THE GENIUS OF MICHELANGELO EXPLORED IN LANDMARK EXHIBITION AT
THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM NEW YORK
November 13, 2017 – February 12, 2018
THE GENIUS OF MICHELANGELO EXPLORED IN LANDMARK
EXHIBITION AT
THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM NEW YORK
November 13, 2017 – February 12, 2018
Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer presents a
stunning range and number of works by the artist: 133 of his drawings, 3 of his
marble sculptures, his earliest painting, and his wood architectural model for
a chapel vault. A substantial body of complementary works by his teachers,
associates, pupils, and artists who were influenced by him or who worked in
collaboration with him will also be displayed for comparison and context.
A towering genius in the history of Western art,
Michelangelo was celebrated during his long life for the excellence of his
disegno, the power of drawing and invention that provided the foundation for
all of the arts. For his mastery of drawing, design, sculpture, painting, and
architecture, he was called Il divino (“the divine one”) by his contemporaries.
His powerful imagery and dazzling technical virtuosity transported viewers and
imbued all of his works with a staggering force that continues to enthrall us
today.
"This is an exceptionally rare opportunity to
experience first-hand the unique genius of Michelangelo," said Daniel H.
Weiss, President and CEO of The Met. "The exhibition will display the
magnificent beauty of Michelangelo's works in order to deepen our understanding
of his creative process."
Selected from 50 public and private collections in the
United States and Europe, the exhibition will bring together the largest group
of original drawings by Michelangelo ever assembled for public display. Many of
the drawings rank among the greatest works of draftsmanship produced.
Extraordinary and rare international loans will include the complete series of
masterpiece drawings he created for his friend Tommaso de’Cavalieri and a
monumental cartoon for his last fresco in the Vatican Palace.
Dr. Carmen C. Bambach, curator of the exhibition,
commented: “This selection of more than 200 works will show that Michelangelo’s
imagery and drawings still speak with an arresting power today. Five hundred
years seem to melt away in looking at his art.”
Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer will widen
the conversation about the artist and present an extraordinary opportunity to
see many works that are never displayed together. Drawing was the first thing
Michelangelo turned to, whether he was creating a painting, a sculpture, or
architecture, and it is what unified his career. He is a forceful draftsman and
brings a sculptor's understanding and eye. We can see him thinking—almost
having a conversation on the sheet of paper—and there is a sense of intimacy
and immediacy, as if looking over his shoulder. The exhibition will give
visitors an unmatched opportunity to enter the world of this absolute visionary
in the history of art.
Michelangelo Buonarroti was born on March 6, 1475 in
Caprese (southeast of Florence), and died a wealthy and famous man, on February
18, 1564, in Rome. Although he spent the last 30 years of his life in Rome, his
love was always for Florence, his patria (homeland), and all things Florentine.
His art, his training, his methods, and his poetry were, to the last, rooted in
Florentine culture. Michelangelo’s longevity was extraordinary for a person of
his time. Also exceptional for an artist of his era, five major biographies
were written during his lifetime or soon after his death.
The exhibition will trace Michelangelo’s life and
career, beginning with his training as a teenager in the workshop of
Ghirlandaio and his earliest painting, The Torment of Saint Anthony (1487–88),
and first known sculpture, Young Archer (ca. 1490). It will move on to the
commission of his colossal marble sculpture David in 1501, the early planning
of the Tomb of Pope Julius II, and the monumental project of painting The Last
Judgment on the Sistine Ceiling. An entire gallery will be devoted to the
Sistine Ceiling and will include Michelangelo’s original studies for the
project.
Other sections will explore his portraiture and the
beautiful finished drawings he created for close friends; his collaboration and
friendship with Venetian artist Sebastiano del Piombo (1485/86–1547); and the
drawings and poetry he created for the young nobleman Tommaso de’Cavalieri,
whom he met in 1532 and who became a life-long friend. The artist’s last
decades in Rome are reflected in the last part of the exhibition and will
include, in addition to architectural drawings, the enormous cartoon
(full-scale drawing) he prepared for the Crucifixion of Saint Peter fresco in
the Vatican Palace, as well as a rare three-dimensional model for the vault of
a chapel.
Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer
Said Dr. Bambach: “His creativity continued to be
phenomenal until the end when he died at 89.”
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is indebted to the
public and private collections that have graciously lent their treasured holdings
to the exhibition, including The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; the Royal Collection
and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Windsor; the Gallerie degli Uffizi and
Gabinetto dei Disegni e delle Stampe degli Uffizi, Florence; the Museo
Nazionale del Bargello, Florence; the Musée du Louvre, Paris; the Casa
Buonarroti, Florence; the Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples; the
Albertina, Vienna; the British Museum, London; and the Biblioteca Apostolica
Vaticana and Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano, Vatican City.
Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer is
organized by Dr. Carmen C. Bambach, Curator in The Met’s Department of Drawings
and Prints.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a fully
illustrated catalogue written by Dr. Bambach that will include essays by a team
of leading Michelangelo scholars. It is published by The Metropolitan Museum of
Art and distributed by Yale University Press.
https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2017/michelangelo/exhibition-galleries
STUDIES FOR THE LIBYAN SIBYL (RECTO); STUDIES FOR THE
LIBYAN SIBYL
AND A SMALL SKETCH FOR A SEATED FIGURE (VERSO) - CA.
1510 - 1511
Drawing
Red Chalk, With Small Accents of White Chalk on the
Left Shoulder of the
Figure in the Main Study (Recto); Soft Black Chalk, or
Less Probably Charcoal (Verso)
Dimensions: Sheet: 28.9 x 21.4 cm
Purchase, Joseph Pulitzer Bequest, 1924
ADAM & EVE AFTER MASACCIO (RECTO);
FIGURES RUNNING FOR THE BATTLE OF CASCINA (VERSO) –
1504/1508
Drawing
Red Chalk (Recto); Pen and Brown Ink (Verso)
Dimensions: Sheet: 32.6 x 18.7 cm
THREE LABOURS OF HERCULES 1530 - 1533 (DETAIL)
THREE LABOURS OF HERCULES 1530 - 1533 (DETAIL)
THREE LABOURS OF HERCULES 1530 - 1533
Drawing
Red Chalk
Dimensions: Sheet: 27.2 x 42.2 cm
Lent by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (RCIN 912770)
PORTRAIT OF ANDREA QUARATESI 1532
Drawing
Black Chalk
Dimensions: Sheet: 41.1 x 29.2 cm
The British Museum, London 1895,0915.519 (Wilde 59)
UNFINISHED CARTOON FOR A MADONNA & CHILD 1525 -
1530
Drawing
Black and Red Chalk, White Gouache, Brush and Brown
Wash
Dimensions: Sheet: 54.1 x 39.6 cm
Casa Buonarroti, Florence 71F
STUDY A MAN’S HEAD (RECTO); STUDY FOR
HERCULES CARRYING A BOAR (VERSO)
Drawing 1508–1512
Red Chalk (Recto and Verso)
Dimensions: Sheet: 28.2 x 19.8 cm, Framed: 60.4 × 45 ×
2.4 cm
The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Presented by a Body of
Subscribers, 1846
WA1846.62 (KP II 316)
STUDY OF AN IDEAL BUST OF A WOMAN: THE ‘ZENOBIA’ FOR
GHERARDO
PERINI (RECTO); ANATOMICAL SKETCHES (VERSO) 1503
Drawing
Black Chalk
Dimensions: Sheet: 35.7 × 25.1 cm
Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe Degli Uffizi, Florence
598E
SKETCHES FOR A VIRGIN AND CHILD – 1495/1500
Drawing
Pen and Brown Ink
Dimensions: Sheet: 28.6 x 20.9 cm
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin - Preußischer Kulturbesitz,
Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin KdZ 1363
FEMALE FIGURE SEEN IN BUST LENGTH FROM THE FRONT
(CLEOPATRA) (RECTO & VERSO) 1530 - 1533
Drawing
Black Chalk (Recto and Verso)
Dimensions: Sheet: 23.3 x 18.3 cm
Casa Buonarroti, Florence 2F
CARTOON OF VENUS & CUPID 1533 ( DETAIL )
CARTOON OF VENUS & CUPID 1533
Drawing
Black Chalk
Dimensions: Sheet: 127.7 × 183.3 cm, Frame: 166 × 221
× 18.6 cm
Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples 2511 (86654)
SL.6.2017.28.3
THE DEAD CHRIST HELD BT HIS MOTHER 1534–1539
Drawing
Leadpoint, Black and Red Chalk
Sheet: 41.4 × 23.3 cm
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna 103
STUDIES OF A SEATED MALE NUDE (IGNUDO) FOR THE SISTINE
CEILING (RECTO)I
STUDIES OF HANDS IN PRAYER (VERSO) 1508 - 1512
STUDIES OF HANDS IN PRAYER (VERSO) 1508 - 1512
Drawing
Red Chalk, Brush and White Gouache, Over Traces of
Stylus (Recto); Red Chalk (Verso). Dimensions: Sheet: 26.8 x 18.8 cm
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna 120
YOUNG ARCHER SCULPTURE CA. 1490
Marble
Dimensions: Overall (wt confirmed): H.94 x W.33.7 x
D.35.6 cm, 80.2867kg
Lent by the French State, Ministry of Foreign and
European Affairs
MURAL FRAGMENT WITH TRITON OR SATYR MURAL 1503 - 1504
Black Chalk ( or Charcoal ) on Plaster
Dimensions: 94 × 135.5 cm
Private Collection
SKETCH FOR THE SISTINE CEILING WITH STUDY OF HAND AND
TORSO (RECTO);
FIGURE STUDIES (VERSO) ( DETAIL ) 1508 - 1512
Drawing
Pen and Brown Ink, Black Chalk (Recto and Verso)
Dimensions: Sheet: 37.3 x 25 cm
Detroit Institute of Arts, City of Detroit Purchase
(1927.2)
SHEET OF STUDIES FOR ARMSOF GOD THE FATHER IN THE
SISTINE CEILING (RECTO)
HORSEMAN FOR THE BATTLE OF CASCINA (VERSO) 1508 - 1509
Drawing
Black Chalk (Recto and Verso)
Dimensions: Sheet: 22.2 × 19.8 cm, Frame: 55.4 × 41.5
× 3.5 cm
Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, inv. no. I
513 (PK) (Koenigs Collection)
DESIGN OF THE SISTINE CEILING AND STUDIES OF ARMS
& HANDS ( RECTO );
DRAPERY FOR A SEATED FIGURE ( VERSO ) 1508–1512
Drawing
Pen and Brown Ink, Over Lead Point and Stylus, Black
Chalk (Recto); Brush and Brown Wash, Black Chalk and Stylus Marks (Verso)
Sheet: 27.5 × 38.6 cm, Frame: 44.9 × 60.2 × 3.6 cm
The British Museum, London 1859,0625.567 (Wilde
7r)
HEAD OF THE CUMAEAN SIBYL (RECTO); FIGURES FOR
THE LUNETTES IN THE SISTINE CEILING (VERSO) 1508 - 1512
Drawing
Black Chalk, White Gouache (Recto); Black Chalk (Verso)
Dimensions: Sheet: 32 x 22.8 cm, Framed: 62.5 × 56.5 ×
9.1 cm
Musei Reali di Torino – Biblioteca Reale, Turin (15627
D.C.)
