Sculptor, painter and Italian architect. Michelangelo Buonarroti. The name of Michel-Angel evokes with him only the artistic genius. Remarkable qualities of which it made proof in the most various fields acquired an uncontested place to him: sculptor, painter, architect and also poet, he personifies the union of art and the thought, through works of an unequalled originality.    

The creative power and expressive qualities of works of Michel-Angel, their characteristic intensity are the illustration of its vision of the world. The permanent fight of the matter and the spirit which appears as of its first achievements will charge in the course of time with a growing anguish.

The career of Michel-Angel starts in an artistic world in full change: the artists, up to that point very dependant on the corporations, approach the refined and cultivated sphere silent partners, who surround themselves by philosophers and well-read men and regard from now on the artists with their service as intellectuals. If the statute of the creators changes significantly, their powerful guards intend to use art with the profit of their ambitions as well private as political, and impose imposing projects.

The teaching which it receives within this framework does not seem to influence it durably: as of its beginnings, there exists at Michel-Angel a tendency to move away from what characterizes art Florentin of the end of the XV E century. Being diverted orientations of its time, it is devoted to more personal research which finds their inspiration in the art of the end of the XIV E century and the beginning of the XV E century. Works of Giotto and Masaccio, by their synthetic aspect and their imposing style, correspond to the spirit of truth towards which tightens Michel-Angel.

In the copies of these works, it reveals already a force and a dynamism in the relief which testify to a rare dramatic intensity. Thanks to the protection of Laurent de Médicis, the access to the garden of San Marco, which gathers a collection of antiques, enables him to study the sculpture and to mix with the humanistic close relations of Médicis, like Politien, Marsile Ficin and Pic of Mirandole, nearby of which it is initiated with traditional civilization and Neoplatonic philosophy. It carries out its first sculptures under the direction of Bertoldo di Giovanni, itself raises of Donatello, whose influence is felt by the use of a relief crushed in the Madonna on the scale (1490-1492). As for the Combat of Lapithes and Centaurs (1492), it must much with the pulpit of Nicola Pisano with Pistoia, but the strength which the sculptor manages to give to this group announces the achievements to come.  

The death of Laurent de Médicis and the threat of an invasion push Michel-Angel to be left for Bologna in 1494, where one asks him to complete the tomb of Dominique saint: he carves two figures of Saints and an Angel whose volumes are strongly marked and is opposed to the grace of the achievements of the Rebirth. A voyage to Rome, in 1496, enables him to come into closer contact with ancient works, whose monumentality holds its attention. Its taste, from now on impresses classicism, is expressed in Bacchus, orders of the banker Jacopo Galli carried out of 1496 to 1497: inspired by the gun of the Greek sculptor Polyclète, work is designed like a statue of garden which can be seen on all sides.

Another important order falls to him during this Roman stay: at the request of a French cardinal, it carries out of 1497 to 1499 a group representing a Pietà, intended for the oratory of holy Pétronille and placed since in the basilica of the Vatican. The topic chosen by Michel-Angel for its first carved masterpiece is then more frequent in painting. The Virgin, whose at the same time pathetic and soft face dominates of its purity the whole of the composition, receives the body of Christ in the folds of her dress. The work of the marble makes it possible to obtain light effects, returned by the movement of the folds, which directs the glance towards the face of the Virgin. This group, signed by sculptor and exposed in 1500, testifies to a perfect control and brings to its author a notoriety which exceeds Italy.  

The first years of the XVI E century see the return of Michel-Angel to Florence, where the gonfalonier Piero di Tommaso Soderini follows a policy of prestige then, favorable to the artistic production. At this period belong the carved philosopher's stones, of which some are inspired by a deep religious feeling, as the group representing a Virgin with the Child, bought by Flemish merchants and known under the name of Madone of Bruges. In 1501, Michel-Angel outlines for the Piccolomini furnace bridge of the cathedral of His the project of four statues of saints, who will be carried out in 1504 in the same precise style as the Pietà.  

During these same years, Michel-Angel undertakes to be measured with the old Masters, whose work, characterized by the use of the marble and the realization of works of big size, corresponds to its aspirations. Thus, when - always in 1501 - one entrusts to him an enormous block of marble of more than 4 m in height, from which several artists had not been able to draw a figure, he cuts a statue of David intended instead of palate of the Seigniory for Florence. For this gigantic work, it chooses not to take again the episode illustrated by Donatello, but to represent the shepherd at the time when it prepares with the combat against the Goliath giant: the stress is laid on the vigilance of the hero and the action in becoming. Michel-angel exceeds the ideal traditional model by conferring on this figure except standards a human reality which is expressed by a dynamic tension which traverses the anatomy. This “naked heroic”, the first comparable one with those produced in Antiquity, becomes the symbol of the political ideals of Florence. Order of colossal statues of the twelve apostles for Santa Maria del Fiore, alone is begun the Saint Matthieu (1503), who will remain unfinished.

