the role of letters in biographies of michelangelo

The Role of Letters in Biographies of MichelangeloAuthor(s): Deborah ParkerSource: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 1 (Spring 2005), pp. 91-126Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Renaissance Society of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1353/ren.2008.0656 .

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The Role of Letters in Biographiesof Michelangelo*

by DEBORAH PARKER

This study examines the role that Michelangelo’s letters have played in biographies of the artist.It focuses on two periods — the Renaissance and the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,the latter witnessing an outpouring of biographies on Michelangelo. The first section of the studyexamines the way in which Giorgio Vasari edited the letters he received from Michelangelo in his1568 vita of the sculptor. In the second section I analyze how the availability of the letters,through a long and fitful process, influenced the way in which biographers from John S. Harfordto Giovanni Papini characterize Michelangelo and his world.

Michelangelo’s biographers have always recognized the importance ofobtaining firsthand testimony from the “vivo oraculo.”1 In his 1553

biography Condivi (1525–74) drew extensively on his personal friendshipwith Michelangelo. Subsequently Vasari (1511–74) absorbed not onlymuch of Condivi’s biography wholesale, but also exploited the sourcewhich best substituted the sculptor’s living voice, namely his letters fromMichelangelo, for the considerably expanded 1568 vita. The importanceof personal letters in writing a biography is a longstanding truism. InMichelangelo’s case we have an exceptionally rich archive of such materials.His correspondence spans sixty-seven years, totaling 1,390 letters, about500 of which were written by the artist; the others are addressed to him. Asthe principal source of information on Michelangelo’s life they provideconsiderable information on the sculptor’s many-sided existence, from hiscomplicated business affairs, his family trials, his anxieties over the obstacleswhich hindered his many projects, to the fabrics he preferred for hisclothes. As one might expect, the letters have been an invaluable resourcefor art historians and biographers. As the letters have become available,Michelangelo’s biographers have steadily employed them in their discus-sion of the artist’s personality, relationships, and extraordinaryachievements. As biographers seek to fashion a portrait of Michelangelo, sodo they bring to this enterprise different vested interests. The object of thisstudy is to uncover some of these investments in order to illustrate how

*I could not have been more fortunate in the readers I had for this study. I would liketo thank Paul Barolsky, and the two readers, Caroline Elam and William E. Wallace, fortheir insightful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

1Condivi, 1998, 6.

Renaissance Quarterly 58 (2005): 91–126 [ 91 ]



particular concerns and different social and material conditions have af-fected the way in which biographers used the letters. To this end I shallfocus on the two periods which witnessed the greatest outpouring ofbiographies: the Renaissance, which saw the publication of biographiesfrom two of the sculptor’s contemporaries, Giorgio Vasari (1550 and 1568)and Ascanio Condivi (1553), and the late nineteenth and early twentiethcenturies, during which time no fewer than ten biographies were published.From Vasari to Papini, Michelangelo’s biographers have employed theletters in a fascinating variety of ways. To understand the importance ofMichelangelo’s epistolary legacy we must first examine the interpretive andbibliographic history of the letters.

1 . BETWEEN FRIENDS: VASARI ’S EDITING OF

MICHELANGELO ’S LETTERS

Before turning to Vasari’s use of the letters let us recall one of the famousstories about Michelangelo’s precocity. In 1495 Michelangelo carved aSleeping Cupid. Upon seeing the work of the twenty-year-old sculptor,Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, his then patron, observed that thefigure would fetch a higher price if it were made to look like an antique.Michelangelo effected the necessary adjustments and sent the Cupid toRome. A dealer, Baldassare del Milanese, purchased it for thirty ducats thenresold it to Raffaello Riario, the cardinal of San Giorgio, for 200 ducats.After the purchase the cardinal began to suspect that the work might be afake, possibly the work of a modern Florentine, and sent one of his men toFlorence to investigate the matter. During their encounter Michelangelomentioned the Cupid among his recent works and furnished further proofof his artistic virtuosity by drawing a hand of exceptional grace. Thegentleman invited Michelangelo to come with him to Rome assuring himthat the difference in price would be made up. While Michelangelo did notreceive any further payment beyond thirty ducats, the episode served tohighlight his extraordinary abilities upon his arrival in Rome.2 The an-tiqued Cupid is a marvelous fiction: the sculptor has enhanced its essencethrough artful manipulation.

2Many art historians have noted the clamor surrounding this episode. I will confinemyself to citing two recent discussions of it. For a discussion of Vasari’s and Condivi’saccounts of the Sleeping Cupid, see Hirst, 13–28; for general comments on Michelangelo’spropensity for creating fabrications, see Barolsky, 1994, 119–28. Michelangelo alluded tothe Cupid in a letter (2 July 1496) to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici; on the authen-ticity of this letter, see Smyth.

RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY92



The episode of the Sleeping Cupid offers a suggestive analogy for evalu-ating the craft of Giorgio Vasari, the most creative of Michelangelo’sbiographers. Like his illustrious subject, Vasari’s supple manipulations,his editing of the letters, result in an artfully contrived fiction. Vasarieffects some notable transformations in order to construct, not just the lifeof Michelangelo, but his own role in the sculptor’s life. In both instancesclever presentation confers authority on the artifact, whether it be theantiqued Cupid or Vasari’s account of Michelangelo’s life. One of Vasari’sforemost objectives in the 1568 vita is to affirm the authoritativenessof his account and his familiarity with his subject. As Vasari reminds hisreaders repeatedly, the letters attest his devotion to the sculptor: nobiographer could be more intimately acquainted with his subject. Suchdeclarations strategically punctuate the beginning and ending of the vita.After noting that Michelangelo’s father, Lodovico, arranged an apprentice-ship for his son with Domenico and Davide Ghirlandaio, Vasari affirmsthat everything reported by him is the “truth”: “nor do I know that anyonehas been more associated with him than I have been, or has been a morefaithful friend and servant to him, as can be proved even to one who knowsnot the facts; neither do I believe that there is anyone who can show agreater number of letters written by his hand, or any written with greateraffection than he has expressed to me.”3 Later, at the end of the vita, Vasarigives thanks to God for “being born at the time when Michelagnolo wasalive, that I was thought worthy to have him as my master, and that he wasso much my friend and intimate, as everyone knows, and as the letterswritten by him to me, now in my possession, bear witness.”4 Such declara-tions were intended to counter Condivi’s allegation that “alcuni” (namelyVasari), had written of “this rare man though not having . . . frequentedhim as I have.”5 Vasari’s emphatic response was the considerably expanded

3Vasari, 1962, 1:7: “né so che nessuno l’abbi più praticato di me e che gli sia stato piùamico e servitore fedele, come n’è testimonio fino chi nol sa; né credo che ci sia nessuno chepossa mostrare maggior numero di lettere scritte da lui proprio, né con più affetto che egliha fatto a me.” All Italian citations from Vasari’s vita of Michelangelo are to the five-volumeedition edited by Paola Barocchi, hereafter cited as Vasari-Barocchi; for the English trans-lation (and all subsequent translations), see Vasari, 1997, 2:645, henceforth cited as Lives.

4Vasari-Barocchi, 1:132: “esser nato in tempo che Michelagnolo sia stato vivo, e siastato degno che io l’abbia avuto per padrone, e che egli mi sia stato tanto famigliare et amicoquanto sa ognuno e le lettere sue scrittemi ne fanno testimonio appresso di me” (my emphasis);Lives, 2:747.

5Condivi, 1998, 5: “questo raro uomo, per non averlo . . . così praticato come ho fattoio”; for the translation (and all subsequent translations), see Condivi, 1999, 3.

THE ROLE OF LETTERS 93



1568 vita, which incorporates substantial portions of Condivi’s biographyand the letters Vasari had received from Michelangelo. Both Condivi andVasari employ the word “praticato” to emphasize their closeness toMichelangelo.6 Condivi’s right to this claim is undisputed as Michelangeloeffectively commissioned his friend to write another biography afterseeing some of the omissions and distortions in Vasari’s 1550 vita. AsCondivi reports, Michelangelo imparted to him directly informationthat he wished the biography to contain.7 Vasari’s assertions, however,warrant close scrutiny, as there is a disparity between what Vasariclaims and what the correspondence between the two artists actually re-veals. But it is not enough to interrogate the viability of his claims,although verifying them is important: we must also recognize the artificewhich underlies his account of Michelangelo’s life — not to mention thoseof other artists.8

Although the number of letters between Michelangelo and Vasari isnot extensive — there are only fifteen extant letters from the sculptor to the

6Condivi, 1998, 5, also uses the term “dimestichezza” to emphasize his closeness toMichelangelo.

7Since the nineteenth century critics have periodically questioned the extent ofCondivi’s authorship of the biography, largely because of the stylistic differences betweenwhat Michael Hirst — in his introduction to Condivi, 1998, vi — has termed Condivi’s“lamentable” epistolary skills (evident in his letters to Lorenzo Ridolfi, to whom he wasrelated by marriage), and the “uncluttered” style of the biography. Hirst, following intui-tions first proffered by Wilde, 8, believes that Annibal Caro revised the manuscriptextensively, and deems Caro the “ghost writer” of Condivi’s biography (vii). On the otherhand, Barolsky, 1994, xiii-xviii, contends, perhaps facetiously, that Michelangelo “dictated”his “autobiography” to Condivi. Hatfield, 233, has recently termed such a contention a“gross exaggeration.” My own view is closest to that of Elam, 2001, who distinguishesthree voices in the biography, the “robust and eloquent tones” of Michelangelo recallinghis early life, Condivi’s “attentive but not always comprehending voice,” and refinedcontributions from Caro, who likely added details such as parallels from ancient history orlists of contemporary Petrarchisti. Elam also mentions some of the particulars to whichMichelangelo would have most objected in Vasari’s 1550 Life: the account of the quarrelwith Julius II (especially errors in details and dating); Vasari’s description of Michelangelo’splace in the political history of Florence; and his discussion of Michelangelo’s early life.I am indebted to Professor Elam for furnishing me with a copy of this study. For a succinctaccount of Condivi’s most important contributions to Michelangelo’s biography, seeVasari-Barocchi, 1:xvii.

8Barolsky, 1994, 1999, and 2002, writes extensively on the extent to which Vasari’sLives should be read as “historical imagination” and “poetic fabrication.”




painter — they form a highly distinctive exchange.9 Although muchself-glorification attends Vasari’s account of their friendship, the impor-tance of their correspondence is undisputed. His solicitous overtureselicited crucial information on Michelangelo’s health, opinions, and activi-ties in the last fifteen years of the artist’s life. The rhetoric of these lettersis also noteworthy: Michelangelo often employed subtle ironies whenaddressing Vasari; some letters are accompanied by poems that providestriking counterpoints to the message conveyed in the prose sections.