THE SISTINE CEILING
Above is a photographic reproduction, at one-quarter
scale, of the Sistine Chapel ceiling in the Vatican Palace, which Michelangelo
painted in the difficult medium of fresco between 1508 and 1512. Both of his
commissions from Pope Julius II, the Sistine ceiling frescoes and the pontiff’s
marble tomb, rely on a similar concept of figures populating an architectural
framework. Conceiving the design for the ceiling's monumental surface area,
about 1,754 square feet, would have demanded a herculean effort. The works in
this gallery are a sampling of the precious few records of this campaign:
Michelangelo's two surviving sheets of sketches for the ceiling's overall
program, which reveal his gradual thought process as he filled the large vault
with figures, and his original figure studies in black or red chalk, drawn from
life and from models in clay or wax.
In the final frescoes, as seen above, Michelangelo
designed an illusionistic framework simulating white marble that contains,
along the central spine of the vault, rectangular narrative scenes from the
Book of Genesis. Around the perimeter are Prophets alternating with Sibyls
(female prophets). Pairs of seated Ignudi (athletic nude youths) flank
fictively painted bronze medallions depicting historical events from the Book
of Maccabees. The four corners represent episodes in the deliverance of the
Jewish people from mortal dangers. In the lower realms are the Ancestors of
Christ in the order given by the Gospel of Matthew.
https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2017/michelangelo/exhibition-galleries
II SOGNO (THE DREAM) 1530
Drawing
Black Chalk
Dimensions: Sheet: 38.9 × 27.8 cm
London,
Courtauld Gallery, Prince Gate Bequest (1978) inv. D 1978.PG.424
MICHELANGELO’S DREAM BY MARIA RUVOLDT
When Tommaso de' Cavalieri and Vittoria Colonna
received one of Michelangelo's gift drawings, they were getting some- thing
novel. The highly finished drawing conceived as an end in itself and presented
as a token of affection or esteem had no real precedent in artistic practice,
belonging instead to other modes of social exchange and communication, such as
gift giving and letter writing.' As Alexander Nagel has ob- served, the
ostensible privacy and intimacy of this new form allowed for a unique degree of
freedom of invention and interpretation.2 The drawings that Michelangelo
produced in the mid-1530s in particular represent an exercise of artistic
license that encourages an equally flexible interpretative response. They tend
to be allegorical in nature, treating familiar myths or evoking a classicizing
fantasy world whose out- lines seem familiar from the work of an earlier
generation of artists such as Andrea Mantegna, even if their precise meaning
has eluded art historians.
II Sogno (or The Dream, Fig. 1), generally dated to
about 1533, traditionally has been viewed as an allegory of virtue and vice, an
interpretation that seems somewhat limiting in light of the complex imagery of
the work and the circum- stances of its production and reception. Letters from
both Cavalieri and Colonna to the artist testify to their intense engagement
with Michelangelo's drawings, reporting hours spent gazing at the works and the
use of mirrors and magnifying glasses for their closer examination."
Taking such evidence as my guide, I want to look at the Sogno not as an
instantly apprehensible allegory of virtue and vice but as an image to be
meditated upon, a work whose pleasure derives from its endless unfolding of
meaning, affording the viewer delight in returning to it again and again.
While it is impossible to recover the intimate,
subjective experience of the drawing's original recipient, the Sogno's
iconography makes its meaning accessible to the less initiated viewer. The
traditional interpretation of the work responds to that iconography, but I
believe it falls short of the multifaceted nature of the image. In the pages
that follow, I will argue that the Virtues and Vices are certainly at play in
the Sogno, but as part of a more complex program that alludes to melancholia,
dreams, love, desire, and creation. In blending these themes together,
Michelangelo provides pictorial form for contemporary ideas about artistic
inspiration and creation by inventing a visual language that complements and
enhances a textual discourse on divine inspiration. The image challenges its
viewer to untangle multiple threads of meaning and reweave them into a coherent
whole, joining the artist in the making of meaning.
At the center of Michelangelo's Sogno, a male nude
perches precariously on an open box filled with masks. His upper torso twists
to his left as he leans on a sphere for support. He turns his head in the
opposite direction, looking upward and over his right shoulder to watch a
winged creature descend from above. Considerably smaller in scale, the body of
this heavenly visitor is silhouetted against the empty upper zone of the sheet
as he floats down, head first, toward the nude. He extends his right arm to
direct a trumpet at the nude's forehead, inflating his cheeks to sound the
instrument. The trumpet pierces through an arc of smaller figures, many of them
fragmentary, that encircle the nude. This arc of forms is rendered with a
lighter touch, producing a sketchy effect that contrasts with the heavily
worked body of the nude, yet the figures remain legible. Among assorted
disembodied heads, we find figures that embrace and kiss while others do
battle, drink, or sleep.
Despite its relatively complex imagery, the Sogno
seems to have presented few challenges to its readers. Since the seventeenth
century, the drawing has been understood as an allegory of the human soul
awakened to virtue from vice.4 This reading originates with Hieronymus Tetius, a
seventeenth-century visitor to the Palazzo Barberini. Viewing a painted copy of
the Sogno, Tetius identified its central seated youth as the human mind, his
winged counterpart as an angel, and the cloud of figures surrounding the pair
as representations of the Vices.5 His interpretation was en- dorsed, expanded,
and applied to the original by Erwin Panofsky in the twentieth century."
Subsequent readings have amplified and refined Panofsky's analysis, and few, if
any, have challenged it.'
At least eleven copies of the Sogno exist-in
paintings, drawings, prints, and ceramics-yet none is entirely faithful to the
original.8 The copyists' adjustments concentrate on the figures and heads
arranged in an arc around the central nude, reducing their number and altering
their appearance (Figs. 18, 20). Though faintly drawn and clearly subordinate
in the original, in the copies they are as fully realized as the main figure
and appear to be of equal significance. The copies thus shift the balance
between the nude and the figures that surround him, a crucial change that
invites misreadings of the original, as the secondary figures emerge from the
mists of Michelangelo's drawing to become the apparent focus of the work and
the key to its interpretation. But the copies also clarify the drawing, their
interventions providing evidence of contemporary response to the Sogno and its
imagery.
The central pair of figures, carefully described and
finished, is clearly the focus of the original drawing.9 Situated at the center
of the sheet, the fully articulated nude youth and his winged companion are
highlighted through contrast with the sketchy and incomplete forms arrayed
about them. The otherwise empty upper zone concentrates attention on the body
of the descending visitor, pulling the viewer's eye along his headlong plunge
to reach the youth. The box beneath the nude thrusts him forward, creating a
foreground space be- hind which the misty arc of figures appears.
Because of his idealized form and contact with the
heavenly creature above him, the seated youth generally is believed to
represent the human soul.10 But the presence of a recognizable attribute and
the pose of the figure imply a more precise identity. The youth leans on a
large sphere bisected by a line, a detail that suggests it represents the
Earth. Some copies of the Sogno, in fact, depict the sphere as a globe,
complete with continents. This prominent prop, originally an attribute of the
geometer, is familiar from the iconography of melancholy (Figs. 2, 6).11
Traditionally signifying the melancholic's aptitude for geometry, in the Sogno
the globe has other potential meanings. Simultaneously representing Earth and
instability, it may signal both the melancholic's elemental affiliation and the
emotional volatility that characterizes the temperament. The dependence of the
Sogno's central nude on the globe strongly suggests that the figure is a
melancholic.
The figure's pose further develops the theme of
melancholy. It indicates that the nude is in motion, prompting the viewer to
reconstruct its prior position. Turning to meet his visitor, the youth has
abandoned a closed pose, yet traces of his earlier posture remain. The nude
shifts and turns to the right, lifting his head and body. Firmly planted on the
ground, the left leg stabilizes the figure, defining the axis on which it
turns. The right arm, cast across the chest, signals the "original"
pose: the body turned to the left, the head and arms resting on the sphere. The
"original" attitude suggests sleep, the habitual activity of the
melancholic.
