3

<
R i se to P rom i n e nc e

A
fter completing his six-month stint as Podestà
in Caprese, Michelangelo’s father returned to
Florence in 1475. The family owned a farm
property in the little town of Settignano in the hills over-
looking Florence. The parish church of the town with
its prominent bell tower sits on the irregular, sloping
square. Terraced vineyards march down steep slopes criss-
crossed by narrow streets. It is a poor town of huddled
houses, animals, wood smoke, and stone. Settignano is a
village of craftsmen, many of whom work and live with
stone, fashioning it into the window frames, fireplaces,
and moldings that are ubiquitous features of Florentine
architecture. Dante described them as men who “still
smack of the mountains,” and locally they are known as
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 Rise to Prominence

persons “that smell of stone” (“che sente del macigno”).1 To Condivi,

Michelangelo joked that he had learned to carve from having been
suckled by the daughter of a stonemason who was also a wife of a
stonemason. We may find the story quaint, but there was a profound
belief in the formative power of a mother’s (or wet nurse’s) milk.
Condivi realized that Michelangelo’s quip was “also doubtless meant
in earnest.”2
Michelangelo’s boyhood was spent surrounded by stone and
stoneworkers. In Settignano and the nearby villages of San Martino,
Maiano, and Fiesole were many families that thrived from working
dozens of small quarries of pietra forte and pietra serena, the “strong” and
“serene” stones that helped construct and adorn the city of Florence.
In Maiano, a short walk from his home, Benedetto da Maiano ran a
large sculptor’s workshop, and Michelangelo’s earliest style suggests
lessons absorbed from that experienced master. In his own immedi-
ate neighborhood were a number of large families who had been
involved in the stone trade for generations: Fancelli, Lucchesini,
Del Caprina. From this tiny world of interrelated and neighboring
families, Michelangelo learned the rudiments of sculpture and later
found hundreds of skilled assistants. Long before he was placed in
Domenico Ghirlandaio’s shop, Michelangelo tried his hand at carv-
ing and became familiar with some of the craft’s best practitioners.
After seeing his eldest son, Lionardo, enter the Dominican
order, Lodovico hoped that his second son, the expected breadwin-
ner, would enter a lucrative profession. It was precisely because of
the family’s social pretensions that Michelangelo’s father sent him to
the grammar school of Francesco of Urbino rather than apprentice
him to a craftsman. When Michelangelo showed greater aptitude for
stone than for the Latin subjunctive, Lodovico was understandably
distressed. Rather than permit Michelangelo to continue dirtying
his hands in the local stone yards, Lodovico sent him into the city,
hoping that cosmopolitan Florence would provide his son with the
education and polish appropriate to his class.

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 Michelangelo

Thanks largely to his father’s exertions and family connections,

Michelangelo enjoyed a brief and undemanding apprenticeship with
Domenico Ghirlandaio, the most fashionable painter in Florence. A
document informs us that the twelve-year-old Michelangelo col-
lected a substantial payment on behalf of the master in June 1487.3
This document does not describe Michelangelo as an apprentice
(for example, as an “alunno” or “garzone di Ghirlandaio”); rather, it
suggests his social status by identifying him by his family name, as
the son of Lodovico Buonarroti: “Michelangelo figlio di Ludovico
Buonarroti.” Everything about Michelangelo’s abbreviated time
with Ghirlandaio suggests that the association was not a traditional
apprenticeship, but a special arrangement extended to a youth with
comparatively elevated family connections.
Michelangelo evidently enjoyed a privileged position in that
hard-nosed, professional environment. Rather than slogging through
years as a lowly mixer of plaster and paint, he was permitted access
to the master’s drawings and given time to make copies; moreover,
without any legal or personal consequences, he was free to leave
Ghirlandaio when a better opportunity presented itself. By the time
Michelangelo was fifteen, and well before he had fulfilled anything
like a conventional artistic apprenticeship, his father had succeeded
in arranging a better situation for his son in the Medici entourage. It
was now up to Michelangelo to forge a career from this promising
opportunity.

<
E a r ly Wo r k s

The first works of artists are often awkward or unoriginal, and

sometimes are destroyed or never completed. If stone or marble,
early experiments are often lost to recarving, since a young art-
ist could not afford the luxury of wasting expensive materials. The
Madonna of the Steps is the first work that Michelangelo preserved,

