P 1 : JZP
0521551335 int 1 a CUNY 160 /Joannides 052155 133 1 January 11 , 2007 9 : 33
24 THE DRAWINGS OF MICHELANGELO AND HIS FOLLOWERS IN THE ASHMOLEAN MUSEUMand Pontormo. And Vasari tells us that Michelangelo’s
humbler artistic friends sometimes requested designs that
the master – always an enemy of pretension – cheerfully
fulfilled.^139
The result of this generosity on Michelangelo’s part –
and there must have been many other cases of which we
have no record – is that there was some knowledge of
Michelangelo’s drawings fairly early on. Raphael copied
a pen drawing c.15 0 6, and the influence of Michelangelo’s
technique on Raphael’s drawings suggests that this was not
the only one that he knew.^140 It seems certain too that
some of Michelangelo’s drawings were known to Andrea
del Sarto.^141 Michelangelo’s pupils and assistants, although
most are shadowy figures, must have known, and proba-
bly possessed, groups of his drawings. Michelangelo was
a fluent and impatient draughtsman, and it is inevitable
that, though some drawings would have been retained
carefully – he asked his father in15 0 6to send to Rome
abundle of drawings – odd sheets and fragments would
have strayed from his studio. Titian, by15 2 0, certainly
knew a Michelangelo design for aSlave, which survives
in drawings, and reproduced it in hisSaint Sebastianfor
the Averoldi Polyptych, under way in that year.^142 The
sculptor Bartolommeo Bergamasco, active in Venice at
the same time, based hisSaint Sebastianon the high altar of
San Rocco on a Michelangelo design – now known only
in a copy by Mini – for another slave.^143 There was also
a theft. In153 0the young Bartolommeo Ammanati and
his friend Nanni di Baccio Bigio broke into Michelan-
gelo’s studio in the via Mozza and took from it a number
of the master’s drawings and models, which, evidently,
were not all retained in one place. They were compelled
to return the drawings, but it is highly unlikely that they
did so before making copies of them. Nevertheless, by
this time, if not earlier, Michelangelo had become very
secretive, at least with powerful and exigent patrons, and
in15 2 7it was remarked by a rare visitor to his studio that
Michelangelo “non mostra cosa alcuna ad alcuno.”
Michelangelo, as is well known, burned large quanti-
ties of his drawings at different times. One such episode
is documented as early as 1517 when he commanded his
friend Leonardo Sellaio to destroy a number of the car-
toons in his Roman workshop. Sellaio expressed reluc-
tance but told Michelangelo that it had been done. How-
ever, human nature being what it is, it seems unlikely that
he would not have succumbed to temptation and kept at
least a few of the more beautiful sheets for himself. In
any case, Michelangelo’s destructions were not total. And
although he may well have burned drawings before leav-
ing Florence finally in 1534 ,heundoubtedly took others
with him to Rome. Michelangelo sometimes re-used oldsheets, on occasion after as much as thirty years, which,
of course, is irrefutable proof that he preserved them.
Michelangelo also destroyed much of his Roman
graphic production shortly before he died, but a num-
ber of drawings survived. The few known studies for the
Last Judgementprobably left his studio in chance ways, a
few architectural drawings, particularly of the late Roman
buildings, may have been spared from the flames inten-
tionally, and the lateCrucifixiondrawings were so inti-
mately bound with Michelangelo’s search for salvation
that they too were preserved. Because virtually all of the
architectural studies and some of theCrucifixiondrawings
went to Casa Buonarroti, it is likely that they were found
in his studio after his death. Although the posthumous
inventory was fairly full, not every scrap of paper was
recorded, and Michelangelo’s nephew Leonardo would
have retrieved such drawings with Michelangelo’s other
possessions. It is, of course, possible that some drawings
were liberated by others immediately after Michelangelo’s
death and only later entered Casa Buonarroti, and some of
those, such as theCrucifixiondrawings at Windsor, which
seem never to have been in Casa Buonarroti, may have
been given to friends and associates – or stolen – while
Michelangelo was still alive.
As we know, Michelangelo made presents of highly fin-
ished drawings to his friends in both Florence and Rome,
and some of these were eagerly copied. We learn from a
letter from Tommaso de’ Cavalieri to Michelangelo of
September 1533 , only a few months after Cavalieri had
received the three Presentation Drawings from Michelan-
gelo, that Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici had borrowed one
to have a crystal engraved from it and wanted to do the
same with the others. It seems clear, therefore, that in
both cities Michelangelo’s Presentation Drawings were
eagerly copied, in some cases within weeks or months of
their reception. Francesco Salviati, for example, was com-
missioned by Cardinal Ippolito de’ Medici to produce
anow-lost coloured copy of theFall of Phaeton, which
Michelangelo had given to Tommaso. Certain aspects of
Bronzino’s drawing style can probably be explained by
knowledge of Michelangelo’s highly finished drawings,
and some copies of the Presentation Drawings and other
finished drawings can safely be attributed to his pupil,
Alessandro Allori. Allori spent some five years in Rome
from 1555 to15 6 0,avidly copying Michelangelo’s works,
particularly theLast Judgement.Hehad personal contact
with the master, who was thanked for his kindness to the
young man in a letter of 12 February15 6 0byBenedetto
Va r chi.^144 It is very likely that Alessandro had sight of
some of Michelangelo’s studies, for at least two of his
drawings, made shortly after his return to Florence, for