With the advent of his visitor, the nude stirs,
looking up and over his shoulder. The activation of the figure removes him from
the company of melancholic sleepers and an- nounces his condition as one of
melancholic rapture, for his turning head and upward glance belong to the
pictorial vocabulary of divine inspiration. The pose may have its genesis in
illuminated manuscripts depicting the Evangelists (of- ten accompanied by
inspiring angels) turning their heads to hearken to the dictated Word (Fig.
3).12 It serves as an outward sign of a wholly interior moment, a physical
manifestation of divine possession. Michelangelo employs the pose elsewhere,
most notably in the figures of the Prophets and Sibyls in the Sistine Chapel,
whose responses to their accompanying genii enact the effects of divine
revelation.13 The type appears in contemporary portraits as well, such as Ra-
phael's Tommaso Inghirami, whose pen hovers above the page as he turns his head
to listen to his unseen Muse. The turning youth of the Sogno echoes such
figures, and his encounter with an angelic creature suggests that he, too,
experiences divine inspiration.
The downward rush of the winged figure, awakening the
nude from his slumber, contrasts with more static, decorous images of patiently
dictating angels and Muses. The Sogno's exchange images the moment of
inspiration as dramatic and perturbing. It embodies a particular model of
divine inspiration, derived from Plato and elaborated by Marsilio Ficino, that
attributed the insights of philosophers, prophets, and poets not to study and
rational practice but to furor, a state of ecstasy akin to madness.14 Deeply
indebted to Platonic philosophy, Ficino's formulation of divine furor famously
granted a new status to the melancholic personality, asserting that its
predisposition to madness signified a propensity to receive divine inspiration.
The Renaissance discourse on melancholy and its
relation to divine inspiration is well known, and need not be further rehearsed
here.15 But as I bring it to bear on the Sogno, I want to emphasize an
important aspect of melancholy as defined in early modern discourse: its
doubleness, the peculiar mix of benefits and afflictions that made the humor
both desirable and suspect. Since antiquity, melancholy's link to exceptional
achievement had been seen as small consolation for its considerable drawbacks,
including crippling depression. A text then commonly ascribed to Aristotle
established the tone for subsequent assessments of melancholy.16 Although his
premise, that all great men are melancholics, seems to elevate the stature of
the humor, Aristotle's investigation focused on its negative effects on both
mind and body. Ficino's own critical evaluation of the personality type in De
vita triplici (1489), while celebrating the exceptional gifts reserved for
melancholics, nevertheless acknowledged and offered thera- pies for the
physiological and psychological ills associated with the humor, cataloguing
medicinal and dietary prescrip- tions to alleviate its more troubling symptoms.
Michelangelo, perhaps more than any other artist of
the Renaissance, embodied the role of the melancholic genius, plagued by
emotional instability yet blessed by divine inspiration.17 His image, both
public and private, is intimately bound up with the vocabulary of melancholy.
Raphael's Heraclitus may well be a tribute both to Michelangelo's figural style
and to his melancholic personality, a pictorial homage that seems to
encapsulate the myth of Michelangelo's melancholia (Fig. 4).s8 Gian Paolo
Lomazzo further contributed to this image of the artist, granting Michelangelo
the honor of representing the contemplative side of Saturn in the pantheon
established in his treatise Idea del tempio della pittura.'9 This perception of
the artist stemmed in part from his own adoption of the persona through the
self-conscious publication of his melancholic tendencies, as evidenced in his
cor- respondence and poetry. The Sogno participates in that self- construction
of the artist as genius, exploiting both the Platonic notion of divine furor
and the Aristotelian definition of melancholia and its attendant vices to
describe melancholic inspiration as a blend of positive gifts and dangerous
temptations.
In the Sogno, Michelangelo depicts the mechanisms of
inspiration with a certain precision. Approaching the youth from the heavens,
the winged creature blows through a trumpet. This sacred exhalation recalls the
afflatus of the inspiring god, echoing ancient descriptions of divine
inspiration. Virgil's account of the Cumaean Sibyl's prophecy in the Aeneid,
for example, is rich in the imagery of breath and wind. The doors of the
Sibyl's cave swing open with the power of Apollo's presence, and her prophecies
are carried on the wind. As she reaches the state of prophetic frenzy, she
"feels the nearer breath of deity."20 Longinus likewise describes the
Pythian priestess as "inspired to utter oracles" by virtue of
"divine vapour."21 Michelangelo adopted this imagery for his Delphic
Sibyl, her hair fluttering behind her to manifest the presence of the god. The
concept also has a biblical pedigree, as Matthias Winner has observed in his
reading of the Sogno, citing both the "breath of life" that animates
Adam and pictorial sources for the trumpeter in illustrations of God creating
the universe by breathing through a similar instrument.22
The angelic trumpeter has other connotations as well,
both ominous and auspicious. The Revelation of Saint John the Divine describes
angels sounding trumpets to waken the dead and call them to judgment, and a
host of Last Judgments, Michelangelo's among them, depict the action. But the
trumpet is also one of the attributes of Fame, an appropriate allusion for an
agent of inspiration, for the fruits of inspired thought promise fame and
immortality to their creator. Al- though his winged form and his flight securely
establish his divine origin, the precise identity of this figure remains am-
biguous. He can be read as an angel, whose message from God represents either
divine inspiration or the final call to account, as the personification of
Fame, or as a generic "genius," allowing the viewer to assign a
specific identity or to remain open to the figure's various implications.23
The unusual placement of the trumpet further advances
the Sogno's affiliation with melancholy and the theme of divine inspiration. As
he descends, the angel/genius blows his trumpet not at the youth's ear, as we
might expect, but instead at the center of his forehead. This is the very spot
indicated for the cauterization of melancholics in a medieval medical text
(Fig. 5).24 According to Renaissance medical tradition, this spot corresponds
to the location of the imaginatio or, in Leonardo's unique formulation, the
imprensiva, the part of the brain that receives and processes visual
impressions.25 Demonstrating the delivery of inspiration to the imaginatio,
rather than to the ear, the drawing transforms the imagery of inspiration from
that of the poet or evangelist, who translates his experience into words, to
that of the artist, who receives visual images directly from a heavenly figure.
This emphasis on visual experience, heightened by the nude's intense upward
gaze, suggests a further refinement of the youth's identity, placing the Sogno
within the same dis-course as Albrecht Dfirer's Melancholia I (Fig. 6) as a
pictorial treatise on the relationship between melancholy and the artistic
genius.
The identification of the central nude as an inspired
mel- ancholic might seem to be at odds with the traditional reception of the
Sogno as an image of virtue overcoming vice. Indeed, a near-contemporary copy
of the Sogno on a majolica plate bears an inscription identifying the scene as
"Daniel dreaming of all the mortal sins ... ," and it is easy to read
the arc as a pictorial catalogue of wicked behavior.26 The battling figures at
the right-hand side of the sheet, for example, seem to personify Anger, a
drinking figure invokes Gluttony, a figure tugging at another's cloak connotes
Envy, and kissing couples suggest Lust. As a result, the figures in the arc are
generally interpreted as personifications of the seven deadly sins, a reading
that is perhaps a shade too imprecise. There are at least ten groups of figures
in the arc, not the canonical seven. The sin of Lust seems to receive
especially concentrated attention, while Pride is conspicuously absent.27 Dis-
embodied heads of no clear iconographic function cloud the background. While
these iconographic discrepancies remove the drawing from the conventional canon
of the seven deadly sins, the arc nevertheless enumerates vices-those related
specifically to the melancholic personality.
As noted above, Renaissance constructions of the
melancholic personality defined the ability to receive divine inspiration as
the gift that tempered the humor's terrible disad- vantages. The melancholic's
alternating periods of creative energy and paralysis were mirrored by competing
tendencies toward great achievement or toward vice. This connection between
vice and melancholia, rooted in literary tradition, found expression in the
visual arts as well.2s Michelangelo's Sogno belongs to this tradition, for it
portrays a melancholic figure simultaneously blessed by divine inspiration and
tempted by sinful inclinations.
The bag held above the youth's left shoulder is the
most readily legible sign of melancholic vice. Its prominent location on the
sheet underscores the nude's identification with melancholy. From Aristotle
forward, greed was considered characteristic of melancholia, and the purse was
adopted as a visual sign of melancholic parsimony.29 Dfirer employed a purse
and keys in his figure of Melancholia, and Cesare Ripa's personification of the
melancholic likewise prominently displays a moneybag (Fig. 7). Michelangelo
himself used the device in his most famous evocation of the melancholic humor,
the figure of Lorenzo de' Medici, duke of Urbino, in the Medici Chapel, who
clutches a pouch in his left hand and leans on a cash box.30
The Sogno depicts other melancholic vices as well. At
the lower left of the drawing, a crouching figure cooks while another waits
impatiently at table, a scene said to signify Gluttony. Melancholics, Aristotle
notes, "are inclined to eat much."31 The waiting figure holds his
finger across his mouth in the conventional gesture of melancholic silence.32
Just above this pair, a figure draining a vessel's last drops ex- presses the
Glutton's insatiability. He also recalls the analogy likening the effects of
melancholy to those of wine, which structures Aristotle's consideration of the
melancholic char- acter in his Problems and offers an explanation for the
variety of symptoms melancholics experience: "For wine in large quantities
seems to produce the characteristics which we ascribe to the melancholic, and
when it is drunk produces a variety of qualities, making men ill-tempered,
kindly, merci- ful or reckless ...."" Just as different amounts of
wine pro- duce different effects in the drinker, so the quality and quantity of
black bile determine the nature of the melancholic's symptoms.
