Michelangelo

Michelangelo was the brightest of the hundred young men who worked and studied at the Medici palace.

But when this head scholar was eighteen Lorenzo died. The son of Lorenzo continued his father's work in a feeble way, for Piero de Medici was a good example of the fact that great men seldom reproduce themselves after the flesh. Piero had about as much comprehension of the beautiful as the elder Buonarroti. He thought that all these young men who were being educated at the Academy would eventually be valuable adjuncts to the State, and as such it was a good scheme to give each a trade—besides, it kept them off the street; and then the work was amusing, a diversion to the nobility when time hung heavy.

Once there came a heavy snowstorm, and snow being an unusual thing in Florence, Piero called a lot of his friends together in the gardens, and summoning Michelangelo, ordered him to make a snow image for the amusement of the guests, just as Piero at other times had a dog jump through a hoop.

"What shall it be?" asked Michelangelo.

"Oh, anything you please," replied Piero; "only don't keep us waiting here in the cold all day!"

Young Angelo cast one proud look of contempt toward the group and set to work making a statue. In ten minutes he had formed a satyr that bore such a close resemblance to Piero that the guests roared with laughter. "That will do," called Piero; "like Deity, you make things in your own image." Some of the company tossed silver coin at the young man, but he let the money lie where it fell.

Michel at this time was applying himself to the study of anatomy, and giving his attention to literature under the tutorship of the famous poet and scholar, Poliziano, who resided at the court.

So filled was the young man's mind with his work that he was blind to the discontent arising in the State. To the young, governments and institutions are imperishable. Piero by his selfish whims had been digging the grave of the Medici. From sovereignty they were flung into exile. The palace was sacked, the beautiful gardens destroyed, and Michelangelo, being regarded as one of the family, was obliged to flee for his life. He arrived in Bologna penniless and friendless, and applied to a sculptor for work. "What can you do?" the old sculptor asked. For answer, Michelangelo silently took a crayon and sketched a human hand on the wall. Marvelous were the lines! The master put his arms around the boy and kissed his cheek.

This new-found friend took him into his house, and placed him at his own table. Michelangelo was led into the library and workrooms, and told that all was his to use as he liked.

The two years he remained at Bologna were a great benefit to the young man. The close contact with cultured minds, and the encouragement he received, spurred his spirit to increased endeavor. It was here that he began that exquisite statue of a Cupid that passed for an antique, and found its way into the cabinet of the Duchess of Mantua.

Before long the discovery was made that the work was done by a young man only a little past twenty, and Cardinal San Giorgio sent a message inviting him to Rome.

Rome had long been the Mecca of the boy's ambitions, and he joyously accepted the invitation. At Rome he was lodged in the Vatican, and surrounded by that world of the beautiful, he went seriously about his life's work. The Church must have the credit for being the mother of modern art. Not only did she furnish the incentive, but she supplied the means. She gave security from the eternal grind of material wants and offered men undying fame as reward for noble effort.

The letter of religion was nothing to Michelangelo, but the eternal spirit of truth that broods over and beyond all forms and ceremonies touched his soul. His heart was filled with the poetry of pagan times. The gods of ancient Greece on high Olympus for him still sang and feasted, still lived and loved.

But to the art of the Church he devoted his time and talents. He considered himself a priest and servant to the cause of Christ.

Established at Rome in the palace of the Pope, Michelangelo felt secure. He knew his power. He knew he could do work that would for generations move men to tears, and in his prophetic soul was a feeling that his name would be inseparably linked with Rome. His wanderings and buffetings were things of the past—he was necessary to the Church, and his position was now secure and safe. The favor of princes lasts but for a day, but the Church is eternal. The Church should be his bride; to her and to her alone would he give his passionate soul. Thus mused Michelangelo, aged twenty-two. His first work at Rome was a statue of Bacchus, done it seems for an exercise to give Cardinal Giorgio a taste of his quality, just as he had drawn the human hand on the wall for his Bologna protector; for this fine and lofty pride in his power was a thing that clung to Michelangelo from rosy youth to hoary age.

The "Bacchus," which is now in the National Museum at Florence, added to his reputation; and the little world of art, whose orbit was the Vatican, anxiously awaited a more serious attempt, just as we crane our necks when the great violinist about to play awakens expectation by a few preliminary flourishes.

His first great work at Rome was the "Pieta." We see it today in Saint Peter's at the first chapel to the right as we enter, in a long row of commonplace marbles, in all its splendid beauty and strength. It represents the Mother of Christ, supporting in her arms the dead body just after it was lowered from the cross. In most of Michelangelo's work there is a heroic quality in the figures and a muscular strength that in a degree detracts from the spirit of sympathy that might otherwise come over us. It is admiration that seizes us, not sympathy. But this early work is the flower of Michelangelo's genius, round and full and complete. The later work may be different, but it is not better.

When this group was unveiled in Fourteen Hundred Ninety-eight it was the sensation of the year. Old and young, rich and poor, learned and unlearned, flocked to see it, and the impression it made was most profound. If the Catholic Church has figured on the influence of statuary and painting on the superstitious, as has been tauntingly said, she has reckoned well. The story of steadfast love and loyalty is masterly told in that first great work of Michelangelo. The artist himself often mingled with the crowds that surrounded his speaking marble, and the people who knelt before it assured him by their reverence that his hand had wrought well. And once he heard two able doctors disputing as to who the artist was. They were lavish in their praise, and one insisted that the work was done by the great sculptor at Bologna, and he named the master who had befriended Michelangelo. The artist stood by and heard the argument put forth that no mere youth could conceive such a work, much less execute it.

That night he stole into the church and by the wan light of a lantern carved his name deep on the girdle of the Virgin, and there do we read it today. The pride of the artist, however, afterward took another turn, for he never thereafter placed his name on a piece. "My work is unlike any other—no lover of the beautiful can mistake it," he proudly said.

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