1  

Missed Deadlines and Creative Excuses: Fashioning Eccentricity for Leonardo

and Michelangelo

In October 1503 Agostino Vespucci was reading Cicero’s Letters to Friends,

his pen in his hand. He came across the following passage: ‘Apelles perfected the

head and bust of his Venus with the most elaborate art, but left the rest of her body in

the rough’, and it reminded him of someone he knew: ‘Leonardo da Vinci does this in

all his paintings’, he wrote in the margin, ‘such as in the head of Lisa del Giocondo

and of Anne, mother of the Virgin. We will see what he will do in the Hall of the

Great Council now he has made an agreement with the gonfaloniere’.1 This marginal

annotation, first published by Armin Schlechter in 2005, has been greeted with some

excitement, not least for putting paid to longstanding debates about the genesis of the

Mona Lisa.2 It seems to me that this passage is significant in more ways than this,

however. Firstly, it gives an insight into Leonardo’s patronage networks when he

arrived in Florence in 1500, and it confirms Leonardo’s close links to Agostino

Vespucci’s employer, the council of Ten of Liberty and Peace (Dieci di Libertà e

Pace). Secondly, it speaks to what I will argue was a particular interest in the

characteristics and behaviour of painters and sculptors in the first few years of the

new century, from around 1501-5. There is a cluster of texts dating from these years

                                                                                                               With love and thanks to Pat – a great upholder of deadlines, in the best tradition of PhD supervisors. Thanks also to Francis Ames-Lewis and all at the Leonardo da Vinci Society for prompting me to write the original paper on which this chapter is based. 1 “Ita leonardus vincius facit in omnibus suis picturis. Ut est caput Lisae del Giocondo, et Annae matris virginis. Videbimus quid faciet de aula magni consilli, de qua reconvenit iam cum vexillario”. Schlechter, A., ‘Ita Leonardus Vincius facit in omnibus suis picturis: Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa und die Cicero-Philologie von Angelo Poliziano bis Johann Georg Graevius’, Internationales Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur, 2008, (IALS Online):, http://www.iaslonline.de/index.php?vorgang_id=2889. Originally published in Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg ed., Die edel kunst der truckerey. Ausgewählte Inkunabeln der Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg. Ausstellungskatalog, Heidelberg, 2005, Nr. 20 and fig. 8. I have written a brief synopsis of this article in English: Burke, J., ‘Agostino Vespucci’s Marginal Note about Leonardo da Vinci in Heidelberg’, Leonardo da Vinci Society Newsletter, issue 30, May 2008, pp.3-4: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/hosted/leonardo/newsletter.html. 2 This remained in doubt for some: see Greenstein, J. M., ‘Leonardo, Mona Lisa and “La Gioconda”. Reviewing the Evidence’, Artibus et Historiae, vol. 25, 2004, pp.17-38.

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that berate, puzzle over – and often make excuses for - painters and sculptors being

unable to meet contractual deadlines. As I argue below, where I focus on the missed

deadlines of Leonardo and Michelangelo in Florence, this behaviour tended never to

be ascribed to what seems to be the fundamental reason for tardiness – overwork – but

instead was related to fundamental character traits that were deemed a necessary by-

product of the creative process; divine inspiration would not keep to a timetable. It is

also suggestive of an appreciation of what came to be called the ‘non-finito’, though a

revisiting of this topic in the light of contemporary documentation requires a study to

itself and, as such, will not be discussed here.

Still a starting point for any discussion of ‘artistic personality’, Margot and

Rudolf Wittkower’s 1969 book, Born Under Saturn, was at pains to deny the

existence of a ‘timeless constitutional type of artist’. The Wittkowers argue that

artist’s dilatory behaviour in Renaissance Italy was probably no more than in any

other profession.3 The Wittkowers were, perhaps, impatient with the tendency,

already marked by the mid-twentieth century, for attributing various types of mental

or emotional pathology to celebrated artists, writers and composers. The fashion for

retrospective diagnosis has continued. Over the last few years, for example,

Michelangelo has been posthumously diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome and

bipolar depression.4 Most of these accounts are by physicians or psychologists rather

than art historians, who generally ignore this type of analysis, perhaps rankling at the

attempt to fit medieval or early modern subjects into modern mental health categories.