On the right side of the drawing, battling figures
make reference to melancholic irascibility, recalling Aristotle's remark that
melancholics are "mad... and easily moved to anger."34 The sleeper at
the lower right of the sheet, on the other hand, may refer to the paralysis and
torpor associated with the humor.35 A kissing couple above the youth's right
shoulder may relate to the observation that "the melancholic are usually
lustful."3" To the left of this pair, a nude male embraces a
reclining female nude and kisses her averted face. This pair may indeed signify
lust, yet the woman seems to reject her partner's amorous advances. Her
response refers to yet another problem associated with melancholy: disdain for
the opposite sex.'7
The significant omission in this catalogue of vice is,
of course, the sin of Pride. Superbia is not one of the characteristic vices of
melancholy, which would account for its ab- sence. Paradoxically, some traits
typical of melancholia- most notably, habitual solitude-were particularly
susceptible to accusations of pridefulness. Michelangelo confronted this
problem more than once, defending himself through interlocutors against charges
of superbia by suggesting that his antisocial tendencies were the result of his
virtuous devotion to his art, not the vice of pride.38 This strategy was
possible because audacia, a close relative of superbia, had a long history as a
virtue reserved for poets and painters alike, those creative individuals most
likely to embrace the melancholic persona.39 Michelangelo could thus excuse his
"prideful" behavior while calling attention to it as evidence of his
own audacia. This would suggest that the Sogno's central figure, sur- rounded
by the vices of the melancholic temperament, embodies their opposite, the
virtue of audacia, the characteristic trait of the creative mind rapt by
"intense and lofty imaginings."
Elsewhere in his correspondence and poetry, Michelan-
gelo asserts his melancholic nature in terms that often reflect its more
sinister aspects as presented in the Sogno. In letters to Pietro Gondi and
Sebastiano del Piombo, Michelangelo ac- knowledges his reputation for
melancholic madness, reassuring his friends about his mental health while
reinforcing his association with the temperament.40 He reports having taken
great pleasure in a dinner party that allowed him to "escape a little from
my melancholy, or from my madness."41 A letter from Sebastiano to Michelangelo
reveals that the artist's friends considered his melancholic tendencies a cause
for concern. Alarmed that Michelangelo might abandon the project for the Julius
Tomb, Sebastiano urged him to bring the work to completion, blaming melancholia
for Michelangelo's errors of judgment: "For the love of God, guard your-
self against whatever your melancholy humor counsels you, for it has always
been your ruination."42 Although Michelangelo's assertion that "my
happiness is melancholy" may be ironic, and his remarks on melancholy tend
to emphasize the negative aspects of the temperament, the humor's reported link
to greatness and genius could not have been lost on him.43 By aligning himself
with melancholy, even through identification with melancholic ills, Michelangelo
implicitly claimed the mantle of genius for himself, a claim given visual form
in the Sogno.
If the Sogno is seen as a meditation on melancholic
inspi- ration, those disembodied heads that hover at the edges of the arc of
figures can be readily incorporated. Generally ignored by interpreters, these
shadowy countenances nevertheless occupy a significant position on the sheet,
filling the upper portion of the arc to the left and right of the central pair.
Through their form, they articulate the first step in the process of creation:
the generation of images in the mind, swiftly translated to paper in the
sketch. Faintly drawn, yet legible, the heads seem to be taking shape as they
emerge from the cloudy mass encircling the central pair. These in- substantial
forms, barely described, recall Leonardo's exhortation to the painter to
sketch, to record rough approximations of figural motifs, later to be
translated into finished work.44 Leonardo's method of drawing represents an
important shift in artistic practice, a move away from the repetitive forms of
the pattern book and toward imaginative experimentation.45 It is in the sketch,
in half-finished forms such as the heads in the Sogno, that the process of
pictorial generation is enacted. The artist quickly records figures, gestures,
forms, exercising his inventive skill as he moves his hand across the sheet.
The sketch is the tangible evidence of the process of invention, a record of
the experience of creative fury. Francisco de Hollanda insisted that in drawing,
"the idea or concept must be placed most quickly in execution before it is
lost or diminished by some perturbation.., .not losing that divine furor and
image that it bears in the fantasia."46 Giorgio Vasari likewise linked the
sketch to creative furor: "And because from the furor of the artist these
things are expressed quickly with pen or with another drawing instrument, only
to rough out what comes to him, for this reason they are called
sketches."'47 Speed, rather than finish, is valued as proof of the
frenzied nature of creation. As Lomazzo observed, this could be taken to
extremes, preventing the artist from moving forward from the unfettered freedom
of invention to the discipline of completion: "as soon as [artists] have
delineated a body and formed a gesture, infinite others of different kinds are
born in the fantasia, so that they are unable, because of the extreme delight
they feel in invention, to have the patience to finish any work begun."4
Michelangelo enacts this process in the Sogno, filling
the arc of figures with half-formed faces that emerge from the clouds as if
from the recesses of the artist's mind. Even the choice of the cloudy mass to
encompass the figures recalls contemporary discussions of artistic invention:
Leonardo suggested that the painter seek out new forms in clouds.49
Michelangelo's graphic production contains many such
examples of unfinished figures, testifying to his use of the sketch as an
exercise in invention. But the Sogno is not a half-finished work; the contrast
in finish between the figure of the nude and the images in the arc seems a
deliberate choice.50 Thus, the very form of the Sogno articulates the
trajectory of artistic invention. The figures in the arc, ranging from quickly
sketched heads to more fully rendered bodies, represent the progression from
furious invention to diligent completion. The youth and his companion, highly
finished, the most complete and substantial figures in the drawing, represent
the final products of the artist's hand.
The different states of finish in the drawing also
influence the viewer's experience of the image. Those figures that seem to
personify the melancholic vices are the most clearly articulated; the
fragmentary heads are sketchy and incomplete. This encourages different methods
of reading, suggesting a more fixed significance for the figures that are more
finished in comparison with the others, which invite a more speculative
response. The viewer experiences the process of creation along with the artist,
witnessing the evolution of forms. The most vivid example of this (admittedly
subjective) experience is the figure at the lower right of the drawing. When
seen from a slight distance, it appears to be a seated figure holding a ball or
sphere in his lap. On closer inspection, what seemed to be his head dissolves
into the knee of the figure above, but the overlap and the lack of finish make
it impossible to define the boundaries between the two. In- stead, the image
seems to shift and change shape before the viewer's eyes.5
This type of engagement with the viewer is
particularly important in light of the drawing's status as a gift. Alexander
Nagel has argued that the gift drawing "places a special burden on the
viewer as interpreter," requiring a sensitive response that recognizes the
image's "claim to a kind of infinity or inexhaustibility."52 Nagel
refers to the religious drawings Michelangelo produced for Vittoria Colonna,
but his observations on the intimacy of the interpretative act are relevant
here as well. The gift drawings presuppose a partic- ular kind of looking that
the Sogno's allusive and elusive imagery seems calculated to reward.
Vasari records that four gift drawings (Ganymede, The
Punishment of Tityus, The Fall of Phaeton, and Bacchanal of Children ) were
made for Tommaso de' Cavalieri, the young Roman who was the focus of
Michelangelo's affections in the mid- 1530s.53 Although no definitive
documentary evidence sup- ports the assumption that Cavalieri was the recipient
of the Sogno as well, circumstantial evidence suggests it. The work is
mentioned by Vasari in connection with the others and is stylistically related
to the Cavalieri group.54 Judith Testa has observed that the Sogno's central
nude appears in variation in the Ganymede, Tityus, and Phaeton drawings (Figs.
8-10), creating a compelling visual link among the works that suggests they
were conceived as a group.55 Finally, Battista Franco's Battle of Montemurlo
(Fig. 11) further supports a link between the Sogno and the Cavalieri drawings,
for it incorporates quotations of the Ganymede, securely tied to Cavalieri,
Archers Shooting at a Herm (another gift drawing, now at the Royal Library,
Windsor), implicitly linked to the group by Vasari, and the Sogno.5
Gift drawings such as those for Cavalieri enjoy a
unique status in Michelangelo's production; they functioned as private messages
from the artist to the drawing's recipient, expressions of personal devotion.
Yet, as Michelangelo certainly knew, they were also circulated among
connoisseurs who may or may not have had access to the drawing's original
context and intention."5 The many copies of the Sogno testify to this dual
life of the gift drawing and demonstrate how such images could be transformed
to suit other, less personally charged functions. Franco's Battle of Montemurlo
offers per- haps the most dramatic example, in which borrowings from three
different compositions are stripped of their original significance to become a
display of variet&'. While copies and borrowings reflect the popular
currency of Michelangelo's work, they may not have met with the artist's
approval. Cavalieri himself lamented his failure to keep the drawings private
in a letter to Michelangelo:
‘’ Cardinal de' Medici wanted to see all of your
drawings, and they were so pleasing to him that he wanted to have the Tityus
and the Ganymede made in crystal; and I did not know how to speak well enough to
convince him not to do the Tityus, and now Maestro Giovanni is doing it. At
least I was able to save the Ganymede.58 ‘’
Cavalieri's reluctance to turn over the works and his
final declaration that he managed to "save the Ganymede" suggest that
he knew that Michelangelo would be displeased by the drawings' fate.
The mythological scenes executed for Cavalieri,
particularly the vivid depiction of Ganymede's rape, seem to articulate
Michelangelo's reflections on his feelings for the young man, which may further
explain why Cavalieri attempted to protect them from more public dispersal.59
In addition to the undoubtedly intimate messages of the imagery, however, the
Cavalieri group was allegedly meant to perform a practical function. Vasari
professes that Michelangelo sent such works to Cavalieri "because he was
learning to draw."60 Although this assertion may seem an effort to conceal
the more private motive for the drawings, I propose to take it seriously.
