/famous_paintings/a/sischap_ceiling.htm

Some close up images

http://www.google.com/search?q=sistine+chapel+ceiling&hl=en&client=safari&prmd=ivnsb&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=FNCpTaPDB5CqsAOP7-X5DA&ved=0CDUQsAQ&biw=981&bih=632

[JoanK]

I was wrong. He didn't lie on his back. he wasn't up there all alone. I must have seen the movie (although I don't remember doing so) and internalized the image. If Heston wanted to make an impression, he obviously succeeded.

[mabel1015j]

Irving Stone talks abt M lying on his back, which is where the movie got it, but i don't know if he had any documentation on it. But i loved the story, also those of Van Gogh and Pissarro and Rodin. All of those books appeared to be well researched, but i'm sure there was some poetic license taken by all the authors. I think it's the passion of the artists to stick w/their art that enthalled me. ...... Jean

[JoanK]

That passion must be part of whatever the genius is that allows them to create such works. I think of Mozart, in his last days, creating one masterpiece after another in a frenzy. Who can understand it!

[Frybabe]

Amazing work for someone who hadn't painted much and didn't particularly like it.

[mabel1015j]

That was a surprise to me the first time i read it, probably in The Agony and the Ecstasy, many decades ago,  that M didn't like painting. Are there other artist/sculptor people? I'm sure there are, i just can't think at the moment, it's been a busy, tiring day. Did the question make sense? Are there other artists who were famous both as a sculptor and painter, is that clearer? ...... Sigh, smile.....

While at my son's today, babysitting for grandson, i watched the first program of The Borgias from Showtime. I thot it was quite good. Someone, somewhere mentioned that the settings were beautiful. It should win both best set direction and best costume emmys, IMO. It reminded me of a comment i made abt Sense and Sensibility, that every frame looked like a painting. ....... Jean

[Emily]

Jean, I have read also that Michelangelo preferred sculpting to painting. There must have been many more sculptors than painters since when he sculpted the 'kneeling angel' for Saint Dominic's shrine in Bologna, the other sculptors told him he had better get out of town or he would be 'floating with the fishes', another way of saying a 'renaissance accidential death'.

Perhaps he decided 'painting' was a safer profession. To that end he disected many corpses to learn anatomy.

When viewing Brian's link to the 'kneeling angel' at Saint Dominic's tomb and basicilla, one could not help but notice all the sculpting that went into such an elaborate show for one person. Around the top there were so many sculpted representations of people lined up, perhaps to worship at the tomb of this man.

The elaborate decoration for 'one man' and all the work it took to complete it, as opposed to the 'throw away' of bodies of other men and women to Michelangelo to 'cut and slice' as he saw fit, leaves an ethical and moral chasm that I cannot cross.

The teaching of anatomy has changed. Today they can view on video the dissected body in slices. It still is a human body, but by putting it all on video they don't need a fresh supply all the time.

The New Yorker did an article on this a few years ago and told the story of how a man on death row was executed and then sent off to be sliced up and it all captured on video. The new corpse is laid out in full at 360 degrees and can be turned in any direction. The arm can be clicked on and every sinew and muscle viewed as a dissected piece.

There are probably still places where bodies are dissected but it is not necessary with all the new technology.

I once read an article by a medical student who said that he had no problem with dissection except for the hands. He said he felt a persons humanity more in their hands than their face.

My dilemma is that I have never understood the worship of men or women either for that matter. I too love beautiful sculpture but of the 'human' not of specific men or women. Give me a sample of those living at the time, 'The dying Gaul' comes to mind.

Anonymous humanity works for me. Just don't put a name on it.

Emily

[Emily]

Since I mentioned the 'Dying Gaul' here is a link to it from wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dying_Gaul

Emily

[mabel1015j]

I meant to say when i saw the Kneeling Angel how exquisite the detail was. It looks like if you touched the "material" of the clothes, it would move. Is that typical of M? ..... Jean

[3kings(Trevor)]

Durants'  The Story of Civilization
Volume V
Michaelangelo.   Pages  466-469



With all his versatile ability Michael found it hard to earn a living by art in a city where there were almost as many artists as citizens. An  agent of Riario  invited him to Rome, assuring him that the Cardinal would give him employment, and that Rome was full of wealthy patrons. So in 1496 Michaelangelo moved hopefully to the capital, and received a place in the household of the Cardinal. Here, almost at the outset, the artist distinguished his work by showing the figure in a moment and attitude of action. The Greek preference for repose in art was alien to him, except in the Pieta. Michaelangelo chose rather to portray an individual imaginary in conception, realistic in detail. He did not imitate the antique, except in costumes; His work was characteristically his own, no renaissance, but a unique creation.

