TVM 1st Floor: 15th C. High Italian Renaissance -- Michelangelo part 3 of 3

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Early Italian Renaissance
High Italian Renaissance
Michelangelo Part 1
Michelangelo Part 2
Mannerists

High Italian Renaissance
1490 to 1520

Michelangelo
(Part 3 of 3)

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Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Ludovico di Leonardo di Buonarotti Simoni

born: Caprese, Republic of Florence [now Italy]; 6 March 1475
died: Rome, Papal States [now Italy]; 18 February 1564

The Final Years in Rome:
The Last Judgment Fresco, Capitoline Hill, and St. Peter's Dome.

1532	57	Michelangelo on a visit to Rome meets a young nobleman, Tommasso dei Cavalieri, age 20, the young son of a Roman nobleman.
1533	58	Michelangelo again leaves Florence; though he always hopes to return to finish the projects he has left incomplete. Certainly part of the motivation for the move to Rome was Tommasso dei Cavalieri.

Michelangelo's infatuation with Tommasso dei Cavalieri, consumed him. Soon after he met him he gave him three charcoal drawings as a gift, perhaps to encourage his artistic efforts or maybe just as encouragement. He also gave the red chalk drawing a bit later on and wrote him passionate poetry. This relationship turned into a life long friendship, although Tommasso seems to have shied away from a homosexual relationship, and in 1548 Tommasso married. Throughout the remainder of Michelangelo's life Tommasso remained a close friend.

The Rape of Ganymede
about 1533
Fogg Museum of Art
Cambridge, MA, US

Titus
about 1533
Windsor Castle
London, England

Sketches that were Gifts from Michelangelo to Tommasso dei Cavalieri

Overlapping the Tommasso affair, in the early 1530s Michelangelo became involved with a young boy who was another of his models: Febo di Poggio. He called Febo "that little blackmailer," because Febo adopted Michelangelo as "my honorary father" and steadily demanded money, clothes, and love-gifts from him. On a page containing financial calculations, Michelangelo wrote:

Here with his beautiful eyes he promised me solace,
And with those very eyes he tried to take it away from me.

Their passion raged through 1533-34, but ended when Michelangelo discovered that Febo had "betrayed" him— perhaps by actually stealing money or drawings. To judge by his poetry Michelangelo felt humiliated by his inability to control his own attachment to the boy. Several of Michelangelo's poems pun using the boy's name—"Febo" equals Phoebus, and poggio is the Italian word for "hill". Even The Fall of Phaeton may be a reference to failing affair.

The Fall of Phaeton
about 1533
Windsor Castle
London, England

Three of the
Labors of Hercules
about 1533
Windsor Castle
London, England

Much of poetry which Michelangelo wrote during this period has been preserved. There are about 300 poems—about 75 finished sonnets and about 95 finished madrigals.

1534

Clement VII dies on 25 September. Pope Paul III replaces him on 3 November.

World News: In England, the Act of Supremacy decreed -- by law the King of England is the head of the English church, denying the papacy control of the church.

Pope Paul III demands that Michelangelo return to fresco painting. The new pope wants a huge Last Judgment for the end wall of the Sistine Chapel. At fifty-nine the rigors of fresco painting were not what Michelangelo had in mind, and he still hated painting.

The Pope, while he liked Michelangelo, was convinced that the altar wall needed a fresco and ordered Michelangelo to do it.

In the resulting Michelangelo design Christ as judge, at the center top, lifts an arm to save those on his right and drops the other arm to damn those on his left. At the bottom left of the wall skeletons rise from tombs; their souls rise through the air to be judged, as the damned ones sink on the right. At the bottom on the right Charon ferries souls across the River Styx. The fires of hell burn brightly as the condemned are punished, just above the central altar where the Pope blesses the host.

Michelangelo painted many of the figures in the fresco nude, but in later years the church had clothing added. In the recent restoration, some of the loincloths were removed, but the oldest ones were left in place (presumably because they were covered first, they were the most offensive. The clothing on Christ was painted by Michelangelo as a part of the original design.

Marcello Venusti:
1549
Oil Painting Copy
Museo Nazionale
di Capodimonte
Naples, Italy

(before the Vatican
hid most of the nudity)

Before the most Recent
Vatican Restoration

After the Restoration

Image Map
to see detailed views.

Last Judgment
1534-41
Sistine Chapel, Vatican, Rome

1535	60	Michelangelo is appointed chief architect, sculptor, and painter to the Apostolic Court by Paul III.
1537	62	Assassination of Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence.

