Durant W. The Renaissance. A History of Civilization in Italy from 1304-1576 A.D

seek utility first, hoping to have time for beauty in their

senility; aristocrats, though they nourish art, prefer the art of life

to the life of art.) Born in Siena (1481), Baldassare learned painting

under Sodoma and Pinturicchio, and soon went off to Rome. Apparently

it was he who painted the ceiling of the Stanza d'Eliodoro in the

Vatican, and Raphael thought the work good enough to leave much of

it unchanged. Meanwhile, like Bramante, he fell in love with the

classic ruins, measured the ground plans of the ancient temples and

palaces, and studied the diverse forms and arrangements of columns and

capitals. He became a specialist in the application of perspective

to architecture.

When Agostino Chigi decided to build the Villa Chigi, Peruzzi was

invited to design it (1508). The banker was pleased with the result-

the stately crowning of a Renaissance facade with classic moldings and

cornices; and finding that Peruzzi could also paint, he gave the young

artist freedom to decorate several rooms of the interior in

competition with Sebastiano del Piombo and Raphael. In the entrance

hall and the loggia Baldassare pictured Venus combing her hair, Leda

and her swan, Europa and her bull, Danae and her golden shower,

Ganymede and his eagle, and other scenes calculated to raise the tired

moneylender from the prose of his days to the poetry of his dreams.

Peruzzi set off his frescoes with borders painted in such tricks of

perspective that Titian thought them to be veritable reliefs in

stone. `052155 In the hall of the upper floor Baldassare made illusory

architecture with his brush: cornices sustained by pictured caryatids,

friezes supported by pictured pilasters, mimic windows opening upon

pictured fields. Peruzzi had fallen in love with architecture, and

made painting its handmaid, obeying all the builder's rules, but

spiritless. Let us make an exception here for the Biblical scenes that

he painted in a semidome of Santa Maria della Pace (1517), where

Raphael had painted sibyls three years before. Baldassare's frescoes

stood the comparison well, for these are his finest paintings, while

Raphael's there were not his best.

Leo X must have been impressed by Peruzzi's versatility, for he

appointed him to succeed Raphael as chief architect at St. Peter's

(1520), and engaged him to paint the scenery for Bibbiena's comedy,

La Calandra (1521). All that remains of Peruzzi's work on San Pietro

is the ground plan that he drew; Symonds pronounced it "by far the

most beautiful and interesting of those laid down for St.

Peter's." `052156 Leo's death, and the accession of a pope allergic to

art, drove Peruzzi back to Siena, then to Bologna. There he designed

the lovely Palazzo Albergati, and made a model for the never

finished facade of San Petronio. He hurried back to Rome when

Clement VII reopened the paradise of the arts, and resumed his work at

St. Peter's. He was still there when the imperial mob sacked Rome.

He suffered special tribulations, says Vasari, because "he was grave

and noble of aspect, and they thought him some great prelate in

disguise." They held him for a lordly ransom; but when he proved his

lowly status by painting a masterly portrait, they contented

themselves with taking from him all but the shirt on his back, and let

him go. He made his way to Siena, and arrived there almost naked.

The Sienese government, proud to recapture its prodigal son, engaged

him to design fortifications; and the church of Fontegiusta

commissioned him to paint a mural which was acclaimed by generous

critics as his chef-d'oeuvre - a Sibyl announcing to a frightened

Augustus the coming birth of Christ.

But Peruzzi's greatest success was the Palazzo Massimi delle

Colonne, which he designed on his return to Rome (1530). The Massimi

claimed descent, and derived their name, from Fabius Maximus, who

had earned immortality by idling; they took their surname from the

columned porch of their previous dwelling, which had been destroyed in

the sack. It was Peruzzi's good fortune that the curved irregularity

of the site forbade the usual dreary rectangular plan. He chose an

oval form, with a Renaissance facade and a Doric portico; and while

keeping the exterior simple, he gave the interior all the ornament and

splendor of a Roman palace of Imperial days, with Greek refinements of

proportion and decoration.

