Chapter 20 1 love - 5

She died, and he watched her die.He said the following words, which are enough to show how reserved their chaste love is: "I watched her die, and I didn't kiss her forehead and face as I kissed her hands. It is sad to think of this. Desperate!" Kondivi recorded. "Victoria's death," according to Condivey, "has left him in a daze for a long time; he seems to have lost all sense." "She has been a great treasure to me," he said afterwards mournfully. "Death has taken a dear friend of mine." He wrote two sonnets about her death.One is completely infected with Platonic ideas, expressing his wild idealism, like a night illuminated by lightning.Michelangelo compared Victoria to the hammer of a godly sculptor who carves sublime ideas out of matter: "My clumsy hammer, which cuts solid rock sometimes into one image, sometimes into another, It is held and commanded by the hand, from which the hammer receives its motion, and is moved by an alien force. But the hammer of the gods, by its only power, creates its own in heaven Beauty and all other beauty. No other hammer can create without a hammer; only this one animates everything else. As the hammer is held higher, it strikes with greater force. Therefore, if the gods The Hammer Hand can help me, and he will surely lead my work to a happy result. So far, she is the only one on earth.” Anthology of Poems, Vol. 101.

Another sonnet is more tender, proclaiming the triumph of love over death: "Nature is ashamed when she, whom I have so often lamented, forsakes the world, forsakes herself, and perishes in my eyes, And all who saw her wept! In this solemn and quiet friendship, Michelangelo's friendship with Vittoria Colonna was not the only passion.This friendship was not enough to satisfy his soul.People are reluctant to say this, I am afraid they will idealize Michelangelo.How much Michelangelo needs to be idealized! When Michelangelo left Florence to live in Rome in 1534, he thought, freed from all work by the death of Clement VII, that he could finally finish Julius II in peace. After that, after the burden on his conscience is lifted, he can end his remaining life peacefully.But he had only just arrived in Rome, and his new master tied him up again.

"Paul III summoned him to enshrine him. . . . Michelangelo refused, saying he could not do so; because he was bound by contract to the Duke of Urbino unless he sent Julius After the tomb of Pope II was completed, the pope said angrily: "I have had this wish for thirty years; and now that I have become the pope, can't my wish be fulfilled? I will tear up the contract. In any case, I will You serve me.'" Vasari records. Michelangelo wanted to flee again. "He wanted to retire to a monastery near Djenné, where the Bishop of Aleria was a friend of his, and of Julius II. He might be able to finish his work there conveniently. He also thought of taking refuge in Urbino, a quiet place and the hometown of Julius II; He. He has sent someone to buy a house there," Kondivi recorded.

But, at the moment of decision, the will is gone again; he considers the consequences of his actions, he deceives himself with an eternal dream, an eternal shattered dream: he compromises.He was tied up again, and continued to bear the heavy workload until the finale. On September 1, 1535, a decree of Paul III appointed him Director of Architecture, Painting and Sculpture at St. Peter's.Michelangelo has been working on The Last Judgment since April.This huge fresco covers the entire entrance wall of the Sistine Chapel, which Clement VII had already thought about in 1533.From April, 1536, to November, 1541, during Victoria's sojourn in Rome, he ran the business entirely.That is, in the course of this work, in 1539, the old man fell from a gallows and badly injured his leg, "in pain and anger, he would not consult any doctor."Vasari records.He despised doctors, and expressed absurd apprehension in his letters when he knew that his family had taken the liberty of extending his doctor.

"Fortunately, after he fell, his friend, Baggio Londini of Emerald, was a very wise doctor and was very loyal to Michelangelo. He pitied him and went to knock on his chest one day. No one answered him, so he went upstairs and searched from room to room until he came to the room where Michelangelo was asleep. Michelangelo was very disappointed to see him coming. But Baggio didn't want to go anymore, until Leave him only after he has been healed," Vasari records. Like Julius II before him, Paul III came to see him paint and take part in his opinions.His chief ceremonial, Cesena, accompanied him, and the pope consulted him on the work.This, according to Vasari, was a very pedantic man, declaring that in such a solemn place it was irreverent to show so much obscene nudity; it was, he said, the painting that adorned a bathroom or an inn.Michelangelo was indignant, and after Cesena left, he drew his portrait in the picture from memory; he put him in hell, painted the image of Judge Minos, and was surrounded by poisonous snakes among the demons. Live the legs.Cesena went before the Pope to speak.Paul III joked with him and said: "If Michelangelo put you in prison, I can still try to rescue you; but if he puts you in hell, there is nothing I can do; there is nothing you can do in hell." It's saved."

