Travelogue 1191 – 27 June
The Road to Carrara
Part Five: the Titbits

Aureae Petronillae Filiae Dulcissimae

Today, Michelangelo’s marvellous Pietà stands inside of Saint Peter’s Basilica, in the first chapel on the right as you enter. It has been there for several centuries. But the statue was not intended for the basilica. It was commissioned by the French Cardinal Bilheres to decorate his tomb, which would stand in the ancient Chapel of Santa Petronilla.

Saint Petronilla was an early martyr, probably of a noble Roman family in the second century. She was already venerated in the following century, when a basilica was built over her burial site. In the early Middle Ages, her identity became confused. People began praying to her as the daughter of St Peter. A story grew that she had been locked in a castle by the Apostle himself to protect her from King Flaccus. In a demonstration of how odd bits of reality survive in legend, Flaccus was the name of a noble Roman family that was indeed prominent in the second and third centuries.

In the middle of the eighth century, her remains were moved by Pope Stephen III to a mausoleum serving several late Roman emperors, which had been built in the late fourth century on the site of a circus (race track) built by the emperor Caligula. This building became the Chapel of Santa Petronilla. This was quite near the site of St Peter’s burial place, and near Constantine’s basilica.

The Chapel of Santa Petronilla became a favourite of French kings, from the time of Charlemagne. It was rumoured (falsely) that Charlemagne was buried there. When Charlemagne was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 800, he was declared the adopted son of St Peter, and therefore brother to Petronilla.

That is the long backstory to the first location for the Pietà, carved for the tomb of the French cardinal who represented the French crown at the Vatican.

Poor Cardinal Bilheres was not remembered long. The Chapel of Santa Petronilla was demolished only a decade or so later to make way for the new basilica of St Peter. Some years later, Michelangelo himself would become the chief architect of the new basilica.

If it seems as though Renaissance and Baroque Rome was busy moving bodily remains from one place to another, well, yeah.

Travelogue 1190 – 24 June
The Road to Carrara
Part Four: the Titbits

The Carrara story begs some extras to tidy up. There are always interesting titbits to history, aren’t there? Being too strict in story-telling is to miss out on the fun of it, and, I believe, to violate the spirit of narrative history.

Michelangelo didn’t have to travel to Carrara for his next project after the Pietà. He returned to Florence to work on a huge block of marble that had been left aside, partially worked and abandoned. There was new leadership in Florence, and Michelangelo had a new reputation. The gifted young man was gifted the stone, a chunk of marble that a few artists had started on and stopped, noticing “imperfections” in the grain. Michelangelo took the challenge.

What he fashioned took three years. Everyone loved it so much, they changed the plan for its placement in the Duomo, and instead placed in the Piazza della Signoria for all to see. They called it “Il Gigante”, and it became a symbol of the city. The nickname makes me think of the 1956 film, “Giant”, which makes me think of James Dean. The sultry boy looks up from under his cowboy hat, taking the measure of the day’s Goliath. There is, after all, something Dean-like to the “Gigante”.

After that, Michelangelo was back in Carrara, this time for his longest stint, eight months, collecting a massive amount of marble for a monumental tomb he had designed for the new pope, Julius II. His relationship with this pope was a famously stormy one. Julius II was an ambitious man with a fiery temper, and he had big dreams for the city of Rome and the Papal States. He pursued wars like any contemporary warlord in Italy. And he took an interest in the up-and-coming young sculptor. The young man had risen into the highest ranks of artistic talent. And this did not go unnoticed among his competition. While Michelangelo was scouting marble in Carrara, a rival whispered in the pope’s ear that it might be bad luck to be building his tomb so early.

Even as Julius’s interest in the project flagged, Michelangelo worked on, always diligent, always dedicated to his vision. “He remained in those mountains for more than eight months,” Ascanio Condivi, his friend and his biographer, wrote, “with two helpers and a horse and no provision other than food.” He inspected marble; he supervised its excavation and the hewing of the blocks; he bargained with shipowners from Lavagna and Avenza. There were always politics, in every locale. Here, he had to balance Versilia with Liguria, Lucca with Florence, and with Rome. In the end, he accomplished his work; he had collected all the marble he needed, the raw material for a magnificent three-level monument, with more than forty statues, even as the will and the funds for it all were fading. Most of the marble would stand languishing in St Peters Square.