Despite his multiform ability Peruzzi died poor, not having had

the heart to haggle with popes, cardinals, and bankers for fees

commensurate with his skill. When Pope Paul III heard that he was

dying he bethought himself that only Peruzzi and Michelangelo remained

to raise St. Peter's from walls to dome. He sent the artist a

hundred crowns ($1250?). Baldassare thanked him, and died

nevertheless, at the age of fifty-four (1535). Vasari, after

suggesting that a rival had poisoned him, relates that "all the

painters, sculptors, and architects in Rome followed his body to the

grave."

X. MICHELANGELO AND CLEMENT VII: 1520-34

-

It is one of the credits in Clement's account that through all his

own misfortunes he bore with kindly patience the moods and revolts

of Michelangelo, plied him with commissions, and accorded him all

the privileges of genius. "When Buonarroti comes to see me," he

said, "I always take a seat and bid him be seated, feeling sure that

he will do so without leave." `052157 Even before becoming pope he

proposed (1519) what proved to be the artist's culminating

sculptural assignment: to add to the church of San Lorenzo in Florence

a "New Sacristy" as a mausoleum for famous Medici, to design their

tombs, and to adorn these with appropriate statuary. Confident in

the Titan's versatility, Clement also asked him to draw up

architectural plans for the Laurentian Library, strong and spacious

enough to safely house the literary collections of the Medici

family. The stately stairway and pillared vestibule of this Biblioteca

Laurenziana were completed (1526-7) under Angelo's supervision; the

remainder of the building was later put up by Vasari and others from

Buonarroti's designs.

The Nuova Sagrestia was hardly an architectural masterpiece. It

was planned as a simple quadrangle, divided with pilasters and

surmounted by a modest dome; its prime function was to receive

statuary in the recesses left in the walls. This "Medici Chapel" was

finished in 1524; and in 1525 Angelo began work on the tombs.

Clement wrote to him in the latter year a gently impatient letter:

-

Thou knowest that popes have no long life; and we cannot yearn

more than we do to behold the chapel with the tombs of our kinsmen, or

at any rate to hear that it is finished. And likewise as regards the

Library. Wherefore we recommend both to thy diligence. Meanwhile we

will betake us (in accord with your words) to a wholesome patience,

praying God that He may put it into thy heart to push the whole

enterprise forward together. Fear not that either commissions or

rewards shall fail thee while we live. Farewell, with God's blessing

and ours.- Giulio. `052158

-

There were to be six tombs: for Lorenzo the Magnificent, his

assassinated brother Giuliano, Leo X, Clement VII, the younger

Giuliano "too good to govern a state" (d. 1516), and the younger

Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino (d. 1519). Only the tombs of the last two were

completed, and even these not quite. Nevertheless they are the

apogee of Renaissance sculpture, as the Sistine Chapel is the summit

of Renaissance painting, and St. Peter's dome is the architectural

pinnacle of the Renaissance. The tombs show the dead men in the

prime of life, with no attempt to reproduce their real forms or

features: Giuliano in the garb of a Roman commander, Lorenzo as il

Penseroso, the thinker. When some incautious observer remarked this

lack of realism, Michelangelo answered with words that revealed his

sublime confidence in his artistic immortality: "Who will care, a

thousand years hence, whether these are their features or

not?" `052159 Reclining on the sarcophagus of Giuliano are two nude

figures: at the right a man allegedly symbolizing Day, at the left a

woman supposedly representing Night. Similar recumbent figures on

the tomb of Lorenzo have been named Twilight and Dawn. These

interpretations are hypothetical, perhaps fanciful; probably the

sculptor's aim was merely to carve again his secret fetish, the

human body, in all the splendor of male strength and all the comely

contours of the female form. As usual, he succeeded better with the

male; the unfinished figure of Twilight, slowly surrendering an active

and exhausting day to night, matches the noblest gods of the

Parthenon.

War intervened upon art. When Rome fell to the Landsknechte

(1527), Clement could no longer play patron, and Michelangelo's

papal pension of fifty crowns ($625) a month ceased. Meanwhile

Florence enjoyed two years of republican liberty. When Clement made up

with Charles, and a German-Spanish army was despatched to overthrow

the republic and reinstall the Medici, Florence appointed Angelo

(April 6, 1529) to a Committee of Nine- Nove di Milizia- for the

defense of the city. The Medicean artist became, by the hazard of

circumstance, the anti-Medicean engineer feverishly engaged in

designing and building forts and walls.