But Cesena was not the only one who found Michelangelo's paintings obscene.A chastity movement was being promoted in Italy; and it was not far off when Veronese was charged before the pagan court for painting Cenechez Simon (The Feast at Simon's House).It happened in June, 1573. ——Veronese honestly took "The Last Judgment" as a precedent, and defended: "I admit that this is not good; but I still insist on what I have said, for me, according to my masters. My example is a due duty."—"And what did your masters do? Maybe the same thing?"—"Michelangelo in Rome, in the church of the Pope, set me Christ the Lord, His Mother, St. John, St. Peter, and the gods of heaven and all are represented in the nude. Behold the Virgin Mary, in a pose which is not evocative in any religion?  … .." AA Veronese (1528-1588), the main painter of the Venetian School of Painters and a famous master of color.Many people shouted that it is harmful to weathering.The most clamorous one was Lalaitin.The obscene writer wanted to teach the chaste Michelangelo a lesson in order.This is an act of revenge.Laretin repeatedly asked him for artworks; he even pretended to design a drawing for Michelangelo's "Last Judgment".Michelangelo politely declined the offer, and pretended not to hear his request for a gift.Therefore, Laretine had to show some skills to Michelangelo, and let him know the price of looking down on him.He wrote him a shameless letter.He reproached him with "showing that which even a harlot would be ashamed of," and charged him with impiety in a pagan court. "Because," he said, "it is a more serious crime to destroy the faith of another than to disbelieve one's own." He begged the pope to destroy the fresco.In his indictment he said that he was a Lutheran heretic; at the end he said that he had stolen Julius II's money.The letter also infringes on the innocent Gherardo Perini and Tommaso Cavalieri (Mi's friends, see above).This shameless letter, with a threatening word added at the end, meant to coerce him to send him a gift to take away the deepest part of Michelangelo's soul—his piety, his friendship, his love, etc. The sentiment of honor—all insulted, Michelangelo could not help reading this letter with a smile of contempt, but he could not help weeping with rage, and he did not answer.Doubtless he thought, as if thinking of certain enemies: "It is not worth striking them; for their victory is of little importance."—And when Laretine and Cesena wrote about the Last Judgment When the views of ” gradually took hold, he did not try to answer them, nor did he try to stop them.He said nothing, when his work was considered "Lutheran filth".In 1549 a man from Fei Leng Cui said so.He said nothing, when Paul IV was about to take down his fresco.In 1596, Clement VIII wanted to paint out The Last Judgment.He said nothing, while Daniele ter Voltere was ordered by the Pope to put his heroes in trousers.It happened in 1559. —Daniel ter Voltaire calls his modification work "Put on the pants".He was a friend of Michelangelo.Another friend, the sculptor Amanati, denounced the nudes as obscene.Therefore, in this matter, Mi's believers did not support him. --He was asked for his opinion.He replied without anger, with a mixture of sarcasm and pity: "Tell the pope that it is a small matter that is easy to rectify. If His Majesty is willing to rectify the world: it does not take much to rectify a painting." Mentally."—He knew with what kind of fervent faith he had completed this work, inspired by the religious conversation with Victoria Colonna, under the cover of this white and spotless soul.He would be ashamed to justify his heroic ideas in nude figures to foul speculations and dirty minds.

When the Sistine frescoes were completed, Michelangelo thought he would finally be able to complete the monument to Julius II. The inauguration of The Last Judgment took place on December 25, 1541.People came from all over Italy, France, Germany, and Flanders.But the dissatisfied Pope forced the seventy-year-old man to paint the murals of the Pauline Church.These murals include "St. Paul's Conversation", "St. Peter on the Cross" and so on.Michaelis started in 1542, stopped for a while in 1544 and 1546 due to two illnesses, and was barely completed in 1549-1550.Vasari said: "This is the last painting he made in his life, and it took a lot of energy; because painting, especially murals, is not suitable for old people." The few statues on the tomb of Emperor II are a fluke.He signed the fifth and final contract with the heir of Julius II.According to this contract, he delivered the completed statues, initially "Moses" and two "slaves"; but later Michelangelo thought that the "slaves" were no longer suitable for this reduced building, so he shaped the "Slaves" again. Action Life" and "Meditation Life" instead.Paid for the employment of two sculptors to finish the tomb: thus he was forever relieved of all responsibility.

His misery was not over, and the descendants of Julius II continued to demand from him the money they had received from him.The Pope had him told not to think about these things, but to concentrate on the frescoes in the Paoline Chapel.He replied: "But we paint with our brains, not with our hands! People who don't think about themselves don't know honor or disgrace; so as long as there is something wrong with my heart, I can't make good things... I have been surrounded by this tomb all my life." Connected; I've lost my youth trying to get this done before Leo X and Clement VII; my too-serious conscience has ruined me. My fate bids me! I I saw that quite a few people earned as much as two or three thousand gold coins a year; and I, after all the hardships, were finally poor. People still thought I was a thief!..." Michael Miller's October 1542 book ( Recipient unknown).

In order to deal with his enemies, he completed the two images of "Life of Action" and "Life of Meditation" by himself.Although the contract does not require him to do so. In the first month of 1545, the tomb of Julius II was finally inaugurated in St. Peter's Temple in Vincoli.What remains of the original wonderful plan? ——"Moses" was originally intended to be just a supporting statue, but here it becomes the central statue.A sketch of a great plan! At least, it's over.Michelangelo was freed from the nightmare of his life.