DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61542#0415
1564] VITTORIA COLONNA 359
dome of St. Peter’s from the seven hills of Rome or
the far plains of the Campagna that we realise the
glory of Michelangelo’s last great creation. To the
end his brain was busy with vast projects. The
completion of the Farnese palace and the recon-
struction of the Capitol were among the labours of
his closing years. He it was who placed the
equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius on the pedestal
in the centre of the Piazza and designed the flight
of steps leading up to Ara Coeli, and the grand stair-
case of the Palazzo del Senatore.
The tragic fate which had attended so many of
Michelangelo’s grandest works, above all, the infinite
trouble and perpetual quarrels which arose over the
unfinished Tomb of Julius II., clouded his last years
with a sense of gloom and failure.
“ My whole youth and manhood have been lost,” he
wrote on one occasion, “ tied down to this tomb. Painting
and sculpture, labour and good faith have been my ruin,
and I go steadily from bad to worse. Better would it have
been for me, if I had learnt to make matches in my youth.
At least I should not suffer such distress of mind as I do
now.”
But his friendship with Vittoria Colonna threw a ray
of light on his sorrowful old age. Michelangelo first
met the widowed Marchesa of Pescara in 1438, when
she was living in a Benedictine convent in Rome,
spending her time in devotional exercises and writing
poetry, and enjoying the society of a few serious
thinkers such as Ochino and Contarini, who had been
strongly influenced by the movement of the Reforma-
tion. The great master, who read his Bible constantly
and retained his old veneration for Savonarola, found
dome of St. Peter’s from the seven hills of Rome or
the far plains of the Campagna that we realise the
glory of Michelangelo’s last great creation. To the
end his brain was busy with vast projects. The
completion of the Farnese palace and the recon-
struction of the Capitol were among the labours of
his closing years. He it was who placed the
equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius on the pedestal
in the centre of the Piazza and designed the flight
of steps leading up to Ara Coeli, and the grand stair-
case of the Palazzo del Senatore.
The tragic fate which had attended so many of
Michelangelo’s grandest works, above all, the infinite
trouble and perpetual quarrels which arose over the
unfinished Tomb of Julius II., clouded his last years
with a sense of gloom and failure.
“ My whole youth and manhood have been lost,” he
wrote on one occasion, “ tied down to this tomb. Painting
and sculpture, labour and good faith have been my ruin,
and I go steadily from bad to worse. Better would it have
been for me, if I had learnt to make matches in my youth.
At least I should not suffer such distress of mind as I do
now.”
But his friendship with Vittoria Colonna threw a ray
of light on his sorrowful old age. Michelangelo first
met the widowed Marchesa of Pescara in 1438, when
she was living in a Benedictine convent in Rome,
spending her time in devotional exercises and writing
poetry, and enjoying the society of a few serious
thinkers such as Ochino and Contarini, who had been
strongly influenced by the movement of the Reforma-
tion. The great master, who read his Bible constantly
and retained his old veneration for Savonarola, found