Vasari begins citing Michelangelo’s letters roughly midway through thevita. Indeed, this section forms a discernible unit, one in which the lives ofsubject and chronicler increasingly converge. Their correspondence spans aperiod of seven years: Michelangelo was seventy-five when he wrote his firstletter to Vasari (1 August 1550), having not replied to three earlier missives,and three months after receiving a copy of the first edition of the Vite. Thelast extant letter from the sculptor is dated 17 August 1557. Michelangelowrote Vasari sporadically, seldom more than two to three times a year, andthe range of subjects covered is limited. More than half the letters deal withartistic commissions. With the exception of the letter detailing the designof the San Lorenzo Library staircase (28 September 1555), two missivespertaining to the vault of St. Peter’s (1 July 1557 and 17 August 1557), andone (22[?] May 1557) in which the sculptor explains his many reasons fornot wishing to leave Rome, they tend to be brief, seldom more than a fewsentences.

We can obtain some idea of the way in which Michelangelo and Vasariregarded one another by examining their opening salutations. Generally,Michelangelo addresses Vasari as “Messer Giorgio, amico caro” or “MesserGiorgio, signior mio caro.” Compare these amiable, but not particularlyintimate, greetings to the way in which Michelangelo typically addressedhis good friend the painter Sebastiano del Piombo: “Sebastiano chomparee amicho karissimo,” “Carissimo compar mio,” or “Sebastiano miokarissimo.” Michelangelo tended to eschew elevated forms of address with

9Grimm was one of the first biographers to question Vasari’s claims about his closenessto Michelangelo: he deems Vasari a “flatterer” and “stranger” to Michelangelo and the 1550Life “careless,” “superficial,” and “frivolous” in its presentation of many events (1:225).Paola Barocchi concurs: her edition contains numerous qualifications of the painter’s claims.I will limit myself to quoting but one succinct assessment: “l’autobiografismo dello [Vasari]prevale e limita considerevolmente la penetrazione storica . . . più stretti si fanno i rapportipersonali del Vasari col Buonarroti, più angusta appare la sua comprensione”(Vasari-Barocchi, 1:xxx).




close friends and longtime associates: he addresses Giovanni Spina, anothergood friend and banking agent for the Salviati, as “Giovanni mio charo,”Giovan Francesco Fattucci, chaplain of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence,as “Messer Giovan Francesco,” and Andrea Quaratesi, son of the bankerRinieri Quaratesi, as “Andrea mio caro.”10 Similarly, these friendssalute Michelangelo in simple, direct, and affectionate terms: Sebastianotypically commences his letters with “Compar mio carissimo,” Spina with“Michelangelo honorando,” Fattucci with “Michelagniolo charissimo,” andQuaratesi with “carissimo chompare” or “Honorando e da me amatoquanto padre.” In contrast, Vasari favored extravagant and elevated terms,addressing the sculptor as “Molto magnifico signior mio” and “Moltomagnifico messer Michelagniolo signior mio.” In sum Michelangelo alwaysgreeted Vasari as “Messer Giorgio,” seldom employed the superlative “ca-rissimo,” and never called him “compare mio” or “Giorgio mio.”11 Untilthe sixteenth century “messere,” which means “sir” or “master,” was gen-erally used when addressing important persons, such as prelates, jurists,and noblemen. Michelangelo employs it in a manner synonymous with“maestro,” an appropriate title for a master artist such as Vasari, who hada large number of assistants working under his direction. More significantthan the use of “messere” is his decision not to deem Vasari “compare,” amore endearing term that designates either a godparent or, as in theseinstances, a special male friend.12 While Michelangelo thanked Vasari ef-fusively for his many avowals of devotion, he did not bear, as Vasariclaimed in the vita, “più affetto” (more affection) for the Aretine artist thanfor others.

At first glance the salutations might seem irrelevant. What makes themnoteworthy is that Vasari perceived them to be important, and acted uponthis belief by emending them subtly and consistently. In his first letter (1August 1550) Michelangelo addresses the painter as “Messer Giorgio,amico caro,” which Vasari alters to “Messer Giorgio, mio caro.”13 Theaddition of the possessive implies a higher degree of familiarity and affec-tion. Other emendations follow a similar pattern: Vasari converts “Messer

10All these examples are taken from Barocchi and Ristori, hereafter cited as Carteggio.11Michelangelo employs “karissimo” in two letters, one dated 28 May 1556 and the

other 22[?] May 1557: Carteggio 5:62, 102. In both instances the word appears on theoutside of the letter, not in the opening salutation. Michelangelo addresses the letters “Amesser Giorgio Vasari amico karissimo in Firenze” and “A messer Giorgio Vasari amicokarissimo,” respectively.

12On the latter sense of “compare,” see Haas, 350.13My emphasis.




Giorgio, signior mio caro” to “Messer Giorgio, mio caro” (13 October1550); “Messer Giorgio, amico caro” to “Giorgio amico caro” (21 [or 28]April 1554); and “Messer Giorgio” to “Messer Giorgio amico caro” (18December 1556). The alterations enhance Vasari’s repeated claims abouttheir intimacy. Evidence of their friendship exists, but Vasari artfully editsthe letters by cavalierly adding endearments or possessives where noneexisted and deleting the use of formal titles so that he might better proclaimhis preeminence among Michelangelo’s friends. Such are the exertions ofthis most enterprising and insinuating Renaissance Boswell, eager to affirma singular connection to the greatest living artist of the age.

Vasari’s willingness to tamper with the evidence is not confined tochanging the wording of the salutations. Other alterations include theelimination of references to other artists, spelling changes, word substi-tutions, and combining passages from different letters. Some of thechanges are benign. Deleting references to other persons mentioned byMichelangelo, for example, is understandable, as they would have length-ened the vita unnecessarily and clogged the narrative. Vasari is also unlikelyto have been responsible for morphological and minor lexical changes, suchas emendations of “sappiendo voi” (you knowing) to “sapendo voi,”“qualche cosa” (something) to “qualcosa,” “Io ò avuto” (I had) to “Io hopreso” (I took), and “ollo trovato” (I found it) to “hollo trovato.” EitherVasari’s circle of lettered friends — men like Vincenzo Borghini andCosimo Bartoli — or the Giunti’s editors likely made the changes tospelling and grammar. The addition of etymological “h” in forms of(h)avere, for example, was common among sixteenth-century editors fromBembo on.14

Vasari was, however, likely responsible for changes to the content andordering of the letters. In discussing Michelangelo’s activities from 1550 to1557 he tends to confuse the chronology of events in one of two ways —either by citing letters out of sequence or by combining letters bearingdifferent dates. Reading Michelangelo’s letters to Vasari yields one versionof the sculptor’s activities, reading them in what we might call Vasari’srifacimento provides another. Before examining these changes more closely,a brief review of the subjects covered in Michelangelo’s fifteen letters is inorder. We can assess Vasari’s alterations more effectively if we have in minda chronological account of the matters about which Michelangelo wrote thepainter. The sculptor’s first three letters largely concern the location of the

14Bembo, 391, 409, also recommends “providi” over “[prov]veddi” and describes“sappiendo” as forms no longer in use. I am indebted to Brian Richardson for this obser-vation.




tombs in the del Monte chapel in San Pietro in Montorio, commissionedby Julius III. Vasari designed the work and Bartolomeo Ammanati ex-ecuted the sculptures. In his first letter to the painter Michelangelo thanksVasari for his many praises; his acknowledgment of the painter’s lavishtributes forms one of the recurring threads of their correspondence. Suc-cessive letters deal with the elaborate festivities that Lionardo Buonarroti(Michelangelo’s nephew) had planned for his son’s baptism, the artist’spoetry, and his unwillingness to leave Rome while overseeing architecturalwork on St. Peter’s. This commission, and the problems involved in com-pleting this project, dominates the last letters between the two artists.Michelangelo repeatedly defers any eventual return to Florence while en-gaged in this immense enterprise, despite pressures exerted by Vasari,Cosimo, and the duke’s emissaries. The last five letters deal successivelywith Michelangelo’s recollection of the design for the staircase for the SanLorenzo Library; the death of his assistant Urbino; the hanging of one ofVasari’s paintings; the receipt of a book from Cosimo Bartoli and a trip toSpoleto; and defects found in the vault of St. Peter’s. As these letters attest,although Michelangelo was seventy-five when his correspondence withVasari began, he was active in a number of pursuits: he was the chiefarchitect of St. Peter’s, wrote poetry regularly, made at least one excursion,and was deeply engaged in the lives of those close to him.

In the 1568 vita, however, Vasari presents us with a more limitedaccount of Michelangelo’s activities. After citing two letters on the delMonte tombs and the one on the birth of Lionardo’s son, Vasari reportsthat the sculptor Tribolo had failed to obtain a design for the San LorenzoLibrary staircase “during the time of Paul III”: hence, in the last two yearsof his papacy, 1548–49, when work on the ceiling and floor of San Lorenzohad begun. Henceforth Vasari breezily conglomerates activities which tookplace between 1554 and 1557. Considerable confusion results when Vasarirefers to two letters — one written in 1555, the other in 1557 — whilediscussing events that had transpired four to six years earlier. After men-tioning Tribolo’s unsuccessful attempt to procure a design for the library’sstaircase, Vasari cites Michelangelo’s letter of 28 September 1555 in whichthe sculptor recalls the design “as though in a dream.”15 The result ofintroducing the 1555 letter at this point in the narrative is manifest: Vasari,presenting himself as Cosimo’s trusted intermediary in affairs pertaining toMichelangelo, has succeeded where Tribolo had failed. After returning toFlorence in 1554 Vasari was well apprized of the duke’s interest in securing

15Carteggio, 5:48: “come un sognio.”




the sculptor’s repatriation. Michelangelo’s own desires, however, did notcoincide with those of Cosimo. Nevertheless, Vasari’s narration must ex-plain this variance. By citing the 1555 letter prematurely, Vasari managesto both foreground himself and create a portrait of an artist overwhelmedby impediments in his declining years. After referring to the September1555 letter, Vasari quotes a long letter of May 1557 in which the sculptorenumerates the many reasons why he cannot leave Rome: the supervisionof work at St. Peter’s has languished in the last ten years due to a chroniclack of funds; his departure would assure its ruin; he has a house andnumerous obligations in Rome; he is old and feeble, suffering from kidneystones and colic. As he summarizes his situation, abandoning Rome wouldresult in “the utmost disgrace” and the loss of “the whole reward for thepains I have endured for the love of God during the said ten years.”16 Thelast letters cited, which refer successively to his beloved assistant Urbino’sdeath (23 February 1556), a visit to Spoleto (18 September 1556), hispoetry, his unwillingness to leave Rome (19 September 1554), and prob-lems with the construction of the gored vaults of the apses at St. Peter’s (1July and 17 August 1557), tend to reinforce the impression of an ailing,overburdened artist. As we have seen, Michelangelo’s fifteen letters toVasari provide a varied account of the activities of the artist, who, while oldand suffering from different maladies, is decisive and active. Vasari’s ar-rangement of the letters, however, tends to reduce the extent ofMichelangelo’s engagements and ultimately gives an impression of progres-sive degeneration. The chronicler is thus able to report that whileMichelangelo wanted to return to Florence, his physical debilitations maderepatriation impossible.17

By far the most egregious example of Vasari’s willingness to alter theevidence at hand is the pastiche he creates from two letters. Before citingthis fabrication, Vasari notes that he left Rome for Florence in 1554, anevent which “grieved Michelagnolo . . . and likewise Giorgio, for the reasonthat Michelagnolo’s adversaries kept harassing him every day, now in oneway and now in another; wherefore they did not fail to write to one another

16Ibid., 10: “grandissima vergognia . . . tucto il premio delle fatiche che io ci ò duratein decti dieci anni per l’amore di Dio.” Unless otherwise indicated all English translationsof Michelangelo’s letters are from Ramsden, cited hereafter as Letters.