Instead (and at the risk of oversimplification), there has been two major

methodologies often used recently by renaissance scholars whilst considering artistic

personality. The first has been to consider an artist’s ‘self-fashioning’, positing a self-

                                                                                                               3 Wittkower, M. and R., Born Under Saturn: The Character and Conduct of Artists: A Documented History from Antiquity to the French Revolution, London, 1963. 4 For Michelangelo and Asperger’s syndrome, see Arshad, M., and M. Fitzgerald, ‘Did Michelangelo (1475-1564) have high-functioning autism?’, Journal of Medical Biography, vol.12, 2004, pp.115–120. Fitzgerald, M., The Genesis of Artistic Creativity: Asperger's Syndrome and the Arts, London, 2006, p.16, and James, I. M, Asperger's Syndrome and High Achievement: Some Very Remarkable People, London, 2006, pp.15-22. For Michelangelo and bipolar depression, Wolf, P. L., ‘The Effects of Diseases, Drugs, and Chemicals on the Creativity and Productivity of Famous Sculptors, Classic Painters, Classic Music Composers, and Authors’, Archives of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine vol. 129, issue 11, November, 2005, pp.1457-1464.

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conscious crafting of public image, where personality is akin to performance.5 The

second examines the creation of artistic identity in the work of later sixteenth-century

writers, notably Giorgio Vasari, and considers it as part of a broader process of the

writing of art history.6

In some ways this essay treads a middle way through these two

methodological paths, by focussing on how contemporary audiences used their

opinions about painters and sculptors to maintain, create and confirm group identity.

Sometimes,the way that patrons and others understood artistic behaviour seems not to

have been much in line with how the artist wished to be perceived. Given, as the

Wittkowers suggested, ‘difficult’ people who miss deadlines can be found in most

historical periods and in many professions, why, at the turn of the sixteenth century,

did these characteristics become so closely aligned with painters and sculptors? What

was the advantage for the patrons and audience of these artists’ work to see the

producer as vacillating, unreliable and unreasonable?

1) ‘he lives from one day to the next’

Leonardo and Michelangelo are the first artists to be frequently named in Florentine

chronicle sources. Giovanni Cambi, for example, opined that Michelangelo was ‘a

worthy master, more than any other in his times’.7 Bartolommeo Cerretani evaluated

                                                                                                               5 See, for example, Barolsky, P., Michelangelo's Nose: A Myth and Its Maker, University Park, PA, 1997 and The Faun in the Garden: Michelangelo and the Poetic Origins of Italian Renaissance Art, University Park, PA, 1994; Woods-Marsden, J., Renaissance Self-Portraiture: The Visual Construction of Identity and the Social Status of the Artist, New Haven and London, 1998; Gallucci, M. A., Benvenuto Cellini, London, 2003. The phrase “renaissance self-fashioning” was coined by Stephen Greenblatt in his Renaissance Self Fashioning from More to Shakespeare, Chicago, 1980. 6 Rubin, P. L. Giorgio Vasari: Art and History, New Haven and London, 1995, is central for this approach. See also now for artistic personality and the notion of humours in sixteenth century art theory and history, the work of Piers Britton: Britton, P. ‘Raphael and the Bad Humours of Painters’, Renaissance Studies, vol. 22, no. 2, March 2008, pp.174-196; Ibid., ‘“Mio malinchonico, o vero ... mio pazzo”: Michelangelo, Vasari and the problem of artists’ melancholy in sixteenth-century Italy’, Sixteenth Century Journal, vol. 24, no. 3, Fall 2003, pp.653-675; and Ibid., ‘(Hu)moral Exemplars: Type and Temperament in Cinquecento Art’, in. Jean A. Givens, Karen M. Reeds, & Alain Touwaide eds., Visualizing Medieval Medicine and Natural History, 1200-1550, Aldershot, 2006, pp.177-204. 7 Giovanni Cambi, ‘Istorie di Giovanni Cambi cittadino fiorentino’, in I. de San Luigi

(ed.), Delizie degli eruditi toscani. Florence 1785-86, vol.22, p.203.