Michelangelo's own practice of providing cartoons and models to artists in his
circle demonstrates that his drawings circulated among his acquaintances for a
variety of purposes, from the personal to the pedagogic.61 It has been
suggested that Cavalieri copied the Phaeton as an exercise, and several drawings
have recently been attributed to him.62 In these circum- stances, the
repetition of the figure of the nude youth throughout the Cavalieri series
might have had a didactic function, allowing the artist to demonstrate the
hermeneutic possibilities inherent in a single figure. The verso of the Tityus
seems to confirm this possibility; the figure of Tityus has been traced and
transformed into a Risen Christ. But by whose hand? Michael Hirst proposes that
Michelangelo did the tracing before giving the drawing to Cavalieri, while
Alexander Perrig speculates that it is in Cavalieri's hand.63 No matter who the
author, the fact of the traced pose would suggest that one of the functions of
the gift drawings for Cavalieri may have been to demonstrate the art of drawing.
Viewing the Sogno through the lens of Vasari's text yields a practical purpose
for the drawing, but Vasari's meaning is not exactly clear. Were the drawings
intended as models for Cavalieri to copy? Or were they gifts signifying
Michelangelo's approval of Cavalieri's new "hobby"? The latter
scenario seems more likely. Despite the evidence for Cavalieri's efforts as a
draftsman, he was an amateur, a nobleman with a passion for the arts, not an
artist in training. The Sogno, like the other drawings more securely associated
with him, was not a car- toon to be developed into a painting, but rather an
independent work of art, a representing piece. Although it is not a drawing
lesson in the strictest sense, it does treat the theme of artistic creation,
representing both the practical process of developing forms from sketch to
completion and the ineffable experience of inspiration itself, here imaged as a
gift of the melancholic personality.
Michelangelo makes this reflection on artistic
inspiration explicitly personal in the Sogno's arc of figures through a series
of self-quotations. Hovering just above the central nude's right shoulder is a
female figure, a half-length body that engages in no identifiable action.
Though prominently located, this mysterious figure (Fig. 12) does not seem to
participate in the iconography of vice. She casts her glance backward, her eyes
directed over her right shoulder. Her sidelong glance and horizontal posture
recall a member of another cloud of figures: those encircling God the Father in
Michelangelo's Creation ofAdam (Fig. 13). In the Sogno, she is free of the
divine arm yoked about her shoulders, but the figure recalls the pose and
disposition of her Sistine sister.64
Scattered throughout the drawing are what seem to be
similar references to Michelangelo's figural inventions. They range from direct
quotation to allusive evocation, invoking works that span the artist's career.
To the left of the female figure, for example, a nude seen from behind, its
legs truncated, bends at the waist, recalling the figure of a climber at the
far left of the Battle of Cascina (Fig. 14). Like the female figure, the nude
does not perform any action linked to vice. This is the most direct and easily
legible self-quotation, but at least four additional figures are quite
suggestive. At the lower right of the sheet, a figure raises his right hand and
wraps his left arm across his body. Versions of this pose can be traced in
studies contemporaneous with the Sogno for the figure of Christ in the Last Judgment
(Fig. 15).65 There are differences, to be sure, notably, the position of the
head, but the central figure in the Casa Buonarroti study bears a strong
resemblance to the Sogno's figure. In another instance, the figure at the top
right of the Sogno who grabs his companion by the throat echoes a similarly
aggressive figure near the bottom of the same Casa Buonarroti study, although
the Sogno's figure uses two hands to throttle his foe, grasping the fabric
around his neck. The act of tugging itself brings to mind a much earlier pair
of struggling figures, the youths in the back- ground of the Doni Tondo. To the
left of the Sogno's struggling pair, a figure raises his right arm to strike a
cowering com- panion. In addition to invoking Anger, their actions recall
Michelangelo's depiction of David and Goliath on the Sistine Chapel ceiling
and, as Henry Thode noted, bear a strong resemblance to several sketches of the
same (or a similar) subject (Fig. 16).66
https://www.academia.edu/8567043/Michelangelos_Dream
A specialist in Renaissance and Baroque art, Maria
Ruvoldt received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1999. Her first book,
The Imagery of Inspiration in the Italian Renaissance, isforthcom- ing from
Cambridge University Press [115 West 86th Street, New York, N.Y. 10024
CARTOON WITH A GROUP OF SOLDIERS
FOR THE CRUFIXION OF SAINT PETER 1542 - 1546
Drawing
Black Chalk and Charcoal
Dimensions: Sheet: 263 × 156 cm, Frame: 289 × 182 ×
18.6 cm
Museo Nazionale di Capodimonte, Naples 398
CARTOON WITH A GROUP OF SOLDIERS
FOR THE CRUFIXION OF SAINT PETER 1542 - 1546 (DETAIL)
GANYMEDE 1520 - 1530
Drawing
Black Chalk
Dimensions: Sheet: 19.2 × 26 cm
Lent by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (RCIN 913036)
THE BATTLE OF CASCINA CA. 1540 (DETAIL)
MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI, ITALIAN 1475–1564 ROME
ARISTOTILE DA SANGALLO, ITALIAN 1481 – 1551
THE BATTLE OF CASCINA CA. 1540
Painting
Oil on Wood
Dimensions: Height: 76.4 cm, Length: 130.2 cm
Norfolk, Collection of the Earl of Leicester, Holkham
Hall, inv. 5
THE BATTLE OF CASCINA CA. 1540 (DETAIL)
A BACCHANAL OF CHILDREN 1530 -1533
Drawing
Red Chalk
Dimensions: Sheet: 27.4 x 38.8 cm
Lent by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (RCIN 912777)
THE FALL OF PHAETON (RECTO); FEMALE HALF-LENGTH FIGURE
(VERSO) 1533
Drawing
Black Chalk (Recto); Red Chalk (Verso)
Dimensions: Sheet: 41.3 x 23.4 cm
Lent by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (RCIN 912766)
ARCHERS SHOOTING AT A HERM 1530 - 1533 (DETAIL)
ARCHERS
SHOOTING AT A HERM 1530 - 1533
ARCHERS SHOOTING AT A HERM 1530 - 1533 (DETAIL)
TITYUS (RECTO); SKETCHES FOR A RESURRECTION OF CHRIST (VERSO) (DETAIL)
TITYUS
(RECTO); SKETCHES FOR A RESURRECTION OF CHRIST (VERSO)
Drawing
Ca. 1530 - 1532
Black
Chalk
Dimensions:
Sheet: 19 x 33 cm
Lent by
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (RCIN 12771)
THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART NEW YORK
THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART NEW YORK
The Metropolitan Museum of Art's earliest roots date
back to 1866 in Paris, France, when a group of Americans agreed to create a
"national institution and gallery of art" to bring art and art
education to the American people. The lawyer John Jay, who proposed the idea,
swiftly moved forward with the project upon his return to the United States
from France. Under Jay's presidency, the Union League Club in New York rallied
civic leaders, businessmen, artists, art collectors, and philanthropists to the
cause. On April 13, 1870, The Metropolitan Museum of Art was
incorporated, opening to the public in the Dodworth Building at 681
Fifth Avenue. On November 20 of that same year, the Museum acquired
its first object, a Roman sarcophagus. In 1871, 174 European
paintings, including works by Anthony
van Dyck, Nicolas
Poussin, and Giovanni
Battista Tiepolo, entered the collection.
On March 30, 1880, after a brief
move to the Douglas Mansion at 128 West 14th Street, the Museum
opened to the public at its current site on Fifth Avenue and 82nd Street. The
architects Calvert Vaux and Jacob Wrey Mould designed the initial Ruskinian
Gothic structure, the west facade of which is still visible in the Robert
Lehman Wing. The building has since expanded greatly, and the
various additions—built as early as 1888—now completely surround the original
structure.
The Museum's collection continued to grow throughout
the rest of the 19th century. The 1874–76 purchase of the Cesnola
Collection of Cypriot art—works dating from the Bronze Age to the
end of the Roman period—helped to establish The Met's reputation as a major
repository of classical antiquities. When the American painter John Kensett
died in 1872, 38 of his canvases came to the Museum, and in 1889, the Museum
acquired two works by Édouard
Manet.
The Museum's Beaux-Arts Fifth Avenue facade and Great
Hall, designed by the architect and founding Museum Trustee Richard Morris
Hunt, opened to the public in December 1902. The Evening Post reported
that at last New York had a neoclassical palace of art, "one of the finest
in the world, and the only public building in recent years which approaches in
dignity and grandeur the museums of the old world."
By the 20th century, the Museum had become one of the
world's great art centers. In 1907, the Museum acquired a work by Auguste
Renoir, and in 1910, The Met was the first public institution in the
world to acquire a work of art by Henri
Matisse. The ancient Egyptian hippopotamus
statuette that is now the Museum's unofficial mascot,
"William," entered the collection in 1917. Today, virtually all of
the Museum's 26,000 ancient Egyptian objects, the largest collection of Egyptian
art outside of Cairo, are on display. By 1979, the Museum owned
five of the fewer than 35 known paintings by Johannes
Vermeer, and now The Met's 2,500 European
paintings comprise one of the greatest such collections in the
world. The American
Wing now houses the world's most comprehensive collection of
American paintings, sculpture, and decorative arts.
Other major collections belonging to the Museum
include arms
and armor, the arts of
Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, ancient
Near Eastern art, Asian
art, costume, drawings
and prints, European
sculpture and decorative arts, Greek
and Roman art, Islamic
art, medieval
art, modern
and contemporary art, musical
instruments, photographs,
and the Robert
Lehman Collection.
Today, tens of thousands of objects are on view at any
given time in the Museum's two-million-square-foot building.