17Lives, 2:718: “Michelagnolo would willingly have left Rome, but he was so weary andaged, that although . . . he was determined to go back [to Florence], while the spirit waswilling the flesh was weak, and that kept him in Rome.”




daily.”18 This embellished claim of daily correspondence might raise morethan a few eyebrows given that no evidence of a regular exchange exists.Prior to writing him in April 1554, Michelangelo had not written Vasarisince August 1551. Given the three years that separate their last commu-nication, it appears that Vasari had seized the occasion of the birth ofLionardo’s son to reignite their correspondence and insinuate his way backinto Michelangelo’s attention. In his response (April 1554) Michelangelobegins by thanking his friend for remembering the “povero vecchio” andfor having attended the baptism. After expressing jubilation over the event,however, Michelangelo tempers his initial enthusiasm, adding “it seems tome that Lionardo hasn’t much judgment, and particularly not in makingsuch a feast for the new-born with the rejoicing that should be reserved forthe death of someone who has lived a good life.”19 He ends the letter withlittle further ado by declaring simply “Altro non mi achade” (I think that’sall).20

Vasari’s version of this letter bears little resemblance to the original. Hebegins his emendations by shortening Michelangelo’s criticism of the fes-tivities: the altered version reads “it seems to me that Lionardo should notbe making such a feast for the new-born with the rejoicing that should bereserved for the death of someone who has lived a good life.”21 The painterhas eliminated entirely the phrase in which Michelangelo calls into ques-tion his nephew’s judgment — “mi pare che Lionardo abbi molto pocog[i]uditio” (my emphasis). While Michelangelo is clearly pleased with thisevent, which will insure the continuation of the Buonarroti line, he objectsto so ostentatious a display of pomp over a mere birth: in his eyes a lifewell-lived is more deserving of celebration.22 In mitigating the artist’s res-ervations, however, Vasari blunts this striking juxtaposition of joy anddisapproval. Vasari is far more attuned to the social aspects of the birth;

18Vasari-Barocchi, 1:94: “[d]olse a Michelagnolo . . . e parimente a Giorgio, avenga cheogni giorno que’ suoi aversarii ora per una via or per un’altra lo travagliavano, per il che nonmancarono giornalmente l’uno all’altro scriversi”; Lives, 2:710.

19Carteggio, 5:16–17: “mi pare che Lionardo abbi molto poco g[i]uditio, e massimo perfar tanta festa d’uno che nasce, con quella allegrezza che s’à a serbare a la mor[t]e di chi èben vissuto”; Letters, 2:146. For a brief account of how this expression resembles a commentattributed to Michelangelo in Donato Giannotti’s Dialoghi, see Tuena, 82.

20Carteggio, 5:17; Letters, 2:146.21Vasari-Barocchi, 1:94–95: “mi pare che Lionardo non abbia a fare tanta festa d’uno

che nasce, con quella allegrezza che s’ha a serbare alla morte di chi è ben vissuto.”22Vasari also changes Michelangelo’s use of the verb “rinnovare” to “nascere” in this

letter.




Michelangelo’s concerns, on the other hand, are more metaphysical.23 Al-though Vasari’s reasons for eliminating this phrase cannot be ultimatelyknown, it is possible that he was reluctant to report Michelangelo’s criti-cism of his nephew. Vasari modifies the sculptor’s sentiments further bygrafting onto the 1554 letter a passage culled from a letter of 22 August1551: “I received a letter of yours some time ago; I did not reply at onceso that I might not appear mercenary. I now assure you that, of the manypraises which you bestow upon me in the said letter, if I merited one only,it would seem to me to be in having given you at least something when Igave you myself body and soul, and in having discharged some minute partof that for which I am indebted to you; in respect of which I recognizehourly for how much more you are my creditor than I can pay. And beingan old man I can never hope to settle my account in this world, but onlyin the next. I therefore beg you to have patience.”24 This is a remarkablesleight of hand. The 22 August 1551 letter has two purposes: Michelangelowishes to thank Vasari for his many tributes and to inform him thatAmmanati’s work on the del Monte tombs was proceeding smoothly.25 Theinterpolation not only mutes Michelangelo’s criticism of the fanfare sur-rounding the baptism, it underscores the extent of his indebtedness toVasari, who becomes yet again the hero of his subject’s biography! Ulti-mately the inserted passage diminishes the sculptor’s poignant meditationson life and death. The fabrication serves a double purpose: Michelangelowill not live long enough to repay Vasari for his many praises; the criticism

23See Vasari-Barocchi, 4:1597, in which Barocchi makes this very point: namely, thatVasari is more interested in the social aspects of the baptism.

24Carteggio, 4:366: “io ebbi molti giorni sono una vostra; non risposi subito per nonparer mercatante. Ora vi dico che delle molte lode che per la decta mi date, se io ne meritassisol una mi parrebbe, quand’io mi vi decti in anima e in corpo, avervi dato qualche cosa eaver sodisfacto a qualche minima parte di quello che io vi son debitore; dove io vi riconoscoogniora creditore di molto più che io non ò da pagare; e perché son vechio, oramai nonspero in questa, ma nell’altra vita poter parreggiare il conto: però vi prego di patientia”;Letters, 2:133. I cite here for comparison Vasari’s version of this letter in Vasari-Barocchi,1:95, which contains some minor spelling changes: “Né vi maravigliate se non rispondosubito: lo fo per non parere mercante. Ora io vi dico che per le molte lode, che per dettami date, se io ne meritassi sol una, mi parrebbe, quando io mi vi detti in anima et in corpo,avervi dato qualcosa, e aver sadisfatto a qualche minima parte di quel che io vi son debitore;dove vi ricognosco ogni ora creditore di molte più che io ho da pagare, e perché son vecchiooramai, non pero in questa, ma nell’altra vita potere pareggiare il conto, però vi prego dipazienzia, e sono vostro. . . .”

25Other changes that Vasari makes to the 22 August 1551 letter include the eliminationof its first sentence — in which Michelangelo excuses himself for not having respondedimmediately — and an allusion to Ammanati’s work on the tombs, which was going well.




of Lionardo can be attributed to the grumblings of an old man. Michelangelomay have had nothing further to add to his April 1554 letter but Vasari,never at a loss in his ongoing campaign of self-elevation, certainly did.

Vasari’s fabrications are apparent in other references to Michelangelo’sletters. On 19 September 1554 Michelangelo informed Vasari that hecould not return to Florence as Vasari, at Cosimo’s behest, was urging himto do. Michelangelo underscores his decision by opening the letter with thehaunting sonnet “Giunto è gia ’l corso della vita mia.” The poem, echoingPetrarch, compares life to a storm-tossed boat and expresses the sculptor’sdoubts over his vain devotion to art.26 Having almost completed the voyageof his life, he finds that neither sculpture nor painting can calm him as heturns ever more to God. The tone then shifts in the prose portion, in whichMichelangelo makes a playful reference to his poetry: “You will rightly saythat I am old and foolish in wishing to write sonnets, but because manypeople say that I am in my second childhood I’ve tried to fill my part. //From your letter I realize the love you bear me and you may be sure thatI should be glad to lay my feeble bones beside my father’s, as you beg me.But if I were to leave here now, it would be the utter ruin of the fabricof St. Peter’s, a great disgrace and a greater sin.”27 In its original ver-sion Michelangelo begins the missive by presenting himself mockingly as“vechio,” “pazzo,” and “rinbanbito.” The second sentence clearly showsthat his unwillingness to leave Rome is his own decision. Vasari, however,alters the opening, beginning the letter instead with a sentence takenfrom a letter of 22 June 1555 — “God grant that I may keep [Death]waiting another year or so.”28 Two different presentations of volition result.

26For the entire text of the poem, which Vasari cites in his Life of Michelangelo, seeVasari-Barocchi, 1:101. It is worth noting that while in the sonnet, “Giunto è gia ’l corsodella mia vita,” Michelangelo claims that neither painting nor sculpture will be able to calmhis soul any longer, art, in the form of his work on St. Peter’s does claim his attentionsufficiently to prevent a return to Florence. In this respect the letter and poem offercounterpoints to one another. For an example of Petrarch’s comparison of life to a storm-tossed boat, see his “S’amor non è, che dunque è quel ch’io sento” in Petrarch, 255.

27Carteggio, 5:21: “voi direte ben che io sie vechio e pazzo a vole’ far sonecti; ma perchémolti dicono ch’i son rinbanbito, ò voluto far l’uficio mio. Per la vostra veggio l’amor chemi portate; e sappiate per cosa certa che io arei caro di riporre queste mia debile ossa a cantoa quelle di mio padre, come mi pregate. Ma partend’ora di qua sarei causa d’una gran ruinadella fabrica di Santo Pietro, d’una gran vergognia e d’un grandissimo pechato”; Letters,2:146–47.

28Carteggio, 5:35: “Dio voglia ch’i’ la tenga ancora a disagio qualche anno”; Letters,2:155. See Vasari-Barocchi, 1:100, for Vasari’s version of this sentence: “Dio il voglia,Vasari, che io la tenga a disagio qualche anno.” Aside from slight spelling changes and thedeletion of “ancora,” Vasari also adds his own name.




In his own words Michelangelo clearly makes his own decisions; in Vasari’sversion the artist’s unwillingness to leave Rome is attributed to an im-moveable force, nothing less than God Himself. Again this manipulationneeds to be seen in terms of the overall vita at this point. The emendedepistle appears in the midst of Vasari’s account of the latest impedimentsthat Michelangelo had encountered while working at St. Peter’s, namelyPirro Ligorio’s taunts and the structural flaws in the dome’s vaulting.Vasari further adds that the sculptor was “too old” to return to Florence.Seen in terms of Vasari’s presentation of the letters — with its skewedchronology — this second alteration augments the impression thatMichelangelo’s hold on life was tenuous indeed. Having narrowed thegamut of the artist’s activities through various emendations, his biographercan spin the simpler story of an inexorable decline.