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 Rise to Prominence

but it probably was not his first effort at carving. It is an exercise in

low relief carving in the tradition of Michelangelo’s great predeces-
sor Donatello, yet it reveals a curious combination of ambitiousness
and technical awkwardness. The Madonna entirely fills the field,
extending from the top to the bottom edge of the thin marble block.
This is the sort of maximum extension of figures within confining
boundaries that is a hallmark of Michelangelo’s art, especially his
sculpture.
Another early sculpture, the Battle of the Centaurs, reveals
another dominant theme of Michelangelo’s art, the male nude in
action. With its rough-sketched, unfinished, and unevenly polished
surfaces, its struggling figures are not far removed from their lapi-
dary origin. The layered, three-dimensional relief is a congested
mass of entwined bodies, most of which are only partly discern-
ible. Condivi and Vasari relate that the tutor of the Medici children,
Agnolo Poliziano, explained the Ovidian subject to Michelangelo.
But where did the young man get the thick, squarish block? Was
this a remnant obtained from the large cathedral workshop – the
city’s principal supplier of raw materials – or was it obtained from
the Medici sculpture garden, which was filled with old, new, and
damaged marbles? The custodian of the garden was Bertoldo di
Giovanni, the last pupil of Donatello and an important early mentor
of Michelangelo. Bertoldo could have provided the young man with
the marble; more important, Bertoldo accompanied him to Pisa
to examine Roman sarcophagi and sculptures by the fourteenth-
century masters Nicola and Giovanni Pisano. In addition, Bertoldo
introduced Michelangelo to the works of art owned by the Medici,
including their incomparable collection of ancient coins and gems.4
The death of Lorenzo de’ Medici in 1492 disrupted the privi-
leged life of the seventeen-year-old Michelangelo. He returned to
his father’s house and began working on a life-size Hercules from a
block “which for many years had been lying in the wind and rain,”
and hence probably cost little.5 Having tasted life in the service of

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 Michelangelo

princes, the young man was unwilling – and ill-prepared – to join

the flotsam of the artisan class that worked in professional botteghe
(workshops) and competed ruthlessly for commissions. Rather than
attaching himself to a workshop and trying to make a living in a
traditional manner, Michelangelo bided his time and hoped for a
new patron or opportunity. He also devoted himself to the study
of anatomy. He befriended the prior of the church of Santo Spirito,
who permitted the artist to perform some dissections. We see the
fruits of Michelangelo’s learning in some of his extremely beautiful
anatomical drawings, probably a tiny proportion of those he origi-
nally made.6 And, as a return favor, Michelangelo carved a wood
crucifix for the church, which many scholars accept is the one cur-
rently exhibited in Santo Spirito.

<
To B o l o g n a

During the two years following Lorenzo’s death, hostility to the

Medici mounted as Lorenzo’s son, the haughty and insufferable
Piero de’ Medici, abused his power and squandered the goodwill
of the Florentine populace. When the Medici were finally expelled
from Florence in 1494, Michelangelo found himself in a compro-
mised position. He elected to follow his patrons to nearby Bologna,
although it would have made more sense for an aspiring sculptor to
go to Rome, like his great predecessors Donatello and Brunelleschi.
Instead, he chose to cling to the promise of patronage, no matter
how threatened this was by present circumstances.
Condivi relates that Michelangelo was taken into custody and
charged a fine for illegally entering Bologna. A Bolognese nobleman,
Giovan Francesco Aldovrandi, supposedly “recognized that he was a
sculptor” and had him released.7 Was being dressed in a smock and
rattling chisels enough to inspire a prominent civic leader to rescue
an unknown artist? Related to Condivi more than fifty years later,

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 Rise to Prominence

Michelangelo understandably pared events down to a personal anecdote

without mentioning the larger context. Aldovrandi was a cultivated
gentleman, a member of Bologna’s ruling elite (the Sixteen), and was
closely allied to the Medici. It is much more likely that Michelangelo
arrived in Bologna with letters of introduction, just as he would arrive
in Rome similarly well prepared a scant two years later. It is not merely
coincidence that Piero de’ Medici and members of his household had
also found temporary refuge in Bologna in 1494.
For nearly a year, Michelangelo lived as a member of Aldo­
vr­a ndi’s household, a position he could not have secured except
via his Medici connections. He read Dante and Petrarch aloud to
Aldovrandi, thus making the most of his much-appreciated Tuscan
accent and courtier-like skills honed in the Medici entourage. In
turn, the Bolognese gentleman arranged for Michelangelo to carve
some figures for the tomb of Saint Dominic, the most important pil-
grimage monument in Bologna. Begun by Nicola Pisano in the four-
teenth century and continued by Niccolò dell’Arca until the latter’s
death in 1494, the giant ensemble was still missing some statuettes
and an altar candelabrum. In a little more than a year, Michelangelo
carved three small figurines; they are skillful but hardly precocious
given that the artist was now twenty years old. With the model of
Niccolò dell’Arca directly before him, Michelangelo carved a kneel-
ing angel. It is one of the sweetest figures he ever conceived, success-
fully emulating the graceful style of his predecessor.8 The youthful
angel kneels on what appears to be a truncated bit of entablature. On
his upraised right knee the angel supports the heavy, classicizing can-
dleholder. Unlike Niccolò’s more androgynous angel, Michelangelo’s
is clearly male and robust despite its diminutive size. Michelangelo
displays his nascent skills as a marblecarver in the thick head of hair,
the lively expression of the open mouth, the layered feathers of the
stout wings, and the pliant folds of the drapery.
The other two statuettes are both standing figures of Bologna’s
local saints, Petronius and Proclus, each approximately a half meter

