Leo X must have been impressed by Peruzzi’s versatility, for he appointed him to succeed Raphael as chief architect at St. Peter’s (1520), and engaged him to paint the scenery for Bibbiena’s comedy, La Calandra (1521). All that remains of Peruzzi’s work on San Pietro is the ground plan that he drew; Symonds pronounced it “by far the most beautiful and interesting of those laid down for St. Peter’s.”56 Leo’s death, and the accession of a pope allergic to art, drove Peruzzi back to Siena, then to Bologna. There he designed the lovely Palazzo Albergati, and made a model for the never finished façade of San Petronio. He hurried back to Rome when Clement VII reopened the paradise of the arts, and resumed his work at St. Peter’s. He was still there when the imperial mob sacked Rome. He suffered special tribulations, says Vasari, because “he was grave and noble of aspect, and they thought him some great prelate in disguise.” They held him for a lordly ransom; but when he proved his lowly status by painting a masterly portrait, they contented themselves with taking from him all but the shirt on his back, and let him go. He made his way to Siena, and arrived there almost naked. The Sienese government, proud to recapture its prodigal son, engaged him to design fortifications; and the church of Fontegiusta commissioned him to paint a mural which was acclaimed by generous critics as his chef-d’oeuvre—a Sibyl announcing to a frightened Augustus the coming birth of Christ.
But Peruzzi’s greatest success was the Palazzo Massimi delle Colonne, which he designed on his return to Rome (1530). The Massimi claimed descent, and derived their name, from Fabius Maximus, who had earned immortality by idling; they took their surname from the columned porch of their previous dwelling, which had been destroyed in the sack. It was Peruzzi’s good fortune that the curved irregularity of the site forbade the usual dreary rectangular plan. He chose an oval form, with a Renaissance façade and a Doric portico; and while keeping the exterior simple, he gave the interior all the ornament and splendor of a Roman palace of Imperial days, with Greek refinements of proportion and decoration.
Despite his multiform ability Peruzzi died poor, not having had the heart to haggle with popes, cardinals, and bankers for fees commensurate with his skill. When Pope Paul III heard that he was dying he bethought himself that only Peruzzi and Michelangelo remained to raise St. Peter’s from walls to dome. He sent the artist a hundred crowns ($1250?). Baldassare thanked him, and died nevertheless, at the age of fifty-four (1535). Vasari, after suggesting that a rival had poisoned him, relates that “all the painters, sculptors, and architects in Rome followed his body to the grave.”
X. MICHELANGELO AND CLEMENT VII: 1520–34
It is one of the credits in Clement’s account that through all his own misfortunes he bore with kindly patience the moods and revolts of Michelangelo, plied him with commissions, and accorded him all the privileges of genius. “When Buonarroti comes to see me,” he said, “I always take a seat and bid him be seated, feeling sure that he will do so without leave.”57 Even before becoming pope he proposed (1519) what proved to be the artist’s culminating sculptural assignment: to add to the church of San Lorenzo in Florence a “New Sacristy” as a mausoleum for famous Medici, to design their tombs, and to adorn these with appropriate statuary. Confident in the Titan’s versatility, Clement also asked him to draw up architectural plans for the Laurentian Library, strong and spacious enough to safely house the literary collections of the Medici family. The stately stairway and pillared vestibule of this Biblioteca Laurenziana were completed (1526–7) under Angelo’s supervision; the remainder of the building was later put up by Vasari and others from Buonarroti’s designs.
The Nuova Sagrestia was hardly an architectural masterpiece. It was planned as a simple quadrangle, divided with pilasters and surmounted by a modest dome; its prime function was to receive statuary in the recesses left in the walls. This “Medici Chapel” was finished in 1524; and in 1525 Angelo began work on the tombs. Clement wrote to him in the latter year a gently impatient letter:
Thou knowest that popes have no long life; and we cannot yearn more than we do to behold the chapel with the tombs of our kinsmen, or at any rate to hear that it is finished. And likewise as regards the Library. Wherefore we recommend both to thy diligence. Meanwhile we will betake us (in accord with your words) to a wholesome patience, praying God that He may put it into thy heart to push the whole enterprise forward together. Fear not that either commissions or rewards shall fail thee while we live. Farewell, with God’s blessing and ours.—Giulio.58
There were to be six tombs: for Lorenzo the Magnificent, his assassinated brother Giuliano, Leo X, Clement VII, the younger Giuliano “too good to govern a state” (d. 1516), and the younger Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino (d. 1519). Only the tombs of the last two were completed, and even these not quite. Nevertheless they are the apogee of Renaissance sculpture, as the Sistine Chapel is the summit of Renaissance painting, and St. Peter’s dome is the architectural pinnacle of the Renaissance. The tombs show the dead men in the prime of life, with no attempt to reproduce their real forms or features: Giuliano in the garb of a Roman commander, Lorenzo as il Penseroso the thinker. When some incautious observer remarked this lack of realism, Michelangelo answered with words that revealed his sublime confidence in his artistic immortality: “Who will care, a thousand years hence, whether these are their features or not?”59 Reclining on the sarcophagus of Giuliano are two nude figures: at the right a man allegedly symbolizing Day, at the left a woman supposedly representing Night. Similar recumbent figures on the tomb of Lorenzo have been named Twilight and Dawn. These interpretations are hypothetical, perhaps fanciful; probably the sculptor’s aim was merely to carve again his secret fetish, the human body, in all the splendor of male strength and all the comely contours of the female form. As usual, he succeeded better with the male; the unfinished figure of Twilight, slowly surrendering an active and exhausting day to night, matches the noblest gods of the Parthenon.
War intervened upon art. When Rome fell to the Landsknechte (1527), Clement could no longer play patron, and Michelangelo’s papal pension of fifty crowns ($625) a month ceased. Meanwhile Florence enjoyed two years of republican liberty. When Clement made up with Charles, and a German-Spanish army was despatched to overthrow the republic and reinstall the Medici, Florence appointed Angelo (April 6, 1529) to a Committee of Nine—Nove di Milizia—for the defense of the city. The Medicean artist became, by the hazard of circumstance, the anti-Medicean engineer feverishly engaged in designing and building forts and walls.
But as these works proceeded, Michelangelo became more and more convinced that the city could not be successfully defended. What single town, divided as Florence then was in heart and loyalties, could withstand the artillery and excommunications of Empire and papacy combined? On September 21, 1529, in a mood of panic, he fled from Florence, hoping to escape to France and its amiable King. Finding his way blocked by German-held terrain, he took temporary refuge in Ferrara, then in Venice. Thence he sent a message to his friend Battista della Palla, art agent of Francis I in Florence: Would he join Angelo in flight to France?60 Battista refused to leave the post that had been assigned to him in the defense of the city; instead he wrote to Angelo a stirring appeal to return to his duty, warning him that otherwise the government would confiscate his property, leaving his impecunious relatives destitute. About November 20 the artist was back at his work on the Florentine fortifications.