But as these works proceeded, Michelangelo became more and more

convinced that the city could not be successfully defended. What

single town, divided as Florence then was in heart and loyalties,

could withstand the artillery and excommunications of Empire and

papacy combined? On September 21, 1529, in a mood of panic, he fled

from Florence, hoping to escape to France and its amiable King.

Finding his way blocked by German-held terrain, he took temporary

refuge in Ferrara, then in Venice. Thence he sent a message to his

friend Battista della Palla, art agent of Francis I in Florence: Would

he join Angelo in flight to France? `052160 Battista refused to

leave the post that had been assigned to him in the defense of the

city; instead he wrote to Angelo a stirring appeal to return to his

duty, warning him that otherwise the government would confiscate his

property, leaving his impecunious relatives destitute. About

November 20 the artist was back at his work on the Florentine

fortifications.

According to Vasari he found time, even in those excited months,

to continue work secretly on the tombs of the Medici, and also to

paint, for Alfonso of Ferrara, the least characteristic of his

works, Leda and the Swan. It was a strange product for a man so

slightly sexual and so generally puritan; and perhaps it came from a

temporarily disordered mind. It showed the swan copulating with

Leda. Alfonso was something of a lecher between wars, but apparently

he had not chosen the subject. The messenger whom he sent to secure

the promised work expressed disappointment when he saw it, saying,

"This is a mere trifle," and made no effort to secure it for the Duke.

Angelo gave the picture to his servant Antonio Mini, who took it

with him to France, where it passed into the collection of the

omnivorous Francis I. It remained at Fontainebleau until the reign

of Louis XIII, when a high official ordered it destroyed because of

its indecency. How far this order was carried out, and what was the

later history of this original, is unknown. A copy remains in the

vaults of the London National Gallery. `052161 When Florence fell to

the returning Medici, Battista della Palla and other republican

leaders were put to death. Michelangelo hid himself for two months

in the house of a friend, expecting at any moment a like fate. But

Clement thought him worth more alive than dead. The Pope wrote to

his ruling relatives in Florence bidding them seek out the artist,

treat him with courtesy, and offer him the renewal of his pension if

he would resume work on the tombs. Michael agreed. But again, as

with the mausoleum of Julius, the mind of pontiff and artist had

conceived more than the hand could execute, and the Pope could not

live long enough to see the enterprise through. When Clement died

(1534) Michelangelo, fearful that Alessandro de' Medici would do him

harm now that his protector was gone, took the first opportunity to

slip off to Rome.

A profound and somber sadness marks the tombs, and the solemn

Madonna de' Medici that Angelo also carved for the Sacristy.

Historians fond of democracy (and exaggerating its scope in

Florence) have generally assumed that the recumbent figures

symbolize a city mourning its forced surrender to tyranny. But this

interpretation is probably fanciful: after all, they had been designed

while the Medici ruled Florence reasonably well; they had been

carved for a Medici Pope unfailingly kind to Angelo, and by an

artist indebted to Medici from his youth; it is not clear that he

intended to condemn the family whose tombs he was preparing; and his

representations of Giuliano and Lorenzo have nothing derogatory

about them. No, these figures express something deeper than the love

of liberty by the rich few to rule the poor unhindered by a Medici

house usually popular with the people. They express rather

Michelangelo's weariness with life, the fatigue of a man all nerves

and titanic uncompassable dreams, who found himself buffeted by a

thousand tribulations, harassed in almost every enterprise by the dull

recalcitrance of matter, the obtuseness of power, and the called-in

loans of borrowed time. Angelo had enjoyed but few of life's delights:

he had no friends on a par with his mind; woman seemed to him only a

smooth anatomy threatening peace; and even his most majestic

triumphs were the issue of exhausting toil and pain, the

unfinishable symphonies of melancholy meditation and inescapable

defeat.

