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MICHELANGELO

ND THE

STONECUTTERS

NormanE.

Land

As

a

sculptor

and

an architect,

Michelangelo

(1475-1564)

used stone;and because

e

usedstone,

he

often

employedscarpellini

(stonecarvers

r

stonecutters)uch as,

or

example,

PieroBasso,Bartolommeo i Chi-

menti,and GiovanniNanni della Grassa,o

all of whom

he

refers

n his letters.r

Unsur-

prisingly,

n

his Lives

of

theArtists, n

both

the irst edition of 1550and he second di-

t ion of

1568,

Giorgio

Vasari

1511-1574)

tells stories bout

Michelangelo nd

various

stonecutters.

he

same

s true

of the sculptor

Ascanio

Condivi

1525-1

14)

n his Life of

Michelangelo

Buonarrori, irst

published

n

Rome

n

1553.

Vasari

and Condivi are

not

the only sixteenth-century uthors o recount

talesabout

Michelangelo

and

stonecutters.

Florentine writer

and

publisher

Anton

Francesco oni

(

15

3-1574)

ells wo

such

tales,one of

which

has

been argely

over-

looked.

According

o Condivi, stonecutters

haped

Michelangelo's

ersonality

ven n his in-

fancy.After his father,Lodovico, had

served

as

podestd

of the village of

Caprese,

where

his sonwas

born,

he

returned o Florence o

live

on

a

family

farm at Settignano,

village

body and diverted

him from

his

natural

n-

clination.Although Condivi

is

not clear on

the

point, Michelangeloseems o

have be-

lieved that he had

been

destined

or

a

life

appropriate

o his

noble origins,

but

his wet

nurse's

elationship o stonesand stone-

cutters

omehownfluenced

er milk. which

changed im

into

a sculptor.2

uchan opin-

ion would have been in keeping with

Lodovico's

nterestn his son's

place

n

life.

According o Condivi,

Michelangelo's

ocial

statuswas of

great

oncern o his father.

Impressed y the

young

artist'sability in

imitating

he

marbleheadof a

faun,

Condivi

continues,

Lorenzo

il

Magnifico de'

Medici (1449-1492)wants he boy to live

in the Medici

palace

and work in

his

sculp-

ture

garden.

Accordingly,

he

asks to

see

Michelangelo's

ather,who does

not

want

his

son to become

a stonecutter

scar-

pellino ),

even

afterhis son's

riend

and

el -

low

artist

FrancescoGranacci

1469-1543)

explains o

him

the

significantdifferences

betweena sculptorand

a stonecutter. ev-

ertheless,

n his

conversation

ith Lorenzo

de' Medici, Lodovico

grantspermission

or

Michelangelo

o

live in

the Medici

house-

SOURCE: Notes in the History of Art, 33, 1 (2013)© Norman E. Land

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talented

sculptors

and treats

Michelangelo

as f

he werea son.

Michelangelo's

mpecu-

nious but noble father is concernedabout

his

reputationand does

not want

his

son

o

become

an artisan,a

merestonecutter.3

In the second

edition

of the Lives,

Vasari

repeatsCondivi's

accountof

Michelangelo

and

his

wet nursebut with some

significant

differences.

Vasari says that the

farm near

Settignanowas full of stonesand attracted

stonecutters

ndartists,

manyof

whom were

born

in the area.

Vasari

also explains

hat

later n

his

life Michelangelomodestly

e-

marked

n

jest,

Giorgio,

f

I

haveanything

of the

good

in my brain,

t has

come from

my beingborn

n the

pure

air of

your

country

of

Arezzo,even

as also

sucked

n

with my

nurse's

milk the chiselsand hammerwith

which I

makemy figures. a

f

Vasari s to be

believed,

Michelangelo,

he

supreme rtist,

in

spite

of his noble ancestry,

elt

a

kind of

fundamental ondwith stonecutters.

ichel-

angelo

and stonecutters

re

both

manual

a-

borers.

Even though, as

workers

n stone,

they are not equally talented,he and they

use he

samekinds of tools- chisels

and

hammef -tO

Carve

StOne.

In the

irst andsecond ditionsof

the

Lives,

Vasari

ells

another

very

different

kind of

story about

Michelangelo

nd

a stonecutter,

one hat Condivi

gnores.As

he

is

finishing

the tomb of

Pope

Julius

I

in San

Pietro

n

Vincoli,

Michelangelo, ow a

mature

sculp-

tor,

asksan unidentified

stonecuttero

make

a terminal igure

for

it

and

nstructs

him in

how to

proceed.

Cut

away

here, he says,

Why?

asks

Michelangelo.