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 Michelangelo

in height. As patron saint of Bologna, San Petronio holds a model of

the city. The miniature Bologna is a wonderfully cubistic composi-
tion, but also a recognizable shorthand of the city’s most prominent
landmarks, including the walls with coats of arms and the famous
leaning towers celebrated in Dante’s Inferno (XXXI. 136–38). The
rugged face of the saint is offset by the swirl of folds that fall to his
feet, barely visible under the animated hem of his garment.
The pugnacious visage of San Procolo, anticipating similar
facial expressions on the David, Moses, and Brutus, endows this figure
with individual personality and character appropriate to a youthful
soldier-saint. The bold animation is further suggested by the right
hand held in readiness, the long cloak slung over the left shoulder,
and the multiple twists of the body and head. Although these fig-
ures are small, their lively expressions and contrapposto movements
suggest the more ambitious sculptures of the coming years, the
Bacchus, St. Matthew, and David.
Michelangelo subsequently complained of the envy of the
Bolognese artists. According to Condivi, one unnamed sculptor
supposedly “threatened to do him harm.”9 Of course, the Bolognese
had to run workshops, pay rent and guild fees, purchase materi-
als, and compete for commissions. Michelangelo, unconstrained by
professional norms, was given the commission, the marble, and a
place to work, and all the time lived as a guest in the house of one
of Bologna’s leading citizens. He was, as yet, still enjoying a life of
privilege. But, despite these comfortable conditions, opportunities
in Bologna were limited, and by late 1495 he decided to return to
Florence.
Florence was under the sway of the fiery Dominican preacher
Girolamo Savonarola, who had managed to turn the city into a
virtual theocracy. Preaching to overflow crowds in the Florentine
Cathedral, Savonarola condemned the profligate manners and mor-
als of the Florentines. In a frenzy of reform, the populace gave up
its self-indulgent lifestyle and luxuries, even consigning books and

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 Rise to Prominence

works of art to the famous “bonfire of the vanities.” Florence under

Savonarola did not provide a conducive atmosphere for artists, espe-
cially those closely associated with the Medici. When Michelangelo
told Condivi many years later that he still retained the memory of
the friar’s living voice, he might have been recalling the anxiety of
those turbulent times.
In need of protection and a patron, Michelangelo curried favor
with Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, a member of the cadet branch
of the family, whose republican sympathies had earned him the epithet
“friend of the people” (“Il Popolano”). For Lorenzo, Michelangelo
carved a youthful St. John the Baptist, a religious subject suited to the tenor
of the times. In addition, he carved a Sleeping Cupid, which like the St.
John is now lost. The cupid so successfully imitated an ancient sculpture
that Lorenzo suggested passing it off as one, saying to Michelangelo: “If
you were to prepare it, so that it should appear to have been buried, I
shall send it to Rome and it would pass for an antique, and you would
sell it much more profitably.”10 What artist would not wish to satisfy
such a discerning connoisseur by rising to the challenge? This is the
patron and sculpture that prompted Michelangelo’s first trip to Rome,
described in Chapter 1. Unfortunately, Michelangelo never reaped the
financial benefits promised and the sculpture has disappeared. Is it too
much like an antiquity to be identified as a Michelangelo, or is this
another story fabricated to enrich the picture of the youth’s sketchily
known early years?
The “forgery” and Lorenzo’s letters of introduction opened
doors to persons of wealth and power, in particular to Cardinal
Raffaele Riario, who otherwise would have remained inaccessible
to a twenty-one-year-old artist with no income and no more than a
handful of little-known works. And so, in June 1496, Michelangelo
set out for Rome, met Riario, failed to recover his cupid, and dur-
ing the next four years carved the Bacchus and Pietà. By the time he
returned to Florence in 1501, he was a more accomplished sculptor,
but he had yet to prove it in his native city.