A comprehensive architectural plan for the Museum by
the architects Kevin Roche John Dinkeloo and Associates was approved in 1971
and completed in 1991. Among the additions to the Museum as part of the master
plan are the Robert Lehman Wing (1975), which houses an extraordinary
collection of Old Masters, as well as Impressionist and Post-Impressionist art;
The Sackler Wing (1978), which houses the Temple
of Dendur; The American Wing (1980), whose diverse collection
includes 25 recently renovated period rooms; The Michael C. Rockefeller Wing
(1982) displaying the arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas; the Lila
Acheson Wallace Wing (1987) of modern and contemporary art; and the Henry R.
Kravis Wing (1991) devoted to European sculpture and decorative arts from the
Renaissance to the beginning of the 20th century.
With the expansion of the building complete, The Met
has continued to refine and reorganize its collection. In 1998, the Arts of
Korea gallery opened to the public, completing a major suite of
galleries devoted to the arts of Asia. The Ancient Near Eastern Art galleries
reopened to the public in 1999 following a renovation. In 2007, several major
projects at the south end of the building were completed, most notably the
15-year renovation and reinstallation of the entire suite of Greek and Roman
Art galleries. Galleries for Oceanic and Native North American Art also opened
in 2007, as well as the new Galleries for Nineteenth- and Early
Twentieth-Century Paintings and Sculpture and the Ruth and Harold D. Uris Center
for Education.
On November 1, 2011, the Museum's New Galleries for
the Art of the Arab Lands, Turkey, Iran, Central Asia, and Later South Asia
opened to the public. On the north side of the Museum, The Met's New American
Wing Galleries for Paintings, Sculpture, and Decorative Arts reopened on
January 16, 2012, signaling the completion of the third and final phase of The
American Wing's renovation.
Thomas P. Campbell became the ninth director of The
Metropolitan Museum of Art in January 2009, following the 31-year tenure of
Philippe de Montebello. During the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2016, The
Met welcomed 6.7
million visitors from around the world to The Met Fifth Avenue,
The Met Breuer, and The Met Cloisters. Through fellowships and professional
exchanges, ongoing excavation work, traveling exhibitions, and many other
international initiatives, the Museum continues in the 21st century to fulfill
its mission and serve the broadest possible audience.
https://www.metmuseum.org/about-the-met/history
THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART NEW YORK
MARCO FERRUCC 1465–1526
JULIUS CEASAR BUST CA. 1512 - 1514
Marble
Dimensions: Height: 68.6 cm
Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913 14.40.676
STUDIES FOR THE BATTLE OF CASCINA: TWO STANDING NUDE
MALE FIGURES (RECTO);
NUDE MALE FIGURE IN HALF-LENGTH SEEN FROM THE REAR
(VERSO) - 1504
Drawing
Pen and Brown Ink (Recto); Black Chalk, Highlighted
With White Chalk (Verso)
Dimensions: Sheet: 27 × 19.6 cm
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna 123
LETTER TO PIETRO URBANO (20 AUGUST 1519)
WITH SKETCH OF A BIRD (RECTO AND VERSO)
Drawing - 20 August 1519
Black Chalk (Drawing), Pen and Brown Ink (Recto); Pen
and Brown Ink (Verso)
Dimensions: Sheet: 19.5 × 21 cm
Biblioteca Civica Bertoliana, Vicenza (Busta E 139)
BRUTUS & THE SCULPTED BUST
A work of tremendous psychological presence,
Michelangelo's marble Brutus reintroduced into the tradition of
Italian bust sculpture a sobriety of style—described as "pure without
ornament" ( puro senza ornato )—that had not been seen since
Donatello. Michelangelo sought inspiration in ancient Roman portraiture,
specifically the marble Caracalla, also on view here. According to
a guidebook of 1556, it was owned by a collector living on the same street as
the artist. In contrast to the Brutus, the bust of Julius
Caesar by Michelangelo's sometime associate Andrea Ferrucci exemplifies
the delicately ornate, all'antica (in the manner of the ancients)
style of Florentine sculpture fashionable in the late 15th and early 16th
centuries.
The comparison of these three marble busts—a rare
opportunity—attests to Michelangelo's powers of invention in transforming the
art of the past to forge a new, profoundly personal style.
https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2017/michelangelo/exhibition-galleries
STUDY FOR A PUTTO AND FOR THE RIGHT HAND OF THE LIBYAN
SIBYL IN
THE SISTINE CEILING; SKETCHES FOR THE TOMB OF JULIUS
II (RECTO);
STUDIES OF A MAN’S LEFT LEG (VERSO)
Drawing 1508–12
Red Chalk; Pen and Brown Ink (Recto); Pen and Black
Ink Over
Portions in Black Chalk (Verso)
Dimensions: Sheet: 28.6 x 19.4 cm, Frame: 60.4 × 45 ×
2.4 cm
The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Presented by a Body of
Subscribers, 1846;
WA1846.43 (KP II 297)
BRUTUS SCULPTURE 1538
Marble
Dimensions: Height: 74 cm
Museo Nazionale del Bargello, inv. Sculture 1879 n. 97
SL.6.2017.13.1
THE DESCENT FROM THE CROSS (OR ENTOMBMENT)
Drawing 1530
Red Chalk (of Two Different Hues)
Dimensions: Sheet: 37.5 × 28 cm, Framed: 60.4 × 45 ×
2.4 cm
The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford inv. WA1846.88 (KP II 342)
SL.6.2017.32.24
MARCO FERRUCC 1465–1526
JULIUS CEASAR BUST CA. 1512 - 1514
Marble
Dimensions: Height: 68.6 cm
Bequest of Benjamin Altman, 1913 14.40.676
THE
ANNUNCIATION CA. 1540
Drawing
Black Chalk
Dimensions: Sheet: 47 × 54.8 cm
Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, Florence 229F
STATUE OF EROS SLEEPING 3rd–2nd CENTURY B.C.
Bronze
Dimensions: 41.9 × 35.6 × 85.2 cm, 124.7 kg, Height
(w/ Base): 45.7 cm
Rogers Fund, 1943
SKETCHES FOR THE STAIRCASE IN THE ‘RICETTO’
OF THE LAURENTINA LIBRARY, OVER FIGURE STUDIES (DETAIL)
Drawing
Pen and Brown Ink, Red Chalk, Black Chalk
Dimensions: Sheet: 39 × 28 cm
Casa Buonarroti, 92A SL.6.2017.12.9
DESIGN FOR THE GROUND PLAN OF
THE CHURCH OF SAN GIOVANNU DEI FIORENTINI
Drawing 1559–64
Pen and Brown Ink, Brush and Brown Wash, Over Black
Chalk,
White Gouache Mixed to Correct
Dimensions: Sheet: 41.7 × 37.7 cm
Casa Buonarroti, 124A
THE SCULPTOR – ARCHITECT IN THE ETERNAL CITY, 1534 -
1564
Beautifully elaborated, often with ideas layered one
over the other, Michelangelo's late architectural drawings were like nothing
that had been seen before. At the core of his approach to architecture was his
sculptor's sensibility that form should unify and command space. The drawings
appear powerfully three-dimensional and luminous. As complements to his
drawings, he relied on models such as the rare wood example on view here.
Little of Michelangelo's planned architectural work in
Rome, where he settled permanently in 1534, was constructed during his
lifetime, although his ideas and designs ultimately transformed the Eternal
City. His original drawings for monumental architecture and urban redesign do
not survive, but his intentions are recorded in a series of prints published
around the time of his death. His projects in Rome include, among others, the
complete redesign of the Capitoline Hill, or Campidoglio; revisions and a
redesign of Antonio da Sangallo the Younger's Palazzo Farnese; plans for the
church of San Giovanni dei Fiorentini; and the construction of the Porta Pia.
As chief architect of the new Saint Peter's Basilica for 17 years, he left an
indelible mark, evident today mainly in the dome and the southwest transept.
