DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.51585#0069
MICHAEL ANGELO.
65
“ suspended the Pantheon in the air.”* The ob-
ject to whom his poems are chiefly addressed,
Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara, was the
widow of the celebrated commander who overcame
Francis I. at the battle of Pavia ; herself a poetess,
and one of the most celebrated women of her time
for beauty, talents, virtue, and piety. She died in
1547. Several of Michael Angelo’s sonnets have
been translated by Wordsworth, and a selection of
his poems, with a very learned and eloquent intro-
duction, has been published by Mr. John Edward
Taylor, in a little volume entitled ‘ Michael Angelo
a Poet.’ «
It must be borne in recollection that the pictures
ascribed to Michael Angelo in catalogues and pic-
ture galleries are in every instance copies made by
his scholars from his designs and models. Only
one easel picture is acknowledged as the genuine
production of his hand. It is a Holy Family in
the Florentine gallery, which as a composition is
very exaggerated and ungraceful, and in colour
hard and violent; it is painted in distemper, var-
nished ; not in oils, as some have supposed.
Marcello Venusti was continually employed
* The dome of the Pantheon, which appears self-sustained,
had, from the time of Augustus Cresar, attracted the wonder'
and admiration of all beholders as a marvel of scientific
architecture. Michael Angelo had said, on some occasion,
“ I will take the Pantheon and suspend it in the airand
he did so.
65
“ suspended the Pantheon in the air.”* The ob-
ject to whom his poems are chiefly addressed,
Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara, was the
widow of the celebrated commander who overcame
Francis I. at the battle of Pavia ; herself a poetess,
and one of the most celebrated women of her time
for beauty, talents, virtue, and piety. She died in
1547. Several of Michael Angelo’s sonnets have
been translated by Wordsworth, and a selection of
his poems, with a very learned and eloquent intro-
duction, has been published by Mr. John Edward
Taylor, in a little volume entitled ‘ Michael Angelo
a Poet.’ «
It must be borne in recollection that the pictures
ascribed to Michael Angelo in catalogues and pic-
ture galleries are in every instance copies made by
his scholars from his designs and models. Only
one easel picture is acknowledged as the genuine
production of his hand. It is a Holy Family in
the Florentine gallery, which as a composition is
very exaggerated and ungraceful, and in colour
hard and violent; it is painted in distemper, var-
nished ; not in oils, as some have supposed.
Marcello Venusti was continually employed
* The dome of the Pantheon, which appears self-sustained,
had, from the time of Augustus Cresar, attracted the wonder'
and admiration of all beholders as a marvel of scientific
architecture. Michael Angelo had said, on some occasion,
“ I will take the Pantheon and suspend it in the airand
he did so.