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Preface to Michelangelo 1475-1564. The Complete Paintings, Sculptures,

Architecture

Chapter · January 2017

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Frank Zöllner
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Michelangelo
 Frank Zöllner
Christof Thoenes

Michelangelo
1475–1564
The Complete Paintings,
Sculptures, Architecture
Contents
6, 14
Prefaces

16 36 70 324 378 492

I. The start of a II. Between Florence, III. The breakthrough VII. The sculptor 1513–1534 VIII. Presentation drawings IX. The architect in Rome
magnificent career Bologna and Rome in Florence and Last Judgement 1534–1564
1475–1491 1492–1500 1501–1504 1534–1541

586–749
Catalogues
Sculptures 586
Paintings 654
Architecture 706

750–789
Appendices
Bibliographical sources
106 126 294 546 582 for life and work 750
IV. Between Rome V. The Sistine Ceiling VI. The architect X. Late works: The final Epilogue Bibliography 758
and Florence 1505–1508 1508–1512 in Florence 1513–1534 paintings and sculptures Index 782
1540–1564 Credits 790
 Preface
Frank Zöllner

The first publication of this book in 2007 and its second, 2014 edition were inspired by the
ambition to present Michelangelo’s work and his artistic concepts in comprehensive fashion.
This aim went hand in hand with the thesis that Michelangelo, as the prototype of the mod-
ern, self-expressive artist, succeeded in emancipating himself from the aesthetic conventions
of his day from an early stage in his career. My aim was also to situate Michelangelo’s works
within their contemporary context and within the history of their respective genres and to
interpret their content in ways that are both reasonable and comprehensible against this back-
drop. The main, biographical section of the book furthermore undertakes an evaluation of the
most important documentary sources, while the catalogue section offers a critical appraisal of
the literature of the past few decades. A survey of research published since 2007 would also be
desirable, but goes beyond the scope of this preface.
I believe it is important to discuss two new discoveries that have a significant bearing upon
Michelangelo’s relationship with antiquity, upon his beginnings as a sculptor and his work as
a painter, and upon his career plans in spring 1519. The first of these concerns the rediscovery,
publicly announced in June 2010, of a small antique marble group and its significance for
Michelangelo (ill. p. 8). The group, which shows three satyrs fighting a serpent, was originally
excavated in January 1489 on the Viminal in Rome (Sotheby’s Antiquities 2010, no. 29; Fusco/
Corti 2006, pp. 52–53). It was subsequently acquired by Lorenzo de’ Medici for his collection
of antiquities in Florence – the very place where the young Michelangelo became a sculptor.
Soon after this, however, the Three Satyrs was lost from view and as a consequence received no
attention in Michelangelo scholarship. The rediscovery of this marble group now makes it clear

Jacopino del Conte, Portrait of Michelangelo, c. 1535

Oil on canvas, 98.5 x 68 cm. Florence, Casa Buonarroti

7
 michel angelo
Unknown artist, Three Satyrs Fighting a Serpent, 1st cent.
Marble, 80 x 64.1 x 31 cm. Private collection
that The Battle of the Centaurs (Cat. S2), the earliest work of sculpture confidently attributed
to Michelangelo and produced between 1490 and 1492, was substantially influenced by this
prominent piece in the Medici collection. Thus several motifs of movement in The Battle of the
Centaurs go back to the Three Satyrs. A further parallel with Michelangelo’s œuvre can be seen
in the marble base of the Roman sculptural group, which has been left rough-hewn. We find
similar instances of marble surfaces that have been only roughly worked, and which hence give
the impression of being unfinished, in The Battle of the Centaurs and in the Taddei Tondo and
Pitti Tondo (Cat. S12 and S13). Michelangelo’s trademark non finito is thus directly inspired by
antiquity (Zöllner 2010; 2015).
To understand the great importance of the Three Satyrs, we should call to mind the con-
crete examples with which Giorgio Vasari and Ascanio Condivi illustrate the importance of
antiquity for Michelangelo’s beginnings as a sculptor. The two biographers report that Michel-
angelo’s very first sculpture was the Head of a Faun, which he copied from an antique original
in the Medici sculpture garden, i.e. in around 1490. The story is the same with Michelangelo’s
8 9
preface
The Battle of the Centaurs, 1492
Marble, 80 x 90.5 cm. Florence, Casa Buonarroti
life-sized marble figure of a Sleeping Cupid, which the artist produced in the winter of 1495–
1496, likewise after an antique model in the Medici collection. Both of these early sculptures
by Michelangelo, like the works on which they were based, are now lost. In view of this fact,
the Three Satyrs from the Medici collection assumes a particular significance, since it allows
us to form a first reliable opinion on how the young Michelangelo oriented himself towards
antiquity in concrete terms.
The second new discovery, one that has likewise received no attention in the literature,
concerns Michelangelo’s role as a painter of minor commissions and his career plans in spring
1519. It is a receipt dated 5 June 1519, today preserved in the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin, in
which Michelangelo confirms a commission for a panel painting and a corresponding payment
(Sternstunden 2008, p. 54; Zöllner 2011). Loosely translated, the text of the receipt runs as fol-
lows: “I Michelangelo, son of Lodovico Simoni, Florentine sculptor here in Rome, received
on this day, the fifth of June, from Lionardo de Bartolini, also a Florentine, for a picture of
Our Lady which I have undertaken to paint, 100 ducats from the vault. To certify that this is
 preface