Brutus
1537
Bargello
Florence, Italy

1538

The Pope Excommunicates Henry VIII of England over the divorce dispute and the establishment of the Anglican Church.

1545

The tomb of Julius II is finally completed after six designs and redesigns. It is a far cry from Michelangelo's vision, and he is much disappointed in the result.

Michelangelo finishes the Conversion of Saul fresco for the Pauline chapel in the Vatican.

The Council of Trent (1545-63) begins. The nineteenth ecumenical council opened at Trent on 13 December, 1545, and closed there on 4 December, 1563. Its main object was the definitive determination of the doctrines of the Church in answer to the heresies of the Protestants; a further object was the execution of a thorough reform of the inner life of the Church by removing the numerous abuses that had developed in it.

The Final Realization
of the Tomb of Julius II
1545
San Pietro in Vincoli
Rome, Italy

Satyr
Louvre, Paris

1546	71	In France François I dies and is succeeded by Henri II.
1550	75	Michelangelo sculpts a Pietà for the Duomo in Florence where he thinks he will be buried.

Pietà
about 1550
Museo dell'Opera del Duomo
Florence, Italy

1555 80 In his late years Michelangelo was less involved with sculpture; he worked primarily in architecture, for which there is no physical labor. He was employed to design imposing monuments for Rome. Two monuments, the Capitoline square and the dome of St. Peter's, are still among the city's most famous icons. He did not finish either, but after his death both were completed with only minor modifications.

The little Capitoline Hill had been the civic center in ancient Roman times and was in the 16th century the center of municipal government. Michelangelo remodeled the old city hall on one side of the square and designed twin buildings for the adjacent sides to it. They are now the Capitoline Museums.

Capitoline Plaza Museum Architectural Details

In the Vatican Michelangelo designed the great central dome. Around the base of the dome he placed a colonnaded walkway. The tops of the columns are tied to the dome by beams, but there is no roofing of the intervals between columns. Thus, the columns have the effect of flying buttresses on Gothic buildings, supporting the dome's heavy downward thrust. Yet the design is formally classical, and its horizontal aspect as a colonnade solves the problem of a visual transition between the dome and the horizontal lower structure of the building.
The dome design went through six revisions. The politics involved were contorted and difficult. Michelangelo saw the critics of his work trying to defeat him at every turn, not only for the dome but the Capitoline hill as well. He hid his work until construction had begun, so that things could not be changed without great expense.

Dome of St. Peter's

Most of Michelangelo's work at St. Peter's was given to the lower part. He went back to the original Bramante design with four equal cross arms. He modified Bramante's interior to make it a more unified space. This space is created by huge semicircular sections of wall on four sides echoing the inside of the dome.

He slept little in his later years, and even to the last he carved marble. He would carve at night wearing a cardboard hat upon which carried a candle so he could see what he was doing.

Pietà Rondanini
[unfinished]
1564
Castello Sforzesco
Milan, Italy

1564

On the 18 February Michelangelo attended by his secretary, Daniele da Volterra, and his friend, Tommasso dei Cavalieri, dies of a pneumonia. Although the Pope wants him buried in the Vatican, Michelangelo wanted his body returned to Florence. He is buried in church of Santa Croce, not in the Duomo as he had wanted.

Back to the High Italian Renaissance.

Early Italian Renaissance
High Italian Renaissance
Michelangelo Part 1
Michelangelo Part 2
Mannerists

2004-10-13

1555	80	In his late years Michelangelo was less involved with sculpture; he worked primarily in architecture, for which there is no physical labor. He was employed to design imposing monuments for Rome. Two monuments, the Capitoline square and the dome of St. Peter's, are still among the city's most famous icons. He did not finish either, but after his death both were completed with only minor modifications.

High Italian Renaissance 1490 to 1520 Michelangelo (Part 3 of 3)

High Italian Renaissance 1490 to 1520

Michelangelo (Part 3 of 3)

Michelangelo Michelangelo di Ludovico di Leonardo di Buonarotti Simoni

The Final Years in Rome: The Last Judgment Fresco, Capitoline Hill, and St. Peter's Dome.

High Italian Renaissance
1490 to 1520

Michelangelo
(Part 3 of 3)

High Italian Renaissance
1490 to 1520

Michelangelo
(Part 3 of 3)

Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Ludovico di Leonardo di Buonarotti Simoni

The Final Years in Rome:
The Last Judgment Fresco, Capitoline Hill, and St. Peter's Dome.