Michelangelo started the work in Rome, but clearly the pope’s mood had shifted. The sculptor was discouraged. After a quarrel with the pope over funding, he moved back to Florence to pick up his project carving St Matthew, as something more fulfilling. Julius II was not pleased. He harassed Florence’s gonfaloniere, Piero Soderini to such an extent that the city’s leader reluctantly asked Michelangelo to return to Rome. The court artist whispering in the pope’s ear, Donato Bramante, opined that the perfect assignment would be the vault of the Sistine Chapel. He thought it would be a way to set Michelangelo up for failure and finally dim the glow of this rising star.

So it was that Carrara and the marbles were set aside for a few years.

Travelogue 1189 – 20 June
The Road to Carrara
Part Three

The first time Michelangelo visited Carrara, the world was young. It was young, but not so innocent. In the same year, the Venetian John Cabot landed in Newfoundland, and the Florentine Vespucci embarked on his first voyage. Columbus was between voyages, perhaps fretting over the end of the world. The Genovese-Spaniard believed he was personally shepherding along Biblical prophecy with his exploration and conquest. The world must be laid open to evangelism. Gold must be collected in order to reconquer Jerusalem. Once again, it is good if we remind ourselves of the deep weirdness at the inception of the European project in America.

The poor, sad French monarch, Charles VIII, who had upset the apple cart in Italy a few years earlier, was planning a second campaign to recapture all he had quickly won and quickly lost in southern Italy. He had had two sons and heirs die as babies within the past two years. He was twenty-seven. In the spring of 1498, his wife would die in childbirth, and he himself would die a month afterward after banging his head against a door lintel in a rush to watch a tennis match. His successor would be his cousin, who would pursue his own ambitions in Italy, becoming the Duke of Milan and King of Naples, (only to lose it quickly to the Spaniards once again.)

Meanwhile, Michelangelo contentedly rode his grey horse across the mountains between Lucca and Pietrasanta, through Monte Magno and Camaiore. It was November; we can assume it was cloudy and cold. The road along the base of the mountains, from Camiore through Pietrasanta to Massa and Carrara was probably fairly rough. The region was going to be made more accessible after the Medicis claimed it, some sixteen years later. And as noted earlier, Michelangelo himself would be delegated to take a lead in the development.

For the moment, he is sure to have been content with his lot. He was 22 years old, and he had received a major commission. He was preceded by a letter from the Cardinal of Saint-Denis, asking the Elders of Lucca to support the young “maestro buonarrotto” in his task. The coast was Lucca’s for the moment. And so he travelled as someone important.

He arrived in beautiful Carrara, a town trailing down the hill, and arrived among the quarries above the town, where bone-white stone stood bare to the weather, squared and sheer from the blocks that were cut away. Here was the raw resource of his first genius, the element that held inside it his vision. He would write about the design inside the stone in his famous sonnet series when he was older and had done his reading in Renaissance Neo-Platonism.

The sculptor was put up in a house owned by the quarryman Francesco Pelliccia. Francesco worked in the Polvaccio quarry, and that is where Michelangelo found his blocks to carve. One can only imagine with what joy and what curiosity the young sculptor explored the quarries, led by stonemason Matteo Cuccarelli. One can imagine his agile mind at work, learning the techniques of quarrying, how he identified the stone, how he studied it, with what care and curiosity the young man ran his fingers over the raw marble in the mountainside.

Michelangelo paid for the stone, and he arranged for the horse and cart for the stones to be transported down the hill and to the port. And he left for Rome, probably to be there for Christmas. The marble was delayed; there was some problem with delivery. By spring, the marble had still not arrived. The cardinal was forced to write to friends to intervene.

