Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T18:14:04.289Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The 2014 Josephine Waters Bennett Lecture: “Certain of Death”: Michelangelo’s Late Life and Art*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

William E. Wallace
William E. Wallace*
Affiliation:
Washington University in St. Louis
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay is a preliminary sketch for a book that examines Michelangelo Buonarroti’s final eighteen years, from his appointment as architect of St. Peter’s until his death in 1564, that is, from age seventy-one to a few weeks shy of eighty-nine. This period represents nearly a quarter of his approximately seventy-five-year artistic career, yet it remains the least familiar segment of Michelangelo’s long life. It is paradoxical that in the final phase of his career, Michelangelo remained prodigiously creative and influential without being prolific — as he had been earlier in his career. His late life was concerned less with making things than with finding the courage and devotion to continue tasks that he knew he would never see to fruition, and this despite the loss of his closest friends, greatest patron, and his entire family.

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 68 , Issue 1 , Spring 2015 , pp. 1 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I am pleased and honored to have this opportunity to expand upon some ideas that were first presented at a stimulating panel monitored by Elizabeth Cropper, dean of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA), at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America in Montreal in March 2011. The panel — organized by Deborah Parker — included scholars who had recently published books on Michelangelo, including myself, Leonard Barkan, Deborah Parker, and Paul Barolsky. It was clear that, despite Benedict Nicholson’s complaint a generation ago that we had “milked the bull,” Michelangelo scholarship was alive and well. I have been especially impressed by the current generation of scholars who are making important contributions, including, among others, Joost Keizer, Maria Ruvoldt, Cammy Brothers, Christian Kleinbub, Anna Hetherington, Tamara Smithers, Emily Fenichel, Erin Sutherland, Eric Hupe, and for the poetry, Oscar Schiavone, Antonio Corsaro, Sarah Rolfe Prodan, Ida Campeggiani, and Fionnán O’Connor. As Howard Hibbard emphasized to me when I embarked — not without trepidation — on a Michelangelo dissertation: “There is no such thing as a definitive work of scholarship. Every generation has new questions, new perspectives, and something new to offer to our understanding of great art and great artists.” I am happy to be in such vibrant company.

References

Ackerman, James S. The Architecture of Michelangelo. 2 vols. London, 1961.Google Scholar
Ackerman, James S. “Notes on Bramante’s Bad Reputation.” In Studi bramanteschi (1974), 339–49.Google Scholar
Alexander, Sydney. The Complete Poetry of Michelangelo. Athens, OH, 1991.Google Scholar
Argan, Giulio Carlo, and Contardi, Bruno. Michelangelo architetto. Milan, 1990.Google Scholar
Barkan, Leonard. Michelangelo: A Life on Paper. Princeton, 2010.Google Scholar
Barocchi, Paola. Michelangelo tra le due redazioni delle Vite Vasariane (1550–1568). Lecce, 1968.Google Scholar
Barolsky, Paul. Michelangelo’s Nose: A Myth and Its Maker. University Park, 1990.Google Scholar
Barolsky, Paul. The Faun in the Garden: Michelangelo and the Poetic Origins of Italian Renaissance Art. University Park, 1994.Google Scholar
Barolsky, Paul. “Michelangelo’s Self-Mockery.” Arion 7 (2000): 167–75.Google Scholar
Bartsch, Tatjana, and Peter Seiler, eds. Rom zeichnen. Maarten van Heemskerck 1532–1536/37. Berlin, 2012.Google Scholar
Bedon, Anna. Il Campidoglio: Storia di un monumento civile nella Roma papale. Milan, 2008.Google Scholar
Bellini, Federico. La Basilica di San Pietro da Michelangelo a Della Porta. 2 vols. Rome, 2011.Google Scholar
Bredekamp, Horst. Sankt Peter in Rom und das Prinzip der produktiven Zerstörung. Bau und Abbau von Bramante bis Bernini. Berlin, 2000.Google Scholar
Brodini, Alessandro. “Michelangelo e la volta della cappella del re di Francia in San Pietro.” Annali di Architettura: Rivista del Centro Internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio 17 (2005): 115–26.Google Scholar