Michelangelo (?), Receipt addressed to Lionardo di Bartolini, 21.1 x 28 cm

Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Sammlung Darmstaeder 2o 1510: Buonarroti, Michelangelo, f. 1r

Self-portrait,
detail of The Conversion of Saul, 1542–1545
(ill. pp. 554/555)

true I have written this document in my own hand. 1519.” (Io Michelagniolo dilodovicho simoni
schultore Fiorentino qui in Roma o ricievuto oggi questo dí cinque diunio da lionardo debartolini
pur fiorentino per chonto di un di pinto di nostra donna ch’o preso a fare ducati cento dichamera e
per fede delvero o’ facta questa dimia mano propria 1519.)
The Bartolini receipt was purchased by the Berlin autograph collector Ludwig
Darmstaedter (1846–1927) in 1917 from the estate of the publisher and bookseller Alexander
Duncker (1813–1897), through the agencies of Martin Breslauer (1871–1940). Its provenance
can thus be traced back to roughly 1897. The Staatsbibliothek library record names Emperor
Maximilian of Mexico (1832–1867) as another former owner of the receipt, but there is no firm
evidence to support this.
Christoph Luitpold Frommel has recently voiced doubts over the authenticity of the
receipt and suggests that it is a feeble imitation from a later epoch (Frommel 2013, p. 125).
Palaeographical analysis argues against this conclusion, however. The text is set down on paper
in a confident and flowing manner and in a handwriting that corresponds with compara-
ble documents. Tracking Michelangelo’s whereabouts from his correspondence and records,
moreover, it emerges that he could indeed have been in Rome between 23 May and 5 June
11
 michel angelo

1519 (Carteggio II, pp. 190–197; Ricordi 1970, p. 85f ). The patron named in the document
is probably Lionardo di Zanobi de Bartolini. He was Leo X’s personal banker and a major
pillar of Medici papal politics inside and outside Rome (Tewes 2011, p. 145). There would be
nothing surprising about a commission for Michelangelo issuing from a Florentine
client attached to the Medici papal court. The receipt is interesting above all because it shows
Michelangelo, despite not yet having completed major projects such as the Julius Tomb and
the façade of San Lorenzo, accepting a relatively minor commission as a painter. If genuine, it
also puts into perspective the legend that Michelangelo perceived himself first and foremost
as a sculptor. Furthermore, the receipt coincides with the very same point in time at which
Michelangelo was facing the cancellation of his overly ambitious project for the façade of
San Lorenzo (Elam 1992b; Hirst 2011, pp. 159–165). He might therefore have been open to
accepting a smaller commission in June 1519. A more detailed investigation of Bartolini’s art
patronage would be useful, however – including with a view to a definitive authentication of
the receipt from the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin.

Self-portrait,
detail of Crucifixion of St Peter, 1546–1550
(ill. pp. 556/557)

12
 Preface
Christof Thoenes

Casting an eye over Michelangelo’s artistic career, it is apparent that it saw a shift of emphasis:
in the latter years of his life, the greatest painter and sculptor of his generation turned his
attention predominantly to architecture. A number of objective reasons for this shift have
been put forward in the literature, but a subjective reason may be at least suspected to lie
behind it, too. In the famous quatrain with which Michel­angelo replied to a conventional
piece of verse in praise of the Medici tombs in Flor­ence (see Ch. VII), he has Night declare
that she wishes neither to wake up (i.e. come to life) nor to “see or hear”, but to be stone (esser
di sasso); in this way the “hurt and shamefulness” of the present cannot touch her. Not to be
able to speak, not to have to talk: of all the arts, architecture comes closest to this ideal. It may
have appealed to Michelangelo all the more strongly as his opinion of his own era grew more
pessimistic. His negative mood comes unmistakeably to the fore in the Last Judgement, a fresco
that was greeted not only with the usual formulaic flattery, but also with criticism, in which
mutterings of heresy could also be heard (see Ch. VIII). Here, evidently, Michelangelo had
overstepped a mark. A clearer rebuttal of the spirit of the age in a figurative medium was proba-
bly no longer conceivable; Michelangelo formulated it instead in his late works of architecture.
Saying no by falling silent: perhaps this is the ultimate “message” of Michelangelo’s architecture.
I have endeavoured to bring the bibliography right up to date for this 2017 edition. It was
not possible, however, to incorporate the new findings documented in these recent publica-
tions into the text. My thanks go to Philine Helas in Rome for her invaluable assistance with
the compilation of the latest literature.

Sketch of the façade of S. Lorenzo (detail), 1517

Pen, black and red chalk, 212 x 143 mm. Florence, Casa Buonarroti, 43Ar

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