As he became older, Michelangelo was reluctant to handle the business of the marble himself. It was no doubt an exhausting process haggling with the canny masons and workmen and cart owners, and then cajoling them to follow through with what they said, negotiating with the various customs agents of the day, the taxmen, the toll collectors, and the trolls under the bridges. By 1515, he was asking his brother to arrange for mediators.

Travelogue 1188 – 15 June
The Road to Carrara
Part Two

The stage had been set. Michelangelo had been a precocious boy. He had demonstrated unusual talent, enough to raise speculation and gossip, enough to be picked up by a cardinal in Rome. It was in Rome that his moment would come. It just took a little patience.

Strangely, it was the cardinal who had been fooled by Michelangelo’s faux-ancient sleeping Cupid that took him and acted as his patron, the Cardinal San Giorgio. But he never made use of him. Other small commissions came up here and there. This is when the sculptor carved his Bacchus for another cardinal, a piece now at the Bargello in Florence, the god of wine high on his own supply, leaning back unsteadily while a boyish satyr nibbles from the grapes he holds by his side.

After a year of small projects, Michelangelo was approached by the French cardinal of Saint-Denis, one Jean Bilhères de Lagraulas, who was acting as ambassador to Rome. He wanted nothing less than “la più bella opera di marmo che sia oge in Roma, e che maestro niuno la farìa megliore oge”, the most beautiful work in marble in Rome, something no master could do better. Those are words straight from the contract between Michelangelo and the cardinal, a contract negotiated, by the way, by Jacopo Galli, a banker and patron, the savvy man who eventually ended up with several works by Michelangelo in his garden, including the Bacchus.

And Michelangelo did deliver. He promised “la più bella opera di marmo” and that is what he accomplished. I was awestruck when I first saw the “Pietà” in Rome. Everyone was. “To this work let no sculptor, however rare a craftsman, ever think to be able to approach in design or in grace,” wrote Vasari. It was transcendent, the detail, the passion, the fine polish of its surface, the sublime expression on Mary’s face, the masterful composition. It is one of the many great privileges of my life to have seen this singularly beautiful piece of art, and sadly, a privilege never shared by the patron, the Cardinal of Saint-Denis, who died before the completion of the piece.

Galli had negotiated the deal for the Pietà. Michelangelo received an advance on the work, and, before he even signed the contract, he travelled to Carrara to scout for marble for the job.

Travelogue 1187 – 8 June
The Road to Carrara
Part One

The first time Michelangelo visited the marble quarries in Carrara, the fifteenth century hadn’t even reached its close, the High Renaissance was in full bloom, Mannerism and Baroque were waiting patiently in the wings – largely waiting for this young man to mature, – Raphael was a teenager, and Leonardo was working on his “Last Supper”, while designing weapons of war for the Sforza in Milan. Savonarola, the radical preacher, was running Florence – an episode I’ll be writing more about soon. Botticelli was in middle age, and was quite enthralled with Savonarola’s message, so much so, according to some, that he threw some of his own artwork into the great Bonfire of the Vanities earlier in the same year that Michelangelo visited Carrara.

Lorenzo de’ Medici had been Michelangelo’s first great patron. After Lorenzo had died, and after his son and successor, Piero, had been exiled from Florence, Michelangelo was forced to make other plans. His first stop was Bologna. But every ambitious artist of the day hoped to make their way to Rome. The Eternal City was resurgent, recovering from the rough years of the previous century and the early fifteenth century. The popes and Roman aristocracy were eager to rebuild the city in their image. The twenty-two-year-old Michelangelo already had achieved some renown as a sculptor. Next step: find his way to Rome.

How it came about was strange and fortuitous. On a visit back to Florence, Michelangelo fashioned a sleeping cupid from marble left over from another sculpture. The story goes that he contrived, upon the advice of a friend, to make the sculpture appear as though it were ancient and recently excavated. As Vasari puts it, “nor is there any reason to marvel at that, seeing that he had genius enough to do it, and even more.”

