of energetic and vitally significant action, showed how greatly
Michelangelo had profited by the example of his elder rival,
Leonardo, little as, personally, he yielded to Leonardo’s charm
or could bring himself to respond to his courtesy. The work
of Michelangelo’s youth is for the most part comparatively
tranquil in character. His early sculpture, showing a degree
of science and perfection unequalled since the antique, has
also something of the antique serenity. It bears strongly the
stamp of intellectual research, but not by any means that of
storm or strain. In the cartoon of the “Bathers” the qualities
afterwards proverbially associated with Michelangelo—his furia,
his terribilità, the tempest and hurricane of the spirit which
accompanied his unequalled technical mastery and knowledge—first
found expression.
With Michelangelo’s departure to Rome early in 1505 the first part of his artistic career may be said to end. It will be convenient here to recapitulate its principal results in sculpture and painting, both those preserved and those recorded but lost.
Sculpture.—Florence, 1489–1494.—“Head of a Faun,” marble; lost. Condivi describes Michelangelo’s first essay in sculpture as a head of an aged faun with a front tooth knocked out, this latter point having been an afterthought suggested by Lorenzo dei Medici. The head is sometimes identified with one in the National Museum at Florence, which however bears no marks of Michelangelo’s early style and is in all probability spurious.—“Madonna seated on a Step,” bronze; Casa Buonarroti, Florence. This bas-relief, executed in imitation of the technical style of Donatello, is a genuine example of Michelangelo’s early work in the Medicean school under Bertoldo.—“Centauromachia,” marble; Casa Buonarroti. A fine and genuine work in full relief, of probably somewhat later date than the last-mentioned. The subject occurs often in ancient sarcophagus reliefs: Michelangelo has followed the antique in his conception and treatment of the nude, but the arrangement of the subject is his own.
Bologna, 1494–1495.—Statuettes of “St Petronius,” “St Proculus,” and a “Kneeling Angel,” marble; part of the decorations of the shrine of St Dominic in the church of that saint at Bologna: the style of all three much influenced by the work of jacopo della Quercia in the same church; the attitude of the kneeling angel with the candelabrum imitated from an ancient bas-relief.
Florence, 1495–1496.—“St John in the Wilderness,” executed for Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco dei Medici, marble; probably lost. Declared in 1874 to have been found again in the possession of Count Gualandi-Rossalmini at Pisa. Vehement and prolonged discussion arose as to the authenticity of this newly-found S. Giovannino, and at last it was bought for the Berlin Museum, where its genuineness is still stoutly maintained. But the finicking and affected elegance of the conception denote a different temperament from Michelangelo’s and probably a later date. With this figure must be given up also the restoration of an antique group of “Bacchus and Ampelus” at the Uffizi, which is clearly by the same hand and is claimed also as an early work of Michelangelo.—“Recumbent Cupid,” bought by the cardinal San Giorgio as an antique, marble; lost. The attempts to recognize it in certain extant copies or servile imitations of the antique, especially one now at Turin, must be held mistaken.
Rome, 1495–1501.—“Virgin lamenting the dead Christ,” commissioned by the abbot de la Grolaie; marble, St Peter’s, Rome.”—Bacchus and young Faun,” commissioned by Jacopo Galli; marble, National Museum, Florence. (Of these two masterpieces of Michelangelo’s youth enough has been said above).—“Cupid,” commissioned by the abbot de la Grolaie; marble; lost; has been commonly identified as the “Kneeling Cupid” of the Victoria and Albert Museum, but this, if by Michelangelo at all, which is not quite certain, must in all likelihood belong to a later time.
