michelangelo and the stonecutters

MICHELANGELO AND THE STONECUTTERSAuthor(s): Norman E. LandSource: Source: Notes in the History of Art, Vol. 33, No. 1 (Fall 2013), pp. 16-20Published by: Ars Brevis Foundation, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23595749 .

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MICHELANGELO AND THE STONECUTTERS

Norman E. Land

As a sculptor and an architect, Michelangelo body and diverted him from his natural in

(1475-1564) used stone; and because he clination. Although Condivi is not clear on

used stone, he often employed scarpellini the point, Michelangelo seems to have be

(stonecarvers or stonecutters) such as, for lieved that he had been destined for a life

example, Piero Basso, Bartolommeo di Chi- appropriate to his noble origins, but his wet

menti, and Giovanni Nanni della Grassa, to nurse's relationship to stones and stone all of whom he refers in his letters.1 Unsur- cutters somehow influenced her milk, which

prisingly, in his Lives of the Artists, in both changed him into a sculptor.2 Such an opin the first edition of 1550 and the second edi- ion would have been in keeping with

tion of 1568, Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) Lodovico's interest in his son's place in life,

tells stories about Michelangelo and various According to Condivi, Michelangelo's social stonecutters. The same is true of the sculptor status was of great concern to his father. Ascanio Condivi (1525-1574) in his Life of Impressed by the young artist's ability in

Michelangelo Buonarroti, first published in imitating the marble head of a faun, Condivi Rome in 1553. Vasari and Condivi are not continues, Lorenzo "il Magnifico" de' the only sixteenth-century authors to recount Medici (1449-1492) wants the boy to live tales about Michelangelo and stonecutters. in the Medici palace and work in his sculp Florentine writer and publisher Anton ture garden. Accordingly, he asks to see Francesco Doni (1513-1574) tells two such Michelangelo's father, who does not want

tales, one of which has been largely over- his son to become a stonecutter ("scar looked. pellino"), even after his son's friend and fel

According to Condivi, stonecutters shaped low artist Francesco Granacci ( 1469-1543)

Michelangelo's personality even in his in- explains to him the significant differences

fancy. After his father, Lodovico, had served between a sculptor and a stonecutter. Nev as podestà of the village of Caprese, where ertheless, in his conversation with Lorenzo his son was born, he returned to Florence to de' Medici, Lodovico grants permission for

live on a family farm at Settignano, a village Michelangelo to live in the Medici house not far from the city. Soon, Lodovico found hold and to study in the sculpture garden a wet nurse for his son, a woman whose fa- under the supervision of the aging pupil of ther and husband were stonecutters. Either Donatello, Bertoldo di Giovanni (c. 1420

seriously or in jest, Michelangelo later 1491). Lodovico also explains that he has claimed that because of his nurse, his delight "never practiced any arte," implying that he in the chisel seemed inevitable. He became had never used his hands to earn a living, a sculptor because the nature of his nurse's The situation is ironical. The politically pow milk changed the innate "heat" of his infant erful, wealthy, and cultured Lorenzo admires



17

talented sculptors and treats Michelangelo "Why?" asks Michelangelo, as if he were a son. Michelangelo's impecu- "Because, thanks to you, I've discovered

nious but noble father is concerned about a talent I never knew I had."5

his reputation and does not want his son to There is ambiguity here. The story might become an artisan, a mere stonecutter.3 gently mock the stonecutter for believing

In the second edition of the Lives, Vasari that he is more than a stonecutter—that

repeats Condivi's account of Michelangelo Michelangelo has brought forth his innate

and his wet nurse but with some significant talent for sculpture—when in fact he has

differences. Vasari says that the farm near merely followed the artist's instructions. On

Settignano was full of stones and attracted the other hand, the stonecutter believes that

stonecutters and artists, many of whom were Michelangelo has revealed the sculptor in

born in the area. Vasari also explains that him to him.

later in his life Michelangelo modestly re- In either case, the story is related to Mi

marked in jest, "Giorgio, if I have anything chelangelo's belief that the sculptor's task is

of the good in my brain, it has come from to remove bits of stone from a block in order

my being bom in the pure air of your country to discover the figure inside. In a sonnet writ

of Arezzo, even as I also sucked in with my ten around 1538-1544, he famously says: nurse's milk the chisels and hammer with XT , , ,

1 . l T , ,,dir,7 . . , Not even the best of artists has any concep whtchlmakemy figures.