Brundin, Abigail, ed. and trans. Sonnets for Michelangelo. Chicago, 2005.Google Scholar
Brundin, Abigail. Vittoria Colonna and the Spiritual Poetics of the Italian Reformation. Aldershot, 2008.Google Scholar
Bruzelius, Caroline. “Project and Process in Medieval Construction.” In Ex Quadris Lapidibus. La pierre et sa mise en oeuvre dans l’art médiéval. Mélanges d’Histoire de l’art offerts à Élaine Vergnolle. ed. Gallett, Yves, 113–24. Turnhout, 2011.Google Scholar
Burns, Howard. “Building against Time: Renaissance Strategies to Secure Large Churches against Changes to Their Design.” In L’Église dans l’architecture de la Renaissance. ed. Guillaume, Jean, 107–31. Paris, 1995.Google Scholar
Cambon, Glauco. Michelangelo’s Poetry: Fury of Form. Princeton, 1985.Google Scholar
Il Carteggio di Michelangelo. Ed. Paola Barocchi and Renzo Ristori. 5 vols. Florence, 1965–83.Google Scholar
Il Carteggio indiretto di Michelangelo. Ed. Paola Barocchi, Kathleen Bramanti, and Renzo Ristori. 2 vols. Florence, 1988 and 1995.Google Scholar
Cicero, Marcus Tullius. “On Old Age.” In Selected Works. trans. Michael Grant, 211–50. Harmondsworth, 1971.Google Scholar
Ciulich, Lucilla Bardeschi. Costanza ed evoluzione nella scrittura di Michelangelo. Florence, 1989.Google Scholar
Clements, Robert J. The Poetry of Michelangelo. New York, 1964.Google Scholar
Condivi, Ascanio. Michelangelo: Life, Letters, and Poetry. Trans. Bull, George. Oxford, 1987.Google Scholar
I contratti di Michelangelo. Ed. Lucilla Bardeschi Ciulich. Florence, 2005.Google Scholar
Corsaro, Antonio. “Intorno alle Rime di Michelangelo Buonarroti. La silloge del 1546.” Giornale Storico della Letteratura Italiana 612 (2008): 536–69.Google Scholar
Alighieri, Dante. Paradiso. Trans. Mandelbaum, Allen. Berkeley, 1982.Google Scholar
Alighieri, Dante. Inferno. Ed. and trans. Robert M. Durling. Oxford, 1996.Google Scholar
Eriksen, Roy. “Desire and Design: Vasari, Michelangelo and the Birth of Baroque.” In Contexts of Baroque: Theatre, Metamorphosis, and Design. ed. Roy Eriksen, 52–78. Oslo, 1997.Google Scholar
Eriksen, Roy. The Building in the Text: Alberti to Shakespeare and Milton. University Park, 2001.Google Scholar
Fedi, Roberto. “Il canzoniere (1546) di Michelangelo Buonarroti.” In La memoria della poesia. 264–305. Rome, 1990.Google Scholar
Filippi, Elena. Maarten van Heemskerck: Inventio Urbis. Milan, 1990.Google Scholar
Folliero-Metz, Grazia Dolores, ed. Francisco de Hollanda. Diálogos em Roma (1538) (Conversations on Art with Michelangelo Buonarroti). Heidelberg, 1998.Google Scholar
Frey, Carl. Die Dichtungen des Michelagniolo Buonarroti. 2nd ed. Berlin, 1964.Google Scholar
Girardi, Enzo Noè. Rime. Edizione critica a cura di Enzo Noè Girardi. Bari, 1960.Google Scholar
Girardi, Enzo Noè. Studi su Michelangiolo scrittore. Florence, 1974.Google Scholar
Guasti, Cesare. Le Rime di Michelangelo Buonarroti. Florence, 1863.Google Scholar
Hirst, Michael. “Michelangelo and His First Biographers.” Proceedings of the British Academy. Lectures and Memoirs 94 (1996): 63–84.Google Scholar
Hülsen, Christian, and Egger, Hermann. Die römischen Skizzenbücher von Marten van Heemskerck im Königlichen Kupferstichkabinett zu Berlin. 2 vols. Berlin, 1913–16.Google Scholar
Kuntz, Margaret A. “Maderno’s Building Procedures at New St. Peter’s: Why the Façade First?” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 68 (2005): 41–60.Google Scholar
Macdonald, Hugh. Music in 1853: The Biography of a Year. Woodbridge, Suffolk, 2012.Google Scholar
Masi, Giorgio. “Il ‘gran restauro’: Altre proposte di esegesi poetica michelangiolesca.” In Michelangelo Buonarroti: Leben, Werk und Wirkung / Michelangelo Buonarroti: Vita, Opere, Ricezione. ed. Grazia Dolores Folliero-Metz and Susanne Gramatzki, 235–59. Frankfurt-am-Main, 2013.Google Scholar
Millon, Henry A. “Michelangelo to Marchionni, 1546–1784.” In St. Peter’s in the Vatican. ed. Tronzo, William, 93–110. Cambridge, 2005.Google Scholar
Mortimer, Anthony, trans. Michelangelo: Poems and Letters. London, 2007.Google Scholar
Nagel, Alexander. “Observations on Michelangelo’s late Pietà Drawings and Sculptures.” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 59 (1996): 548–72.10.2307/1482891CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nagel, Alexander. Michelangelo and the Reform of Art. Cambridge, 2000.Google Scholar
