So. Did Michelangelo finally find the patron he deserved? Does the story have a happy end�he and the great Pope worked together like two brothers?
Not at all. The Pope soon began to reconsider his tomb project:
�As very often happens at court,� Condivi says, �the many great favors thus conferred gave rise to envy and, after envy, endless persecutions. Thus the architect Bramante, who was loved by the pope, made him change his plans by quoting what common people say, that it is bad luck for anyone to build his tomb during his lifetime, and other stories.� (Condivi, p. 30)
Nowadays it is hard to believe that a tough, world-wise man like Julius would stop building his tomb out of superstition�though both he and his uncle Sixtus believed in astrology. The great Swiss historian Burckhardt found evidence that Julius, for example, had the day of his coronation and the day of his return from Bologna calculated by astrologers. (Burckhardt, p. 485)
Why did he change his mind? What cooled him on the idea?
This intimacy with Michelangelo, however great, must not have been equal to the Pope�s intimacy with Bramante. Michelangelo wasn�t much of a talker. He certainly didn�t like to be interrupted while he worked. Later, when he was painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, we see him doing all he can to keep this same brotherly Julius out of the chapel. He even threw some planks at him, pretending not to know that the intruder was the Pope. Vasari says this may have been the reason the Pope was angry with him and for which Michelangelo had had to flee for his life.
Michelangelo did end up running away from the Pope and in anger�he too had his temper�destroying everything in his rented house (including models?, sketches?) before leaving secretly by night. What had happened to the wonderful brotherly relations?
This is how Michelangelo himself tells the story.
�As to my leaving Rome, it�s true that on Holy Saturday I heard the Pope, speaking at table to his jeweller and master of ceremonies, say he didn�t want to spend a penny more on stones, big or small. That surprised me very much. Besides, before leaving I asked him for part of what I needed to continue with my work. His Holiness answered that I should come back the following Monday. I went back there on Monday, on Tuesday, on Wednesday, and on Thursday, as he himself saw. Finally, on Friday morning, they sent me away: that is, they threw me out, and the person who did it said he knew me, but this was the order he had received. So, having heard these words and seeing the results, on Saturday I fell into a state of extreme desperation. Nevertheless, this wasn�t the only reason I left. There was something else I don�t want to write about. Let it suffice to say that I was made to believe that if I stayed in Rome, my tomb would be built before the Pope�s. That was the reason I left so fast.�
(To Master Giuliano da Sangallo, Papal Architect in Rome; Florence, May 2, 1506 p73)
In this account to the pope�s architect which he wrote later from Florence, he omitted his remark to the official who had refused to admit him to the pope�s palace: �You may tell the pope that from now on, if he wants me, he can look for me elsewhere.�
The Flight
It is easy to understand this �state of desperation� Michelangelo fell into. He had been serving the Pope for more than two years, the bigger part of one of them in Carrara, quarrying marble under extremely difficult conditions. He had designed a grandiose tomb which he had come to consider the great work of his life. He had imagined 40 statues like the Victory, the Moses, and the Slaves. The tomb would have been a kind of Sistine Chapel in marble�a concentration of the artist�s work over many years. He could see it all clearly and the vision had made him work inhumanly hard and long, neglecting himself and the rest of the world, allowing him to overlook ugly rumors that probably seeped into the chamber where he hammered, rumors that said the Pope had lost enthusiasm for the project. Now, when he heard the worst of them confirmed by the pope himself, and with such a show of ingratitude, his world fell down.
Michelangelo called his reaction a �state of desperation� but others called it uncontrollable rage. Suddenly, as far as the records of his biography go, Michelangelo turns into a fiery demon, the equal of Cellini or Pope Julius. He seems to go mad with rage. He orders his servants to sell everything in his apartment and rides out of Rome in the middle of the night as fast as he can toward the Florentine border, where the Pope�s jurisdiction ends. That looks like rage, all right; but rage ends. A head cools down. Another man, in the course of this flight or afterwards, would lose some of his steam and reconsider. But Michelangelo keeps boiling as he rides; and when the papal emissaries catch up with him, he draws his sword and threatens to kill them. Vasari doesn�t say how many emissaries there were, but there were more than one. They were not ready to risk their own lives in a fight with him: they had probably expected a poor, remorseful soul, ready to burst into tears in apology for his behavior and fearful of punishment from the world�s most powerful ruler. They had orders to bring him back to Rome one way or another. But now, seeing the gleam of deadly resolution in his eyes, they hedge, they soften. �Be reasonable,� they plead. �Make peace with the pope. At least write a note telling him you apologize.�
�I won�t,� said the artist. �I don�t. You write him and tell him to go to the devil.�
Vasari says Michelangelo did write the letter. It showed no remorse at all. �I will never go back to Rome,� he wrote. �In return for my good and faithful service I did not deserve to be driven from the pope�s presence like a villain. Since His Holiness no longer wishes to pursue the tomb, I am freed from my obligation and do not wish to commit myself to anything else.�
This kind of heroic defiance is wonderful to behold in novels and movies. We watch it with awe and a shiver of admiration, sometimes; regard it as disgusting pigheadedness, others. If we see it as �standing up for one�s rights�, it is praiseworthy. In real life, we don�t recommend it. The law, which presupposes reasonableness, punishes it. It is foolish behavior, however brave. Cellini caused himself endless trouble by making such a stand whenever he felt cheated or even slighted. He had quarrels and duels his whole life long because his world was so one-sided and he was so unbelievably stubborn and unreasonable. A little dialogue might have saved him much distress.
