Chapter 8 Yili-5

Such labor has had lamentable results.The statue of Julius II, erected in front of the Temple of San Petronio in February 1508, only lived for four years.In December 1511 it was destroyed by the Bentivoli, enemies of Julius II; the remaining bronze was bought by Alphonse d'Este to cast cannon. Michelangelo returns to Rome.Julius II ordered him to do another equally unexpected and difficult project.For this painter who knew nothing about mural painting techniques, the Pope ordered him to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.One could say that he was giving impossible orders, and Michelangelo would carry them out.

It seems that it was Bramante again, seeing that Michelangelo was back in favor again, and made it difficult for him and discredited him.That is at least Condivi's opinion.But we should note that the question of Michelangelo's Sistine frescoes had already been raised before he fled to Bologna. Leave Rome. (Pietro Rosselli to Michelangelo, May 1506) That is, in 508, Michael's rival Raphael started the Stanza group of frescoes in the Vatican Palace, which achieved great success. With great success, Michelangelo's mission is especially dangerous, because his enemies already have masterpieces out there to challenge him.Between April and September 1508, Raphael painted the frescoes in the so-called "Hall of the Princes".Among them are "The School of Athens", "The Eucharistic Controversy" and other famous works.He did everything in his power to decline the dreadful errand, and he even offered to ask Raphael to replace him: it was not his art, he said, and he would never succeed.But the pope was so stubborn he had to back down.

Bramante built a pedestal for Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, and called several experienced fresco painters from Florence to help him.But it has been said above that Michelangelo could not have any assistants.He said at the beginning that Bramante's stand was useless and built another one.As for the painters recruited from Fei Leng Cui, he felt a headache when he saw it, and sent them out without giving any reason. "One morning he destroyed everything they had drawn; he shut himself up in the church, he would not let them in again, and hid himself from sight even in his own house. When the jest seemed When it lasted long enough, they were so dismayed that they decided to go back to Emerald." See Vasari.

Michelangelo kept only a few workmen by his side; in Michelangelo's letter to his father in 1510, he mentioned that his assistants could do nothing, "as long as one goes to serve him...  Of course I can't help it! I myself feel that I can't help enough! He made me suffer like a beast".But the difficulties not only did not dampen his courage, but also made him expand his plan. He decided to paint the surrounding walls in addition to the original zenith. On May 10, 1508, the great work began.Dark days,--the darkest and noblest of all my career!This is the legendary Michelangelo, the hero of Sistine, whose great face should be engraved in the memory of mankind forever.

He was in great pain.Letters from that era attest to his frenzied disappointment, which was by no means rescued by his godlike thoughts: "My spirits are in utter distress. For a year I have not received a penny from the Pope; what have I Nor do I ask him for it, because my work seems not to be worth asking for payment. Because of the slowness of the work, because of technical difficulties, because this is not my expertise. Therefore my time is wasted. God bless me! "Letter to his father on January 27, 1509. He has just finished painting "The Flood", and the work has begun to mold: the faces of the characters are unclear.He refused to go on.But the pope was not forgiving.He had to go back to work.

In addition to all his fatigue and troubles, there is even more entanglement with his family.The whole family lived off him, misused his money, and squeezed him like hell.His father was constantly moaning and moaning about money.He had to spend a lot of time encouraging him when he himself was sick and miserable. "Don't be upset, this is not something you are insulted in life... As long as I have something in myself, I will never make you short... Even if you lose everything in the world, as long as I exist, you There shall be nothing wanting....I would rather be poor and you live than have all the gold and silver wealth in the world and you be dead.... If you cannot win honor in the world with the rest, do so with Sufficient with your bread, poor and rich, live with Christ, as I do here, for I am wretched, and I neither worry about life nor honor—that is, for the world— but I live in great pain, and in endless suspicion. I have not had a good day in fifteen years, and I have held you up; and you have never known nor believed. God Forgive you all! I intend to be the same in the future, as long as I exist, if only I can!" to his father. (1509-1512) His three younger brothers depended on him.They waited for his money, waited for him to find a place for them; they squandered without scruple the little fortune he had amassed in Florence; they came to Rome to attach themselves to him; Asking him to buy a commercial property for them, Sigismondo asked him to buy a property near Emerald.And they were in no way grateful to him: it seemed to be his debt to them.Michelangelo knew they were exploiting him; but he was too proud to show his incompetence by rejecting them.Those rascals are still restless.They acted erratically and abused their father when Michelangelo was away.And Michelangelo jumped up.He treated his brothers like urchins and whipped them.He might kill them if necessary.