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the relative merits of Michelangelo and Leonardo in 1509: ‘At this time, there were

two Florentines who were most excellent in sculpture and painting... they both earned

lots of money, but Michelangelo earned more, because he worked more and well, and

I spoke to them many times and saw them work.’8 In typical Florentine style,

Cerretani was impressed with both artists, but rather exasperated with Leonardo’s

failure to finish work to contract – and thus earn less. This facet of his behaviour was

well known. In Ugolino Verino’s poem De illustratione florentinae urbis, published

in 1503, he suggested that ‘Leonardo Da Vinci perhaps surpasses everyone, but he

cannot take his hand from the panel and so, like Protogenes, takes many years to

finish one [thing].’9 In a letter of April 1501 Fra Pietro Novellara explained to Isabella

d’Este that ‘Leonardo’s life is changeable and so erratic that it seems that he lives

from one day to the next’;Leonardo is so busy with geometrical experiments that ‘he

cannot bear the sight of a paintbrush’.10 This unreliability of Leonardo, however, did

not lead to a lack of commissions for paintings, as we shall see below. His most

important commission of these years was - as Vespucci remarked - the Battle of

Anghiari. Vespucci implied that commissioning Leonardo for this was a gamble on

the part of the gonfaloniere, Piero Soderini, and it was a gamble he was to lose. The

painting was not complete after two contracts and a great deal of expenditure, and

Soderini complained to the French in October 1506: ‘he has not comported himself as

                                                                                                               8 ‘In questi tempi era due fiorentini primarii ed ecelentii in ischoltura et pictura …

ghuadagnavano assai ma più Michelagnolo perché lavorava più e bene, ed io molte volte parlai loro e vidigli lavorare’. Cerretani, B., Ricordi, ed. G. Berti. Florence, 1994, p.212. Rab Hatfield’s analysis of Leonardo and Michelangelo’s bank books has shown that Cerretani’s opinion was correct. See Hatfield, R.,The Wealth of Michelangelo, Rome, 2002, pp.37-60. Discussed also in Keizer, J. P., History, Origins, Recovery: Michelangelo and the Politics of Art, PhD Thesis, University of Leiden, 2008, p.2. 9 ‘Et forsan superat Leonardus Vincius Omnes; / Toller de tabula dextram sed nescit, et instar Protogenis multis vix unam perficit annis’; Verino, U., De illustratione urbis Florentiae: libri tres, Paris, 1583, p.17. 10 ‘la vita di Leonardo è varie et indeterminata forte sì che pare vivere a giornata… Dà opra forte ad la geometria, impacientissimo al pennello’. Reproduced and transcribed in Edoardo Villata’s contribution to Leonardo da Vinci: La Vera Immagine: Documenti e testimonianze sulla vita e sull opera, Florence, 2005, p.178. The documents from Villata, E. (ed.), Leonardo da Vinci: I documenti e le testimonianze contemporanee, Milan, 1999 are now available to consult online on the Ente Raccolta Vinciana website - http://www.erv.it/documenti.html.Extracts from the letters between Novellara and Isabella were translated in Chambers, D. S., Patrons and Artists in the Italian Renaissance, London, 1970, pp.145-146.

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he should have done with this republic: because he took a good sum of money and

made a tiny start on a great work he had to do’.11

However, the idea that Leonardo ‘worked little’, to use Cerretani’s phrase, is

only true if you ignore everything but his paintings; after all, we have left to us almost

6000 pages of writing and drawings in his hand, which of course represent a huge

amount of reading, thinking and investigating. More than this, evidence suggests that

painting was a secondary choice of career for Leonardo by this point. All his energies

were directed towards gaining a career as a military engineer.