https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2017/michelangelo/exhibition-galleries
DESIGN FOR THE TOMB OF POPE JULIUS II DELLA ROVERE
1505- 1506
Drawing
Pen and Brown Ink, Brush and Brown Wash, Over Stylus
Ruling and Leadpoint
Dimensions: 51 x 31.9 cm
Rogers Fund, 1962
STUDIES FOR FORTIFICATION OF PORTA
AL PRATO (RECTO AND VERSO) 1530’S
Drawing
Pen and Brown Ink, Brown Wash, Over Red and Black
Chalks (Recto and Verso)
Dimensions: Sheet: 41 × 56.8 cm
Casa Buonarroti, 13A SL.6.2017.12.3
DESIGN FOR A WINDOW OF PALAZZO FARNESE (RECTO);
ARCHITECTURAL STUDIES ( VERSO ) CA. 1540
Drawing
Brush With Brown Wash, White Gouache, Pen and
Brown Ink, Over Black Chalk (Recto); Black Chalk
(Verso)
Dimensions: Sheet: 41.9 × 28.7 cm, Framed: 60.4 × 45 ×
2.4 cm
The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford inv. WA1846.79 (KP
II 333)
PROJECT FOR AN ELEVATION OF THE FAÇADE OF SAN LORENZO
(FIRST DESIGN) 1518
Drawing
Pen and Brown Ink, Brush and Wash
Dimensions: Sheet: 72.4 x 86.8 cm
Casa Buonarroti, Florence 45A
ANTONIO LAFRERI, FRENCH 1512–1577 Rome
SPECULUMROMANAE MAGNIFICENTIAE: FARNESE PALACE
INTERIOR PRINT 1560
Engraving and Etching
Dimensions: Sheet: 39 x 49.5 cm, Mount: 53.2 x 67 cm
Rogers Fund, Transferred From the Library, 1941
STUDY FOR THE DOMEOF SAINT PETER’S BASILICA (RECTO);
STUDY FOR A NICHE & A CRUCIFIED 551 - 1565
Drawing
Black Chalk (Recto and Verso)
Dimensions: Sheet: 27 x 26.8 cm, Framed: 73.1 × 52.6 cm
Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille (Pl. 93-94)
SMALL WOOD MODEL OF THE VAULT OF CHAPEL OF
THE KING OF FRANCE ARCHİTECTURAL MODEL 1556-57
Limewood, Ribs in Spruce Wood
Dimensions: Height: 54 × 90.5 cm Internal measures 41
x 80 x 47 cm
Vatican City, Fabbrica di San Pietro in Vaticano
DOMENICO GHIRLANDIO – FLORENCE – 1448 - 1494
DRAPERY STUDY OF A STANDING FIGURE DRAWING 1485-1490
Brown Wash, on Pink Prepared Paper, Heightened With
White
Dimensions: Sheet: 29 × 13.1 cm
Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe degli Uffizi, Florence 315E
SL.6.2017.14.8
STUDY FOR THE
RISEN CHRIST IN SANTA MARIA SOPRA MINERVA, ROME:
MALE
NUDE IN A THREE-QUARTER LENGTH (RECTO); STUDIES FOR A MALE
NUDE AND SUBSIDIARY STUDIES OF HIS LEGS (VERSO) (PART FROM SKETCHES)
Drawing
1514
Pen and
Brown Ink, Over Red Chalk, Traces of Black Chalk (Recto); Pen and
Brown
Ink, Over Red Chalk, Traces of Black Chalk (Verso)
Dimensions:
Sheet: 23.5 × 20.7 cm
Private Collection, New York
STUDIES FOR THE BATTLE OF CASCINA: TWO STANDING NUDE MALE FIGURES (RECTO);
NUDE MALE FIGURE IN HALF LENGTH SEEN FROM THE REAR (VERSO) 1504
Drawing
Pen and Brown Ink (Recto); Black Chalk, Highlighted With White Chalk (Verso)
Dimensions: Sheet: 27 × 19.6 cm
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna 123
THE ANNUNCIATION CA. 1545
Drawing
Black Chalk
Dimensions: Sheet: 38.3 x 29.6 cm
The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, IV, 7
DRAGON AND OTHER SKETCHES (RECTO);
VARIOUS SKETCHES OF EYES AND HEAD PROFILES (VERSO)
Drawing 1520–1530
Pen and Brown Ink Over Black Chalk (Recto); Red Chalk
and Traces of Black Chalk (Verso) Dimensions: Sheet: 25.4 x 33.8 cm, Framed: 45
× 60.4 × 2.4 cm
The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Presented by a Body of
Subscribers,
1846; WA1846.69 (KP II 323)
LAMENTATION(RECTO); STUDIES OF LEGS & DRAPERIES
(VERSO)
Drawing 1520
Red Chalk (Recto); Pen and Ink (Verso)
Dimensions: Sheet: 31.9 x 24.8 cm
Graphische Sammlung Albertina, Vienna 102
THE
ANNUNCIATION CA. 1540
SKETCHES FOR THE LOWER LEFT HAND
CORNER OF THE LAST JUDGMENT (RECTO AND VERSO) 1536 -
1541
Drawing
Black Chalk
Dimensions: Sheet: 27.7 x 41.9 cm
Lent by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II (RCIN 912776)
STUDY OF TORSO OF DUSK IN MEDICI CHAPEL 1520- 1530
Drawing
Black Chalk, Annotated at Left in Pen and Brown Ink
Sheet: 17.6 × 27 cm, Framed: 45 × 60.4 × 2.4 cm
The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford inv. WA1846.56 (KP
II 310)
JACOPINO DEL
CONTE. ITALIAN, FLORENTINE, 1515–1598
DANIELE
DA VOLTERRA ( DANIELE RICCIARELLI ) ITALIAN,
VOLTERRA
/ 1509–1566 ROME
MICHELANGELO
BUONARROTI (1475–1564)
Painting
Probably Ca. 1544
Oil on
Wood
Dimensions: 88.3
x 64.1 cm
Gift of
Clarence Dillon, 1977
TOMMASO DE’ CAVALIERI BY MARCELLA MARONGIU
Not with standing his talent as an antiquarian and his
taste as a collector – qualities acknowledged by both Giorgio Vasari and Ulisse
Aldrovandi – it was Tommaso de’ Cavalieri’s extraordinary beauty, as cited in
Benedetto Varchi’s Due lezzioni, that sealed his fate in literary and art
historical studies:
‘’ Messer Tommaso Cavalieri, a most noble young Roman,
in whom I recognized, in Rome ( beyond his incomparable physical beauty ), such
graceful decorum, excellent intelligence and gracious manners, that he well
deserved and still merits, that whoever might know him best would love him
most. ‘’
Thus was the dedicatee of Michelangelo’s refined
poetic compositions first named. Michelangelo’s grand-nephew, the first
publisher of his Rime, in 1623, intervened to eliminate all references to
Tommaso a damnatio memoriae that lasted well into the 1900’s. But scholarship
since then has been conditioned by his beauty, and it has concentrated on
Michelangelo’s passion for his young friend as the sole interpretive key to his
graphic and poetic oeuvre, largely neglecting Tommaso’s fundamental role in
Roman cultural life for more than fifty years. A review of Tommaso’s
biography-one that looks beyond the special relationship that unites him to
Michelangelo and sheds new light on his activities as a collector and patron:
his rapport with artists , men of letters, and musicians; and his public
appointments – will therefore provide a better understanding of his multiform
personality, and clarify certain aspects of his friendship with the great
artist.
The second son of Mario de’Cavalieri and Cassandra
Bonaventura, Tommaso was born in Rome in 1513 or 1514. His direct descent from
the Orsini Family, to which the wives of Lorenzo and Piero de Medici also
belonged, has been suggested as a decisive factor in his first meeting with
Michelangelo, which took place in the fall of 1532. To this prestigious but
distant kinship one should add his association with Felice de Fredis, who
discovered the Laocoon in 1506, and his even closer ties to Gentile Delfini, a
great expert in antiquities. It seems ever more unlikely that the meeting with
Michelangelo took place amid the entourage of Cardinal Niccola Ridolfi: rather,
it would have occurred within the milieu of antiquarianism that drew artists
and intellectuals to the most cultured cardinals of the papal court, such as
Ippolito de Medici, Paolo Emilio Cesi, and Andrea della Valle. The Cavalieri
family was, in fact, close to Della Valle in the years of Tommaso’s youth, and
during the Sack of Rome in 1527, Tommaso was sheltered by the cardinal, whose
niece Lavinia he subsequently married.
Beauty and virtuosity (virtu): these are Tommaso’s
qualities highlighted by Varchi, but they are also those on which his
friendships with the great artists were built. Tommaso refers to virtu in his
first letter to Michelangelo: ‘’ I do believe, nay I am certain, that the cause
of the affection you have for me is this: that since you are most virtuous – or
better, an embodiment of virtu itself – you are compelled to love those who
believe in it, and love it, including myself; and in this , depending on my
powers, I do not yield to many people. ‘’ That this attitude was shared by
Michelangelo is attested by a passage in Donato Giannotti’s Dialoghi, in which
the artist affirms, ‘’ Every time I see someone who has some virtu …
I see myself compelled to love him and do so in abandonment, so that I am no
longer myself, but all his. ‘’ Finally, we may cite a passage from the
biography of Michelangelo by Ascanio Condivi: ‘’ He has, however, gladly
retained the friendship of those from whose enlightened and learned conversation
he could benefit and in whom there shone some ray of excellence.
There is no question that his meeting with Tommaso
left an indelible mark on Michelangelo, and from the earliest letters he
describes himself as overwhelmed by a passion that is likened to a flooded
river or a storm ocean. Passion is also the subject of his poetic compositions
of the early 1530’s, modeled on Petrarch and Platonism but animated by sincere
sentiment. I would, however, be wrong to regard them
as confessions in verse: they were, and remain, among
the most elevated examples of Michelangelo’s lyricism, the result of rigorous
formal study, and their circulation confirms their prevailing public character.
A similar view may be taken of the drawings intended as gifts for Tommaso. According
to Vasari,
‘’ Infinitely more than any of the others (
Michelangelo ) loved M. Tommaso de’Cavalieri, a Roman gentleman, for whom,
being a young man and much inclined to these arts, he made, to the end that he
might learn to draw, many most superb drawings of divinely beautiful heads,
designed in black and red chalk; and then he dew for him a Ganymede rapt to
Heaven by Jove’s Eagle, a Tityos with the Vulture devouring his heart, the
Chariot of the Sun falling with Phaeton into the Po, and a Bacchanal of
children, which are all in themselves most rare things, and drawings the like
of which have never been seen. Michelangelo made a life size portrait of messer
Tommaso in a cartoon, and neither before nor afterwards did he take the
portrait of anyone, because he abhorred executing a resemblance to the living
subject, unless it were of extraordinary beauty. ‘’
We know most of these drawings: the British Royal
Collection at Windsor houses the Punishment of Tityos ( pl. 129 ), the
Bacchanal of Children ( pl. 130 ), and version of the Fall of Phaeton ( pl. 126
); two additional versions of the latter are in the British Museum, London (
pl. 127 ), and the Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice ( pl. 128 ). One of the
so-called teste divine, a Cleopatra, resides at Casa Buonarroti, Florence ( pl.
117 ), while The Dream, which probably formed part of this group, is now in the
Cortauld Gallery, London ( pl. 131 ). Contemporary copies record the appearance
of the Rape of Ganymede ( pl. 125 ) and another potential testa divina, a
Minerva. Finally, the probable Portrait of Tommaso Cavalieri is
housed in the Musee Bonnat – Helleu, Bayonne.