"Giovan Simone: Giovan Simone committed atrocities against his father. Michelangelo wrote to his father: "In your letters I know everything and Simone's actions.I haven't had worse news in ten years... If I could, the day I get the letter, I'd get on my horse and put everything in order.But since I could not do so, I wrote to him.But if he doesn't reform, if he takes a toothpick from the house, if he does anything you hate, tell me: I'll ask the Pope for leave, I'll come back. "(Spring 1509) As the saying goes, doing good with a good man makes him better, and doing good with an evil man makes him worse. For years I have endeavored to reform you by kind words and gentle deeds, Live well with my father and us, and you are getting worse and worse... I might be able to tell you in detail, but it's just empty words. Don't waste your time now, as long as you know exactly what you are in the world Nor; for it is I who keep you alive for God's sake, for I believe you are my brother as well as the rest. But I judge at this moment that you are not my brother; for if you were, then you would not threaten me Father. You are a beast, and I will treat you like a beast. Know that a man who sees his father threatened or abused should die for him... Enough of these things have been done!

Michelangelo still had two lines in Rome.For twelve years I have lived a miserable life for the sake of all Italy, I have suffered all kinds of pain, I have endured all kinds of disgrace, my fatigue has ruined my body, I have passed my life through countless dangers, just to help my soul. Family;--and now I've revived our fortune a little, and you've ruined in an hour what I've built with so much pain and years! Then it was Sigismundo's turn: "Here I am, living a life of utter boredom and utter weariness. I have no friends of any kind, and I would not have . . . seldom can I dine comfortably. Tell me no more troublesome things; for I can bear no trouble any longer." To Sigismundo, October 17, 1509.

Finally, a third brother, Buonarotto, who served in Strozzi's shop, asked Michelangelo, after asking for a large sum, to spend freely, and to "use more than he received" Proud: "I want to know your ingratitude," Michelangelo wrote to him: "I want to know where your money comes from; I want to know: you paid in the New Santa Maria Bank Do you understand that I am using my money when I use my two hundred and twenty-eight gold coins and the hundreds of other gold coins I sent home, and do you know that I have gone through all kinds of hardships to support you? I want to know that you have Have you ever thought about all this!

Such is the environment of fickleness and envy that Michelangelo struggles between his family who exploit him and enemies who slander him endlessly.And he, during this period, completed the works of Sistine's hero.But what a miserable price he paid!He almost gave up everything and ran away again.His confidence was dying.Letter of August, 1512.He might like that. The Pope was enraged at his slowness and obstinacy in not showing him the work.Their arrogant personalities collide with each other like two dark clouds during a shower. "One day," Condive recounts, "Julius II asked him when he could finish the painting, and Michelangelo, following his custom, replied: 'When I can.' The pope was furious, Hit him with his staff, and repeated in his mouth: 'When I can! When I can!'" Michelangelo ran home and prepared to pack to leave Rome.Julius II immediately sent a man to give him five hundred ducats, tried to comfort him, and apologized for the pope.Michelangelo accepted the apology. "

But the next day, they repeated it again, and one day the pope finally said to him angrily: "Do you want me to throw you down from the pedestal?" Michelangelo had to retreat; he removed the pedestal, Uncover the work, it was All Saints' Day in 1512. That grand and somber ceremony, this ceremony of sacrifice to the dead, was well suited to the inauguration of this dreadful work, filled with the spirits of the gods of life and death,--with a tempest and thunderstorm The god who swept across the sky with momentum brought all the power of life.The works of Michelangelo are explained in another book, so I won’t repeat them here.