  Because,

hanks

o

you,

've discovered

a talent neverknewI had. s

There

s

ambiguity

here.

The story might

gently

mock

the

stonecutter

or

believing

that

he is more

than

a stonecutter-that

Michelangelo

has brought

forth

his innate

talent

for sculpture-when

in fact he

has

merely

ollowed

he artist's

nstructions.

On

the otherhand, he stonecutterelieveshat

Michelangelo

has

revealed he

sculptor

n

him

to him.

In either case,

he story

is related o

Mi-

chelangelo's

elief hat

he sculptor's

ask

s

to

removebits

of

stone

rom

a

block

in order

to

discover

he

igure nside.

n a sonnet

writ-

ten around

1538-1544,he

amously ays:

Noteven

hebest

f artists

asanyconcep-

tion

That

a single

marble lock

does otcontain

Within

ts excess, nd

hat s only

attained

By the

hand hat

obeys

he

ntellect.6

In Vasari's

tory,

Michelangelo

s

the

intel-

lect, and he stonecutters the hand. The

stonecutter

beys

Michelangelo's

ntellect

rather han

his own

but nevertheless

akes

a

worthy

figure.

Michelangelo,known

for

uncovering

he

igure

within a

marble

block,

instructs

he stonecutter

n how to

discover

the igure

n his stone.T

In his I Marmi

(Venice:

1552),

Doni has

one of

the nterlocutors, turnernamedCer-

rota,

epeat

almost

verbatim

Vasari's ale of

the stonecutter

who assisted

Michelangelo

in

completing

he omb

of Julius I.

Because

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l8

of Julius

II seemcrudely executed

when

compared o Michelangelo's

powerful

fig-

uresbelow.

In

the

secondedition of

his Lives, Vasari

also tells a tale about

another stonecutter

and

riend namedDomenicoFancelli

born

1465)

and

called

Topolino,

or the

Little

Mouse.

Vasari observes hat although

Topolino,

who was a simple ellow, believed

himself to be a capable

artist, he

was

in

truth very

feeble

as

a sculptor.He worked

for many

years

in

the

quarries

of

Carrara,

cutting

marble that

he

would send to

Michelangelo. mong the

marble

blocks

he

dispatched o

his friend, Topolino would

sometimesncludeseveral arved

igures

of

his own

making. When Michelangelosaw

Topolino's sculptures,

e would laugh out

loud.

Once,Topolinoattemptedo carvea

figure

of Mercury and,

when t was

almost

inished,

called

Michelangelo

o see

t. Michelangelo,

who foundTopolino'ssimplicity

idiculous,

told

his friend hat he was

a

madman o try

to make figures and

pointed

out that the

  dwarfish

and misshapen

Mercury

was a

third of a

braccio short between he knees

and

he eet.

Undaunted,

opolinosaid hat

he would

put

his

sculpture

ight

and,cutting

the figure below the knees, added a new

length of marble, which made the

propor-

tions

correct. He also carved a

pair

of

buskins or his figure, he opsof which cov-

might have

ruined it. Michelangelo brings

out the best

in Topolino.

In

a

published let ter from Padua dated

February IJ,

1544, to the

poet

Bernardino

Daniello

da

Lucca,

Doni relates a

*mezza

novella

(short

story) that

is

similar

in struc-

ture to Vasari's story

about

Topolino. This

time the stonecutter

s

an old

man who has

a high opinion of

his own talent,

and he has

carved a single,

ridiculous

figure

of Jupiter.

As fate

would have t. an old stonecutter

from Fiesole-a

man who in his entire

ife

had made one small

marble igure a

half

a

braccio

high-in his old agesaw

a miracle.

This miracle was

the one Michelangelo

Buonarroti

made with

great perfection

n

his

youth,

that Giant

[that

is, the David]

standing

n the

prazzan Florence. he

good

man, having heard about

he work and that

it wasmadeby a

youth,went o Florence o

see t. There,dazzled ndstupefied,

e went

to

find him

[Michelangelo]

o

tell him that

his work

was

admirable

and ook much

oy

in

doing so.

Then he said:

I

have made a

small figure that

I know will not displease

you,

so much so

hat f it will not be bother-

some, will bring

it here o show

you.

And

returning

[to

Florence] another day,

he

brought a Jupite4 a

thing baptized n his

[Jupiter's]

style,

[at

least] n so far as this

figure, or dummy

lfantoccio],

was nude.

And, sincehe

hadmade t with oneshoulder

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andwith much

diligence ompletedhe ask,

working the figure with graceso that the

[new

piece

ofl

marblehardly

seemed dded.