How are we to judge Vasari’s handling of the letters? His manyemendations and the distortions resulting therein amply justify CarolineElam’s recommendation that “much care is needed in the reading ofMichelangelo’s biographies.”29 We cannot presume, even when presentedwith the sculptor’s own words, that the information conveyed about themis an accurate representation of Michelangelo’s views, as the context inwhich they are presented invariably shapes their meaning. Many of thechanges attest to what Paola Barocchi has termed Vasari’s “autobio-grafismo,” his exuberant self-aggrandizing.30 We could condemn Vasarifor his cavalier treatment of sources and documents, but rebuke wouldlimit our critical response to correcting his errors. If, on the other hand,we view the Vite, as Paul Barolsky has underscored in a number of writ-ings, as “poetic fabrications,” and not verisimilitude, we can focus ourattentions on how a particular life is constructed. Fabrication has an intereston its own terms. Vasari’s artful manipulations are but the most prominentexample of what might be called a configuring practice in biographiesof Michelangelo. As in the case of the Sleeping Cupid, we have an actualartifact (the letter) and an altered version of it (Vasari’s rifacimento),a presentational fiction. Fabrications — or forgeries — still give ussomething: not an antique, but memorable accounts of Michelangelo’s lifeand achievements that fit the demands of the occasion, whether thoseposed by collectors of antiques or those of an audience expecting a story.

Before turning to the nineteenth century we might recall yet anotherof Michelangelo’s deceptions, which also offers a suggestive analogy toVasari’s fabrications. According to Vasari, after the David had been placed

29Elam, 1998, 495.30Vasari-Barocchi, 1:xxx.




on its pedestal outside the Palazzo Vecchio, Pier Soderini, the gonfaloniereof Florence, told Michelangelo that he thought that the nose was too thick.Michelangelo reportedly then scampered quickly up the ladder and pulledout his hammer and chisel, and having hidden some marble dust in hishand, pretended to chisel off a bit of the nose. In fact he left David’s noseas it was, but Soderini, seeing the dust scattered through the air, thenshouted, “I am far more pleased with it; you have given life to the statue.”31

Not unlike Michelangelo throwing dust before Soderini, Vasari scat-ters some dust of his own before readers’ eyes, giving a kind of added lifeto his own “sculpted” account of Michelangelo. In fashioning the Life ofMichelangelo, Vasari’s adroit manipulations are no less ingenious thanMichelangelo’s. If Michelangelo considered it acceptable to engage in theoccasional deception — whether it be the antiquing of the Cupid or pre-tending to chisel David’s nose — so might Vasari. As the painter constructshimself and fashions the Life of Michelangelo, it falls on us to analyze boththe import and the effects of these fabrications.

2 . MICHELANGELO ’S NINETEENTH- AND

TWENTIETH-CENTURY BIOGRAPHERS

As we have seen, the manner in which Michelangelo’s letters are contex-tualized must be scrutinized carefully; the particular interests of abiographer can interfere — often seriously — with the presentation of a lifeso multifaceted as Michelangelo’s. Vasari made full use of the fifteen or soletters he had received from Michelangelo. As more letters came to light inthe nineteenth century, biographers sought to incorporate these seminalmaterials. To understand the responses that the letters elicited and the usesto which they were put we must first take into consideration the extent oftheir availability through a slow and fitful process. This unfortunate situ-ation of prolonged inaccessibility determined to a notable extent the tenorof the biographies by John S. Harford (1857), Hermann Grimm (1860),Aurelio Gotti (1875), John Addington Symonds (1892), and GiovanniPapini (1949). With the exception of Papini, all wrote in the wake ofpositivism, a movement which placed a high premium on reconstructingthe historical moment of one’s object of study. Primary documents such ascontemporary memoirs, letters, and literary writings were crucial aids tofurnishing highly detailed descriptions of events. All these biographers wereaware that the Buonarroti family owned a large archive of materials onMichelangelo, but only two, Gotti and Symonds, managed to gain accessto them.

31Ibid., 22: “a me mi piace piú . . . gli avete dato la vita.”




While the descendants of Michelangelo’s heir, Lionardo, lived, theywithheld the family’s treasures from the public. The death of the last of thedescendants, the Cavaliere Cosimo Buonarroti (1790–1858), did little toloosen this tenacious grip.32 Upon his death on 9 February 1858, CosimoBuonarroti bequeathed to the Florentine commune his share of the family’sarchive. Although the Cavaliere had made this donation, the materialswere all but inaccessible as his will strictly forbade the copying of anyworks of art or manuscripts contained in either the Buonarroti Archive orGallery.33 These rigid controls were to frustrate many a scholar.34 In 1900an anonymous writer for the Florentine magazine Marzocco noted that thestrict conditions which had long prevailed belied “an excessive jealousy forthese objects and these manuscripts.”35 As late as 1932 Giovanni Papinireferred — in the introduction to his edition of Michelangelo’s letters —to the trustees’ “strano monopolio” (strange monopoly) over the archive’scontents.36 Papini was by no means the only scholar to characterizethe cryptic operations of this archive as a monopoly: terms such as “hid-den,” “proprietary,” “inaccessible,” “jealousy,” “impossible,” “secrecy,” and“monopoly” pepper the writings of nineteenth-century scholars, particu-larly foreign ones, who were unable to procure access to the BuonarrotiArchive. Ultimately the family’s sequestration of documents pertaining toMichelanglo’s life and achievements inhibited scholarship on the artist formore than a century.

32For a brief account of dispersion of the Buonarroti family’s library after the death ofCosimo Buonarroti, see Corsi and Lombardi, 35–40.

33Thornton, 19, cites two of Cosimo Buonarroti’s strict clauses, the first of whichreads: “Che resta proibito assolutamente di estrarre dalla Galleria anche per tempo brevis-simo e sotto qualsivoglia pretesto veruno degli oggetti d’Arte o Manoscritti in essacontenuti, come pure resta proibito l’ammettere alcuno a copiare si gli uni che gli altri.”

34Grimm, 1:77, relates to his English translator that attendant circumstances were“impossible”: “It was known that the archives of the Buonarroti family contained numerousletters and documents of every kind; but it was at the same time known that it wasimpossible to gain access to these papers. In the year 1860 the last Buonarroti died. Hebequeathed his archives to the city of Florence. A committee published a catalogue of theexisting papers. It was a natural supposition that they would now be open for use; but a freshimpediment arose: Count Buonarroti had made the acceptance of his legacy dependent onthe obligation to preserve continued secrecy.”

35Cited in Barocchi’s introduction to the Carteggio, 1:ix, n. 1: “una gelosia eccessiva perquesti oggetti e questi manoscritti.”

36Lettere, 1:6. Papini was obliged to prepare his edition of the letters from two printedworks — Gaetano Milanesi’s edition of Michelangelo’s letters and Karl Frey’s edition ofletters written to the sculptor. Papini’s edition includes 495 letters written between 1496and 1563.




While Cosimo Buonarroti’s will did not stipulate that the papers bekept in absolute secrecy, access was largely confined to the trustees and theirfriends.37 In an effort to loosen the conditions of the will the Grand Dukeof Florence decreed the Archivio Buonarroti a corporation in 1859. In thesame year the British Library purchased roughly 150 of the letters fromMichelangelo Buonarroti (Cosimo Buonarroti’s cousin), who sold a por-tion of his inheritance.38 In May 1885 the Minister of Public Instructionoutlined rules for the consultation of the archive’s materials, a decision thatwas intended to loosen further the conditions of the will. Access to thedocuments, however, did not improve ostensibly, as public officials sub-sequently discovered that many of the letters were not housed in the CasaBuonarroti, but in the Laurentian Library. The letters were transferred tothe Casa Buonarroti only gradually. Historical and economic conditions,among them World War II and a chronic shortage of funds, deferred theopening of the archive for decades. On 26 May 1951 the Casa Buonarrotiwas officially reopened, but it was not until June 1964 that the contents ofthe gallery and archive were finally released from strictly private consulta-tions.

As a result of this long period of sequestration, scholars who wereunable to obtain access to original manuscripts of the letters had to con-tent themselves with sixteenth-century anthologies of letters by some ofMichelangelo’s correspondents, and nineteenth-century editions of selectedletters. After the publication of Condivi’s 1553 biography and the 1568edition of Vasari’s Vite, no new biographies were written until the nine-teenth century. In the interim publishers in Italy, Germany, and Englandreprinted the two Renaissance biographies or produced translations ofthem, occasionally with supplements to Condivi’s work.39 Althoughscholars in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries periodically publishedtheir discoveries of sundry letters and archival documents pertaining toMichelangelo’s life, Vasari’s and Condivi’s remained the only full-fledgedbiographies. This lull came to an end around the beginning of the nine-teenth century, due to the confluence of a number of social and culturalcircumstances, among them Neoclassical and Romantic artists’ invocation

37On this point, see Haskell, 843.38See Thornton, 9–29, for details of Michelangelo Buonarroti’s three sales of materials

to the British Library.39For seventeenth- and eighteenth-century editions and translations of Vasari’s and

Condivi’s biographies, see the respective entries on these two figures in Steinmann andWittkower.




of Michelangelo as the embodiment of the sublime artist, a renewed in-terest in Italian Renaissance art, the four-hundredth anniversary ofMichelangelo’s birth in 1875, and the publication of Italian literary histo-ries and works by Michelangelo’s contemporaries. With respect toeighteenth-century artists’ interest in Michelangelo we need look no furtherthan to the public lectures of Joshua Reynolds and Henry Fuseli at theRoyal Academy of the Arts in London. Reynolds in particular was seminalin generating interest in Michelangelo’s art: his last presidential lecture,delivered to the Royal Academy of Art in December 1790, was a paean tothe artist: “To kiss the hem of his garment, to catch the slightest of hisimperfections, would be glory and distraction for an ambitious man.”40

Reynolds enthusiasm was infectious: Richard Duppa’s biography was di-rectly inspired by Reynolds’s lectures. The cult of Michelangelo had begun:from 1806 to 1932 no fewer than ten biographies were written by English,German, Italian, and French men of letters, including those of RichardDuppa (1806), Quatremère de Quincy (1835), John S. Harford (1857),Hermann Grimm (1860), Aurelio Gotti (1875), John Heath Wilson(1877), John Addington Symonds (1892), Romain Rolland (1913), andGiovanni Papini (1949).41

The renewed interest in Italian Renaissance art inspired studies ofmany major artists, not only of Michelangelo but also of Raphael, Titian,and Leonardo.42 Two seminal compilations of Renaissance treatises onart and artists’ letters further enhanced scholarly investigations: GiovanniBottari’s eight-volume Raccolta di Lettere sulla Pittura, Sculture, edArchitectura (1822–25) and Giovanni Gaye’s three-volume Carteggioinedito d’artisti dei secoli XIV, XV, XVI (1839–40). With respect toMichelangelo’s letters, a number of works emerged: Gino Daelli’s CarteMichelangiolesche inedite (1865), which includes some of Lionardo’s lettersto Michelangelo; Gaetano Milanesi’s Le lettere di Michelangelo Buonarroti(1875) and his edition of Les correspondants de Michelangelo, a book thatfocused largely on Michelangelo’s correspondence with Sebastiano delPiombo; and Karl Frey’s Sammlung ausgewählter Briefe an MichelagnioloBuonarroti (1899). Milanesi’s and Frey’s publications were by far the

40Reynolds, cited in Duffy, 217.41While not strictly a biography, Thode represents a substantial contribution to

Michelangelo studies in this period.42On nineteenth-century publications pertaining to Leonardo, Raphael, and Titian, see

Creighton Gilbert’s introduction to Symonds, 1:xx–xxi. During this period editions ofFrancisco de Hollanda’s and Donato Giannotti’s sixteenth-century dialogues aboutMichelangelo were also published.




most important. Milanesi’s work, published for the fourth centenary ofMichelangelo’s birth, included the text of 495 letters along with somecontracts and ricordi. As curator of all Florentine state archives, Milanesihad little difficulty in gaining access to the Buonarroti documents. WhileMilanesi’s edition finally made the letters available, his organization ofthem hampered the ability of scholars to assess them effectively. Instead ofpresenting the letters in chronological order, Milanesi grouped them ac-cording to correspondent: those to family members were separated fromletters to “diversi”: namely, everyone else. As a result scholars were unableto determine effectively the sequence of any of the artist’s projects or utilizeinformation concerning them. Thirty-five years later Giovanni Papinisought to remedy these problems, only to be forestalled in his efforts by thearchive’s trustees: having failed to obtain permission to study the originals,Papini was obliged to use the Milanesi edition as the basis for his ownwork.43 That Papini was at that time Director of the Centro di Studi sulRinascimento shows just how difficult it was to penetrate what might bemore accurately termed the Buonarroti citadel.

