The Drawings of Michelangelo and His Followers in the Ashmolean Museum

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18 THE DRAWINGS OF MICHELANGELO AND HIS FOLLOWERS IN THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUM

they concerned Medici projects, was an act of defiance

that angered Cosimo – rarely given to open admission of

emotion – sufficiently for him to say so in a letter to his

representative in Rome.^106

Leonardo Buonarroti had to find ways of placating the

ruler, evidence of whose irrational behaviour and mental

decline was becoming apparent. He presented to Cosimo

five statues that had been left in Michelangelo’s Floren-

tine workshop and that Cosimo had wished to purchase as

early as15 4 4: TheVictory, nearly finished, which Cosimo

placed in the Salone of Palazzo Vecchio, and the rela-

tively unfinished four largeprigioni, which, at Cosimo’s

command, were installed by Bernardo Buontalenti in the

grotto he constructed in the gardens of Palazzo Pitti. All

these figures, of course, had been made for the tomb

of Julius II and had no connection with the Medici. In

addition, Leonardo made an effort to find further fin-

ished drawings for Cosimo: He recovered – no doubt

with pressure – from Michelangelo’s pupil Jacomo del

Duca, to whom the master had presumably given them,

Michelangelo’scartonettiof theAnnunciationand theAgony

in the Garden, which Marcello Venusti had executed as

paintings but which he did not himself own. Leonardo

gave them to Cosimo, who seems to have put them on

display, no doubt framed and glazed. Both are now in

the Uffizi, sadly damaged by over-exposure.^107 Also in

15 6 4, died the earliest recipient of Michelangelo’s Pre-

sentation Drawings, Gherardo Perini. He had owned at

least three finished drawings by the master, and these too

were acquired by Cosimo, also to be displayed and, con-

sequently, degraded.^108 Ironically, these drawings, all of

which have a continuous provenance and the best possi-

ble claims to authenticity, were doubted in the twentieth

century by adherents of “scientific” criticism.

It seems likely, under such circumstances, that

Leonardo would not have risked retaining Presentation

Drawings by Michelangelo, but sketches, perhaps even

quite developed sketches, were another matter, and, as

farasisknown, Cosimo evinced no interest in these. It

cannot be ruled out that such drawings, or some of them,

werepresented to Cosimo and subsequently returned

to Casa Buonarroti by his grandson, but, on balance,

it seems more likely that they remained in Leonardo’s

house: Whether he attempted to supplement them is

unknown. Leonardo died in15 9 3, and Casa Buonar-

roti was then taken over by his son, Michelangelo the

Younger, Michelangelo’s great nephew and namesake.

Michelangelo the Younger was the man most responsible

for turning Casa Buonarroti into a museum and shrine

of his ancestor. He commissioned a series of paintings on

the biography of Michelangelo from some of the leading

contemporary Florentine painters and installed them in a

gallery. Michelangelo the Younger was a significant poet

and litterateur, and he was also concerned to vaunt the

literary achievements of his ancestor, of whose poems he

published the first edition in 1623.

Probably in connection with the planning of this edi-

tion, Michelangelo the Younger acquired either directly

from the architect Bernardo Buontalenti ( 1536 – 1608 ),

perhaps Michelangelo’s most intelligent and inventive

interpreter in architecture and decoration in the later six-

teenth century, or from Buontalenti’s heirs, an unknown

number of sheets of drawings by Michelangelo including

five that also contained poems, which he described with

sufficient clarity to be identifiable.^109 How and where

Buontalenti had obtained these sheets is unknown, but

at least one had belonged to the Irregular Numbering

Collector (to be discussed later), and it is likely that some

of the scrappier sketches had simply strayed in one man-

ner or another from Michelangelo’s studio and had been

acquired by Buontalenti piecemeal.

It is also worth noting that drawings arrived in Casa

Buonarroti from other sources. At least three drawings

seem to have come from the Irregular Numbering series

and another, smaller, group is also identifiable by the

roman numerals in red chalk to be found on some

sheets – mostly but not entirely containing architectural

drawings – most of which are still in Casa Buonarroti

butofwhich at least one – with a provenance from

Bernardo Buontalenti and Casa Buonarroti – is now in

the Ashmolean (Cat. 56 ). Because these roman numer-

als are found on drawings made by Michelangelo at very

different periods, it is probable that they were applied

only after his death in15 6 4.They were presumably due

neither to Buontalenti nor to a member of the Buonar-

roti family because they were not applied uniformly to

other drawings known to have been owned by Buontal-

enti or the Buonarroti. Perhaps they represent a group of

drawings, initially in possession of another owner, who

might be dubbed the Roman Numeral Collector, that

entered the collection of Bernardo Buontalenti and/or

Casa Buonarroti during the lifetime of Michelangelo the

Younger. If that is so, then all sheets so numbered must

have been acquired from the Roman Numeral Collec-

tor by Buontalenti and/or the Buonarroti, since none are

known for which any other provenance can be demon-

strated. The fact that the numbers are now discontinuous

may indicate no more than that other sheets have been

trimmed.

In addition to his efforts to put Michelangelo’s lit-

erary reputation on a firm footing, Michelangelo the

Younger was concerned to expand the family collection