Tireless painter

In 1501, Leonardo da Vinci exposes to Florence the preparatory paperboard of its Holy Anne, arousing a great interest among the artists. Drawings of Michel-Angel testify some: it retains of it a new form of interpretation of the relationship between the characters, translated by powerful masses, and the space which they occupy. Two medallions in relief, Tondo Pitti and Tondo Taddei, although treated in the direction of plastic strength, are an illustration. Influenced by Léonard, Michel-Angel finds solutions with the one of its main concerns: the conquest of a space allowing to isolate the human figure in order to tend to the universality.

In 1504, it is in competition with Vinci for the decoration of the room of the Council of Palazzo Vecchio. Their respective projects are not carried out in the long term, and the paperboards will be destroyed shortly after. In the Battle of Cascina, during Battle of Anghiari de Vinci, Michel-Angel chooses to represent a secondary episode in which the soldiers florentins, surprised at rest, express a great agitation. The topic dominating of the naked human body is the occasion for Michel-Angel to show its knowledge in anatomy; the representation of varied attitudes and erudite short cuts will contribute to ensure its reputation of painter. Copied before its disappearance, this paperboard could become a model for the contemporary painters.  

In 1505, Michel-Angel gives up the works in progress and leaves Florence for Rome at the request of the pope Jules II, who ordered to him a monumental tomb, intended for the basilica Saint-Pierre, still unfinished. The realization of the mausoleum is stopped, certain dissensions between the silent partner and the artist having caused the departure of this last for Florence in 1506. The pope, who makes a point much of rebuilding the basilica, wants to entrust to Michel-Angel decoration with fresco of the vault of the Sixtine vault and obtains finally his return to Rome in 1508. This one, left free of the choice of the iconography, represents scenes of the Old Testament, which come to supplement the frescos already painted on the side walls. The ceiling, 40 m length is divided into twelve zones, on which a false architecture is plated. The lower part, delimited by the glasses of the windows, is decorated with greyness which illustrates misfortunes of humanity. At the base of the vault the thrones of the Prophets and the Sibyls are: these intermediaries between the divine world and humanity are represented consulting books or contemplating thoughts. Above them, on false pilasters which separate the vault in nine compartments alternatively square and rectangular, of the naked teenagers, Ignudi, support bronze shields and frame the smallest scenes. Among the episodes which illustrate Creation, the scenes closest to the furnace bridge - God separating the light from the stars, the Creation of Adam - are treated in a broad way and use effects of short cuts and proportions gigantic which reveal the figure of God under the aspect of an ancient river. They are opposed in that to the scenes which the Creation of Eve, the Temptation or the Intoxication of Noah describe, more faithful to traditional balance. Ancestors of Christ, in the triangles placed between the thrones, and the Snake of bronze, in glasses of angle, announce the style of the last Judgment. Great diversity with which the figures are treated which decorate the vault with the Sixtine vault does not harm of anything the spiritual intensity which is released from the composition, considered like most succeeded Michel-Angel. The harmony which reigns between the form and the color answers that which emanates from the biblical subject, amplified by the Neoplatonic vision of the artist, who makes coincide Christian tradition and esthetic values of traditional Antiquity. This immense work is completed in 1512, and Michel-Angel can then start again to carve and take again the project of the tomb of Jules II.

Tombs of Médicis

In 1516, at the request of the pope Leon X, Michel-Angel turns over to Florence to work with the frontage of San Lorenzo; he remains there until 1534: this period, contrary to the Roman stay, is characterized by a prevalence granted to the sculpture - its art of predilection - and to architecture. In spite of their state of incompletion, four statues of Prisoners or Slaves are installed in the Boboli gardens. They are the perfect illustration of the sculpture of Michel-Angel, which wants that the form seems released from the matter.

In 1519, the Master is charged to build the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo, which must shelter the funerary vault of Médicis. This project gives the opportunity to him to associate three arts and to conceive an iconographic program mixing the Christian faith and the Neoplatonic ideas on immortality with the heart. Architecture uses contrasting effects of colors (white marble and gray stone), vertical and horizontal lines, and of light (lower zone left in the shade and very enlightened cupola). The statues of the dukes Julien and Laurent surmount the sarcophagi on which figures are lying whose form is inspired by the representations of rivers ancient: the Day and the Night, the Dawn and the Twilight suggest the flow of the time which leads to death. The dukes turn their meditative faces towards a Virgin to the Child full with melancholy. Statues and frescos designed to supplement the decoration were not carried out.

In same time, Michel-Angel built, as from 1524, the Laurentienne library, characteristic of another aspect of its architectural work. The design of the hall of this building escapes the human scale: Michel-angel uses traditional architectural elements, usually reserved for the frontages, and diverts them their functions in order to obtain an effect of dramatization of space. This choice is in total opposition with the architectural tradition of Quattrocento. During this period, apart from drawings in allegorical matter which testify to a different style, pictorial works are very few in the production of Michel-Angel; it seems from now on to prefer denser human figures.  
Michel-angel: the Night

The Sixtine vault

In 1534, the new pope, Paul III, confirm the ordering of a fresco for the wall of the bottom of the Sixtine vault, which must represent the last Judgment. Michel-angel is fixed definitively at Rome and works with this work until 1541. The choice of the artist deviates resolutely from the traditional iconography: he imagines an animated composition, without architectural framing and organizing itself around the figure of the Christ, who attracts all the glances. The gesture of this one imposes an order to the assembly of naked athletic whose style is the prolongation of that of the drawings of the previous period. The lugubrious atmosphere of this fresco to the metal colors is the reflection of the spiritual crisis which Michel-Angel passes through at that time and which is also expressed in drawings on religious subjects. The ideas of the catholic reforming medium that he attends then inspire him also the decoration of the Pauline vault in the Vatican.

