Читать книгу Michelangelo - Romain Rolland - Страница 8

In March, 1505, Michelangelo was called to Rome by Pope Julius II. Then began the heroic period of his life and the "tragedy" of the monument of Julius II which was not to end until forty years later. The pope and the artist, both of them proud and violent, were well fitted to work together—so long as their ideas did not conflict. Their brains seethed with tremendous ideas. The first years of their friendship were a feverish delirium of plans. Julius II was on fire with enthusiasm for the plan for his tomb which Michelangelo submitted to him. It was to be a mountain of architecture with more than forty statues, some of them of colossal size, and with many bronze reliefs. "Michelangelo's design pleased the pope so much," says Condivi, "that he sent him at once to Carrara (April, 1505) with an order to cut as much marble as he needed.... Michelangelo stayed more than eight months in the mountains with two servants and a horse." He was the victim of superhuman exaltation and in his enthusiasm dreamt of carving a whole mountain. In December, 1505, he returned to Rome, where the blocks of marble which he had chosen had already begun to arrive from Carrara. They were unloaded at La Ripa and then transported to the Piazza di San Pietro behind S. Caterina, where Michelangelo lived. "The mass of the stones was so great that they aroused the wonder and joy of the pope." Michelangelo set to work. "The pope in his impatience came constantly to see him and conferred with him over the monument and other works, with as much familiarity as if he had been his brother. In order that he might visit him the more easily he had a drawbridge thrown across from the gallery of the Vatican to Michelangelo's house which gave him a secret passage."

But this favour did not last. The character of Julius II was as passionate and as changeable as that of Michelangelo. His mind, always in a ferment, took up in rapid succession and ever with the same eagerness the most varied projects. Another idea drove the plan for the tomb from his mind. In order that he might gain immortal glory by one gigantic work he decided to reconstruct St. Peter's. He was encouraged in this by enemies of Michelangelo, who himself writes in 1542:[23]

"All the difficulties which arose between the pope and myself were the work of Bramante and of Raphael. It was their jealousy that kept him from having his tomb made while he was still alive. They tried to ruin me. Raphael had good reason for doing this, since all that he knew of art he learnt from me."

It is not easy to say how far Raphael was carried along by the party of Bramante, who was his friend and fellow-countryman, but there is no doubt that Bramante was chiefly responsible for the check to Michelangelo's great undertaking and that he profited by his absence in Carrara to destroy his influence over the pope.

"The marks of his favour which Julius II had showered on Michelangelo," says Condivi, "resulted, as often happens at courts, in exciting jealousy against him, and, following the jealousy, endless persecution. Bramante, the architect, who was dear to the pope, made him change his plans. He reminded him of the popular superstition that it was of bad augury to build your tomb while you were still alive, and other stories of the same kind. Bramante was driven to do this, not only through jealousy, but from fear that Michelangelo's knowledge would reveal his own mistakes. For Bramante, as everyone knows, was much given to pleasure and very dissipated. The salary he received from the pope, though it was great, was not nearly enough for him, so that he tried to make more out of his work by constructing walls of bad material and neither solid nor strong enough for their height and thrust. Anyone can prove this by the construction of St. Peter's, or the Belvedere gallery, or the cloister of S. Pietro in Vinculi and other buildings which he erected and which it has been necessary to support all over again and to strengthen with buttresses,[24] either because they have fallen down or because they very soon would have done so. Bramante realised that Michelangelo would have discovered his mistakes, and so he always tried to keep him away from Rome and to deprive him of the pope's favour and of the influence which he had gained over the pope by his works. For it is clear that if the tomb of Julius II had been actually undertaken Michelangelo would have stood out supreme over all other artists, however famous they might be, for he would then have had a vast field in which to show what he could do."

Bramante succeeded. In January, 1506, Julius II ordered the reconstruction of St. Peter's. The tomb was abandoned and Michelangelo was not only humiliated and disappointed, but in debt, according to what he says himself:

"When the pope changed his mind and the boats arrived with the marble from Carrara I had to pay the charge of transport myself. And as at this same time the stone-cutters who had come from Florence for the tomb also arrived at Rome and I had had the house which Julius had given me behind S. Caterina prepared for them, I found myself without money and greatly embarrassed. I urged the pope as strongly as I could to continue the construction of the tomb and then one morning when I wished to talk with him about it he had me put out by a groom."

Then it was that the famous flight to Florence took place. Michelangelo, outraged by this affront, took horse and fled from Rome and refused to return in spite of the messengers which the pope sent after him. The indignity of the affront was not, by his own account, the only reason for his flight. In a letter to Giuliano da San Gallo he implies that his life was in danger from Bramante's threats.