After the publication of Milanesi’s work, the Buonarroti trustees in-tended to publish an edition of the letters written to Michelangelo, butFrey beat them to the punch and in 1899 published 336 of the extant 800with a German commentary. Like Milanesi, Frey grouped the letters ac-cording to correspondent rather than chronologically. Although we cannotknow precisely the circumstances of Frey’s edition, it is clear from one ofSymonds’s letters to his friend Horatio Brown that Frey had gained ac-cess to the archive (if not the trustees’ permission to publish his work).Symonds — the first non-Italian biographer after Frey to acquire permis-sion to consult the holdings of the Buonarroti Archive — and Frey wereworking there at the same time. About this circumstance Symonds lamentsthat Frey “tries to keep all the MSS. to himself. It is really very annoying.We have to use the same index to the Codices, which causes a perpetualrub.”44

We can now return to the biographies themselves and examine whatuse biographers made of the information they found in the letters as theybecame available. As we shall see, their availability influences and delimitsdiscussions of Michelangelo’s character in notable ways. John S. Harford(1785–1866) — who had befriended Cosimo Buonarroti before theCommendatore’s death in 1858 — was the first biographer to obtain a

43Lettere, 1:6.44Grosskurth, 258.




glimpse of some of the letters. The full title of Harford’s work — The Lifeof Michael Angel Buonarroti with Translations of many of his Poems andLetters. Also Memoirs of Savonarola, Raphael, and Vittoria Colonna — indicatesboth the book’s promise of new materials (the poems and letters) and theauthor’s interest in providing a thorough account of Michelangelo’s era.Although Harford’s title touts the inclusion of the artist’s poems andletters, references to these works are scant. Moreover, what letters arementioned (largely those addressed to Vasari), had been previously pub-lished, albeit in Italian, in Vasari’s 1568 Vite; the poems appear intranslations by Wordsworth and Southey. For example, although Harfordalludes to the letter which Michelangelo had received from CountAlessandro da Canossa (8 October 1520) on the ties between their twofamilies, and to five of Vittoria Colonna’s letters, he confines himself tosummarizing their contents.45 Cosimo Buonarroti had shown Harfordthese letters, but did not permit his friend — or anyone else — to cite orto copy them.46

Readers, however, were not disappointed in the book’s promise ofinformation culled from contemporary sources. Harford’s biographyteems with lengthy accounts of the art of Masaccio and Giotto, Lorenzode’ Medici’s politics, the Platonic Academy, the history of the Medicifamily, Savonarola’s sermons, Florence’s struggle for liberty, andMichelangelo’s friendship with Vittoria Colonna.47 In this respectHarford’s work typifies nineteenth-century biographies. Detailed to a fault,writers from Harford to Gotti overwhelm the reader with excruciatinglylong historical notices. One can read fifty pages without finding any men-tion of Michelangelo.

After Cosimo Buonarroti’s death, access to the archive was, as HermannGrimm (1828–1901) puts it, all but “impossible.”48 Notwithstanding hisfailure to gain access to the Buonarroti Archive, Grimm published one ofthe most successful biographies of the nineteenth century. Reprinted fifteentimes, this biography dominated accounts of the artist’s life until it was

45For the text of Canossa’s letter, see Carteggio, 2:245.46See Thornton and Warren, 19, for an account of Harford’s frustration.47While these historical researches enabled Harford to emphasize the importance of

Neoplatonism to Michelangelo’s art and to dispel earlier myths about a passionate romancebetween Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna, his failure to integrate information peripheralto the larger narrative makes this a rather lackluster work. For an assessment of Harford’sbiography see Haskell, 842, and Østermark-Johansen, 41.

48As Grimm, 1:78, summarizes his predicament, he could consult 150 letters inLondon while “200 still lay hidden in Florence.”




superseded by John Addington Symonds’s superb biography of 1892. ForGrimm, Michelangelo embodied the Renaissance. A monument to theGerman philological tradition, Grimm’s work abounds in prolific accountsof historical and cultural matters, such as the art of Michelangelo’s artisticpredecessors and contemporaries, Savonarola’s sermons, the Pazzi con-spiracy, and the state of Florence after the death of Lorenzo de’ Medici.The lengthiness of these notices prompted one reviewer to declare thatthe work should have been entitled Michael Angelo and his Times ratherthan The Life of Michael Angelo. To this charge Grimm responded thatMichelangelo “and the events which he witnessed were one.”49

Grimm was the first biographer to capitalize on the British Library’sacquisition of roughly 150 of Michelangelo’s letters. Grimm exploited thisnew resource fully; his two-volume biography contains numerous appen-dices, the majority of which contain his transcriptions of the “Britishpapers.” We can best get a sense of how Grimm used the letters by exam-ining his comments about what particular letters reveal. After citingMichelangelo’s first letter from Rome to Pierfrancesco de’ Medici (2 July1496), part of which concerned the Sleeping Cupid, Grimm enthuses“How vividly do these few words introduce us to the intercourse of themen who disputed with each other in the affair of the statue!”50 CitingMichelangelo’s own words enlivens considerably his account of this earlysculpture. What better way to narrate the story of Michelangelo’s lifethan quoting the “vivo oraculo” himself? Grimm’s delight in reportingMichelangelo’s own words is almost palpable. Ultimately, however, Grimmbecame disillusioned with the “British papers,” the bulk of which consistedof family correspondence. His disappointment in these letters is as per-ceptible as his excitement over the comments on the Sleeping Cupid. Weneed look no further than to his treatment of Michelangelo’s letters toBuonarroto from Bologna while working on a bronze statue of Julius II inBologna for evidence of his disenchantment. Many deal with the purchaseof a farm, an activity which merely shows that Michlangelo was “in thecenter of his family.” With respect to one urgently demanding letter (ca. 1February 1507) about two wayward assistants, Lapo and Lodovico, Grimmmerely notes that they reveal the sculptor’s “disappointments in his work,”“vexations with his men,” and “a glimpse into the state of the work.”51

While in Bologna Michelangelo had a dagger made at the behest of the

49Ibid., 79.50Ibid., 162.51Ibid., 296.




Florentine nobleman Piero Aldobrandini; of this incident Grimm writes“such were the things that occupied Michelangelo’s thoughts when heworked on the statue.”52 As this rather desultory remark reveals, revelationswhich do not pertain directly to the sculptor’s art hold little interest forGrimm. Although Michelangelo wrote a number of letters about the dag-ger, for Grimm its mention merely shows that Michelangelo waspreoccupied with a small commission while working on the much largerone of the bronze statue.53

As an art historian interested primarily in documenting Michelangelo’scultural milieu and artistic background, Grimm does not avail himself fullyof the opportunities afforded by the artist’s correspondence. His account ofthe Buonarroti family relations, which were unusually intricate, is cursoryat best. On Michelangelo’s irascible, demanding, and mercurial father,Grimm observes, “Lodovico seems to have been a good-natured, unpre-tending man, but at the same time too easily persuaded and passionate. Thebrothers made use of him when they wished to effect anything withMichael Angelo. At times, the latter broke out into anger about it. At suchmoments, he cast before them how he had constantly sacrificed himself forthem, but that they had never acknowledged it.”54 This characterization ofLodovico is hardly penetrating.55 Although Grimm acknowledges thatmany letters show that “discord existed within the domestic circle,” heseems uninterested in analyzing the relations in greater depth. His indif-ference is manifest in the comment he makes on Michelangelo’s many yearsof correspondence with his nephew Lionardo: “These papers, extant in along series, touch upon scarcely any thing else than domestic affairs. Men-tion is never made of art or of intellectual things. This alone becomesevident from them, that Michael Angelo continued to maintain and rule

52Ibid. For a fuller account of Michelangelo’s efforts to have this dagger made, seeWallace, 1997, 20–26.

53Grimm’s assessment of a letter to Buonarroto (23 November 1516) on a drawing ofthe façade of San Lorenzo exemplifies the way in which biographers used the letters todocument work on a particular project: “Before the London papers were accessible, it wasimpossible to give a more accurate date to these incidents, and either to disentangle Vasari’sindistinct statements, or to reject them as erroneous” (1:442). Grimm’s use of this letteranticipates the later practices of art historians, who combed the letters for light they mightshed on the dating and sequence of works, the periods in Michelangelo was engaged invarious commissions, his personal thoughts while working on a project, his contractualobligations, his relationships with numerous friends, patrons, and assistants, and his com-ments on his art. For the text of this letter, see Carteggio, 1:223.

54Grimm, 2:266.55For a recent account of Michelangelo’s relationship with his father, see Beck, 98–101.




the family; and they afford information as to his health.”56 A large corpusof writings by Michelangelo had come to light, but the paltry notices onartistic matters largely occasioned disillusionment. As Francis Haskell ob-serves, Grimm was dissatisfied “because [the letters] do not deal with thesupreme greatness of being Michelangelo — the agony and the ecstasy ofit, so to speak — but with matters that may appear unworthily petty toposterity, such as investing in property, worrying about servants, concernwith family dignity, marrying off a nephew.”57 In looking for what theletters did not contain, Grimm, lamentably, did not interrogate what wasthere.