But when Florence had fallen to her worst tyrants, and terror

ruled where once Lorenzo had governed happily, the artist who had

carved a criticism of life, and no mere theory of government, in the

marbles of the Medici shrine, felt that those melancholy figures

expressed, as well, the glory gone of the city that had nursed the

Renaissance. On the unveiling of the statue of Night the poet

Gianbattista Strozzi wrote a quatrain of literary exposition:

-

The Night thous seest here, posed gracefully

In act of slumber, was by an angel wrought

Out of this stone. Sleeping, with life she's fraught.

Wake her, incredulous wight; she'll speak to thee.

-

Michelangelo pardoned the complimentary pun on his name, but

rejected the interpretation. He gave his own in four lines that are

the most revealing in his poetry:

-

Caro m'e il sonno, e piu l'esser di sasso

Mentre che 'l danno e la vergogna dura.

Non veder, non sentir m'e gran ventura;

Pero non mi destar, deh! parla basso.-

-

Dear is my sleep, but more to be mere stone,

So long as ruin and dishonor reign.

To see naught, to feel naught, is my great gain;

Then wake me not; speak in an undertone. `052162

XI. THE END OF AN AGE: 1528-34

-

Clement did not die until he had made one more reversal of policy,

and had crowned his disasters by losing England for the Church (1531).

The spread of the Lutheran revolt in Germany had created for Charles V

difficulties and dangers that might, he hoped, be eased by a general

council. He urged this upon the Pope, and was angered by repeated

excuses and delays. Irritated in turn by the Emperor's award of Reggio

and Modena to Ferrara, Clement veered again toward France. He accepted

a proposal of Francis that Caterina de' Medici should marry the King's

second son Henry, and he signed secret articles binding himself to

help Francis recover Milan and Genoa (1531). `052163 At a second

conference in Bologna (1532) between Pope and Emperor, Charles again

proposed a general council at which Catholics and Protestants might

meet and find some formula of reconciliation; he was again rebuffed.

He suggested a marriage of Catherine with Francesco Maria Sforza,

imperial vicar in Milan; he found that the proposal came too late;

Catherine was already sold. On October 12, 1533, Clement met Francis

at Marseille, and there married his niece to Henry, Duke of Orleans.

It was a prime defect of the Medici as popes that they thought of

themselves as a royal dynasty, and sometimes rated the glory of

their family above the fate of Italy or the Church. Clement tried to

persuade Francis to make peace with Charles; Francis refused, and

had the audacity to ask papal acquiescence to a temporary alliance

of France with the Protestants and the Turks against the

Emperor. `052164 Clement thought that this was going a bit too far.

"Under these circumstances," says Pastor, "it must be considered

fortunate for the Church that the Pope's days were

numbered." `052165 He had already lived too long. At his accession

Henry VIII was still Defensor fidei, defender of the orthodox

faith against Luther; and the Protestant revolt had as yet proposed no

vital doctrinal changes, but only such ecclesiastical reforms as the

Council of Trent would legislate for the Church in the next

generation. At Clement's death (September 25, 1534) England,

Denmark, Sweden, half of Germany, part of Switzerland had definitely

broken away from the Church, and Italy had submitted to a Spanish

domination fatal to the free thought and life that had for good or

evil marked the Renaissance. It was beyond doubt the most disastrous

pontificate in the history of the Church. Everyone had rejoiced at

Clement's accession, everyone rejoiced at his death; and the rabble of

Rome repeatedly defiled his tomb. `052166

BOOK VI: FINALE: 1534-76

CHAPTER XXII: Sunset in Venice: 1534-76

I. VENICE REBORN

-

IT is something of a mystery that this age of thralldom and

decline for the rest of Italy was for Venice a golden age. She had

suffered severely from the wars of the League of Cambrai; she had lost

many of her Eastern possessions to the Turks; her trade with the

Eastern Mediterranean was repeatedly disturbed with war and piracy;

her commerce with India was passing to Portugal. Why, then, could

she support in this period architects like Sansovino and Palladio,

writers like Aretino, painters like Titian, Tintoretto, and

Veronese? In this same age Andrea Gabrieli played the organ and led

the choirs at San Marco, and wrote madrigals that sounded through

Italy; music was a pampered passion of rich and poor; the palaces on

the Grand Canal were rivaled in interior luxury and art only by

those of bankers and cardinals in Rome; a hundred poets recited

their verses in booths and taverns and public squares; a dozen

companies of players performed comedies, permanent theaters were

built, and Vittoria Piissimi, la bella maga d'amore, "the lovely

sorceress of love," was the toast of the city as an actress, singer,

and dancer as women replaced boys in female parts, and the reign of

divas began.

