Il Gigante – A Statue of Biblical Proportions
DURING THE UNSETTLED days before the flight of Piero de’ Medici from Florence at the end of 1494, a friend of the young Michelangelo had a nightmare. This ‘friend’s’ dream was so vivid that Michelangelo could still recall it in old age to his companion and early biographer Ascanio Condivi: ‘Lorenzo de’ Medici had appeared to him with a black robe, all in rags over his nakedness, and commanded him to tell his son that he would shortly be driven from his house, never to return again.’ This dream was almost certainly Michelangelo’s own, evoking as it does the closeness of his relationship with Lorenzo de’ Medici (it has even been claimed that Lorenzo’s nearnakedness suggests a homosexual attraction). Within a week of Michelangelo having this dream, and even before Piero went into exile, the nineteen-year-old sculptor fled the city – fearful of what he felt sure was going to happen, and fearful that his close association with the Medici would prove his undoing.
Michelangelo ended up in Rome, where a banker called Jacopo Galli commissioned him to produce a full-sized statue of Bacchus, the Ancient Greek god of wine and revelry. The result was a superb psychological study – with, in the words of Condivi: ‘the merry face, and the squinting lascivious eyes, such as are usual in those who have fallen excessively in love with wine’. The youthful standing figure, holding a cup of wine, has a swelling stomach and is daringly off-balance, supported by a diminutive young satyr at his side, biting into a bunch of grapes.
Surprisingly, this profane work led to a commission for a work of the utmost sacredness, from the French Cardinal of St-Denis, who was living in Rome at the time. The result was Michelangelo’s first masterpiece, his Pietà, which depicts the Virgin Mary cradling the all-but-naked figure of the dead Christ sprawled across her lap, just after he has been taken down from the Cross. Michelangelo’s Pietà was completed in 1500, and has such technical virtuosity that it is difficult to imagine it being the work of a mere twenty-five-year-old. The problem of depicting the two separate figures in the same block of marble is overcome by contrasting Christ’s smooth naked flesh with the voluminous folds of Mary’s dress. Her serene yet suffering face is undoubtedly alive, while Christ’s lolling dead face is still marked with the agony of his crucifixion. Michelangelo manages to convey a sense of tranquillity, at the same time evoking a profound spiritual emotion.
Not all were entirely satisfied with this work; many, including Condivi, questioned why Mary’s face appeared no older than that of Christ. Michelangelo replied: ‘Don’t you know that chaste women remain far fresher than those who are not chaste?’ Another contemporary, Giorgio Vasari, in his revealing Life of Michelangelo, hinted at a more hidden explanation of this anomaly. He claimed that Michelangelo’s ‘manner of speech was very veiled and ambiguous, his utterances having in a sense two meanings’; and what was true of his speech was also true of his work. Vasari explained that Michelangelo’s deep-felt image of Mary’s comparatively youthful motherhood may well have stemmed from the fact that both his mother and the nurse who looked after him had died when they were young. As we shall see, Michelangelo’s personal psychology would often play a haunting role in his work.
By the time Michelangelo returned to Florence in 1500, Savonarola had been dead two years and the city was in a pitiful condition; once the capital of a proud state, its power was now much reduced and its people plunged into poverty. The war against Pisa had been conducted so ineptly by the Florentine military leader Paolo Vitelli that the Signoria had vented its frustration by arresting him for treason, having him tortured and then beheaded. The populace was disgruntled, and the streets were becoming increasingly lawless. Perhaps the most telling image is that of Botticelli: the glory days of his colourful and symbolic paintings long over, even his renunciation of worldly delights at the feet of Savonarola now a thing of the past, he shuffled on crutches through the streets beneath a drab threadbare cloak, aged, sick and incapable.
The government was impotent, and its policy now altered every two months with the change of gonfaloniere, In an effort to halt the drift, it was decided to try another Venetian measure: the new gonfaloniere would be elected for life, just like the doge of Venice. This would at least enable the city to follow through a consistent policy – as it had not done since the days of the Medici, ironically. The first gonfaloniere elected for life was Piero Soderini, a member of the leading Florentine family that had produced Niccolò Soderini, who had tried to depose Piero the Gouty, and later Tommaso Soderini who became Lorenzo the Magnificent’s right-hand man.
Piero Soderini was known to be a trustworthy character, but was of limited abilities; Florence had grown tired of men who saw themselves as exceptional leaders. However, he did have one unusual trait: he had noticed the talent of Michelangelo and had taken a liking to this promising, if difficult, young man. Soderini, in his wisdom, now decided that Michelangelo should be commissioned to sculpt a great work that would restore the civic pride of Florence.