If Grimm is disappointed with the letters, he nevertheless contextual-izes their contents accurately. This cannot be said of Aurelio Gotti, thefirst biographer to obtain full access to the Buonarroti archive. As thedirector of all Florentine museums, Gotti was also the first director of theBuonarroti archive. The advantages which accrued to his position, how-ever, yielded mixed results: on the one hand he published many hithertounknown documents and relayed historical and cultural events in greatdetail; on the other his analysis of Michelangelo’s relationships with certainfriends and artists was dubious and implausible, and at times misleading.Gotti’s most flawed contentions owe largely to a deep reluctance to criticizeMichelangelo. The sculptor’s relationship with his father, four brothers,and nephew was often vexed. Lodovico was both querulous and solicitous,Giovansimone wayward and intemperate, and Lionardo, at least in the eyesof his uncle, somewhat indolent and ungrateful. Among the family mem-bers only Michelangelo’s relations with Buonarroto were relatively serene.This is not the place to assess Michelangelo’s multifaceted character. It is

56Grimm, 2:348. Grimm uses these letters to qualify Vasari’s declaration that Michelangelonever had his relatives with him. Although ibid., 417, notes that Michelangelo kept hisfather, brothers, and nephew at bay, he surmises that this decision likely shows that “hewished to devote himself to his work without interruption. How thoroughly, however, hedid for his family in other ways all that lay in his power, is evidenced by his letters toLeonardo, from which it appears that he sent considerable sums of money to Florence forthe enlargement of the Buonarroti estate.” Grimm also discussed Michelangelo’s exchangeswith non-family members, noting, for example, Aretino’s importunities and the difficulty ofassessing the artist’s relationship with Vasari.

57Haskell, 843. Grimm is reluctant to criticize Michelangelo harshly on his relationswith his family. Of one particularly angry letter that Michelangelo wrote to Lodovico (ca.March 1521), in which he bitterly presents himself as an ungrateful son because of untrueallegations spread by his father, Grimm, 2:268, observes “Severe provocation must haveoccurred, to have given rise to such bitter expressions.” For the text of the letter, seeCarteggio, 2:274.




sufficient to point out that the letters to his family display a wide range ofemotions, from earnest concern for their welfare during times of duress topainful admissions of injured sensibilities, even histrionic outbursts. Intenton portraying Michelangelo as irreproachable, Gotti tends to occlude anydisplays of anger and exasperation. The words he employs most frequentlyto characterize the Buonarroti family relations are “grande affetto” and“amorevolezza,” terms that hardly do justice to a set of relationships whichwere in fact highly varied and complex.58

Gotti’s comments on a letter (21 October 1514) to Lodovico typifythe way in which he downplays the sculptor’s many outbursts. In theletter Michelangelo denounces the incompetence of a Florentine boywho had been sent to him as a servant. The grievances are many andreported at length: the boy’s father sent him to Rome on a mule, whichobliged Michelangelo to pay more for his transportation; instead of doing“everything” as the boy’s father had promised, the sculptor finds himselfminding the child. Only one recourse remains: “Please have him removedfrom my sight,” Michelangelo implores Lodovico.59 While Michelangelomitigates his sentiments in the final sentence — asking Lodovico to say thathe is a “good lad, but that he is too refined and not suited to my service”should he encounter the child’s father — his exasperation is manifest.60 Thesculptor is anxious to rid himself of a useless assistant as soon as possible.For Gotti, Michelangelo’s regard for the father’s feelings shows “so great inhim was a loving and gentle affection, that, having finished the letter, hedid not let it go on without adding these loving words.”61 The dominanttone of this letter is not one of loving concern. One wonders how Gotti can

58For examples of these ameliorating assessments, see Gotti, 2:20–22, 58, and 74. OnMichelangelo being a man of “grande effetto,” see ibid., 1:375. Gotti may well have beenfollowing Milanesi’s characterization of Michelangelo’s sentiments towards his family. SeeMilanesi, v-vi, in which he writes: “Da esse [the letters] apparisce con quale affettuosoreverenza onorasse il padre; col quale avendo avuto più volte, per cagione d’interessi, screzie questioni assai vive, giammai i termini della modestia non trapassò, comportandosi dafigliuolo amorevole e rispettoso.” Such an assessment effectively occludes the many instancesin which Michelangelo expressed his anger and exasperation to his family.

59Carteggio, 1:151–52: “Io vi prego che voi me lo facciate levar dinanzi”; Letters, 1:85.60Carteggio, 1:151–52: a “buon fanciullo, ma che gli è troppo gentile, e che e’ non è

acto al servitio mio.”61Gotti, 1:74: “tanta era in lui gentilezza d’affetto e amorevolezza, che, finita la lettera,

non la lasciò correre senza aggiunvervi . . . queste amabili parole.” My translation. Gotti,1:378, alone among Michelangelo’s biographers characterizes the sculptor’s relation toLionardo as that of an “amorevole zio,” a considerable misrepresentation given the testinessof many of the artist’s letters to his nephew.




describe the sculptor’s sentiments as bathed in “gentilezza” and “amorev-olezza” when Michelangelo had characterized the boy a few lines earlier as“this dried turd of a boy.”62

By far the most egregious example of Gotti’s misrepresentation ofMichelangelo’s sentiments is his treatment of the artist’s correspondencewith Tommaso de’ Cavalieri. Clearly unsettled by the ardent language ofMichelangelo’s first letter to Cavalieri, Gotti argues that this letter —patently addressed to the Roman nobleman — was intended instead forVittoria Colonna. Gotti reports that Michelangelo met Cavalieri whilevisiting the marchesa during one of his occasional visits to Rome in 1532or 1533, when, in fact, the artist did not meet Vittoria Colonna until 1536.He then notes that another letter to “questo giovane” (this youth) is “sostudied, so beyond every naturalness, that one does not gather from it anyreasonable meaning unless one supposes that Tommaso de’ Cavalieri wasalso a friend of the Marchesa, and that Michelangelo, writing to him,intended rather to address his words to Colonna.”63 Gotti then proceeds toquote the passage in which Michelangelo praises Cavalieri’s peerless virtues.Of this heartfelt homage Gotti writes, “Michelangelo’s mind and heartcould not have dictated this letter to the Roman youth, if not aided by animagined ignition of love for a woman who was truly, as Colonna deservedto be called ‘the light of our century, unique in the world,’ known for herworthy genius, which no one thought of equaling. And it should also besaid of this letter that Michelangelo made three drafts, demonstrating thathe put into it that kind of studious preparation which would have beenexcessive in writing to a person like Cavalieri; and he adopted a style quitedistant from his customary one.”64 As Symonds has forcefully dismantledGotti’s absurd suppositions, I will not repeat them here. Gotti’s arguments,

62Carteggio, 1:151–52: “questa merda secha di questo fanciullo”; Letters, 1:85. Ramsdenand Gotti both date this February 1513.

63Gotti, 1:231: “così studiata, così fuori d’ogni naturalezza, che non vi si coglierebbealcun senso ragionevole, se non si supponesse che Tommaso de’ Cavalieri fosse anche amicodella Marchesana; e che Michelangelo, scrivendo a lui, intendesse piuttosto di volgere le sueparole alla Colonna.” My translation.

64Ibid., 231–32: “La mente e il cuore di Michelangelo non poteano dettare questalettera pel giovane romano, se non aiutati dalla immaginativa, accesa dall’amore per unadonna, che veramente, come la Colonna, meritasse di essere chiamata ‘luce del secolo nostrounica al’mondo,’ conosciuta ‘per ingegno valoroso,’ alla quale niuno potesse credere di‘aguagliarsi.’ Ed è anche a dire che di questa lettera Michelangelo fece tre minute; mostrandocon questo di porvi quello studio, che sarebbe stato soverchio scrivendo a persona quale erail Cavalieri; e vi adoperò uno stile lontano affatto da quello che era solito in lui.” For thetranslation, see Symonds, 1:133; for the text, see Carteggio, 3:443.




along with Milanesi’s comments on the Michelangelo-Cavalieri correspon-dence, and Michelangelo the Younger’s and Cesare Guasti’s misreading ofthe poems addressed to Cavalieri, are the work of small group of Italianscholars operating under what Symonds aptly notes were “grotesquemisconceptions” fostered by a “mistaken zeal” to protect Michelangelofrom any hint of love for another man.65 Gotti’s use of this letter isthoroughly uncritical. In citing only the section containing tributes thatcould be applied to a man or woman (“luce del secolo nostro” and “ingegnovaloroso”), and deleting both the opening salutation to “messer Tomaos(ignio)r mio karissimo” and the last sentence — which alludes to Rome’sproduction of “uomini divini” — he has distorted its contents severely.Michelangelo’s relationship with Cavalieri is not the only one to sufferfrom distortion. Gotti also misreads the letters between Michelangeloand Aretino, in which the latter sought to procure a work of art fromMichelangelo’s hand through flattery. When his attempts proved unsuc-cessful, Aretino promptly denounced the abundance of nudes in the LastJudgment without even having seen the work.66 Although Michelangeloreplied with subtle irony to Aretino’s letters, Gotti deems the sculptor’sresponse “umile e gentile.” Gotti also dismisses the rivalry betweenMichelangelo and Raphael, declaring that these two artists would be “justestimators” of one another’s work were it not for the cadre of envious friendsand scholars surrounding them.67 Intent on portraying Michelangelo at allcosts as a man of “gentili affetti,” Gotti simplifies considerably the sculp-tor’s complicated character and multilayered relationships with others.

The long sequestration of Michelangelo’s letters, drawings, and poemshampered study of the artist for almost a century. Scholarship is poorlyserved when we see that the first critic who had full access to the lettersdistorted their contents so profoundly. In his preface Gotti speaks withobvious pride in being able to “cast my eyes freely on those papers” whichform “a rich and beautiful monument to the artist’s glory.”68 His intentionwas to “farmi suo famigliare” (“make myself a member of [Michelangelo’s]family”) by weaving contemporary documents into his own narrative.However, the letters speak, not as Gotti wished — as though emanating“from [Michelangelo’s] mouth or those of the people of his times” — but

65Letters, 2:237. See Symonds, 2:127, 125–50, for his resounding refutation of Gotti’sarguments. Haskell, 843, deems Gotti’s biography “dull and full of equivocation.”

66Gotti, 1:269.67Ibid., 119.68Ibid, iv.




in a voice that is all too often altered, censored, and edited beyond recog-nition.69

Fortunately Gotti’s distortions would be corrected by the endeavorsof the next biographer to obtain access to the archive, John AddingtonSymonds (1807–71). No two biographers could be more unlike: whereasGotti misreads his sources frequently, Symonds interpreted them brilliantlyand in so doing analyzed Michelangelo’s character with admirable acuity.Symonds’s biography superseded all previous accounts of Michelangelo’slife. There are many reasons for its durable success: having written amultivolume work on The Renaissance in Italy, Symonds was thoroughlyfamiliar with the art, literature, and history of the period; he was anaccomplished professional writer; and, being homosexual himself, hehad an understanding of Michelangelo’s sexual nature that was perhapsunprecedented. Finally, as Francis Haskell observes, Symonds had “a pro-found sense of introspection” which enabled him to discuss Michelangelo’spersonal life and public achievements with greater perspicacity and pen-etration than any of his predecessors.70 Symonds also chose not to followhis predecessors in furnishing long accounts of historical events, electinginstead to “exclude extraneous matter” and “to give a fairly completeaccount of the hero’s life and works, and to concentrate attention on hispersonality.”71 Although Symonds characterizes his decision as personal,this choice also reveals the influence of a different critical paradigm, namelythe rise of psychology as a social science. At the end of the nineteenthcentury Michelangelo the man would emerge from the abyss of historicalminutiae into which an unimaginative positivism had plunged accounts ofhis life.

