Travelogue 1192 – 2 July

Qua si fa

What was it like to be an artist in the Michelangelo’s time? It was obviously precarious. He served at the whim of tyrants. Popes threw temper tantrums. Projects fizzled. Funds came in fits and starts. Much of the time, the initial risk in a project was his. He received an advance, but then purchased a shipload of marble on his own account.

Was he a religious man? Much of his art had religious themes, following the tradition of the times. His patrons were often churchmen. What did he really think of Julius II, the conquering pope?

Interesting insight comes in his writings. Besides being the sculptor of the age, and having become the painter of the age, he was an accomplished poet. Some 300 poems of his survive, including a number of sonnets.

He wrote, in the first lines of a sonnet,

 

“Qua si fa elmi di calici e spade
e ’l sangue di Cristo si vend’a giumelle,
e croce e spine son lance e rotelle,
e pur da Cristo pazïenzia cade.”

 

Which means something like,

 

Here they make helms and swords from chalices,

They sell the blood of Christ,

And the cross and thorns become lances and shields,

So that even the patience of Christ fails.

 

No one has an exact date for the poem, but it’s probably during the reign of Julius II, the warrior pope. That was the pope who hired him for his mausoleum, then fought with him. That was the one who punished him by assigning him to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Michelangelo was a devout man, which is given witness to in this sonnet and sonnets of a later time. An artist of his calibre was channelled as a matter of course right up the church hierarchy, and to the top. Was he disillusioned? What happened when Martin Luther challenged the papacy as corrupt? Some say even Michelangelo’s faith wavered.