when the dad Julius II called to Rome, in 1505, to Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), this one was already famous.
The previous year, in florencehad erected in front of the palace of the Lordship the gigantic statue of Davidcarved from a single block of marble, a true ancient athlete, whose heroism was vaguely tinged with melancholy.
Not even in Rome was unknown Miguel Angel. Previously, the sculptor had left evidence of his presence in a first masterpiece, a pieta (The Pietà ) commissioned by a French cardinal. When he treated this theme, characteristic of medieval sculpture, Miguel Angel He knew how to wonderfully combine a pathetic tenderness with the plastic beauty of the naked body, abandoned by Christ, lying between the folds of the Virgin’s mantle.
These early works revealed the extent to which he knew Miguel Angel assimilate the lessons he took in Florence. He had been, it was said, a disciple of Ghirlandaio; but the sense of its robust and balanced forms was gained by studying the frescoes of Masaccio and the sculptures of Donatello.
Protected by Lorenzo de’ Medici, Miguel Angel he was able to reach the richest collections of works of art of antiquity, and thus impregnate himself with the classical ideal. But he also read the Divine Comedy and he frequented the platonic circle of Pico de la Mirandola and Marsilio Ficino.
Some years later, Savonarola’s sermons further developed a spiritual restlessness that prompted him from then on to worry more about human destiny than to search, like Leonardo da Vinci, for new techniques and scientific foundations for his art.
Miguel Angel tried to do in a first project of the mausoleum of Julius II, a powerful demonstration of the glory, not only of the pontiff, but of the entire Christian faith. On a monumental arch, adorned with allegorical figures, he would raise a body with the statues of the prophets and patriarchs of the Old Testament.
Nevertheless, Julius II he was authoritarian and capricious. He suddenly changed his mind and asked his sculptor to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The task was terrible: the surface, totally smooth and without architectural lines, occupies no less than 40 x 13 meters. Miguel Angel he had practically no experience in the technique of fresco.
So, fearing failure that would fill his enemies and competitors with joy, he fled Rome. However, the pope called him back and forced him to start the job. Then, Miguel AngelHe locked himself in the chapel, fired all the collaborators, and just started painting, erasing and starting over.
Finally, on All Saints’ Day 1512, Miguel Angel He presented his finished work. The painter built his work as a powerful architecture, in which each element has its own meaning. At the base, twelve prophets and sibyls seem to support the whole, representing all the attitudes of the spirit. In the upper part, in which there are some young people who represent the states of the soul, 9 episodes of Genesis stand out, among them the famous creation of man.
Both in the Sistine Chapel like most of his works, Miguel Angel It combines a multitude of motifs from the typical Quattrocento style (and even from the previous era), with elements inspired by antiquity. It is the synthesis of two centuries of art, of Greek plastic beauty and of the triumphal ordination of Rome.
Sources: Chastel, A.: Italian Art (1460-1500), AKAL Editions, 1988 / Venard, M.: The Beginnings of the Modern World, XVI and XVII centuries, The World and its History, Argos.