The intensity and the style of the Conversion of saint Paul (1542-1545) are close to those of the Judgment, although the color range was cleared up. The Crucifixion of saint Pierre, last works painted Michel-Angel, lets appear a feeling of distress vis-a-vis the character relentless of the scene which is held in a climate of calm disconcerting; the color is more transparent and more delicate, almost more serene. The activity of Michel-Angel concentrates on the sculpture, and more particularly on the topic of the pietà, than it treats three times between 1550 and 1564. If, in the field of painting, the form remains the essential demonstration, the sculpture is directed more and more towards an abortive aspect. The Pietà da Palestrina (around 1540), the Pietà da Santa Maria del Fiore, intended for his tomb and where Michel-Angel was represented under the features of Nicodème, and the Rondanini Pietà - unfinished at the time of its death, in 1564, and which melts in only one mass Christ and her mother - are its last carved works

The building site of Saint-Pierre

Since 1529, at the time of the seat of Florence, Michel-Angel was interested in the military architecture. In 1538, the refitting of the place of Capitole enables him to apply its ideas on architecture. There exists, according to him, a relation between the architectonic elements of the building and the space which it occupies; the perception of space exceeds the only monument, which is truly thought like one of the elements of town planning.

For this site, occupied since Antiquity, he imagines a perfectly coherent architectural unit joining together old and modern monuments. Drawing of the pavement to the transformation of the palates of the Senators and Conservatives and to their integration in this trapezoidal place, which becomes the axis of a composition marked in its center by the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, all the details contribute to the balance and the success of the project conceived by Michel-Angel. It completes the Farnèse palate, started with the Rebirth with Antonio da Sangallo: its intervention relates to the first stage - that it raises by means of a cornice accentuating the effect of horizontality - on the central window, the third stage and the ordinance of the interior court. It arranges the church Holy-Marie-of-Angels, in the thermal baths of Dioclétien, and gives the drawing of Porta Pia (1561-1565), conceived as an independent building which must form part of the town-planning. Michel-angel, become architect of papacy in 1547, devotes the last years of its life to work of the Saint-Pierre basilica.

Following other architects, it takes again the project of Belling, to which it prints its plastic direction. The unit testifies to a great dynamism, which animates the heavy masses treated like an immense sculpture. The characteristic of this monument lies in the legibility of a composition primarily organized around the cupola. For this one, Michel-Angel adopts a party different from that chosen by Belling, which wanted to take as a starting point the cupola of the Pantheon. The influence of the Dome of Florence is sensitive in the cupola (finished by Giacomo Della Porta), whose vertical dash, accentuated by the play of the veins which directs the glance towards the lantern, is counterbalanced by the strong cornices of the building and the horizontality of the colonnade.  

The multiform genius of Michel-Angel was celebrated of alive sound, in particular by Vasari in its biography of the artist (1550). Its esthetic concerns, which lead it to privilege the form and the movement, move away from those of artists like Raphaël and Leonardo da Vinci, closer to the classicism resulting from the Rebirth. A personal vision of the world confers on work of Michel-Angel a dimension which exceeds the human one and allows him, by the creation of new forms, to anticipate mannerism and baroque.

Michel-angel in Bologna

Michel-angel returned to the paternal house after the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent in 1492. At the same moment, Savonarola began its violent preachings; and according to testimonies of the time, the artist was very affected after having read with attention his warnings. Little time before, the French king Charles VIII made flee of Florence Médicis, family protective of the artist, then it took refuge initially in Venice then in Bologna.

It remained in Bologna during approximately a year, host of the gentleman Gianfranco Aldrovandi. Michel-angel admired the reliefs of Jacopo della Quercia and carried out a low-relief for the church of San Petronio (unfortunately it was destroyed). Aldrovandi, man of culture, required of him to complete the work of the church of San Domenico, beforehand started with Nicolò dell' Arca, stopped by the death of this last. Thus Michel-Angel carried out the last statuettes which missed: those of the protective Saint of the Petronio city, San Procolo, an Angel carry-candelabrum.

That had to be a not very enthralling task for the artist, but these first statues which one of him and the powerful distribution of the plastic masses, draped and solidity, one feels already the passion which will animate its successive works.

It was the first stay of the artist in Bologna. He will return one second time there. He obtained the important task of the realization of the tomb of the Pope Jules II, but he realized to be relegated to the second plan compared to Belling and his new project for the church of Saint Pierre. After having spent eight month with Carrara to choose the best marbles for the project of the tomb, disappointed and jealous Michel-Angel, left Rome for another short stay in Bologna.

© Commune of Bologna