Back to the Trusty Gonfalonier
Michelangelo was lucky enough to have a place to go where he was out of the pope�s reach and could live unpunished�temporarily. He was lucky enough to have the Gonfalonier, his trusty patron, to protect him. This time the Gonfalonier really stuck his neck out for him. He was defying the pope by allowing Michelangelo, a fugitive from papal justice, to stay in Florence. The pope wrote three letters to the Gonfalonier, first politely asking to have the artist sent back and finally almost threatening to come with an army and get him if he didn�t. When he saw no way out any longer, the Gonfalonier called Michelangelo and told him he would have to go to the pope; but he had a plan to help him, to protect him from being seized and imprisoned: Michelangelo would go to Bologna, where the pope was camped at the head of an army, as a Florentine ambassador. That way he would be under diplomatic immunity and the pope wouldn�t dare arrest him. The Gonfalonier�s brother, a cardinal who was attending the pope in Bologna, would also plead Michelangelo�s cause.
The plan worked. Maybe the Gonfalonier hadn�t risked too much by having the botched block of marble given to Michelangelo to make his David; it�s true he hadn�t shown much understanding for the aesthetic problems Michelangelo solved in the colossal figure; maybe he protected Michelangelo and his work only because they happened to coincide with his own interests and those of Florence. But Michelangelo owed him very much.
Papal Pardon and La Giulia
Pope Julius pardoned Michelangelo and set him to work on a giant bronze statue of himself, the Pope, right there in Bologna. Up to then, Michelangelo had worked alone on his figures, except where he considered the chiselling unimportant. A stone sculptor can do everything by himself, every last hammer stroke. But bronze figures depend on specialists for their success. The casting of even a small figure is a complex affair that requires a lot of experience with materials and processes that have nothing to do with the artistic side of a statue. The specialists cast your figure as if it were a mere oddly-shaped piece of metal. They make molds and a wax copy; they cover that wax copy with clay and brick and bake the whole package in the oven; they pour molten bronze into that brick-clay package and hope it fills all the empty spaces the wax left; they chip away the package when cool and begin to clean up the bronze figure, sawing away the excess metal and filing down the burrs and joints. Sometimes they must correct flaws in the casting by welding on pieces or hammering out depressions.
It must have been painful for a perfectionist like Michelangelo, who believed that �if you want something done right, do it yourself�, to watch these helpers bungle with his big portrait of Pope Julius. And you can be sure he intervened as he saw them work, snatching their tools from them and using them himself when he was unhappy with the way things were going. Yet all the same, the first cast failed completely�the caster botched the job and had to start over again after several months.
How Much Can a Man Take?
This, after the larger disappointment of the abandoned tomb project, might have been enough to permanently defeat most men, to actually unsettle their minds. It meant Michelangelo hadn�t accomplished a thing for years now, though he had worked like a devil and dreamed up great schemes, great monuments, great figures. All those months in Carrara, quarrying the marble blocks for Julius�s tomb; all those other months of frenetic work in Rome, modelling, carving the big statues; next, the months of inactivity and fear in Florence followed by reconciliation with the pope and the present work for his bronze statue in Bologna---all of it for nothing! He knew what he was capable of, he knew he was meant to do great things; but silly patrons and envious rivals and incompetent technicians and plain bad luck all stood like a mountain in his way. How much can a man do alone? No wonder that in desperation he nearly ran away from Italy to serve the Sultan of Turkey.
Michelangelo re-modelled the statue and it was finally finished and set up at the main gate of Bologna. Nine years later it was melted down for a cannon, which the artillerymen called, appropriately, La Giulia.