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 Michelangelo

<
Ret urn to Florence

As we have seen, Michelangelo’s first trip to Rome was marked by

a few notable accomplishments and many unrealized expectations.
The Bacchus and Pietà proved that he was an exceptionally talented
marblecarver, but few patrons wanted a full-size pagan god or could
afford an expensive tomb memorial. For some time, Michelangelo
lived like other Renaissance artists, from hand to mouth. But he was
already twenty-five years old and should have been in a more settled
situation, as his father was inclined to remind him. Finally, thanks
to his connections in the Roman Curia, he obtained a commission,
in May 1501, from Cardinal Francesco Todeschini-Piccolomini, the
future Pope Pius III. Michelangelo agreed to carve fifteen small fig-
ures to adorn the Piccolomini altar in Siena Cathedral. The com-
mission prompted the artist’s return to Florence since the contract
stipulated a visit to Siena to take measurements of the altar and a visit
to Carrara to select marble.11
Although the Piccolomini commission was for an important car-
dinal, it proved singularly unsuited to Michelangelo’s temperament.
Just as in Bologna, he was asked to complete an ensemble designed and
largely carved by others. It was journeyman’s work that he abandoned at
the earliest opportunity – one of many commissions that Michelangelo
would leave incomplete. He carved just four statues, each a little more
than a meter in height. St. Peter and St. Paul reveal a talented carver,
but St. Gregory and St. Pius are wooden and disappointing. Such figures
remind us that carving sculpture is more work than inspiration, and
there is no reason to believe that Michelangelo took special interest in
everything he undertook. We permit second-rate quality, even failure,
in nearly every artist except Michelangelo. The Piccolomini figures are
mainly regarded in light of what Michelangelo subsequently became,
but, in fact, they reveal an artist fulfilling an obligation and biding his

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 Rise to Prominence

time. And, as so often happened in Michelangelo’s career, the better

opportunity – the David – arose sooner than expected.
Michelangelo’s return to Florence after five years in Rome must
have been a singular disappointment to him. Few persons in Florence
knew or cared about his Roman accomplishments; furthermore,
Leonardo da Vinci’s return from Milan after an absence of eighteen
years completely overshadowed Michelangelo’s own homecoming.
Nearly twice Michelangelo’s age, Leonardo’s reputation was already
well established; moreover, he had created a sensation when he pub-
licly exhibited a large drawing of the Madonna and Child with Saint
Anne that was intended for the high altar of Santissima Annunziata.
All talk was of Leonardo. Not surprisingly, it was Leonardo, not
Michelangelo, who was the measure of excellence when Marietta
Corsini wrote to her husband, Niccolò Machiavelli, and described
their beautiful newborn son: “Leonardo da Vinci could not have por-
trayed him better.”12 Out of the limelight, but determined to outdo
his more famous rival, Michelangelo began working on a large but
unpromising block of marble.

<
D av i d

“What a piece of work is a man.” Shakespeare could have been speak-

ing of Michelangelo’s David. Michelangelo imagined and created a
Hero – the epitome of Greek and Roman art, mastering the ancient
ideal of the male nude in action, both physical and psychological. The
ancients reserved colossal size for representations of the gods; here it
lends grandeur to the young shepherd boy of the Bible. Of course, the
biblical David is figuratively a person of superhuman proportions: in
his triumph against oppression, as king, as poet.
Fresh from his sojourn in Rome, Michelangelo felt the chal-
lenge posed by classical antiquity, yet nothing in Rome fully prepared
Michelangelo to carve such a figure. No matter how many sources

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 Michelangelo

we cite – from the giant horse tamers, the Dioscuri on Monte Cavallo,
to works by Nicola Pisano, Jacopo della Quercia, or Donatello – the
David surpasses all precedents. Like only a few great monuments, the
David is a symbol of a culture; it paradoxically stands for an entire era
even as we recognize it as the stunning achievement of one remark-
able individual. Attempting to capture in words the monumental
grandeur of the David, Giorgio Vasari wrote: “Without any doubt
this figure has put in the shade every other statue, ancient or modern,
Greek or Roman.”13 In the Renaissance, there was no higher praise
than to have surpassed antiquity.
But the sculpture began life in a compromised state. The block,
so large it was called “the Giant,” had been quarried more than forty
years previously. Marble is best carved when it is fresh from the quar-
ries; with age and exposure to the elements it becomes increasingly
intractable. At least three sculptors had taken chisels to the block, each
one making it more difficult for his successor. Already thin, the block
grew thinner, more weathered, more resistant. The block, originally
quarried for the Florentine Cathedral, still stood in the workshops
located behind the apse of Santa Maria del Fiore. Michelangelo had to
remove a previously carved knot of drapery and construct a scaffold, on
at least three levels, which permitted him access to all parts of the tall
block. He labored mightily for three years to realize his masterpiece.
David stands with his weight shifted to his right leg, suggesting
his imminent movement. The massive torso bends in the opposite
direction from his piercing glance. The head is disproportionally large
for expressive effect and to correct for the natural diminution of see-
ing the figure from a distance. The thick neck and prominent bulging
muscles increase the sense of taut preparedness, of a figure ready to
unleash coiled energy. It is an achievement similar to Myron’s famous
discus thrower (Discobolus); the suggestion of movement belies the fact
that these sculptures are inert stone and forever unmoving.
Different books report divergent measurements for the David,
reminding us of the difficulty of actually measuring a colossal statue