Michelangelo’s letters were indispensable to Symonds’s decision toprovide a more comprehensive account of the artist’s character. He under-scores this very point when discussing the utility of Milanesi’s edition of theletters: “It enables us to comprehend the true nature of the man better thanany biographical notice; and I mean to draw largely upon this source, so asgradually, by successive stipplings, as it were, to present a miniature portraitof one who was both admirable in private life and incomparable as anartist.”72 For Symonds the letters surpass earlier biographies as a source forMichelangelo’s “true nature.” Although Symonds declares that the letters

69Ibid.: “porre liberamente gli occhi in quelle carte . . . un ricco e bel monumento allagloria dell’artista . . . la bocca a lui o alla gente del suo tempo.” My translation.

70Haskell, 844.71Symonds, 1:l.72Ibid., 79.




reveal that Michelangelo was no less admirable a man than an artist, he isnot blind to what they reveal of the sculptor’s mercurial temperament. Inthis respect he departs not only from Gotti’s insistent optimism but alsofrom Vasari’s and Condivi’s eulogistic accounts of Michelangelo’s life. Forexample, in discussing Michelangelo’s debt to his first teachers, theGhirlandaio brothers, Symonds qualifies Condivi’s contention that thesculptor owed nothing to his teachers.73 For Symonds such a charge mustbe seen in terms of Michelangelo’s relations with other artists, an aspect ofthe sculptor’s life about which his correspondence is highly illuminating.Having studied many letters to fellow artists and assistents, Symonds con-cludes that “Michelangelo . . . was difficult to live with . . . frank in speechto the point of rudeness, ready with criticism, incapable of governing histemper, and at no time apt to work harmoniously with fellow-craftsmen.”74

While Harford and Grimm had acknowledged that Michelangelo fre-quently became exasperated with his assistants, neither attributes hisvexations to the sculptor’s irascibility. Symonds also offers a fuller assess-ment of Michelangelo’s relationships with his family. In reviewingthe artist’s letters to his brothers, father, and nephew, Symonds findsMichelangelo a remarkably sympathetic figure. The letters reveal, he con-cludes, the artist’s profound sense of responsibility towards what heperceived as ungrateful relations. In Symonds’s eyes, Michelangelo toiledunceasingly to establish his brothers in the wool trade, provide for hisfather, extend the family’s property holdings, and elevate the Buonarroti’ssocial standing, while his father and brothers, the recipients of his largesse,wrote “begging letters, grumbling and complaining.”75 To prove his pointhe cites one dramatic sentence from a letter (19 August 1497) to Lodovicoin which Michelangelo assures his father of his intention to support themeven though he has little money for his own expenses and is finding itdifficult to manage his affairs now that he is no longer living at home: “Iwill send what you ask for, even should I have to sell myself into slavery.”76

Michelangelo is clearly greatly exaggerating the difficulty of sending hisfamily money. Given such melodramatic proclamations, one would be hardpressed to conclude that the Buonarroti were not grasping dependents. Weshould keep in mind that Symonds’s consultation of the family letters was

73See Vasari-Barocchi, 1:6, for Vasari’s earlier qualification of Condivi’s claim thatMichelangelo owed little to his first teachers.

74Symonds, 1:16.75Ibid., 178.76Carteggio, 1:4: “io ve lo manderò, s’io dovessi vendermi per istiavo”; Letters, 1:5.




limited to those written by Michelangelo, many of which reveal abeleaguered artist, one frequently importuned for financial assistance, andwho despaired of being fully understood by his family. As one mightexpect, the responses to his letters from family members and friends revealdifferent aspects of the sculptor’s relationships with others. The letterspenned by “diversi,” however, could not be consulted until the publicationof Frey’s Sammlung ausgewählter Briefe an Michelagniolo Buonarroti in 1899.

Symonds also treats Michelangelo’s parsimony with admirable objec-tivity. Both Condivi and Vasari in the 1568 vita sought to counter theperception that Michelangelo was avaricious by reporting that he gave awaymany of his designs, requested no payment for some works, gave money tothe poor, and enriched his loyal assistant Urbino. Symonds confronts thecharge of avarice squarely, and, notwithstanding Michelangelo’s many gen-erous acts, finds enough corroborating evidence in letters and ricordiconcerning the acquisition of property, loans, and expenses to attribute thistrait to “some constitutional peculiarity, affecting his whole tempera-ment.”77 Symonds ties the artist’s frugality to a stringent sensibility, onewhich influenced his art: as he puts it Michelangelo had, “[a]n absoluteinsensibility to decorative details. This abstraction and aridity, this asceticdevotion of genius to pure ideal form, this almost mathematical concep-tion of beauty, may be ascribed I think, to the same psychological qualitieswhich determined the dreary conditions of his home-life . . . melancholymade him miserly in all that concerned personal enjoyment.”78 Symondsis not the first chronicler to underscore that in his personal habitsMichelangelo was abstemious: Condivi had reported that the artist waschaste, moderate in his eating habits, and often eschewed the company ofothers. What is notable is Symonds’s identification of an “ascetic” characterin Michelangelo’s art, and his attribution of this quality to the artist’smelancholic temperament.

Such an observation needs to be seen in terms of the emerging field ofpsychology. In deeming Michelangelo’s character “melancholy,” Symondsintervenes in discussions which had arisen among what he termed “neo-psychologists,” among them Cesare Lombroso and Carlo Parlagreco. The

77Symonds, 1:81. For a more recent analysis of Michelangelo’s miserliness, seeHatfield, 188–92.

78Symonds, 1:81–82. For a different view of Michelangelo’s aesthetic sensibilities, seeWallace, 1994, 330–50, in which the author points out how fastidious Michelangelo wasin his choice of fabrics for his clothing. The artist also went to some trouble to purchase twobeautiful rings for Lionardo’s wife, Cassandra, after the couple was married. Significantly,the source of this information is the artist’s letters.




latter had written a book in which he proposed that the sculptor sufferedfrom hysterical neuropathy. Parlagreco lays particular emphasis on somehabits: the sculptor’s apparent indifference to women, his solitary habits,religious terrors and remorse in his old age, and, last but not least, hisintense devotion to his art! As Parlagreco explains his conclusions:

An accurate study, based upon his correspondence in connection with theevents of the artist’s life and the history of his works, has enabled me to detectin his character a persistent oscillation. Continual contradictions betweengreat and generous ideas upon the one side, and puerile ideas upon the other;between the will and the word, thought and action; an excessive irritabilityand the highest degree of susceptibility; constant love for others, great activityin doing good, sudden sympathies, great outbursts of enthusiasm, great fears;at times an unconsciousness with respect to his own actions; a marvelousmodesty in the field of art, an unreasonable vanity regarding external circum-stances: these are the diverse manifestations of psychical energy inBuonarroti’s life; all which makes me believe that the mighty artist was af-fected by a degree of neuropathy bordering closely upon hysterical disease.79

One need only read Symonds’s refutation of Parlagreco’s reductive, un-critical, and ahistorical use of the letters for a convincing overturning of thepsychologist’s suppositions. I cite Parlagreco at length not because of themerit of his analysis but to contextualize the way in which Michelangelo’sletters were used by late-nineteenth-century students of psychology. Symonds’sidentification of a melancholy strain to Michelangelo’s character arises inthe midst of and serves as a correction to more extreme characterizations.80

79Symonds, 2:363.80One of the most notable aspects of Symonds’s discussion of Michelangelo’s character

is his relating the artist’s temperament to the much-discussed issue of the “non-finito.”Although he notes that Michelangelo was capable of frenetic activity, Symonds, 1:122,concludes that the sculptor was “somewhat saturnine and sluggish, only energetic whenpowerfully stimulated.” In addition to attributing the many incomplete works to the artist’ssaturnine nature, Symonds, clearly thinking of the many letters to patrons, also notes thatdemanding patrons with competing interests had a debilitating effect on Michelangelo’sproductivity. In alluding to Michelangelo’s exigent patrons, Symonds accounts for the largenumber of unfinished works in broader terms than either Condivi, who tends to deem-phasize this subject, or Vasari, who attributes them to an impossibly exacting standard.According to Vasari, Michelangelo would cease working on something if he detected theslightest error. In taking into consideration both external (demanding patrons) and personal(melancholy temperament) factors, Symonds adds a different perspective on this subject,one owing, at least in part, to information gleaned from the letters. The unfinished worksdo not necessarily reflect a failed artistic vision: uncontrollable external factors prevented thesculptor from completing projects. See Vasari-Barocchi, 4:1645–70, for a long and some-what erratic account of discussions of the “non-finito.”




Symonds’s analyses of Michelangelo’s relationships with other artistsand young male friends is considerably more illuminating than earlieraccounts. For example, in discussing the rivalry between Michelangeloand Raphael, Symonds, departing from earlier biographers’ claim that nosuch rivalry existed, simply declares that relations between the two artistswere vexed. While acknowledging that it is “ignoble” to report jealousies,he does not shrink from reporting evidence that testifies to the existenceof a strain. Indeed, he notes that Michelangelo’s correspondence withSebastiano attests to their rivalry.81 By far Symonds’s most discerning ob-servations concern Michelangelo’s relationship with Tommaso de’Cavalieri. He resoundingly refutes Gotti’s absurd circumnavigationsaround the subject by relaying evidence that testifies to Michelangelo’sdevotion to Cavalieri: multiple drafts of Michelangelo’s first letter to thenobleman exist, attesting to the care with which he crafted the epistle; theornate style in which the letter is written is not peculiar to the correspon-dence with Cavalieri, but was also employed when addressing other nobleor distinguished persons; the letters to Bartolommeo Angelini confirmthe closeness of their friendship.82 Where Gotti sought to conceal andcensure, Symonds strove to enlighten and explain, ever attentive to thesocial and material conditions that underlay this relationship between artistand idol. In short, Symonds illuminated the many and complex facets ofMichelangelo’s life in unprecedented ways.