Nicholson, Benedict. “Milking the Bull.” Burlington Magazine 117 (1975): 131–32.Google Scholar
Nims, John Frederick. The Complete Poems of Michelangelo. Chicago, 1998.Google Scholar
Pastor, Ludwig von. The History of the Popes. Trans. Ralph Francis Kerr. 40 vols. London, 1924.Google Scholar
Pon, Lisa. “Michelangelo’s Lives: Sixteenth-Century Books by Vasari, Condivi, and Others.” Sixteenth Century Journal 27 (1996): 1015–37.10.2307/2543906CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ramsden, E. H., trans. The Letters of Michelangelo. 2 vols. London, 1963.Google Scholar
I Ricordi di Michelangelo. Ed. Ciulich, Lucilla Bardeschi and Paola Barocchi. Florence, 1970.Google Scholar
Rotili, Mario. Fortuna di Michelangelo nell’incisione. Benevento, 1964.Google Scholar
Saslow, James M. The Poetry of Michelangelo: An Annotated Translation. New Haven, 1991.Google Scholar
Scarpati, Claudio. “Le rime spirituali di Vittoria Colonna nel codice Vaticano donato a Michelangelo.” Aveum: Rassegna di scienze storiche, linguistiche e filologiche 78 (2004): 693–717.Google Scholar
Scarpati, Claudio. “Le rime spirituali di Michelangelo.” In L’ultimo Michelangelo: Disegni e rime attorno alla Pietà Rondanini. ed. Alessandro Rovetta, 36–41. Milan, 2011.Google Scholar
Schiavone, Oscar. Michelangelo Buonarroti. Forme del sapere tra letteratura e arte nel Rinascimento. Florence, 2013.Google Scholar
Schulz, Juergen. “Michelangelo’s Unfinished Works.” Art Bulletin 57 (1975): 366–73.10.1080/00043079.1975.10787184CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shearman, John. “Il tiburio di Bramante.” In Studi bramanteschi (1974), 567–73.Google Scholar
Sohm, Philip. The Artist Grows Old: The Aging of Art and Artists in Italy, 1500–1800. New Haven, 2007.Google Scholar
Steinmann, Ernst. Die Portraitdarstellungen des Michelangelo. Leipzig, 1913.Google Scholar
Steinmann, Ernst. Michelangelo e Luigi del Riccio. Florence, 1932.Google Scholar
Studi bramanteschi: Atti del Congresso internazionale, Milano, Urbino, Roma, 1970. Rome, 1974.Google Scholar
Summers, David. “Michelangelo on Architecture.” Art Bulletin 54 (1972): 146–57.10.1080/00043079.1972.10790611CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thies, Harmen. Michelangelo: Das Kapitol. Munich, 1982.Google Scholar
Thoenes, Christof. “St. Peter’s as Ruins: On some vedute by Heemskerck.” In Sixteenth-Century Italian Art. ed. and trans. Michael W. Cole, 25–39. Malden, 2006.Google Scholar
Tolnay, Charles de. Corpus dei disegni di Michelangelo. 4 vols. Novara, 1975–80.Google Scholar
Trachtenberg, Marvin. Building-in-Time: From Giotto to Alberti and Modern Oblivion. New Haven, 2010.Google Scholar
Tronzo, William. “Il Tegurium di Bramante.” In L’architettura della basilica di San Pietro. Storia e costruzione (Atti del convegno internazionale di studi, Rome, 1995). ed. Gianfranco Spagnesi, 161–66. Rome, 1997.Google Scholar
Vasari, Giorgio. La vita di Michelangelo nelle redazioni del 1550 e del 1568. Ed. Paola Barocchi. 5 vols. Milan, 1962.Google Scholar
Vasari, Giorgio. Lives of the Artists. Trans. Bull, George. London, 1965.Google Scholar
Vasari, Giorgio. Le vite de’ più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568. Ed. Bettarini, Rosanna. 6 vols. Florence, 1966–87.Google Scholar
Vecce, Carlo. “Zur Dichtung Michelangelos und Vittoria Colonnas.” In Vittoria Colonna: Dichterin und Muse Michelangelos. ed. Sylvia Ferino-Pagden, 381–404. Vienna, 1997.Google Scholar
Wallace, William E. Michelangelo at San Lorenzo: The Genius as Entrepreneur. Cambridge, 1994.Google Scholar
Wallace, William E. “Michel Angelus Bonarotus Patritius Florentinus.” In Innovation and Tradition: Essays on Renaissance Art and Culture. ed. Dag T. Andersson and Roy Eriksen, 60–74. Rome, 2000.Google Scholar
Wallace, William E. Michelangelo: The Artist, the Man and His Times. Cambridge, 2010.Google Scholar
Wallace, William E. “Who is the Author of Michelangelo’s Life?” In The Ashgate Research Companion to Giorgio Vasari, ed. Cast, David, 107–19. Aldershot, 2014a.Google Scholar
Wallace, William E. “Michelangelo, Luigi del Riccio, and the Tomb of Cecchino Bracci.” Artibus et Historiae 69 (2014b): 97–106.Google Scholar
Wasserman, Jack. Michelangelo’s Florence Pietà. Princeton, 2003.Google Scholar
Wilde, Johannes. Michelangelo: Six Lectures. Oxford, 1978.Google Scholar