United States or Syria ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Ascending the steps leading to the Vatican, we passed the Swiss Guard in their famous uniforms designed by Michelangelo, and climbed what seemed like endless stairs, passing guards at almost every turn, who pointed out the way indicated by the address on our credentials.

Then it was that Raphael, who was very prompt in imitation, changed his manner, and to give proof of his ability immediately executed the frescoes with the Prophets and Sibyls in the church of the Pace. Michelangelo accordingly finished the whole in twenty months, without help.

On account of the lack of encouragement Michelangelo received, it seems the most fruitless season of his whole life. Clement the Seventh, another member of the Medici family, succeeded Leo. Clement was too sensible of Michelangelo's merit to allow him to rust out his powers in petty tasks.

We cannot deny that it differs greatly from the simple diction of the writer's ordinary correspondence. But Michelangelo did sometimes seek to heighten his style, when he felt that the occasion demanded a special effort; and then he had recourse to the laboured images in vogue at that period, employing them with something of the ceremonious cumbrousness displayed in his poetry.

If you have changed your mind, and do not care to go, still let me know, so that I may provide as best I can for my own journey." What appears manifest from this document is that Michelangelo was decoyed away from Florence by some one, who, acting on his sensitive nervous temperament, persuaded him that his life was in danger.

While still occupied with thoughts about S. Lorenzo, Clement ordered Michelangelo to make a receptacle for the precious vessels and reliques collected by Lorenzo the Magnificent. It was first intended to place this chest, in the form of a ciborium, above the high altar, and to sustain it on four columns.

Among the names and signatures appended, Michelangelo's alone is written in Italian: "I, Michelangelo, the sculptor, pray the like of your Holiness, offering my services to the divine poet for the erection of a befitting sepulchre to him in some honourable place in this city."

Michelangelo made a cartoon portrait of Messer Tommaso, life-size, which was the only portrait that he ever drew, since he detested to imitate the living person, unless it was one of incomparable beauty." Several of Michelangelo's sonnets are addressed to Tommaso Cavalieri.

When the Cardinal began to suspect that the Cupid was the work of a modern Florentine, he sent one of his gentlemen to Florence to inquire into the circumstances. The rest of the story shall be told in Condivi's words. "This gentleman, pretending to be on the lookout for a sculptor capable of executing certain works in Rome, after visiting several, was addressed to Michelangelo.

Finally, Michelangelo, though he knew that sculpture was his goddess, and never neglected her first claim upon his genius, felt in him that burning ambition for greatness, that desire to wrestle with all forms of beauty and all depths of science, which tempted him to transcend the limits of a single art and try his powers in neighbour regions.