of painting, the cartoon already mentioned, which he executed in emulation of the more practised Leonardo da Vinci, appeared when he had only just attained the fulness of manhood (1504). For the history of this competition we refer the reader to our last chapter. Michael Angelo's cartoon is also lost (it is said to have been destroyed by Baccio Bandinelli, one of his rivals), but the greater part of the composition is known to us by some old engravings and copies.' Michael Angelo chose for his subject the commencement of the battle, and, as appears from the existing copies, the moment when a crowd of Florentine soldiers, bathing in the Arno, unexpectedly hear the summons to conflict. This choice enabled the artist to display in full and lively development his knowledge of the human form. All is in movement: the warriors, some already clothed, some half or wholly naked, crowd hastily together; some clamber up the steep shore from the river, others press their naked limbs into their tight clothing, others again fully armed hasten to join the combat. In the opinion of his contemporaries, Michael Angelo never again created a work so perfect; but this opinion appears to refer principally to the execution. These cartoons, as already observed, had a considerable influence on the progress of the younger contemporaries of the two great masters. In the next succeeding years Michael Angelo was again employed on a great work in sculpture, having been invited to Rome by Pope Julius II., and intrusted with the execution of a splendid monument, of which, however, only a small portion was ultimately finished. The Pope himself was the principal cause of the interruption, for, independently of frequent misunderstandings on the subject of the monument which had arisen between him and the artist, he had con 1 Single figures and groups of the cartoons, some known by the title of "The Climbers" (Les Grimpeurs), exist in different engravings by MarcAntonio and Agostino da Venezia. An old copy of the principal part of the composition, painted in oil in chiaroscuro, is at Holkham, in the possession of the Earl of Leicester.--See Passavant, Kunstreise, etc., p. 194. Engraved by Schiavonetti: Reveil, 541. 2 See particularly Vita di Benvenuto Cellini, i. 2. 3 [Michael Angelo's principal works in sculpture, prior to the period in question, were the David and the group of the Pietà; by no means such extensive undertakings as the proposed monument.-Ed.] ceived the idea of employing him to paint in fresco the ceiling of the Sistine chapel, which had hitherto remained unadorned.' Michael Angelo at first wished to decline this commission, which would necessarily interrupt the work already in progress, and probably did not feel himself quite equal to the execution of a work in fresco. As the Pope, however, earnestly insisted, he began this immense undertaking in 1508, and completed it, without assistance, in the space of three years. In the commencement he had sent for some former fellow-scholars and friends from Florence to execute some of the paintings from his cartoons, perhaps also to learn from them the practice of fresco-painting, in which he had had little experience. Their work, however, proved unsatisfactory; he sent them home again, obliterated what they had begun, and finished the work alone. 3 The ceiling of the Sistine chapel contains the most perfect works done by Michael Angelo in his long and active life. Here his great spirit appears in its noblest dignity, in its highest purity; here the attention is not disturbed by that arbitrary display to which his great power not unfrequently seduced him in other works. The ceiling forms a flattened arch in its section; the central portion, which is a plane surface, contains a series of large and small pictures, representing the most important events recorded in the book of Genesis-the Creation and Fall of Man, with its immediate consequences. In the large triangular compartments at the springing of the vault are sitting figures of the prophets and sibyls as the foretellers of the coming of the Saviour. In the 1 [Vasari relates that Pope Julius II. wished to have the works of the earlier masters destroyed, but adds that Michael Angelo suffered them to remain from a desire to show the improvement that had taken place in the Art since they were done. Among the great artist's reasons, we may fairly include his respect for the feelings of the artists, several of whom were still living. He may also have been influenced (see a subsequent note) by the nature of the subjects, which, in their general order and import, were capable of being combined with the plan he contemplated.-Ed.] 2 According to concurrent testimony, M. Angelo was employed but twentytwo months on these paintings; but it is impossible that the execution of the cartoons can be included in this short period; hence the above assumption. 3 [On the general arrangement and connexion of the subjects in the Cappella Sistina, see the note at the end of this chapter.-ED.] 4 The Sibyls, according to the legends of the middle ages, stand next in soffits of the recesses between these compartments, and in the arches underneath, immediately above the windows, are the ancestors of the Virgin, the series leading the mind directly to the Saviour. The external connexion of these numerous representations is formed by an architectural framework of peculiar composition which encloses the single subjects, tends to make the principal masses conspicuous, and gives to the whole an appearance of that solidity and support so necessary, but so seldom attended to, in soffit decorations, which may be considered as if suspended. A great number of figures are also connected with the framework; those in unimportant situations are executed in the colour of stone or bronze; in the more important, in natural colours. They serve to support the architectural forms, to fill up and to connect the whole. They may be best described as the living and embodied genii of architecture. It required the united power of an architect, sculptor, and painter, to conceive a structural whole of so much grandeur, to design the decorative figures with the significant repose required by their sculpturesque character, and yet to preserve their subordination to the principal subjects, and to keep the latter in the proportions and relations best adapted to the space to be filled. Many artists at a later period have made the like attempt, particularly Annibal Caracci, in the Farnese palace, but none have seized and carried dignity to the Prophets of the Old Testament. It was their office to foretel the coming of the Saviour to the heathen, as it was that of the Prophets to announce him to the Jews. [The Sibyls are alluded to by Greek, Roman, and Jewish writers, and by most of the Christian fathers. The latter, on the authority of Varro, enumerate ten of these prophetesses. (See Lactantius, De Falsâ Religione, i. 6.) The authority of the Sibylline writings with the pagans soon suggested the pious fraud of interpolating them; the direct allusions to the Messiah which they contain are supposed to have been inserted in the second century. (See Blondel, Des Sibylles Célèbres.) But notwithstanding the occasional expression of some suspicion as to their authenticity, these spurious predictions continued to be held in veneration not only during the middle ages, but even to a comparatively modern date, and the Sibyls were represented in connexion with Scripture subjects before and after Michael Angelo's time by various painters. The circumstance of their appearing in works of art as equal in rank with the Prophets may have arisen from the manner in which St. Augustine (De Civit. Dei, xviii. 47) speaks of the Erythræan Sibyl's testimony, immediately before he adverts to that of the Prophets of the Old Testament. The fullest of the numerous dissertations on the Sibyls is, perhaps, that of Clasen (De Oraculis Gentilium, Helmstad. 1673).—ED.] |