Only the lamest explanation of the mystery will be given here.

Though deeply injured by war, Venice had never been invaded; her homes

and shops remained intact. She had recovered her mainland possessions,

and included populous cities like Padua, Vicenza, and Verona among her

tributaries in education, economy, and genius (Colombo and Cornaro

at Padua, Palladio at Vicenza, Veronese from Verona). She still

dominated large areas of trade in and near the Adriatic. Her leading

families had still unspent treasures of nursed and inherited wealth.

Old industries continued to flourish, and found new markets in

Christendom; it was now, for example, that Venetian glass reached

its tenuous crystalline perfection. The Venetian leadership in

luxury products was maintained, and in this age Venetian lace first

acquired fame. Despite religious censorship, Venice still gave

asylum to political refugees, and to intellectual refugees like

Aretino, who fumigated his hilarious ribaldries with periodical

contributions to the literature of piety.

Toward the end of this period Venice twice demonstrated her civic

vigor and resilience. In 1571 she took a leading part, with Spain

and the papacy, in equipping the armada of two hundred vessels that

destroyed a Turkish fleet of 224 ships off Lepanto in the Gulf of

Corinth. That victory, which may have saved western Europe for

Christendom, was celebrated by Venice with three days of mad

rejoicing: the region of the Rialto was hung with cloths of

turquoise or gold; every window made the canals colorful with flags or

tapestries; a great triumphal arch rose at the Rialto bridge; and

paintings by the Bellini, Giorgione, Titian, and Michelangelo were

displayed in the streets. The subsequent carnival was the wildest that

Venice had ever known, setting the pace for many later carnivals;

everyone masked and frolicked, laying a moratorium upon morality;

and clowns like Pantalone and Zanni (i.e., Johnny) gave their names to

a dozen languages.

And then, in 1574 and 1577, tragic fires in the Ducal Palace

gutted several rooms; paintings by Gentile da Fabriano, the Bellini,

the Vivarini, Titian, Pordenone, Tintoretto, and Veronese were

destroyed; in two days the labor and art of a century disappeared. The

spirit of the republic shone out in the rapidity and resolution with

which the damaged interiors were restored. Giovanni da Ponte was

commissioned to rebuild the chambers on their former lines; Cristoforo

Sorte designed in twenty-nine divisions the marvelous ceiling of the

Sala del Maggior Consiglio; and the walls were painted by

Tintoretto, Veronese, Palma Giovane, and Francesco Bassano. In other

rooms- the Collegio or meeting place of the Doge and his council,

the Anticollegio or antechamber, the Sala de' Pregadi or Senate

Hall- ceilings and doors and windows were designed by the greatest

architects of the age- Iacopo Sansovino, Palladio, Antonio

Scarpagnino, Alessandro Vittoria.

Iacopo d'Antonio di Iacopo Tatti was by birth (1486) a Florentine.

He "went very reluctantly to school," says Vasari, but took eagerly to

drawing. His mother encouraged this disposition; his father, who had

hoped to make a merchant of him, was overruled. So Iacopo went to

serve as apprentice to the sculptor Andrea Contucci di Monte San

Savino, who loved the lad so well, and taught him so

conscientiously, that Iacopo came to look upon him as a father, and

adopted Andrea's cognomen, Sansovino, as his own. The youth had also

the good fortune to make a friend of Andrea del Sarto, and perhaps

learned from him the secrets of graceful and animated design. While in

Florence the young sculptor carved the Bacchus now in the

Durant W. The Renaissance. A History of Civilization in Italy from 1304-1576 A.D

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