Florence, 1501–1506.—“Five Saints, in niches decorating the shrine of Pius II.,” commissioned by the Piccolomini family; marble; cathedral of Siena, The contract for the sculptured decoration of this shrine was one of those which the pressure of other work prevented the artist from ever taking seriously in hand. Of the five saints in niches, traditionally reputed to be his work, the St Peter alone shows any clear marks of his style; the other four were probably designed, and certainly carried out, by weaker hands.—“David” (the “Gigante”), commissioned for the city of Florence by Piero Soderini; marble; Florence Academy. Besides what has been said above, it has only to be added that a wax model in the Casa Buonarroti, showing nearly the same design with a different movement of the legs, is probably Michelangelo’s original sketch for the subject. “David,” commissioned by Pierre Rohan; bronze, lost; a clay model in the National Museum, Florence, may probably be a sketch for it; more than one bronze has been brought forward with claims to be the original, but none has stood the test of criticism. “Virgin and Child,” commissioned for Taddeo Taddei; circular relief, unfinished, marble; London, Royal Academy. The motive of the Christ-child frightened by the flutterings of the bird held out by St John is the most playful in all Michelangelo’s work; the whole design shows the influence of Leonardo in his gentler, as much as the cartoon of the “Bathers” shows it in his more violent, moods. “Virgin and Child with St John,” commissioned by Bartolommeo Pitti; nearly circular relief, unfinished, marble; Florence, National Museum: a more tranquil and very charming presentment. “Madonna and Child,” sold to the Mouscron family of Bruges (known in Italy as Moscheroni), and by them presented to the church of Notre Dame in that city; group in the round, marble; church of Notre Dame, Bruges. A meditative seated Virgin with upright head, the naked child seated between her knees, his smoothly rounded form in strong contrast with her complicated draperies. “St Matthew”: one of a set of twelve statues of Apostles commissioned by the consuls of the Arte della Lana for the cathedral at Florence; marble; National Museum, Florence. Unfinished (only roughly blocked out), the other figures of the set never having been so much as begun; the contract was signed in 1503 and cancelled in 1505. There is an early drawing by Raphael from this statue.
Painting.—“Holy Family,” painted for Angelo Doni; tempera, circular: Florence, Uffizi. The only perfectly well-attested panel painting of Michelangelo which exists. His love of restless and somewhat strained actions is illustrated by the gesture of the Madonna, who kneels on the ground holding up the child on her right shoulder; his love of the nude by the introduction (wherein he follows Luca Signorelli) of some otherwise purposeless undraped figures in the background. “Virgin and Child with Four Angels”; tempera; National Gallery, London. This unfinished painting, strongly marked by the influence of Michelangelo in his work at this period, has been confidently claimed for him, but lacks his strength and mastery, and is far more probably the work of his imitator and intimate associate, Francesco Granacci. “Cartoon of the Bathers”; lost and utterly perished. The only authentic records of it are contained in a few early engravings by Marcantonio and Agostino Veneziano and a certain number of sketches and studies by the master himself, chiefly at the Albertina, Vienna, the British Museum and the University Galleries, Oxford. An elaborate drawing of many figures at Holkham Hall, well known and often engraved, seems to be a later cento destitute of real authority.
Michelangelo had not been long in Rome before Pope Julius devised fit employment for him. That capacious and headstrong spirit, on fire with great enterprises, had conceived the idea of a sepulchral monument to commemorate his glory when he should be dead, and to be executed according to his own plans while he was still living. He entrusted this congenial task to Michelangelo. The design being approved, the artist spent the winter of 1505–1505 at the quarries of Carrara, superintending the excavation and shipment of the necessary marbles. In the spring he returned to Rome, and when the marbles arrived fell to with all his energy at the preparations for the work. For a while the pope followed their progress eagerly, and was all kindness to the young sculptor. But presently his disposition changed. In Michelangelo’s absence an artist who was no friend of his, Bramante of Urbino, had been selected by Julius to carry out a new architectural scheme, commensurate with the usual vastness of his conceptions, viz. the rebuilding of St Peter’s church. To the influence and the malice of Bramante Michelangelo attributed the unwelcome invitation he now received to interrupt the great work of sculpture which he had just begun in order to decorate the Sixtine chapel with frescoes. Soon, however, schemes of war and conquest interposed to divert the thoughts of Julius, not from the progress of his own monument merely, but from artistic enterprises altogether. One day Michelangelo heard him say at table to his jeweller that he meant to spend no more money on pebbles, either small or great. To add to the artist’s discomfiture, when he went to apply in person for payments due, he was first put off from day to day, and at last actually with scant courtesy dismissed. At this his dark mood got the mastery of him. Convinced that not his employment only but his life was threatened, he suddenly took horse and left Rome, and before the messengers of the pope could overtake him was safe on Florentine territory. Michelangelo’s flight took place in April 1506. Once among his own people, he turned a deaf ear to all overtures made from Rome for his return, and stayed throughout the summer at Florence, how occupied we are not distinctly informed, but apparently, among other things, on the continuation of his great battle cartoon.
During the same summer Julius planned and executed the victorious military campaign which ended with his unopposed entry at the head of his army into Bologna. Thither, under strict safe-conduct and promises of renewed favour, Michelangelo
