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CATALOGUE 63 COPIES OF SURVIVING DRAWINGS 297396 × 280 mm), the right hand seated Saint is of a type
that recurs both in the Metropolitan Museum’smodellofor
an early version of the Tomb of Julius II (Inv. 62931 /Cor-
pus 489 ; pen and ink over black chalk, 509 × 318 mm)
and the Sistine ceiling. In addition, the two standing
figures of saints, probably Lorenzo and Giuliano, echo,
perhaps unconsciously, the early quattrocento forms of
Nanni di Banco’sIsaiah(Florence, Museo del Opera del
Duomo) and Masaccio’s shivering man in hisBaptism of the
Neophites(Florence Santa Maria del Carmine, Brancacci
chapel) – both images that Michelangelo, with his interest
in the heroic phase of early quattrocento art, knew well.
However, the difficulties that this somewhat cluttered
design has caused are great. Even so clear-headed a critic
as Berenson, unable to accept that Michelangelo’s pref-
erences may not have coincided with his own, could be
driven to the absurd hypothesis that Louvre Inv. 686 was
drawn by Vincenzo Danti after Aristotile da Sangallo. A
superficially more sophisticated view was advanced by
Wazbinski ( 1983 and 1987 ), who stated that this design
wasdevised only in the15 6 0s, when a project was under-
wayto complete the chapel. But apart from ignoring
Michelangelo’s preparatory drawings and the close stylis-
tic links with other work by him of the15 2 0s, Wazbinski
also overlooked the fact that the Madonna and two saints
actually executed by Michelangelo and his assistants for
the Magnifici Tomb are radically different in form from
those shown in this design. Thus, this supposedly late
pastiche would ignore what had existed for some thirty
years in favour of Michelangelesque figures of different
and less-developed type.
The date of origin of the present design can be estab-
lished with some precision. The dimensions of the space
available for the Magnifici Tomb, like the ducal Tombs,
was fixed by 21 April15 2 1when the architrave was set in
place. This establishes a scale for the drawing of about 1 :
1. 8. The block from which the “Nostra Donna a sedere”
wastobecarved was also ordered in April15 2 1. Because
the Madonna as executed is some 46 cm taller than the
figure shown in themodello, Michelangelo had either
modified the present design before that date, or did so
later, but before mid-15 2 6when Michelangelo referred to
the Madonna as one of the statues that had been begun.
Because work on the project ceased during the pontif-
icate of Adrian VI (December15 2 1–November15 2 3),
and because some of the marble ordered proved useless,
Michelangelo had an opportunity to revise details of his
plan in15 2 4, and the design of the architecture may have
been modified in certain respects at that date. However,
no work appears to have been undertaken on this tomb
before the expulsion of the Medici in15 2 7, and the work
seems, indeed, not to have been undertaken in earnestuntil 1532 – 33 .Itislikely that there was a further and prob-
ably more fundamental revision of the design at this time
(see Cat. 39 ), but because no carving seems to have been
done on the architectural parts of this phase of the tomb
other than the columns, any attempts at reconstruction
could be based only on known designs by Michelangelo.
The replicas were probably made with archaeological
intent to prevent knowledge of even an out-of-date and
anomalous original being lost. Michelangelo’s reluctance
to tell anyone anything, illustrated by his ambiguity of
response to Ammanati’s enquiries about the form of the
Laurenzian staircase, quite apart from his action in burn-
ing drawings that he knew Cosimo wanted, is sufficient
explanation for the production of posthumous replicas
ofmodellithat did exist, despite the fact that anyone
attempting to construct the Magnifici Tomb to this design
would have been utterly confused. A parallel example is
the replica in Berlin after Michelangelo’smodelloalso in
Berlin for the Julius Tomb (Inv.153 0 5/Corpus 55 ; pen
and ink with traces of wash over black chalk and sty-
lus indentation, 525 × 343 mm). It was made – accord-
ing to a later inscription – by Jacomo Rocchetti, whose
dates do not seem to be known, but who is mentioned
together with Jacomo del Duca in a document con-
cerning the Farnese Sacrament Tabernacle planned for
Santa Maria degli Angeli. Rocchetti presumably entered
Michelangelo’s circle at the very end of the master’s life,
and themodellothat he replicated would then have been
obsolete by over half a century.
The design proposed by Michelangelo at this stage is
modelled on painting rather than sculpture. It is essen-
tially a tripytch with flanking figures on two levels, and
smaller figures decorating the cornice above, a transposi-
tion into the terms of classical architecture of an ambitious
late trecento altarpiece. Considering that it was made
after Michelangelo had already planned immensely active
and vital figures, the restraint of individual figures here
must have been deliberate, an effort to achieve an overall
pictorialism in the chapel that was not to be disrupted
byunduly aggressive forms. As always in Michelangelo’s
projects, the figures grew in energy and dynamism as he
worked on them, entailing a corresponding simplifica-
tion of their setting. Given that a similar process occurred
in the ducal Tombs, whose architecture was set in place
while the statuary was still being carved, it is unsurpris-
ing that with the Magnifici Tomb, the statuary that had
been begun may have encouraged Michelangelo radically
to simplify the setting. It is recorded in15 4 6 (Aschoff,
1967 ,p. 136 ; see Cat. 39 ) that columns had been exe-
cuted, but these either do not survive or have not been
identified, and we cannot, therefore, establish whether
they were made for the present project, of15 2 1,orfor