Michelangelo’s Pietà
Michelangelo’s Pietà
Millions flock to Rome to gaze on Michelangelo’s Pietà, one of the most magnificent works of art the world has ever seen but how many of them know that it was commissioned by a Frenchman?
There’s a lot to be said for serendipity. If the scheming duke of Milan had not persuaded young Charles VIII to tear himself away from his beloved Château Amboise to invade Italy, Charles could not have imposed his French bishop Jean de Bilhères on the Vatican and request he be made a Cardinal.
Bishop Bilhères was at Charles’s side on his entrance to Rome at the start of the Italian War of 1494. He was a trusted advisor, Keeper of the Seals of France, President of the Estates General in Tours and the French ambassador in Rome.
In 1498, when Cardinal Bilhères started planning his tomb for the King of France’s Chapel in St Peter’s, Rome, he commissioned the unknown twenty-three year old Michelangelo to carve a Pietà to go on top. This resulted in Michelangelo’s first trip to the marble quarries in Carrara.
If the Cardinal had not set his heart on a magnificent memorial, the world may never have seen the masterpiece which shot Michelangelo into the limelight. Of course, the most gifted sculptor the world has ever seen would have found fame, but thanks to a Frenchman with big ideas he found it sooner rather than later.
Michelangelo’s Pieta, carved from a single block of Carrara marble, was completely different from the hundreds of Pietàs by other artists. Instead of depicting Madonna as an old woman, he made her beautiful. Michelangelo’s jealous critics carped she looked far too young to have a son of thirty-three, how come she needed only one hand to support her son’s dead weight body and if Jesus is in human scale, Mary, if she stood up would be sixteen foot tall.
The Pietà was put on public display to celebrate St. Peter’s Jubilee in 1500. When thousands of pilgrims from all over the world went home, they raved about it. This is the only piece Michelangelo signed. When he heard admirers say someone else made it he carved his name on Mary’s sash.
And so it was that a Frenchman made Michelangelo famous.
So. Does the Pietà commissioned by a Frenchman for a French chapel belong to France? Sadly, no. The Vatican picked up the tab. A document dated 1497 confirms Michelangelo was paid 133 papal florins as a first instalment.
François I by Jean Clouet
François I, who may have seen it, commissioned the next best thing, a cast for Château Fontainebleau.
General Gié, Marshall of France, asked Michelangelo for a bronze David. When the Marshall fell from grace, it was sent to his successor, Florimond Robertet, for the courtyard of his grand house, Hôtel d'Alluye, in Blois. It was later moved it to his Château de Bury.
Robertet, who got married in Amboise, is buried in the Alluye Chapel, Saint-Honoré church in Blois.
When Michelangelo’s friends from Florence, the Giusti brothers, moved to France, they settled in Tours thriving artistic community. Antonio (Antoine), Giovanni (Jean) and Andrea (André) Guisti built a family dynasty specialising in tomb-making and monuments. They came from a family of sculptors who owned a quarry and a house in Carrara. When they went home on visits, Michelangelo stayed with them when supervising the quarrying of his marble.
François I commissioned the Guisti brothers to build the astonishing mausoleum of Anne of Brittany and Louis XII in St. Denis, Paris, where kings of France are buried. Small wonder it took them fifteen years.
The King tried twice to persuade Michelangelo to join his friends in Tours or the Florentine painters, Giovanni Battista Rosso, who hero worshipped Michelangelo, and Primaticcio at Fontainebleau. When Michelangelo’s life was in danger, he talked about joining them but his peers called him a traitor so he changed his mind and went to Venice. He told François he would send him a work in marble, a work in bronze and a painting but the king died before he could keep his promise.
François bought Michelangelo’s Hercules which originally stood in the Piazza Strozzi in Florence. He also bought Michelangelo’s Slaves. When the Vatican rejected them for financial reasons, Michelangelo gave them to his friend Roberto Strozzi, who, with Michelangelo’s blessing, gave them to François.
François also owned Michelangelo’s ‘Leda and the Swan’.
In 1529, the Duke of Ferrara asked Michelangelo to paint something for his palace. Michelangelo spent a year on his Leda who, according to Greek myth was seduced by Zeus in the form of a swan. Michelangelo depicted Leda swooning in ecstasy.
The duke sent his private secretary to collect it. When he saw it and gasped but not in an admiring way, a deeply offended Michelangelo refused to hand over the painting.
He later gave it to his pupil Antonio to sell.
Antonio, knowing the king of France’s admiration for Michelangelo and the vast sums he spent on buying works of art for Château Fontainebleau, decided to take it to France.
Because the Leda was a large painting on wood, heavy to transport, he went on ahead.
In Lyon, nervous the transporter could not cross the Alps without endangering the work, he decided to bring the Leda by boat. It took so long to arrive he supported himself by selling reproductions of the Leda using Michelangelo’s preliminary sketches. He wrote to Michelangelo saying he could not keep up with demand.
When the Leda finally arrived Antonio made his way to the French Court in Paris but courtiers, who made fun of him and his claim he was there to sell a painting by Michelangelo, wouldn’t let him in.
François left Paris for Nantes with Antonio in hot pursuit. To no avail. He returned to Lyon, became ill, accumulated debts and died. It is not known how François came by the painting or what happened to it. It was still at Fontainebleau in 1643 when paintings deemed indecent were burnt. It’s thought it may have been on the list.
Catherine de’ Medici begged Michelangelo to make a bronze equestrian statue of her husband Henry II but he gave the work to someone else. The horse was cast but not the figure of the King. It was sent to France in the 1600s. Used for the statue of Louis XIII, it was placed in the Palais Royal.
So. Although unlike his hated rival, fellow genius Leonardo, Michelangelo never made it to France but thanks to the French royal family, famous as art collectors and connoisseurs the country can be proud of its close connections to the great man.
Post by Pamela.
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