DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61902#0450
430
THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE.
The statues which Michael Angelo lias placed above the
sarcophagi which support his emblematic figures are
professedly of two quite unimportant personages—Lorenzo,
dead not long before, the father of Catherine de’ Medici,
portentous infant, then in Florence; and Giulio, his
brother who died without even so much distinction as lies
in that fact. And which is which no one can now say.
We are told that “when remonstrated with as to the
featuresnot being correct, Buonarotti replied, with haughty
carelessness, that he did not suppose people a hundred
years later would care much how the dukes looked”—an
unquestionable truth. And yet one at least of these
statues is remarkable and interesting in the highest
degree, the figure called the Penseroso, long supposed to be
Lorenzo, now -supposed to be Giulio, very likely neither,
but a noble representation of thought and intellect in
opposition to the insignificant and commonplace good looks
of the classical young warrior opposite, embodiments of the
reflective and superficial life more striking, as being more
natural, than the conventional types represented elsewhere
of Rachel and Leah. Perhaps this was the intention of
the artist; or perhaps he made the helmeted thinker so
impressive and grand because he could not help it, and had
exhausted all the capabilities of commonplace in him by
the creation of the light-minded and small-brained indi-
vidual who sits in serene insignificance above the mighty
spirits of the Night and Day.
It is almost a relief from the strained feeling which
accompanies this greatest of modern works, to find the old
fiery humor of the artist breaking out again in presence
of a fine gentleman and courtier who came from Ferrara
to fetch the picture which Alfonso had asked for, and who,
Mentre che ’1 danno e. la vergogna dura,
Non veder, non sentir, m’e gran ventura :
Perd non mi destar, deh ! parla basso.”
THE MAKERS OF FLORENCE.
The statues which Michael Angelo lias placed above the
sarcophagi which support his emblematic figures are
professedly of two quite unimportant personages—Lorenzo,
dead not long before, the father of Catherine de’ Medici,
portentous infant, then in Florence; and Giulio, his
brother who died without even so much distinction as lies
in that fact. And which is which no one can now say.
We are told that “when remonstrated with as to the
featuresnot being correct, Buonarotti replied, with haughty
carelessness, that he did not suppose people a hundred
years later would care much how the dukes looked”—an
unquestionable truth. And yet one at least of these
statues is remarkable and interesting in the highest
degree, the figure called the Penseroso, long supposed to be
Lorenzo, now -supposed to be Giulio, very likely neither,
but a noble representation of thought and intellect in
opposition to the insignificant and commonplace good looks
of the classical young warrior opposite, embodiments of the
reflective and superficial life more striking, as being more
natural, than the conventional types represented elsewhere
of Rachel and Leah. Perhaps this was the intention of
the artist; or perhaps he made the helmeted thinker so
impressive and grand because he could not help it, and had
exhausted all the capabilities of commonplace in him by
the creation of the light-minded and small-brained indi-
vidual who sits in serene insignificance above the mighty
spirits of the Night and Day.
It is almost a relief from the strained feeling which
accompanies this greatest of modern works, to find the old
fiery humor of the artist breaking out again in presence
of a fine gentleman and courtier who came from Ferrara
to fetch the picture which Alfonso had asked for, and who,
Mentre che ’1 danno e. la vergogna dura,
Non veder, non sentir, m’e gran ventura :
Perd non mi destar, deh ! parla basso.”