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 Rise to Prominence

but also indicating that, at some point, measurements fail to express

the grandeur of the object (laser scanning reveals it to be 517cm,
or nearly seventeen feet). The sculpture scarcely suggests the bib-
lical narrative, but it is truthful to the spirit of David, who was a
giant-slayer and a future king, and whose faith and courage were
of such gigantic proportions. Equally illogical, the young shepherd
boy is completely nude, although this establishes the figure’s ances-
try in ancient art and suggests David’s rejection of Saul’s armor.
For Florentines, David was an exemplar of strength and courage
in the face of adversity and a hero with whom they closely identi-
fied. So too did Michelangelo identify with David – as David slew
Goliath, so did the young Michelangelo conquer the giant block
of marble. Immediately upon completion, Michelangelo’s colossus
became a centerpiece of civic pride and was given the best position
on Florence’s main piazza, where it symbolically guarded the city.
With the David, Michelangelo gained what his father valued most:
“honor at home.”
The David was a catalyst for a number of subsequent com-
missions. Even before Michelangelo completed the giant statue, the
consuls of the Wool Guild (Arte della Lana) contracted with him to
carve twelve marble apostles for the cathedral – an extremely lucra-
tive commission that projected to keep the sculptor occupied for a
dozen years.14 This was an opportunity to entirely transform the
course of modern sculpture. Michelangelo made a trip to Carrara
and selected marble, but only the St. Matthew was ever begun and it
remained unfinished – another early victim of Michelangelo’s over-
extended obligations.
The upper torso of the St. Matthew faces forward, but the head and
left leg are turned sharply to the saint’s right. The head, although only
roughly sketched in stone, reveals Michelangelo’s experimenting with
a gesture that we will see again in some of the prophets and sibyls of
the Sistine Ceiling. The turned head and glance cast over the shoulder
suggest that the saint directs his attention to God. From Carolingian

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 Michelangelo

times, the unlettered Saint Matthew, who was aided in writing his
gospel by an angel, was often shown with the divine messenger whis-
pering in his ear and guiding his hand in writing. In the turn of the
saint’s head, and the unusual torsion of the body, Michelangelo has
discovered a bodily language that eloquently describes a state of divine
inspiration. Matthew is not represented actually writing his gospel;
rather, he holds his book (or tablet) high in his left hand. Along the
same diagonal as the saint’s glance, the volume is a tabula rasa held up
to receive the word of God. Because Matthew is illiterate, his right
hand hangs limply at his side, awaiting the angel’s guidance. One
can imagine the unfinished hand holding a quill, the useless instru-
ment emphasizing that Matthew’s gospel was inscribed not by human
agency, but through divine intervention. Although incomplete, the
statue is a fascinating experiment in contrapposto, in which the artist
expresses divine inspiration through bodily movement.

<
For t he R epubl ic

Michelangelo was distracted from carving the apostles by a com-

mission in 1504 to execute a fresco in the great hall of Palazzo
Vecchio and in direct competition with Leonardo da Vinci, who
was then working on his Battle of Anghiari. Thus, Michelangelo had
the opportunity to prove himself in painting as he had just done in
sculpture with the David. He prepared a cartoon (from the Italian
cartone, a large drawing). The monumental chalk drawing, composed
of multiple sheets glued together, was more than 116 square meters
(c. 1,250 square feet), and it required five days just to paste the paper
together.15
Michelangelo chose to represent the so-called Battle of Cascina,
an utterly minor episode in Florence’s protracted struggle against
its longtime rival Pisa. According to contemporary accounts, the
extreme summer heat drove the soldiers to find relief in the Arno,

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 Rise to Prominence

but afraid of being caught off-guard, the Florentine captain raised

a false alarm. Thus, we witness a chaotic scene in which the sol-
diers scramble to dress and arm themselves. It is a curiously unhe-
roic “battle” picture, especially given its intended public location.
Rather, Michelangelo’s completed fresco would have served as a
clarion call for civic and military preparedness, an especially relevant
issue given that Florence had not yet subjugated Pisa nor raised the
money and troops necessary to accomplish that objective. Moreover,
Michelangelo’s peculiar subject gave him unprecedented scope to
exercise his artistic specialty: the male nude in action.
As has often been noted, Michelangelo’s crowded friezelike
arrangement is not wholly successful as a composition. Indeed,
copyists and engravers were selective, focusing on individual figures
and small groups, and the cartoon was soon cut up, probably not
maliciously, but to preserve the very thing most admired about the
work: it was a repertoire of figural inventions. Benvenuto Cellini
declared the Battle of Cascina to be the “school of the world” because
every young Florentine artist mined it for ideas.
An important aspect of the unrealized Cascina commission
was Michelangelo’s relationship with the person who instigated it,
the highest official of the Florentine government, Piero Soderini.
Soderini came from an old, respected, and influential Florentine
family. He was committed to an independent, republican Florence
and in 1502 was elected the first Gonfaloniere di Giustizia (Standard
Bearer of Justice). Soderini was fifty-two years old at the time
Michelangelo completed the David, a hard-nosed, worldly politician
at the summit of his career but also a great help to Michelangelo
who was close to half his age. Soderini had enormous respect and
affection for the younger man and acted as his friend, patron, and
protector for more than fifteen years. However, one might not guess
it from the anecdote told by Vasari at Soderini’s expense. When the
Gonfaloniere saw the David standing in Piazza della Signoria, he was
duly impressed but also a little critical for the nose appeared to be