4 If Vasari is to be .

believed, Michelangelo, the supreme artist, .... ., / . , .. ,. That a single marble block does not contain

in spite of his noble ancestry, felt a kind of ,,,.,. . , , . . , c j x _ W.I Within its excess, and that is only attained fundamental bond with stonecutters. Michel- ^ *

. . _ . . , , By the hand that obeys the intellect.0

angelo and stonecutters are both manual la

borers. Even though, as workers in stone, In Vasari's story, Michelangelo is the "intel

they are not equally talented, he and they lect," and the stonecutter is the "hand." The

use the same kinds of tools—"chisels and stonecutter obeys Michelangelo's intellect

hammer"—to carve stone. rather than his own but nevertheless makes

In the first and second editions of the Lives, a worthy figure. Michelangelo, known for

Vasari tells another very different kind of uncovering the figure within a marble block,

story about Michelangelo and a stonecutter, instructs the stonecutter in how to discover

one that Condivi ignores. As he is finishing the figure in his stone.7

the tomb of Pope Julius II in San Pietro in In his I Marmi (Venice: 1552), Doni has

Vincoli, Michelangelo, now a mature sculp- one of the interlocutors, a turner named Cer

tor, asks an unidentified stonecutter to make rota, repeat almost verbatim Vasari's tale of

a terminal figure for it and instructs him in the stonecutter who assisted Michelangelo how to proceed. "Cut away here," he says, in completing the tomb of Julius II. Because

"level there; polish here." Soon the man has Doni does not cite his source, we may as

carved a figure without realizing what he has sume either that he silently lifted it from the

done. As the stonecutter gazes in amazement first edition of Vasari's Lives or that the story at the finished piece, Michelangelo asks him: originated and circulated independently of

"What do you think of it?" both authors. The extent to which the story "I think it's fine," says the man, "and I'm reflects historical reality is impossible to de

much obliged to you." termine, but the terminal figures on the tomb



18

of Julius II seem crudely executed when might have ruined it. Michelangelo brings

compared to Michelangelo's powerful fig- out the best in Topolino. ures below. In a published letter from Padua dated

In the second edition of his Lives, Vasari February 17, 1544, to the poet Bernardino also tells a tale about another stonecutter Daniello da Lucca, Doni relates a "mezza and friend named Domenico Fancelli (born novella" (short story) that is similar in struc

1465) and called Topolino, or the "Little ture to Vasari's story about Topolino. This

Mouse." Vasari observes that although time the stonecutter is an old man who has

Topolino, who was a simple fellow, believed a high opinion of his own talent, and he has himself to be a capable artist, he "was in carved a single, ridiculous figure of Jupiter, truth very feeble" as a sculptor. He worked for many years in the quarries of Carrara, As fate would have it, an old stonecutter

cutting marble that he would send to from Fiesole—a man who in his entire life

Michelangelo. Among the marble blocks he had made one small marble figure a half a

dispatched to his friend, Topolino would braccio high—in his old age saw a miracle,

sometimes include several carved figures of This miracle was the one Michelangelo his own making. When Michelangelo saw Buonarroti made with great perfection in

Topolino's sculptures, he would laugh out his youth, that Giant [that is, the David] loud. standing in the piazza in Florence. The good

Once, Topolino attempted to carve a figure man, having heard about the work and that

of Mercury and, when it was almost finished, it was made by a youth, went to Florence to

called Michelangelo to see it. Michelangelo, see it. There, dazzled and stupefied, he went who found Topolino's simplicity ridiculous, to find him [Michelangelo] to tell him that told his friend that he was "a madman to try his work was admirable and took much joy to make figures" and pointed out that the in doing so. Then he said: "I have made a "dwarfish and misshapen Mercury was a small figure that I know will not displease third of a braccio short between the knees you, so much so that if it will not be bother and the feet." Undaunted, Topolino said that some, I will bring it here to show you." And he would put his sculpture right and, cutting returning [to Florence] another day, he the figure below the knees, added a new brought a Jupiter, a thing baptized in his

length of marble, which made the propor- [Jupiter's] style, [at least] in so far as this tions correct. He also carved a pair of figure, or dummy \fantoccio], was nude, buskins for his figure, the tops of which cov- And, since he had made it with one shoulder ered the seam in the marble made by smaller than the other, with a certain mod

Topolino's addition. When Topolino showed esty Michelangelo said to him that one his corrected figure to Michelangelo, the added badly to marble, and that he'd rather

sculptor laughed and, Vasari says, marveled not pass judgment; but because he [the "that such uncouth men, when pressed by stonecutter] had asked, he would give his

necessity, find solutions which capable men opinion to him: with that shoulder the figure cannot."8 Topolino's simplicity, Michelan- was maimed. Whereupon the stonecutter

gelo seems to suggest, is the source of his said to him: "I will do something to it." He success. Had he responded differently to departed, and having cut a section out of the

