The Cupid Scheme
Back in Florence Michelangelo seems to have gotten involved in a scheme to cheat a cardinal. According to one version, as soon as he was home he got hold of a big block of marble and carved a life-sized, sleeping Cupid which amazed everyone. A businessman named Milanese praised it highly: �You know, your statue looks so classical. I consider it even superior to the antique things I�ve seen.�
�Thank you.�
�I know it�s hard to put a price on a statue like that. A statue like that is actually priceless, isn�t it? But if you had to say a price what would it be?�more or less, understand.�
�My price is fifty crowns,� said Michelangelo.
Milanese nodded and thought awhile. �You know, that�s a fair price (he was considering his margin in the deal). But I wonder what would happen if....I mean, I�m sure no one could tell this figure (and he stroked the Cupid�s behind) from an antique one. As soon as they hear that it�s the work of a young living artist, they start to see�they believe they start to see�defects. But if they were told that your Cupid is a genuine antique, recently dug up in Rome, do you think they would find fault with it? Of course not. Then they would see it for what it really is�plain wonderful.�
Michelangelo watched the businessman spiel on. He didn�t like the man.
�And they would pay something closer to what it�s really worth,� Milanese went on. �You might get...(here he hedged) a hundred crowns for it if people thought it was antique. It�s a real shame there weren�t a way to make it look old, to age it.�
�That�s easy enough,� said Michelangelo, brightening. �I know a way to make it look as old as necessary.� (�This is not to be marvelled at,� says Vasari, �seeing he was ingenious enough to do anything��as though it was his ingeniousness that surprised the reader!)
�No!� said the businessman. �Do you really? Could you? You are such a genius!�
That�s one of the versions. Michelangelo treated the statue to look old and sold it in Rome as an antique�for much more money than he would have gotten for a work by himself. Milanese�s cut isn�t known.
Another version is that Milanese and Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de� Medici and Michelangelo cooked up the scheme together and hoodwinked the Cardinal San Giorgio. Milanese buried the figure in a vineyard on his property in Rome and then undug it with considerable fanfare in the Cardinal�s direction. The Cardinal, believing he was buying a real old Roman statue, paid him two hundred ducats for it and Milanese split the money with the other two crooks.
But the version that makes the best story is the one that claims Milanese cheated everybody. He wrote to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco from Rome that the whole thing had fallen through, and that he was to give Michelangelo thirty crowns, which was all he was able to get from the Cardinal for the Cupid. �And in this way he deceived the cardinal, Pierfrancesco, and Michelangelo himself,� says Vasari. �But then afterwards the Cardinal learned from an eye-witness that the Cupid had been made in Florence, discovered the truth of the matter through a messenger, and compelled Milanese�s agent to restore his money and take back the Cupid.�
It is surprising that the moral to all this that Vasari draws is that the Cardinal was at fault because he hadn�t recognized the superior quality of Michelangelo�s figure. He should not have returned the Cupid�he should have treasured it as a Michelangelo. How sad, says Vasari, wagging his old head. �Every age produces the kind of man who pays more attention to appearances than to facts.�
Those were the first half-dozen patrons that hit Michelangelo. The big ones were yet to come. His early life, like that of many artists, was a kind of picaresque novel, where the little hero of the tale goes from master to master, each more eccentric than the one before. Though in the case of Michelangelo they were the great popes and lords of the time, men with absolute power�very absolute power in the case of the popes, who could arrange things in both Worlds. Up to this point Michelangelo, who was still very young, seems to have put up with mistreatment as a boy should: keeping his mouth shut. Little by little in Vasari�s anecdotes his character would start to show through, just as the hard emery veins, as well as the flaws, of a block of marble become evident as a sculptor carves deeper and defines his figure.
Cardinal San Giorgio and the Deep Barber
Evidence against the version of the Cupid swindle that would make Michelangelo an accomplice rather than a dupe is that the man who was the object of the thing�Cardinal San Giorgio�immediately called him to Rome to �work� for him. There must have been no hard feelings. Michelangelo hurried to the great city, where he had never been, with high hopes for his future. Rome was the biggest and most exciting city in the universe, full of great works of art, home to all the greatest patrons. He was sure things would start to move now.
Unfortunately, says Vasari, �the Cardinal, not understanding the fine arts very much, gave him nothing to do��for a whole year! Why did the cardinal take him into his service then? No explanation. Evidently he was another collector of artists, someone who ran a kind of artist zoo and enjoyed feeding and perhaps petting the creatures in his leisure moments. It isn�t known whether he enjoyed Michelangelo�s Tuscan accent like the man in Bologna or had him read the classics out loud. In any case, Michelangelo had an opportunity to show off those good manners he had learned at the Medici palace�by remaining meek. He certainly had a lot to gripe about. Instead of promoting him as a sculptor, the cardinal had simply taken him out of circulation. Michelangelo had to go looking for patrons on his own, without any recommendation, which was a very hit-and-miss affair.
His best �connection� proved to be the Cardinal�s barber.
It�s easy to picture this big simpatico man, perhaps with a huge mustache and a frown. He had been a painter before coming to the Cardinal�s household. Of all the people there he was probably the one who most loved sculpture and painting�maybe the only one who truly loved them. And he spotted Michelangelo�s superiority at once. The barber had been trained as a painter but he was unable to draw well, which was probably the reason why, heartbroken, he had had to give up painting and start cutting hair and shaving lords.
He asked his friend Michelangelo if he would make a drawing for him. �I can paint like the angels,� he swore to him. �But I need a good drawing to copy. My master never had the time to teach me design,� he said with his eyes down, for he knew that wasn�t the reason he couldn�t do it. �I never saw anyone who could draw as well as you. If you could make me a sketch�just a sketch� I would get out of this barbershop right now and paint the most beautiful panel in Rome. I�m friends with the monks at San Pietro in Montorio and they�ve been after me for more than a year to do a St. Francis for one of their chapels. If they like your drawing and give me the commission, I�ll split the money with you.�
Michelangelo liked that deep barber and made the drawing for him, a St. Francis receiving the stigmata, which the barber did indeed paint in the famous church for the monks. He was enormously proud of his work but just as proudly told everyone that the real master, the draughtsman for the panel, was Michelangelo Buonarroti. And that was what got Michelangelo a commission from a �Roman gentleman� for two big statues in marble�another Cupid and a Bacchus.