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 Michelangelo

too thick. To satisfy him, Michelangelo climbed the scaffold, and

grabbed his hammer and chisel and a handful of marble dust. He
tapped lightly on the chisel, permitting dust to fall little by little
from his hand, without actually altering anything. “Ah that’s much
better,” exclaimed the duped observer. Michelangelo climbed down,
“feeling sorry for those critics who talk nonsense in the hope of
appearing well informed.”16 Vasari relates the story to celebrate the
cleverness of his hero and to emphasize that only artists exercise cor-
rect aesthetic judgment. Whether Vasari invented the tale or heard it
from contemporaries or from the artist himself, it signals a turning
point in the relations between Michelangelo and his patrons. This
is an early salvo in a long battle, still being waged in modern times,
in which the artist rather than the patron or the public is the final
arbiter of taste.
Despite Vasari’s tale, Soderini was no dunce. He had a hand in
securing the block of marble for Michelangelo’s David, and he was
a central figure in at least three other important commissions: the
Battle of Cascina, a bronze David sent to France (now lost), and a colos-
sal marble Hercules for the Piazza della Signoria.17 Like David, the
Greco-Roman hero Hercules was an enduring theme in Florentine
art and one with strong republican associations. The sculpture was
commissioned from Michelangelo in 1506, at an especially rocky
moment in the history of the Republic and a low point in Soderini’s
political fortunes. It is likely that the Gonfaloniere encouraged the
commission of this major public monument as a means of galvaniz-
ing wavering republican sentiment.
The Hercules commission inspired and haunted Michelangelo
for the next twenty-five years. In the 1520s, he still intended to
carve a sculpture from the giant block; however, because of volatile
changes in Florentine politics, the marble finally was turned over
to Baccio Bandinelli, who carved the Hercules and Cacus that now
stands on Piazza della Signoria. The whole episode must have been a
bitter disappointment to Michelangelo, and to contemporaries who

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 Rise to Prominence

universally agreed that Bandinelli “ruined a beautiful block of mar-

ble” in carving “two of the saddest and ugliest figures” ever seen.18
Indeed, Florentine wags delighted in relating that the marble block,
en route from Pisa to Florence, leapt into the Arno in the hopes of
escaping Bandinelli’s chisel. It is an example, like the Twelve Apostles,
of ideas formulated by Michelangelo during the early years of the
new century that were realized by lesser artists a generation later.

<
Th r e e T o n d i

The David, Cascina, and Hercules commissions placed Michelangelo

firmly in the public eye, but creating marvels did not guarantee steady
employment. Most Renaissance patrons desired familiar, affordable
objects. Successful artists such as Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi, and
Sandro Botticelli satisfied market demand by churning out similar
works, oftentimes with considerable workshop help. Indeed, artistic
contracts often cited existing works as models to be replicated or imi-
tated. Michelangelo, however, never repeated himself, once remark-
ing that it was “better to make a mistake than to repeat oneself.”19
At the same time, the ambitious artist accepted every opportunity
to prove his superiority – in all media. In the space of a few years
between 1501 and 1506, Michelangelo produced three examples of a
familiar genre, the round composition or tondo, made for prominent
Florentine families – the Taddei, Pitti, and Doni. In these works,
Michelangelo came closest to providing the luxury products desired
by bourgeois Florentine patrons. Three rich merchants may have
imagined they were commissioning conventional objects, but, in
truth, the objects they received were unique works of art.
In the Taddei tondo, the artist returned to relief carving, the
medium of his earliest sculptures. Yet, most tondi were painted or
made of stucco. To carve a circular composition from a marble
block is a challenging task. Within the irregular circle of marble,