The wardens of Santa Maria del Fiore had in the cathedral workshop a large block of white marble, which had been brought to the city some forty years previously from Carrara, near the Tuscan coast, where the finest marble in Europe was mined. Years earlier, an inept craftsman had begun hacking out blocks of stone in preparation for creating a sculpture, but this work had been abandoned; what was left was an eighteen-foot-high block of marble in a distressingly mutilated condition. Soderini suggested to Michelangelo that perhaps this could be carved into a giant statue of David, the brave symbol of Florence’s republican pride. Only an artist of the ambition and self-confidence of the twenty-six-year-old Michelangelo would have accepted such a daunting commission.
Michelangelo set to work making preliminary sketches, on one of which he wrote a brief verse expressing his aim:
Davicte cholla fromba
e io choll’archo
Michelangelo
Fig 11 David by Michelangelo
And I with my bow
Michelangelo)
The bow referred to was a curved wooden instrument for drilling into stone; the poem expresses Michelangelo’s pride, as he likens himself to David setting forth to do battle.
Michelangelo was soon working obsessively on his David, chipping away in the seclusion of the cathedral workshop day and night. During the sweltering heat of summer he worked stripped to the waist, the sweat dribbling into his eyes; during the finger-freezing cold of winter he worked swathed like a mummy, the steam of his breath obscuring his vision. Despite the energy-sapping effort required by his task, as ever Michelangelo lived frugally; years later he would tell Condivi: ‘However rich I may have been, I have always lived like a poor man.’ He also insisted on working in secret, having a phobia about his work being seen before it was finished.
Astonishingly, it took Michelangelo just eighteen months to complete his sculpture, which was two times larger than life-size. As a physical feat alone, this was remarkable; as a work of art it proved a sublime achievement. The classical nudity and restraint of this standing male figure is filled with a living force; here the volatile physicality of his Bacchus is contained within the sheer presence of his Pietà. The result is profoundly humanistic, a magnificent celebration of what it is to be human, yet at the same time there is something transcendent in David’s expression of the human ideal, and in this it achieves an almost Platonic ideality. The statue itself marks the emergence of a quality that was increasingly evoked by Michelangelo’s work: the apt Italian word for this is terribilità, meaning awesome, almost dread-inspiring power.
According to one report, the statue was originally intended to stand on the roof of the cathedral; it was after all a religious work, the biblical figure of David the celebrated slayer of Goliath (though many in the republican faction would have understood the defeated Goliath as none other than the expelled Medici). The statue’s possibly intended location may account for some of the exaggeration that gives it such power: it was intended to be seen from far below. Yet such a piece, such unadorned and unashamed nakedness, was hardly appropriate for a Christian church, even in Renaissance times, and it was decided that the statue should be placed instead on the raised platform outside the Palazzo della Signoria. Here, overlooking the piazza where the assembled citizens gave voice to their wishes for the future of the city, was the perfect location; and, curiously, beneath the façade and tower of the Palazzo, the statue’s dwarfing size became almost human.
Yet moving the statue was to prove no easy undertaking. To begin with, the entire wall of the cathedral workshop had to be demolished simply to get it out. Then came the task of physically lifting the statue – nothing like this had been attempted before. Vasari described how the shrouded statue was contained within a strong wooden framework ‘from which the statue was suspended by ropes so that when it was moved it swayed without being broken’. This contraption was moved by a number of winches, operated by more than forty men, which drew it slowly forward over planks laid on the ground. According to Landucci, who witnessed this event along with a large crowd of onlookers, it took four days for the statue to reach the piazza (a distance of a quarter of a mile).
Before it was unveiled, Soderini insisted on a private viewing. According to the legend recounted by Vasari, Soderini was highly pleased, but could not resist making a suggestion – perhaps the nose was a little too large. Though exasperated at this criticism of his work, Michelangelo controlled his anger; without a word he climbed the scaffolding, holding a chisel in one hand, whilst with the other he casually swept up some marble dust lying on the planks. Standing so that his back obscured what he was doing, he pretended to chip away at the nose, letting a trickle of marble dust fall from his hand as he did so. Then he stepped back, calling down to Soderini: ‘Look at it now.’ ‘I like it better,’ Soderini replied, you have given it life.’