What followed was a bit of scandal, at least according to one version of the story. His friend sold it to a cardinal in Rome, and then shorted Michelangelo on the payment. The cardinal subsequently discovered it was modern and demanded his money back. This brought to light the friend’s deceit. There was outrage all around. The cupid did eventually find a home, and Michelangelo found his notoriety among the Roman aristocracy. That led in quick succession to his first extended stay in Rome and to the creation of the masterpiece that, among all his work, first stole my heart a long time ago.

Travelogue 1186 – 5 June
Versilia
Part Two

Forte dei Marmi was like a ghost town when we arrived in early May. The weather had been unreliable. It had rained the day before. We emerged onto the beach on a lovely day, and no one was there. It was like a dream.

The coast there is entirely privately owned. Forte dei Marmi and Pietrasanta each have one small public beach. All the rest, long kilometres of beach, is controlled by clubs, with each bagno, as they are called, running its strip of property between the road and the sea, its restaurant, its changing rooms and showers, its sands set with rows of gazebos, tents, chairs and umbrellas, all the way to within a few metres of the waves.

We stood on the narrow boardwalk, transfixed by the sight of the chairs arranged in rows as far as we could see, and all of them empty. The only people we saw were bagno staff, listlessly working here and there, arranging chairs, raking the sand, or effecting repairs. We walked up the boardwalk, peering into the empty restaurants. Bagno people looked at us curiously. There is no easy entry onto the private beaches. We had happened upon a path beside a club that was being rebuilt; otherwise, we would have been barred from seeing the beach by the long line of bagno fences. The nearest public beach was several kilometres away.

We got our time for fun in the sun. One club-owner kindly offered a day on the beach for twenty euros. It was off-season; the restaurant was closed, but we were free to occupy our chairs under the umbrella as long as we liked. It was a lovely, sunny day, and yet the beaches were still and quiet. The only signs of life were the occasional locals walking their dogs and the staff of the nearby bagni lazily inspecting their equipment.

The sands were so soft, and the water so refreshing. The girls ran tirelessly in and out of the water, pausing only to spend time on their sandcastles. I was happy just soaking in the warmth of the sun and sands, soaking in the long view out over the sea, and glancing back incredulously at the beautiful mountains, which were close enough to offer a dramatic backdrop, and close enough that one could see the white scarring on their sides where the marble was quarried.

Had the great man stood here? Michelangelo would have examined the shore, inspecting inlets, harbours and piers, no doubt, but he didn’t seem like a meditate-on-the-beach kind of guy. You don’t see much love of landscape among his works. He seems rather the type to choose mountains over seas, to me, the type to relish rocks and earth and the feel of solid land under his feet.

Travelogue 1185 – 2 June 
Versilia
Part One

Northwest of Florence, but still in Tuscany, there is a small mountain range called the Apuan Alps. They stretch only 55 kilometres, running more or less parallel to the coast, from southeast to northwest. They are jagged and beautiful, and they contain a precious stone that has attracted artists and architects since Roman times. It has come to be known as Carrara marble, after the Tuscan town Carrara.

Southwest of the range, the strip of coastal land is called the Versilia. It was a lovely discovery for us, a beautiful, green land squeezed up against the scenic mountains and set with small communities in the foothills and on the seashore. I recognise the signs of rain in the lush greenery. The area was once a marshy one, somewhat forbidding for the Etruscans and Romans.

Funnily enough, Michelangelo himself might be considered a founder of sorts of the modern Versilia, having been entrusted by the Medici in Florence to supply enough marble to build a façade for the church of San Lorenzo, the church that the Medici considered their own. That required the building of a road to carry all the marble to the sea.

A Medici had been elected pope, a childhood friend of Michelangelo’s, Giovanni, who became Leo X. That became an opportunity for the Medici, of course, and one quickly seized. An old territorial dispute between Genova, Lucca, and Florence was settled with a papal “lodo”, which granted the Versilia to Florence. And so it stayed until Napoleon’s day.

The sculptor oversaw the road’s construction for two years, and, though the church façade was abandoned – the church to this day has no façade, – and though Michelangelo was called called to other projects, the road survived and became the basis for development of the Versilia.