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 Michelangelo

Michelangelo created a complex three-figure composition. The

active pose of the Christ child may have been modeled on an
ancient sarcophagus or, as has been suggested, may show the influ-
ence of his rival Leonardo da Vinci.20 It is just like Michelangelo
to take the idea of the older master and translate it into the three-
dimensional medium of sculpture. Also similar to Leonardo is
Michelangelo’s willingness to explore the boundary between sug-
gestion and definition, between finish and unfinish (non-finito).
Many of the tondo’s passages reveal the marks of the sculptor’s
chisel, as though he was proud of his handiwork and unwilling to
polish them away.
The exploration of the aesthetic effects of the unfinished is
carried to an even more sophisticated level in the Pitti tondo, where
the non-finito is clearly used as an expressive device. Michelangelo
provides a catalog of sculptor’s marks, from the highly polished face
of the Virgin to the rough grooves of the pointed chisel suggesting
an atmospheric background. He again made no effort to disguise the
medium or his working methods.
The classical features of the Pitti Madonna are similar to those
of the Rome Pietà and the nearly contemporary Bruges Madonna –
refined and aristocratic. Her body, however, exhibits curiously squat
proportions. These are less evident when the tondo is seen di sotto in
su, that is, foreshortened from below, as would be the case if it were
exhibited above a wall dado or was intended as the crowning orna-
ment for a Florentine wall tomb.21 From a low vantage point, the
Virgin appears to be the queen of heaven enthroned on a perfect
cube and inscribed within the circular field of the tondo, which stands
in for her absent halo. Christ’s fleeting smile and the almost casual
pose beguile us into accepting this domesticated version of a religious
subject.
Along with the two marble tondi, Michelangelo also explored
the theme of the Holy Family in his only completed tempera paint-
ing, the so-called Doni tondo in the Uffizi Gallery. Michelangelo

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 Rise to Prominence

created a masterpiece despite his limited experience with painting.

The Madonna is seated on the ground with a closed book on her
lap. She turns toward her athletic child while Joseph squats behind
her. It is uncertain whether Joseph is taking the child or passing
him to his mother. The purposeful ambiguity of the action per-
mits us to read it either way, and in so doing, we invest the com-
position with continuous movement. The heads, arms, and hands
of the Holy Family form a tightly knit composition, enriched by
the intensity and intimacy of their gazes. The rapt adoration and
glowing face of Mary is an especially eloquent expression of pro-
found love and prescient knowledge.22 The gesture of the Christ
child recalls that of a priest-healer laying on hands. The mother’s
left hand conceals but also calls attention to the child’s genitals, an
assertion of Christ’s humanity and a reminder of his dual nature, as
both human and God, flesh and spirit.23 The fullness of emotions
finds its counterpart in the bright, tempera colors. The Madonna’s
traditional red dress and blue mantle are framed by a strip of deep
green and the glowing, iridescent orange-gold of Joseph’s mantle.
The metallic blue folds that fill the foreground are echoed in the
deeper blue of Joseph’s tunic and in the lighter hues of the sky and
distant landscape.
In the middle ground, just beyond the smooth ledge of cut
stone, is the young Saint John the Baptist. His ecstatic look reflects
that of the Madonna and with similar purpose since John and Mary
were the first to recognize Christ’s divinity and to accept his earthly
mission. Beyond John is a group of nude youths who lounge in vari-
ous attitudes of repose and more intimate erotic embrace. Theirs is
a carnal love that serves as a foil to the spiritual love of the Holy
Family, a recollection of the pagan past before the advent of Christ.
The nude youths occupy a semicircular cavity reminiscent of the
excavated face of a stone quarry. The faceted stone wall evokes the
partly constructed apse of a Christian church. Appropriately then,
the Holy Family occupies the place of the altar.

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 Michelangelo

<
D o n i ’s D o u b l e

When Michelangelo completed his painting, he sent it under wraps to

Agnolo Doni’s house with a note asking for payment of seventy ducats.
Doni, who was a wealthy merchant but cautious with his money, was
disconcerted about the high price “even though he knew that, in fact,
it was worth even more.”24 He gave the messenger forty ducats and
told him that was enough. Michelangelo was incensed; he returned
the money and demanded that Doni either pay him one hundred duc-
ats or return the picture. But Doni liked the painting; therefore, he
conceded to pay the original price of seventy ducats. Michelangelo,
however, was far from satisfied. Indeed, because of Doni’s breach of
faith, he supposedly demanded double the price, and this meant that
Doni ended up paying one hundred and forty ducats.
This story, related with relish by Giorgio Vasari, successfully
captures the tension between an artist wishing preferred treatment
and a patron who was slow to recognize that the traditional form
of negotiated payment was no longer acceptable. It is a tale with
many parallels, beginning with one that Vasari relates in his life of
Donatello. Donatello was supposed to have carved a head for a mer-
chant who then was reluctant to pay the asking price. Rather than
accommodate the stingy patron, Donatello smashed the head. The
chagrined merchant then begged Donatello to make it again … and
agreed to pay double the price.25
Thus, Vasari’s story of the Doni tondo is grown from a tradi-
tion of tales told of niggardly patrons; however, it may also contain a
grain of truth. Forty ducats could purchase a major public altarpiece,
and, for example, a comparably large tondo in the Medici collection
was valued at just ten ducats; therefore, Michelangelo’s asking price
of seventy ducats naturally appeared exorbitant. Like the American
artist James McNeil Whistler, who demanded a price not according

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 Rise to Prominence

to a picture’s size, materials, or the length of time required to paint it,

but “for the knowledge gained through a lifetime” – Michelangelo
asked for payment in accordance with an abstract scale of worth,
set by the artist rather than by the patron or by contract. No won-
der Vasari featured the story, perhaps even embellished it, for it was
another opportunity, like Soderini and the David, to celebrate the
rising stature of artists.

