1545 and saw it placed in San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome, where Julius II
had served as a cardinal before his accession to the papacy. Given
Julius’s ambitions, it is safe to say that had he seen the final design of
his tomb, or known where it would eventually be located, he would
have been bitterly disappointed.
The spirit of the tomb may be summed up in Moses (FIG. 22-15),
which Michelangelo completed during one of his sporadic resump-
tions of the work. Meant to be seen from below and to be balanced
with seven other massive forms related to it in spirit,Mosesin its
final comparatively paltry setting does not convey the impact origi-
nally intended. Michelangelo depicted the Old Testament prophet
seated, the Tablets of the Law under one arm and his hands gather-
ing his voluminous beard. The horns that appear on Moses’s head
were a convention in Christian art (based on a mistranslation of the
Hebrew word for “rays”) and helped Renaissance viewers identify
the prophet (compare FIGS. 17-36and 20-2). Here again, Michelan-
gelo used the turned head, which concentrates the expression of
awful wrath that stirs in the mighty frame and eyes. The muscles
bulge, the veins swell, and the great legs seem to begin slowly to
move. Not since Hellenistic times had a sculptor captured so much
pent-up energy—both emotional and physical—in a seated statue
(FIG. 5-85).
Originally, Michelangelo intended the tomb to have some 20 stat-
ues of captives, popularly known as slaves, in various attitudes of re-
volt and exhaustion. One is Bound Slave,or Rebellious
Captive (FIG. 22-16). Another is shown in FIG. I-16.Con-
siderable scholarly uncertainty exists about these statues.
Although art historians have traditionally connected them
with Julius’s tomb, some now doubt the association. Some
scholars even reject their identification as “slaves” or “cap-
tives.” Despite these unanswered questions, the statues, like
David and Moses,represent definitive statements. Michel-
angelo created figures that do not so much represent an
abstract concept, as in medieval allegory, as they embody
powerful emotional states associated with oppression. In-
deed, Michelangelo communicated his expansive imagi-
nation through every plane and hollow of the stone. In
Bound Slave,the defiant figure’s violent contrapposto is
the image of frantic but impotent struggle. Michelangelo
based his whole art on his conviction that whatever can
be said greatly through sculpture and painting must be
said through the human figure.
TOMB OF GIULIANO DE’ MEDICI Follow-
ing the death of Julius II, Michelangelo, like Raphael,
went into the service of the Medici popes, Leo X and
his successor Clement VII (r. 1523–1534). These Medici
chose not to perpetuate their predecessor’s fame by let-
ting Michelangelo complete Julius’s tomb. Instead, they (Pope Leo X
and the then-cardinal Giulio de’ Medici) commissioned him in 1519
to build a funerary chapel, the New Sacristy, in San Lorenzo in Flor-
ence. At opposite sides of the New Sacristy stand Michelangelo’s
sculpted tombs of Giuliano (1478–1516), duke of Nemours (south
of Paris), and Lorenzo (1492–1519), duke of Urbino, son and grand-
son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. Giuliano’s tomb (FIG. 22-17) is
compositionally the twin of Lorenzo’s. Michelangelo finished nei-
ther tomb. Most scholars believe he intended to place pairs of re-
cumbent river gods at the bottom of the sarcophagi, balancing the
pairs of figures that rest on the sloping sides, but Michelangelo’s
grand design for the tombs remains a puzzle.
The traditional interpretation is that the arrangement Michel-
angelo planned, but never completed, mirrors the soul’s ascent
through the levels of the Neo-Platonic universe. Neo-Platonism, a
school of thought based on Plato’s idealistic, spiritualistic philoso-
phy, experienced a renewed popularity in the 16th-century human-
ist community. The lowest level of the tomb, which the river gods
represent, would have signified the Underworld of brute matter, the
source of evil. The two statues on the sarcophagi would symbolize
the realm of time—the specifically human world of the cycles of
dawn, day, evening, and night. Humanity’s state in this world of time
was one of pain and anxiety, of frustration and exhaustion. At left,
the female figure of Night and, at right, the male figure of Day ap-22-17Michelangelo Buonarroti,tomb of Giuliano
de’ Medici, New Sacristy (Medici Chapel), San Lorenzo,
Florence, Italy, 1519–1534. Marble, central figure 5 11
high.
Michelangelo’s portrait of Giuliano de’ Medici clad in
ancient Roman armor depicts the deceased as the model
of the active and decisive man. Below are the anguished
and twisting figures of Night and Day.
1 ft.592 Chapter 22 ITALY,1500 TO 1600