DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61542#0420
364 MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI [1475-1564
from the church and send it secretly to Florence.
On the evening of the 12th of March, the members
of Duke Cosimo’s new Academy, which had chosen
Michelangelo for their first President, bore the illus-
trious dead in solemn procession to Santa Croce.
Here, four months later, an imposing funeral service
was held, and the tasteless monument erected by
Vasari bore witness to the general decadence of art
in Italy.
Michelangelo had outlived all the painters of his
generation. Raphael had been dead forty-four years,
Leonardo forty-five, and of all the illustrious company
who had met to choose the site of David, sixty years
before, not one was left. With him the race of giants
who had made the sixteenth century famous passed
away. Before his death, Florence had already lost
much of her old glory, and had ceased to be the home
of art and culture and the centre of Italian civiliza-
tion. Her great days were over, and, deprived of
freedom and independence, the city of Dante and
Savonarola sank into obscurity and insignificance.
The arts which had blossomed on the banks of Arno
during three centuries and more, fell into decay, and
the great movement of the Renaissance reached its
appointed end.
Chief Works-
Florence. — Uffizi: 1139. Holy Family.
Rome. — Sistine Chapel: Frescoes—Ceiling: Story of
Creation, Fall of Man, Deluge, Brazen
Serpent, David and Goliath, Haman, Judith,
Prophets and Sibyls.— W. Wall: Last
Judgment
„ Cappella Paolina: Frescoes—Conversion of
St. Paul, Martyrdom of St. Peter.
London.—National Gallery: Deposition (unfinished).
from the church and send it secretly to Florence.
On the evening of the 12th of March, the members
of Duke Cosimo’s new Academy, which had chosen
Michelangelo for their first President, bore the illus-
trious dead in solemn procession to Santa Croce.
Here, four months later, an imposing funeral service
was held, and the tasteless monument erected by
Vasari bore witness to the general decadence of art
in Italy.
Michelangelo had outlived all the painters of his
generation. Raphael had been dead forty-four years,
Leonardo forty-five, and of all the illustrious company
who had met to choose the site of David, sixty years
before, not one was left. With him the race of giants
who had made the sixteenth century famous passed
away. Before his death, Florence had already lost
much of her old glory, and had ceased to be the home
of art and culture and the centre of Italian civiliza-
tion. Her great days were over, and, deprived of
freedom and independence, the city of Dante and
Savonarola sank into obscurity and insignificance.
The arts which had blossomed on the banks of Arno
during three centuries and more, fell into decay, and
the great movement of the Renaissance reached its
appointed end.
Chief Works-
Florence. — Uffizi: 1139. Holy Family.
Rome. — Sistine Chapel: Frescoes—Ceiling: Story of
Creation, Fall of Man, Deluge, Brazen
Serpent, David and Goliath, Haman, Judith,
Prophets and Sibyls.— W. Wall: Last
Judgment
„ Cappella Paolina: Frescoes—Conversion of
St. Paul, Martyrdom of St. Peter.
London.—National Gallery: Deposition (unfinished).