<
I n t e r n a t i o n a l Fa m e

Some artists in the early sixteenth century, such as Rosso Fiorentino,

were forced to seek employment outside Florence because of unfa-
vorable economic conditions and limited patronage opportunities.
These were preoccupations that did not pertain to Michelangelo
after 1501. From this point forward, the artist would never lack for
commissions. Despite occasional disruptions, and his constant pre-
occupations with money, from his return to Florence at age twenty-
six until his death sixty-three years later, Michelangelo was never in
danger of being without work. Such security was extremely rare in
Renaissance Italy. He never had to collaborate or compete for con-
tracts, was never forced to direct a bottega, and never had to conform
to traditional artist–client relationships.
By the early years of the new century, Michelangelo’s fame had
spread beyond the shores of the Italian Peninsula. In 1506, the sultan of
Turkey, Bayezid II, attempted to lure Michelangelo to his court, and
arranged for letters of credit to be left in Rome to cover the artist’s trav-
eling expenses. The sultan promised that Michelangelo would be met
at Ragusa (modern Dubrovnik) – the terminus of the caravan route –
and “honorably accompanied” to Constantinople, where he hoped to
employ the artist in constructing a bridge across the Bosporus.
Michelangelo evidently was attracted by the offer and again
considered making the journey more than ten years later. Such

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 Michelangelo

enticements must have flattered the artist enormously, and they

greatly enhanced his reputation. Both Vasari and Condivi relate the
story – Condivi in two separate places in his life of Michelangelo.26
Moreover, Michelangelo’s assistant, Tiberio Calcagni, confirmed it:
“He told me that this is true and that he had made a model [for the
bridge].”27 Condivi also tells us that King Francis I and the Signoria
of Venice both attempted to attract Michelangelo’s services through
similar means, noting that “such arrangements are not usual, every-
day occurrences; they are new and out of the ordinary and they do
not happen except in instances of singular, outstanding talent, like
that of Homer, for whom many cities contended, each one of them
claiming him for its own possession.”28 Far too busy, Michelangelo
never went to Turkey or France.
One of the many would-be patrons who successfully con-
tended for a work by Michelangelo in the busy first decade of the
new century was the company of rich Flemish merchants headed by
the Mouscron brothers. In the early sixteenth century, Bruges was
one of the most prosperous cities in Europe, and the brothers wished
to send a statue to decorate the church of Notre Dame (Onze Lieve
Vrouwkerk) in their home city. Responding to the evident prestige
of the commission, Michelangelo created one of his most beautiful
although less familiar works of art, the so-called Bruges Madonna.
As in the case of the Rome Pietà, part of the sculpture’s allure
derives from the beauty of the flawless, translucent marble. The artist
miraculously transformed the resistant material into malleable flesh
and large, supple folds of drapery. The exquisite carving is enhanced
by the poignant interaction between a reluctant mother and her only
child. The naked Christ stands between his mother’s legs, enclosed
within her statuesque form. Prescient beyond his years, the baby
Jesus takes a tentative step toward the altar table situated before and
below him. That one step begins the passage from childhood to
manhood, from human to God, from gift to sacrifice. The sculpture
was shipped to Bruges in 1506; therefore, it was little known and had

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 Rise to Prominence

no impact in Florence. Indeed, both Vasari and Condivi had so little

information concerning it that they mistakenly thought it had been
made in bronze.29
The French provide another component of Michelangelo’s
early international reputation. His first publicly acclaimed triumph,
the Rome Pietà had been created for the most powerful French
cardinal in Rome, Jean Bilhères. Little more than two years later,
Michelangelo created a bronze David for the French maréchal, Pierre
de Rohan, a lost work known primarily on the basis of Michelangelo’s
pen sketch in the Louvre Museum.30 The commission and all nego-
tiations were handled by Piero Soderini and the Florentine ambas-
sadors in Lyons, who impatiently urged its rapid completion. The
security of the Florentine Republic and the health of its financial
community were largely dependent on maintaining good relations
with France. Undoubtedly, the bronze was a commission of political
expediency and, in some measure, Michelangelo was acting as an
instrument of Florentine foreign policy. Therefore, when Rohan fell
from favor the David was sent as a gift to Louis XII’s new favorite,
the finance minister Florimond Robertet. This is an example of art
in the service of diplomacy – a work by the greatest sculptor of the
Renaissance that we must judge, especially since it is lost, more for
its historical significance than for its beauty.
The years following Michelangelo’s return to Florence in 1501
were among the busiest and most prolific of his life. His simultane-
ous commitment to an impossible number of commissions, however,
inevitably meant that many projects were destined to remain incom-
plete, and others never begun. The situation was further aggravated
by the fact that in 1505 Michelangelo was called to Rome.

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