Returning

o Michelangelohe said:

My

son, have epaired t,

as

you

see. Certainly,

the correctedwork was

pleasing,

ut there

was

somethingelse to address, he legs,

which

were somewhat large,

and

he

[Michelangelo]said to him: I must warn

you,

my father, hat in carving the figure

you

must take

care

not

to

go

in too much

[that

s, do not takeaway oo much marble],

because

ou

hardly

could add marble here

[in

the egs] as

[you

havel

o the shoulder.

The stonecutter

oon

eturned

nother ime.

and he had made the figure's legs so thin

that

t

could hardly standon its feet.

This,

my father,

you

can hardly remedy,

said

Michelangelo. nd, having

carefullyexam-

ined

his figure, he old man

said

n

departing,

  I

will do something

o it. And returning

o

his house, e

took awayso much hat he

cut

the egsof his ittle figure nto two pieces f

drilled marble,

and

he

madea

pair

of boots

on the egsworked with

grace.

And he car-

ried

the

figure

to Florenceagain

to show,

believing hat he had

a Colossusor a La-

ocodn.Imagine ow

beautifula sight

a

nude

figure wearing

boots could

be.

When

Michelangelosaw the figure, he began o

laugh

and said o the old stonecutter:

Now,

my father,

you

have ndeed

done

some-

thing':

you

havemade

a

pair

of boots or

a

Part

of the

humor of this tale lies in the

transformationof the figure of Jupiter that

is

appropriately

nude into one

that

wears

boots.The inept old stonecutter,n his at-

tempts o

respond o Michelangelo's

criti-

cisms,

does

something ;

e

ruins

his figure.

He is

ust

the oppositeof the stonecutter

n

the tale told by both

Vasari

and Doni. That

man, again following Michelangelo's n-

structions, reates

worthy figure

and

n

so

doingbelieves

e

discovers talent

he never

knew he had.

Doni's

novella

may

be

pure

fiction,

or

it

may be a historically accurate epresentation

of an event

n Michelangelo's ife. A

third

possibility s that the story s a mixture of

fact

and

iction. In any

case, he tale,

which

appearedn

print

abouta

quarter

of

a century

before Vasari

published

his account of

Topolino, s

structurally imilar o the

atter.

Each

stonecutter

epresents

n ancient

god,

Mercury

and Jupiter,

espectively.

ach

al -

ters the appearanceof his figure after

Michelangelo riticizes t, adding

pieces

of

marble

o

his

sculpture.

Both

storiesare, n

turn,

alsosimilar o the ale of the stonecutter

whom Michelangelo

guides

n

the carving

of a

figure. His figure, however,

unlike the

others,

s not ridiculous

and even appears

on oneof Michelangelo'smajorworks.Per-

hapsmost significantly,Doni's

tale,

ike

the

others

presented

ere, eflectMichelangelo's

involvementwith

stonecuttersndhis affin-

8/17/2019 Michelangelo and the Stone Cutters

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20

(University

Park:

Pennsylvania

tate

UniversityPress,

1999),pp.6-7. William E. Wallace, Michelangelo's

Wet Nurse, Arion 17, no. 2

(Fall

2OO9):54, otices

the discrepancy etween

Michelangelo's oble

birth

and

his lowly

profession.

See also

Paul

Barolsky,

Giotto's

Father and the

Farnily

of Vasari's

Lives

(University

Park:

Pennsylvania

tate

UniversityPress,

1992),

pp.74-75.

3.

Condivi .

p.

10-13.

4. Giorgio Vasari,Live.s f the Painters,Sculptors,

and Architecl.r, rans.Gastondu C. de

Vere.

2

vols.

(NewYork:

Knopf,1996).II,

p.

643.

5.

Ibid., II, p.

7

46 .

6.

MichelangeloBuonarroti ThePoetry

of Michel-

angelo,

rans.

James

M. Saslow

(New

Haven:

Yale

University

Press,

99l),

p.302.

sonnet

-51.

Seealso

ibid.,p.305, sonnet152: by taking away, . . . ] one

puts

into hard

and alpine

stone a figure hat' salive

/ and that

grows

arger

wherever he stonedecreases

t l

7. Anton Francesco oni.

I

Marni. ed.

PietroFan-

fani ,2 vols.

Florence:

863), ,

p.129.

8.

Vasari,

I, pp.

745-146.

9. Original text

in Anton

FrancescoDoni,

Lettere

(Venice:GirolamoScotto,1544),letter I. I haveused

the

text in id., Novelle, ed. Giuseppe

Petragl ione

(Bergamo:

stituto

taliano

d'Arti

Grafiche.

1907), p.

17-18.

I

am

grateful to Carol Lazzaro-Weiss,who

kindly corrected he first

drafi

of

my

translation.