The greatest product of his first stay in Rome was the Pieta that is now one of the glories of St. Peter’s. The contract for it was signed by Cardinal Jean de Villiers, French ambassador at the papal court (1498); the fee was to be 450 ducats; the time allowed one year. There are some blemishes in this glorious group of the Virgin Mother holding her dead Son in her lap: the drapery seems excessive, the Virgin’s head is small for her body, her left hand is extended in an inappropriate gesture; her face is that of a young woman clearly younger than her Son. To this last complaint Michaelangelo, as reported by Condivi, made answer:
 
                  Do you not know that chaste women maintain their freshness far longer than
                  The unchaste ?  How much more would this be the case with a virgin into
                   whose breast  there never crept the least lascivious desire which would affect
                    the body !  Nay, I will go further, and hazard the belief that this unsullied bloom
                    of youth, besides being maintained in her natural causes, may have been
                    miraculously wrought to convince the world of the virginity and perpetual
                    purity of the mother.

It is a pleasant and forgivable fancy. The spectator is soon  reconciled to that gentle face, untorn by agony, calm in her grief and love, the bereaved mother resigned to the will of God, and consoled by holding for some final moments the dear body here cleansed of its wounds, freed from its indignities, resting in the lap of the woman that bore it, and beautiful even in death. All the essence and tragedy and redemption of life are in this simple group: the stream of births by which woman carries on the race; the certainty of death as the penalty for every birth; and the love that ennobles our mortality with kindness, and challenges every death with new birth. Francis I was right when he pronounced this the finest achievement of Michaelangelo. In all the history of sculpture no man has ever surpassed it, except, perhaps the unknown Greek who carved the Demeter of the British Museum.

The success of the Pieta brought Michaelangelo not only fame, which he humanly enjoyed, but money, which his relatives were ready to enjoy with him. His father had lost, with the fall of the Medici the little sinecure that Lorenzo the Magnificent had given him; Michael’s older brother had entered a Monastery; the two younger brothers were improvident, and Michael became now the main support of the family. He complained of this necessity, but gave generously.

Probably because the disordered finances of his relatives called him, he returned to Florence in 1501. A unique Assignment came to him in August of that year. The Operai or Board of Works at the cathedral owned a block of Carrara marble thirteen and a half feet high, but so irregularly shaped that it had lain unused for a hundred years. The board asked Michaelangelo could a statue be chiseled out of it. He agreed to try; and on Augusts 16 the Operai del Duomo and the Arte della Lana ( the wool Guild ) signed the contract:

              That the worthy master Michaelangelo.... has been chosen to fashion, complete,
              and finish to perfection that male statue called “Il gigante,” of nine cubits in height...
              That the work shall be competed within two years from September, at a salary
               of six golden florins per month...... and when the statue is finished Guild Consuls    and the Operai ... shall estimate whether he deserve a larger recompense, and this shall be left to their consciences.

The sculptor toiled on the refractory material for two and a half years; with heroic labour he drew from it, using every inch of his height, his ‘David’. On January 25 1504 the Operai assembled a council of leading artists in Florence to consider where ‘IL gigante’ as they called the ‘David’, should be placed. They could not agree, and finally left the the matter to Michaelangelo, who asked it be placed on the platform of the Palazzo Vecchio. The task took forty men four days; a gateway had to be heightened by breaking a wall  above it before the colossus could pass; and twenty one further days had to be spent in raising it into place. For 369 years it stood in the open and uncovered porch of the Palazzo, subject to weather, urchins, and revolution. The Medici, returning to power in 1513, left it untouched, but in the uprising that again deposed them (1527 ) a bench thrown from a window of the Palace broke the statue’s left arm. Two lads of sixteen, gathered and preserved the pieces, and a later Medici, Duke Cosimo, had the fragments put together and replaced. In 1873, after the statue had suffered erosion from the weather, David was laboriously transferred to the Accademia delle Belle Arti, where it occupies the place of honour as the most popular figure in Florence.

It was ‘a tour de force’ and as such can hardly be overpraised; the mechanical difficulties were brilliantly overcome. Esthetically one may pick a few flaws; the right hand is too large, the neck too long, the left leg overlong below the knee, the left buttock does not swell as any proper buttock should. Peri Soldering head of the republic thought the nose excessive; Vasari tells the story -- perhaps a legend -- how Michaelangelo, hiding some marble dust in his hand, mounted a ladder, pretended to chisel off a bit of the nose while leaving it intact, and let the marble dust fall from his hand before the Gondolier, who then pronounced the statue much improved. The total effect of the work silences criticism; the splendid frame, not yet swollen with the muscles of Michaelangelo’s later heroes, the finished texture of the flesh, the strong yet refined features, the nostrils tense with excitement, the frown of anger and the look of resolution subtly tinged with diffidence  as the youth faces the fearsome Goliath and prepares to fill and cast his sling-- these share in making the ‘David’ with one exception * the most famous statue in the world. Vasari thought it surpassed all other statues ancient and modern, Latin and Greek.

* Which should be the ‘Hermes ‘ of Praxiteles but more probably is the Statue of Liberty.

                                            

[Frybabe]

I saw a program the other night about the Vatican. The highlights for me were the lovely shots of the Sistine Chapel ceiling and a walk through the Vatican Library.