This extraordinary group of sheets, carried out
between 1532 and 1535, displays outstanding formal finish and refined
antiquarian inspiration. Each went through a lengthy preparatory phase that saw
the creation of several drawings on the same subject, and was often accompanied
by an exchange of opinions between the artist and his young friend. Their
closely comparative formal qualities, as well as their public circulation – of
which Michelangelo was aware, and to which he was unopposed – prevent us from
considering them principally as a vehicle for the expression of the artist’s
feelings. Instead, their ideal context is to be found within the discussions of
literature, art, architecture, and antiquarianism, topics that engaged
Michelangelo, Tommaso, and an extensive circle of intellectuals and artists
during the pontificates of Clement VII and Paul III.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/Michelangelo_Divine_Draftsman_and_Designer
You may have exhibition book of
‘’ Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer ‘’by
Carmen C. Bambach to read whole essays others topics to click above link and you may see whole topics and essay’s names and writers below;
Carmen C. Bambach to read whole essays others topics to click above link and you may see whole topics and essay’s names and writers below;
I. Il Divin’ Disegnatore
II. The Young Artist and the Traditions of
Fifteenth-Century Art
III. Herculean Efforts and a New Artistic Vision
IV. Designing Public Works: The Sculptor-Architect at San
Lorenzo
V. Private Works: The Master of Disegno and His Gift Drawings
VI. Rome: Strategic Friendships and a Reputation at
Stake
VII. Art and Personal Spirituality in an Age of Reform
VIII.The Fame and Legacy of a Genius
Essays
Examining Michelangelo’s Torment of Saint Anthony: New
Revelations
Claire Barry
Claire Barry
Prose and Poetry in Michelangelo’s Architectural
Drawings
Caroline Elam
Caroline Elam
Michelangelo and the Experience of Space
Mauro Mussolin
Mauro Mussolin
Michelangelo the Sculptor: A Lifetime of Formal
Obsessions
Francesco Caglioti
Francesco Caglioti
Tommaso de’ Cavalieri
Marcella Marongiu
Marcella Marongiu
Catalogue of the Exhibition
Carmen C. Bambach, compiled with the assistance of Jeffrey Fraiman and Furio Rinaldi
Carmen C. Bambach, compiled with the assistance of Jeffrey Fraiman and Furio Rinaldi
A SERVANT OF CHURCH & STATE
In the second half of the 1530’s, the friendship
between Tommaso and Michelangelo seems to have changed course, conditioned by
both the latter’s permanent move to Rome in the autumn of 1534 and the gradual
increase of religious anxieties that he and his circle experienced. This
spiritual turn was certainly favored by Michelangelo’s friendship with Vittoria
Colonna, marchesa of Pescara and a celebrated poet. Yet far from excluding
Tommaso, this amity actually lent him an important role in the relationship
with the noblewoman: he was the one who returned the drawing of the Crucifixion
to Michelangelo, which Vittoria Colonna had wished to see before it was even
finished.
These were also the years in which Tommaso came of age
and began the cursus honorum appropriate to his social rank. In October 1539 he
became Caporione of the Sant’ Eustachio neighborhood, a position that gave him
judiciary and administrative responsibilities, and which he held no less than
five times. In 1547 ( and twelve times over forty years ) he was
elected Consigliere, and in 1549 Paul III appointed him Maestro di Strada, a
prestigious post related not only to the maintenance of streets but also to the
licensing of construction and archaeological digs. Finally, in 1564 he became
Conservatore, the highest rank in Roman civic government, an office he held again
in 1572. These years likewise saw him occupy a number of other, minor
positions, either pontifical or civic in nature. Tommaso’s duties did not,
however, lead to a diminishing of his artistic interests, which instead appear
to have been in constant evolution. During the 1530’s and 1540’s he was
certainly in contact withSebastiano del Piombo ( whom he may befriended
Before Michelangelo, and with whom he continued to
interact even after the resounding break between the two artists ), Giovanni
Bernardi, Francesco Salviati, Battista Franco, Francisco de Hollanda, Giulio
Clovio, Marcello Venusti, Daniele da Volterra, and to judge from his very rich
collection of drawings, with many others, too.
In the mid – 1540’s Tommaso’s fame as a collector and
his influence on Michelangelo appear to have been fully established. As
recounted by Vasari, in about 1545 -46 Marcello Venusti painted an alterpiece
for Cardinal Federico Cesi based on a cartoon that Tommaso asked Michelangelo
to make for this purpose. In 1548 he and Curzio Frangipane were selected by
Cardinal Alessandro Farnese to oversee the Horti Farnesiani on the Palatine
Hill, and together with the most important antiquities experts of the day –
Gentile Delfini, Antonio Agostini, Ottavio Pantagato, Gabriele Faerno, and
Bartolomeo Marliano – was asked to represent the Popolo Romano for the
organization of the Fasti Consolari and Fasti Trionfali in the courtyard of the
Palazzo dei Conservatori. He also helped decide the placement of ancient
statues inside the palazzo, once again working with Delfini.
These official positions are tangible evidence of the
esteem in which Tommaso was held by popes, cardinals, and secular institutions,
owing not only to his friendship with Michelangelo, who beginning in 1546 was
responsible for the renewal of the Campidoglio, but also to his own proficiency
in classical art and architecture. It must therefore have seemed natural when,
in 1554 upon the death of Frangipane, he was appointed a full representative of
the Fabbrica del Campidoglio, a post he shared with Prospero Boccapaduli for
more than twenty years. It has often been stated that Tommaso’s appointment was
supported by Michelangelo so that the artist’s projects would be followed
faithfully, or vice versa – that he was chosen to guarantee the collaboration
of the artist. However, it appears that it was precisely Tommaso’s expertise
that enabled him to earn the position and retain it for so long, well past
Michelangelo’s death, a supposition that is confirmed by how he split the role
with Boccapaduli: while the latter devoted himself to administration and
procurement of materials, Tommaso evaluated the projects and assigned tasks to
architects, painters, and decorators. And indeed, during the pair’s tenure, the
new Campidoglio truly took shape (see pl. 222) The interiors and façade of the
Palazzo dei Senatori were restructured and linked to the piazza via the grand
staircase designed by Michelangelo; the façade of the Palazzo dei Conservatori
was begun, which involved a radical modification of the interior ( especially
the official rooms facing the piazza, the entrance hall, and the courtyard );
and foundations probably were laid for the third palazzo, on the left side of
piazza.
The start of the Capitoline appointment coincide with
another architectural project, which evolved independently of any intervention
from Michelangelo: tha Oratorio del Santissimo Crocifisso in the church of San
Marcello al Corso. Beginning in 1555, Tommaso is recorded among the members of
its eponymous confraternity, which was dedicated to devotional and charitable
initiatives and gathered members from among the most important families in
Rome, with Cardinals Ranuccio and Alessandro Farnese among its patrons. The
prestige of this brotherhood had grown rapidly, and the decision to build a
dedicated oratory was made in April 1556, an event to which Tommaso’s
appointment as prior of the confraternity, in June 1557, is probably linked.
From this moment, the enterprise progressed with a new energy. A committee including
Nanni di baccio Bigio and Francesco Indico was established in October 1557,
soon to be replaced by one composed of Tommaso and Boccapaduli. The project was
assigned in 1561 to Guidetto Guidetti, followed in 1562 by Giocomo della Porta,
in his first official architectural engagement in Rome. Della Porta’s career
progressed considerably from there. As early as 1563 he was summoned, together
with Tommaso, to assess the work being carried out at the Palazzo dei Senatori,
and he received a commission from the Popolo Romano to design a fountain at San
Giorgio in Velabro, a project once involving Tommaso and Boccapaduli. His
activity at the Campidoglio was much respected, culminating with his being
named Architect of the Popolo Romano in 1564, upon the death of Guidetti. Owing
to favorable views from Tommaso and Alessandro Franese, Della Porta was also
given responsibility over the Fabbrica di San Pietro when Giocomo Vignola died
in 1573.
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/Michelangelo_Divine_Draftsman_and_Designer
You may have exhibition book of
‘’ Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer ‘’by
Carmen C. Bambach to read whole essays others topics to click above link and you may see whole topics and essay’s names and writers below;
Carmen C. Bambach to read whole essays others topics to click above link and you may see whole topics and essay’s names and writers below;
I. Il Divin’ Disegnatore
II. The Young Artist and the Traditions of
Fifteenth-Century Art
III. Herculean Efforts and a New Artistic Vision
IV. Designing Public Works: The Sculptor-Architect at
San Lorenzo
V. Private Works: The Master of Disegno and His Gift Drawings
VI. Rome: Strategic Friendships and a Reputation at
Stake
VII. Art and Personal Spirituality in an Age of Reform
VIII.The Fame and Legacy of a Genius
Essays
Examining Michelangelo’s Torment of Saint Anthony: New
Revelations
Claire Barry
Claire Barry
Prose and Poetry in Michelangelo’s Architectural
Drawings
Caroline Elam
Caroline Elam
Michelangelo and the Experience of Space
Mauro Mussolin
Mauro Mussolin
Michelangelo the Sculptor: A Lifetime of Formal
Obsessions
Francesco Caglioti
Francesco Caglioti
Tommaso de’ Cavalieri
Marcella Marongiu
Marcella Marongiu
Catalogue of the Exhibition
Carmen C. Bambach, compiled with the assistance of Jeffrey Fraiman and Furio Rinaldi
Carmen C. Bambach, compiled with the assistance of Jeffrey Fraiman and Furio Rinaldi