If Symonds sought to illuminate further Michelangelo’s character,Giovanni Papini (1881–1956) takes this perspective and extends it inanother direction. Papini was one of the most influential figures of theItalian literary scene in the first half of the twentieth century: he foundeda number of important literary journals such as Il Leonardo and L’Anima,and was a poet, prose writer, and essayist. His autobiography Un uomofinito (1913) documents an existential crisis, which was later elaborated intoStoria di Cristo (1922), an account of his intellectual pursuits before his con-version. With Papini we enter the modern era of accounts of Michelangelo’slife. While other biographies were written after the publication ofSymonds’s work, none surpassed its overall merits. Papini’s work is notable,however, for both its lively assessments of the artist’s achievements and itsanalysis of Michelangelo’s relationships with a broad range of persons,many of whom had received little attention in the past. Like Symonds,Papini drew heavily on the sculptor’s letters; unlike Symonds, he wasunable to gain access to the original manuscripts, still jealously withheld

81Symonds, 1:345.82Ibid., 2:117–35.




from public scrutiny in the first half of the twentieth century. Papini’sresearches coincided with the years in which Giovanni Poggi (1880–1961) — then Sopraintendente all’Arte Medievale e Moderna per laToscana and the first curator of the Buonarrotti Archive — was editing theartist’s letters. Since 1910 Poggi was part of a team of scholars who hopedto publish a multivolume edition of Michelangelo’s correspondence, in-cluding all the extant letters by and to the artist. Derailed first by whatGuido Biagi (one of Poggi’s initial collaborators) had termed Frey’s “theft,”then slowed by World War I and the deaths of his collaborators, and finallyoverwhelmed by the magnitude of the project, Poggi never realized his goal.Nor apparently did Poggi allow Papini to examine the letters while engagedon his own edition. Notwithstanding the limitations under which he wasobliged to work, Papini’s biography revealed new details about Michelangelo’srelationship to his assistants and other contemporaries. As Papini explains,his aims are to “tell the story of Michelangelo the man, searching into hissoul, his character, and his spirit, by studying the events in his life, hisfriendships, his enmities, his weaknesses, his confessions, his good fortuneand misfortune,” and to dispel Romantic portrayals of the sculptor as a“tormented and gloomy Titan, storming about in the vacuum of his vol-untary solitude.”83 In Papini’s eyes such melodramatic characterizations failto take into consideration Michelangelo’s “very nature . . . the human be-ing who must give some time to the needs and irritations of daily life.”84

While Symonds had acknowledged the artist’s miserliness as an infelicitous“constitutional” trait, Papini declares it a regional characteristic. As Papiniputs it, in his ordinary life Michelangelo “reverted to the suspicious Florentinebourgeois that he was, with a strict regard for worldly gain.”85 More thansix hundred years after Dante had pronounced that “superbia, invidia eavarizia” (Inferno 6.74–75) were the “tre faville” (three sparks) that ig-nited the heart of every Florentine, Papini recognizes the taint of one ofthese sins — avarice — in a fellow Florentine. Like his fellow citizens,Michelangelo had a keen and longstanding interest in business affairs andthe social status of his family. Being frugal and watchful of his earnings

83Papini, 1952, 5–6, 7.84Ibid., 432, questions the characterizations of Romantic biographers: “The Romantic

biographers of Michelangelo present the great artist as a species of savage and tormentedCyclops, continually embattled among the thunderbolts of tragedy and the lightning flashesof great temperamental storms: they are not always mistaken, nor do they deceive them-selves. And to support their opinions, they quote many of his poems, cite certain clausesfrom his letters, and point to some of the figures of his work.”

85Ibid., 423. For a thorough study of Michelangelo’s preoccupation with his financialaffairs, see Hatfield.




allowed him to realize these gains. For Papini, Michelangelo possessed inabundance the Tuscan virtue which Leon Battista Alberti has deemed “farmasserizie,” economy in managing a house. Unlike many earlier biogra-phers, who bewail the paucity of discussions of art, Papini analyzes theactual content of the letters. In this respect his comments on the impor-tance which Michelangelo placed on family governance and social prestigeanticipate the studies of William E. Wallace, whose careful reading of thecorrespondence has yielded numerous insights into the preoccupations ofthe historical Michelangelo.86

Papini’s efforts to illuminate further the historical Michelangelo addedconsiderably to our understanding of the breadth of the artist’s activities.Among the subjects and persons that had received little attention fromearlier biographers are the commission from Bayazid II, Sultan of Turkey,to build a bridge from Constantinople to Pera; Michelangelo’s vexed re-lations with the Medici, notably Alessandro de’ Medici, who harboredill-will toward the artist; his friendships with minor personages such asAlonso Berrugete, a Spanish painter and disciple of Michelangelo, hisassistant Menighella, and Gherardo Perini, a young Florentine gentlemanof whom the sculptor was very fond, and with distinguished literati otherthan Poliziano, Lorenzo de’ Medici, and Vittoria Colonna, such as the poetFrancesco Berni, polymath Annibal Caro, and Latinist Lionardo Malaspini.Papini also had new insights into Michelangelo’s relationship with Vasari.87

Whereas earlier biographers tend to accept the painter’s account of theirrelationship as close, Papini is more skeptical. Having analyzed their cor-respondence carefully, Papini views Vasari’s interests negatively, notingthat Michelangelo never wrote Vasari before 1550, that the painter’s lettersare full of obsequious phrases and those of Michelangelo “extremely brief,very polite . . . but lacking in any affection”; and that the sculptor wouldhave disapproved of Vasari’s toadying to Cosimo.88 We should recall thatPapini’s knowledge of the correspondence was not filtered through Vasari’s1568 vita of Michelangelo, but through his own edition of the letters. AsPapini sums up his thoughts on this relationship, “[s]ome lazy and credu-lous biographers would have us believe that there was true affectionbetween the two men, and they enjoyed a familiar intimacy — but weknow that so remote were they from each other in spirit and art, that these

86See, for example, Wallace, 1997.87See Papini, 1952, 133, 170, 193, 210, 286, 336, and 469.88Ibid., 344. Years later, Tuena is lulled by the self-promoting Vasari: see 66–125, for

a largely positive assessment of the Michelangelo-Vasari correspondence.




conclusions are impossible.”89 As in his recognition of Michelangelo’s abil-ity to “far masserizie,” Papini interrogates the materials at hand rather thanlament their failure to meet certain expectations. With Symonds andPapini the chronicling of Michelangelo’s life assumes new dimensions. Lessuncritically eulogistic than their Renaissance predecessors, Symonds andPapini have opened up new areas of inquiry, provided judicious assess-ments of his art, and enhanced considerably our understanding ofMichelangelo’s multifaceted world.

Symonds and Papini made full use of the primary materials available tothem, and their works are justifiably admired. More recent biographies,notably George Bull’s, do not constitute a significant advance over earlierwritings. Bull’s soporific account of Michelangelo’s life does not engage theartist’s poems and letters in distinctive or innovative ways although he hadaccess to a greater number of secondary studies and primary documentsthan Symonds and Papini. While not a full-fledged biography, E.H.Ramsden’s introduction to her translation of Michelangelo’s letters offersmore insights into Michelangelo’s public and private worlds. As we saw,Giovanni Poggi did not allow Papini to examine the original manuscriptsof the letters while he was editing these writings. Public access to this richarchive was not possible until after Poggi’s death in 1961. One year afterhis death, Poggi’s nephew donated the “carte Poggi” to the Casa Buonarroti,which was finally freed from private use in June 1964. After Poggi’s death,Paola Barocchi, Giovanni Nencioni, and Renzo Ristori began preparing theletters for publication in 1962.90 Under Barocchi’s direction, the project ofa multivolume edition of Michelangelo’s entire extant correspondence, firstconceived in 1910, was finally realized; from 1965 to 1994 these scholarsalong with other collaborators have produced a five-volume edition ofMichelangelo’s correspondence, a concordance to them, and the Carteggioindiretto, two volumes of letters referring to Michelangelo by contempo-raries. As this account of the availability of the letters and biographers’ useof them has sought to clarify, reliable editions of the full corpus of materialshave been available for a relatively short period.

We have seen how Michelangelo’s biographers have used the letters todocument the artist’s work and occupations over time and how differentinterests have influenced their presentation of these materials. Michelangelo’s

89Papini, 1952, 347. It should be pointed out that Papini’s biography of Michelangelohas no footnotes or references, making it all but impossible for scholars to determine whatoriginal materials he was in fact using.

90Other scholars involved in these projects include Kathleen Loach Bramanti andLucilla Bardeschi Ciulich. For an account of Poggi’s project, see Barocchi’s introduction tothe Carteggio, 1:vii–xv.




epistolary record is partial and selective: not all the letters are extant, andnot everything about his life is discussed in them. This partial record leaveshis biographers and critics considerable latitude. Many events are open tointerpretation and susceptible to imprecision. As we have seen, the per-spective a biographer brings to his biographical endeavor determineswhat are relevant facts. From Vasari to Papini biographers have used theletters in very different ways. Vasari employed them largely to aggrandizehis relationship to his illustrious subject. With the nineteenth-centurybiographers, we have both distortion and illumination. We also have greatfluctuations in the valuation of evidence. The interpretation of the familyletters is a case in point. Gotti, reluctant to cast aspersions on Michelangelo,whom he sought to represent as an embodiment of Italian nationalism,systematically elides any trace of temper or vexation. Grimm, whose in-terests lie in illuminating the nature of artistic genius, eschews delvinginto family matters. Only with Symonds and Papini do biographers beginanalyzing in greater detail Michelangelo’s private world and the Buonarrotifamily relations. More recently scholars such as William E. Wallace,Michael Hirst, and Rab Hatfield have expanded significantly our under-standing of how the occupations of Michelangelo the artist differ fromthose of the man. One could go so far as to argue, as Wallace has intimated,that Michelangelo’s desire to be a wealthy aristocratic landholder fueled tosome degree his artistic activities. As such critical evolutions show, theevaluation of the letters and what they reveal about Michelangelo the manand artist has changed significantly over time.

Barocchi’s and Ristori’s various compilations — a five-volume editionof Michelangelo’s letters, a concordance to the letters, and the Carteggioindiretto (available in toto only since 1994) — make this a propitiousmoment to examine the letters. This precious resource has yet to be ex-ploited fully. As the sculptor’s biographers have shown, Michelangelo’sletters are enmeshed in many social and cultural practices. They should notbe viewed, however, only as records of the artist’s manifold projects ortranscriptions of his immediate thoughts and feelings. More attentionneeds to be paid to the language and content of the letters. If Vasari issomething of a fabulist in his Vite, Michelangelo is no less artful in his letters.Artifice and self-representation underlie his correspondence as it does his artand poetry. This aspect of the letters, the different languages Michelangeloemploys to present himself — his art of words — warrants greater scholarlyattention. If we scrutinize the rhetorical features of Michelangelo’s correspon-dence, the “vivo oraculo” can speak to us in an entirely new way.

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA




Bibl iography

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———. “Vasari and the Historical Imagi-nation.” Word & Image 15 (1999):286–91.

———. “What are We Reading When WeRead Vasari?” Source 22 (2002): 33–35.

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Gotti, Aurelio. Vita di MichelangeloBuonarroti. 2 vols. Florence, 1876.

Grimm, Hermann. Life of Michael Angelo.Trans. Fanny Elizabeth Bunnett. 2vols. Boston, 1900.

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Ed. Paola Barocchi. 5 vols. Milan,1962.

———. Lives of the Painters, Sculptors andArchitects. Trans. Gaston du C. deVere. 2 vols. New York, 1997.

Wallace, William E. “Miscellanea Curiosi-tiae Michelangelae: A Steep Tariff, aHalf Dozen Horses, and Yards ofTaffeta.” Renaissance Quarterly 47(1994): 330–50.

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Wilde, Johannes. Michelangelo: Six Lec-tures. Oxford, 1978.




the role of letters in biographies of michelangelo

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