Two notes on Michelangelo in Florence: the facade of S Lorenzo and the 'kneeling' windows of Palazzo Medici

Apollo, Feb, 2004 by Michael Hirst

It has been more or less axiomatic among art historians that it was the visit of Pope Leo X to Florence in the late autumn of 1515 that actuated his decision to proceed with the building of a facade for the church of S Lorenzo. As is well known, the Pope entered Florence on 30 November to scenes of extraordinary acclamation, and the circumstances of his stay there are described in an exceptional variety of written sources. (1) One of many events of the visit was the contruction of an ephemeral facade for the Cathedral, a feature which provoked many expressions of admiration and which is often alleged to have been the catalyst in the Pope's decision with regard to S Lorenzo. (2) Furthermore, on 2 December, the first Sunday in Advent, the Pope went to S Lorenzo. He was accompanied by seventeen cardinals, for S Lorenzo had been chosen to host the 'Capella Papalis', a fitting tribute to its profound Medicean associations. Outside, a life-size wooden statue of St Lawrence, carved for the occasion, had been placed above the central door. In an accompanying inscription, the saint exhorted the Pope to recall the works of his forebears and to complete the church. (3)

Circumstances such as these have come to be regarded as decisive in influencing the Pope's thinking. But at least one earlier historian of S Lorenzo struck a note of caution over drawing these kinds of conclusions. (4) Pope Leo did not have to visit Florence in 1515 to be reminded of the missing facade; he had, after all, been in Florence three years before, in 1512, following the collapse of Pietro Soderini's republic. And the church was never far from his mind. (5) Again, he had amply demonstrated his particular concern for facades of churches in his care in the past. (6)

As early as July 1515, we find a Florentine document referring to the possible resystematising of the piazza in front of S Lorenzo, an idea which would come up for discussion again during the Pope's stay in the city later that year. (7) However, a more significant consideration arises when we turn to a letter written by Michelangelo, in Rome, to his brother Buonarroto in Florence, dated 16 June 1515. He is writing because he requires money to be sent to Rome for the purchase of copper, a need which can have been prompted only by current work on the tomb of the dead Julius II. He explains that he must press on with his work as he expects, in the future, to enter the service of the Pope--that is, Leo X. (8)

Although very striking, this remark has provoked surprisingly little comment in the Michelangelo literature. Yet the first editor of Michelangelo's corrrespondence, the great Gaetano Milanesi, did not let it pass without notice. He saw in it evidence that Pope Leo was contemplating the facade project before his own journey to Florence that November. (9)

While no more explicit word about any potential role of Michelangelo's in the future project emerges until September 1516, too much should not be made of this. Not a single letter of the artist survives from November 1515 until September 1516, and it is this gap in the correspondence that explains much of the mystery that surrounds not only Michelangelo's intentions but also those of his patrons, Pope Leo X and Cardinal Giulio de' Medici.

One indication of Michelangelo's intentions is conveyed in the new contract drawn up with the della Rovere executors, Cardinals Leonardo Grosso della Rovere and Lorenzo Pucci, in early July 1516. The vernacular text refers to his poor health and, like the Latin one, allows him freedom to work on the dead Pope's tomb in locations other than Rome. (10) The date of this new agreement is particularly telling, as has often been observed. It was drawn up just over a month after the news had reached Rome that the papal army, crushing resistance, had occupied the duchy of Urbino. At this point, the della Rovere family were in no position to impose their wishes on the artist. Michelangelo left Rome with a haste that struck some of his friends as indecent. His first concern was to arrange supplies of marble at Carrara for the newly revised tomb project. But the concession that he had won from Pope Julius's executors for freedom to work on the tomb project elsewhere than Rome is significant in the light of the plans now under way for the building of a facade for S Lorenzo. (11)

Another feature of Michelangelo's activities at this point is worth our notice: his decision to familiarise him self with the details of antique Roman architecture. He took it upon himself to draw over a hundred studies, not copying the buildings themselves but the drawn copies of another Florentine in Rome, securely identified as Bernardo Volpaia (Figs. 1 and 2). The latter's drawings, Michelangelo's prototypes, survive in the so-called Coner Codex, now in the Soane Museum, which appears to have been completed in 1515. (12)

[FIGURE 1-2 OMITTED]

Michelangelo's copies of Bernardo della Volpaia's drawings have been the subject of a number of excellent studies in recent years, and do not here require elaborate comment. What, however, calls for mention is the fact of his having undertaken them in Rome prior to his leaving for Florence in July 1516. Such a self-educative exercise at this time is the more significant in that it has no known parallel in his working life. The drawings would seem to testify to the interest of an artist 'desirous of understanding classical forms in order to turn them into forms of his own creation.' (13) Their existence suggests an already formed ambition to play an extensive role in Pope Leo and Cardinal Giulio's new Florentine project, one that in the end would exclude all potential collaborators.