Michelangelo's criticism of his figure, he shoulder, he added a larger piece of marble,



19

and with much diligence completed the task, Part of the humor of this tale lies in the

working the figure with grace so that the transformation of the figure of Jupiter that [new piece of] marble hardly seemed added. is appropriately nude into one that wears

Returning to Michelangelo he said: "My boots. The inept old stonecutter, in his at son, I have repaired it, as you see." Certainly, tempts to respond to Michelangelo's criti the corrected work was pleasing, but there cisms, "does something"; he ruins his figure, was something else to address, the legs, He is just the opposite of the stonecutter in which were somewhat large, and he the tale told by both Vasari and Doni. That

[Michelangelo] said to him: "I must warn man, again following Michelangelo's in you, my father, that in carving the figure structions, creates a worthy figure and in so you must take care not to go in too much doing believes he discovers a talent he never [that is, do not take away too much marble], knew he had. because you hardly could add marble there Doni's novella may be pure fiction, or it [in the legs] as [you have] to the shoulder." may be a historically accurate representation The stonecutter soon returned another time, of an event in Michelangelo's life. A third and he had made the figure's legs so thin possibility is that the story is a mixture of that it could hardly stand on its feet. "This, fact and fiction. In any case, the tale, which

my father, you can hardly remedy," said appeared in print about a quarter of a century Michelangelo. And, having carefully exam- before Vasari published his account of ined his figure, the old man said in departing, Topolino, is structurally similar to the latter. "I will do something to it." And returning to Each stonecutter represents an ancient god, his house, he took away so much that he cut Mercury and Jupiter, respectively. Each al the legs of his little figure into two pieces of ters the appearance of his figure after drilled marble, and he made a pair of boots Michelangelo criticizes it, adding pieces of on the legs worked with grace. And he car- marble to his sculpture. Both stories are, in ried the figure to Florence again to show, turn, also similar to the tale of the stonecutter

believing that he had a Colossus or a La- whom Michelangelo guides in the carving ocoön. Imagine how beautiful a sight a nude of a figure. His figure, however, unlike the figure wearing boots could be. When others, is not ridiculous and even appears Michelangelo saw the figure, he began to on one of Michelangelo's major works. Per

laugh and said to the old stonecutter: "Now, haps most significantly, Doni's tale, like the

my father, you have indeed 'done some- others presented here, reflect Michelangelo's thing': you have made a pair of boots for a involvement with stonecutters and his affin

figure that was nude and now has 'some- ity with them.

thing'."9

NOTES

1. See Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Letters of

Michelangelo, ed. and trans. E. H. Ramsden, 2 vols.

(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1963), I, p. 46, no. 43 (Piero Basso); p. 87, no. 92 (Bartolommeo di

Chimenti); p. 104, no. 114 (Giovanni Nanni della

Grassa). 2. Ascanio Condivi, The Life of Michel-Angelo, 2nd

ed., ed. Hellmut Wohl, trans. Alice Sedgwick Wohl



20

(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,

1999), pp. 6-7. William E. Wallace, "Michelangelo's Wet Nurse," Arion 17, no. 2 (Fall 2009):54, notices

the discrepancy between Michelangelo's noble birth

and his lowly profession. See also Paul Barolsky, Giotto 's Father and the Family of Vasari 's "Lives

"

(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,

1992), pp. 74-75. 3. Condivi, pp. 10-13. 4. Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Painters, Sculptors,

and Architects, trans. Gaston du C. de Vere, 2 vols.

(New York: Knopf, 1996), II, p. 643.

5. Ibid., II, p. 746. 6. Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Poetry of Michel

angelo, trans. James M. Saslow (New Haven: Yale

University Press, 1991), p. 302, sonnet 151. See also

ibid., p. 305, sonnet 152: "by taking away, [... ] one

puts / into hard and alpine stone / a figure that's alive

/ and that grows larger wherever the stone decreases

[...]. 7. Anton Francesco Doni, I Martni, ed. Pietro Fan

fani, 2 vols. (Florence: 1863), I, p. 129.

8. Vasari, II, pp. 745-746.

9. Original text in Anton Francesco Doni, Lettere

(Venice: Girolamo Scotto, 1544), letter CI. I have used

the text in id., Novelle, ed. Giuseppe Petraglione

(Bergamo: Istituto Italiano d'Arti Grafiche, 1907), pp. 17-18. I am grateful to Carol Lazzaro-Weiss, who

kindly corrected the first draft of my translation.



michelangelo and the stonecutters

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