Whether or not this story was true, it undeniably illustrates a growing trend that first came to the fore in the Renaissance: the belief in the autonomy of the artist in matters of taste concerning his own work. Earlier, when Donatello had knocked his statue from the parapet of the Palazzo Medici, this appeared more as an act of petulance; now, with Michelangelo, such behaviour was becoming an asserted right of self-determination. As ever in the Renaissance, it was art that led the way; in this respect, other aspects of the new humanism were hampered by their very articulacy. When Pico della Mirandola had set down the details of his humanist philosophy, he had found himself accused of heresy. The individual still had little freedom of action, and even less of speech; only in art and science (still interwoven, though becoming less so) was a more guarded freedom possible.
This is not to say that the artist and his art were above criticism, far from it; and Michelangelo’s David was to prove no exception. Throughout Florence the statue soon became popularly known as ‘Il Gigante’ (‘The Giant’); but why was it so large, people wanted to know, for surely David’s opponent Goliath was meant to be the giant? In fact, as many were quick to point out, the statue could have been seen as representing any number of ancient figures. It could just as easily have been Hercules, or even a youthful Samson; very little indicated that this was the biblical David, apart from the sling thrown over his left shoulder. (This was originally, and now remains, the only part of the body that was covered, though at the first public unveiling the Signoria insisted on the statue’s rather blatant genitalia being hidden, and these were obscured by a brass garland containing twenty-eight copper leaves, which would continue to adorn the statue for another thirty years.) There was no denying that Michelangelo had made the description of the biblical David a secondary matter – the primary consideration being a display of his own superlative powers. This trait too would become increasingly evident in Michelangelo’s ensuing work, as the near-perfection of his David gave way to an increasing mannerism. With a Michelangelo, there would be no doubting whose work it was; indeed, this mannerism is already partly visible in his David. The hands are enlarged and exaggerated, suggestively adding to the figure’s power; and on closer inspection, the neck and features of the face too are enlarged. (Did Soderini have a point?) These distortions are justified by the fact that the spectator views the statue from beneath, which gives it a foreshortening effect. Michelangelo wished to make the statue appear as large as he could, and it was impossible for him to have made it physically any larger; as Condivi points out, Michelangelo calculated his block of marble ‘so exactly, that as can be seen on the crown of the head and on the base, the old rough surface of the marble still appears’.
Having completed this supreme work, Michelangelo was now aggrieved to find himself in a similar position to David facing Goliath, In 1504 the authorities commissioned him to produce a large mural of a battle scene in the Palazzo della Signoria – on the wall directly adjacent to a mural that was being painted by his arch-rival Leonardo da Vinci. These two murals were intended to depict Florence’s military triumphs, to expunge the memory of recent disasters, though all the citizens of Florence quickly realised that the painting of these murals meant much more than this. Here was the ultimate contest between the fifty-two-year-old maestro and the young emergent genius half his age: who would triumph in this battle between Florence’s two greatest artists? Victory, and defeat, would both be permanent – there for all to see for years to come.
This element of competition has been seen as a trivialising of great art, but it was far from being the case. Here Florence was merely following the precedent set by the Ancient Greeks, whose regular pan-Hellenic competitions to choose the greatest tragedy produced Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. This contest in Florence would have a profound effect on Michelangelo; although in his later years he would insist to Condivi that he was entirely self-taught, the influence of Leonardo is noticeable during this period. Like any ambitious competitor, Michelangelo studied his opponent and would learn from him a subtlety of emotional expression that is absent in his David. Unfortunately, the competition itself would result in little else: all that remains are the sketches for their murals produced by both artists. Leonardo probably went so far as to outline his projected scene on the wall, but characteristically found himself unable to bring his work to conclusion; Michelangelo was only able to produce a cartoon of his projected work before he was summoned to Rome.
In 1503 the seventy-two-year-old Pope Alexander VI finally died; despite his luridly degenerate life, he remained physically robust to the end – making many suspect that he had been poisoned. Although his son Cesare Borgia did his utmost to prevent Alexander VI being succeeded by his arch-rival Francesco Piccolomini, even going so far as to seize the Vatican, he could not prevent this and Piccolomini became Pope Pius III. However, within a month the new pope was dead; he had been physically frail and had not been expected to last for long, yet nonetheless the sheer brevity of his tenure led to further speculations concerning poison. Pius III was succeeded by Julius II, a rather more vigorous opponent of the Borgias, who evidently took greater care over his diet. Michelangelo’s reputation was already known to Julius II, who had been particularly impressed by his Pietà, and he summoned Michelangelo to Rome to start work on a hugely ambitious scheme for his tomb, involving no fewer than forty large sculptures.