When Leonardo arrived in Florence in 1500, he immediately became

immersed in a circle associated with the Pisan war effort in general, and the Council

of Ten in particular. Formerly the Dieci di Balìa, but renamed the Dieci di Libertà e

Pace from 1494 to 1514, the Council of Ten was in charge of the organisation of

Florence’s war effort and diplomacy more generally, organising embassies and

instructing ambassadors, appointing commissaries and organising the production of

weaponry. Alongside the Signoria, this was the key office of the Florentine

government and was responsible for more than half of the total budget of the

republic.12

Letters between the Ten and Florentine ambassadors that mention artistic

commissions have been widely known for more than a century, but the direct links

between Florentine artistic production and the war effort – particularly in the

production of bronze – has only recently become clear.13 Staying at the foresteria of

                                                                                                               11 ‘non  si  è  portato  come  doveva  con  questa  republica:  perchè  ha  preso  buona  somma  de  denaro  e  dato  uno  piccolo  principio  a  una  opera  grande  doveva  fare’.   See http://www.erv.it/bd_documenti.php?docId=257 . For Leonardo’s expenditure and work techniques, see Bambach, C. C., ‘The Purchases of Cartoon Paper for Leonardo's "Battle of Anghiari" and Michelangelo's "Battle of Cascina"’, I Tatti Studies: Essays in the Renaissance, vol. 8, 1999, pp.105-133. 12 For the Council of Ten at the turn of the sixteenth century, see Najemy, J. M., A History of Florence, 1200-1575, Malden, MA, 2006, pp.402-406; for a general history, Anzilotti, A., ‘Cenni storici sugli archivi delle magistrature soprintendenti al dominio conservati nell'Archivio di Stato di Firenze’, Archivio Storico Italiano ser. 5, vol. 44, 1909, pp.359-360, and for the prestige and budget of the office, Bullard, M. M., Filippo Strozzi and the Medici, Cambridge, 1980, pp.38-39. 13 See the important article by Tommaso Mozzati: Mozzati, T., ‘Florence and the Bronze Age: Leonardo and Casting, the War of Pisa, and the Dieci di Balia’ in G. M. Radke (ed.), Leonardo da Vinci and the Art of Sculpture, New Haven and London, 2009, pp.195-206. Many letters associated with the Ten that concerned artistic commissions were published by Gaye, J. W., Carteggio inedito d'artisti dei secoli

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the convent of Santissima Annunziata, Leonardo was right next door to the new

bronze foundry in the former university buildings, the Sapienza, the space co-opted

by the Ten to manufacture ‘mortars and artillery’.14 Apparently in operation since

1495 and possibly expanded three years later, the new foundry was located in

between the convents of San Marco and Santissima Annunziata (now the location of

the Istituto Geografico Militare on via Cesare Battisti). It had been used largely for

workshop rental after plans for the university fell through, but at least from the 1480s,

there is evidence that this space was devoted to furthering artisanal skills – Lorenzo

de’Medici was given control of the site in the 1470s, and he rented it to makers of

‘drapes, cloths and veils alla bolognese’.15 With a brief gap in the 1490s, when the

building was offered to the neighbouring San Marco to house their surfeit of new

friars, it seems to have been consistently used as a location to further the skills of

Florentine artisans, including painters and sculptors. Gianfrancesco Rustici had a

workshop there by 1509, and Andrea del Sarto and Franciabigio were to join him

there the next year. It also was the location for meetings of the Company of the

Cauldron (Paiuolo), which included several painters, sculptors and other skilled

artisans, from around 1512 onwards.16 The rediscovery, in 2005, of a room in the

complex of buildings that now makes up the Istituto Geografico Militare complete

with fifteenth and sixteenth century paintings on the walls is certainly not – as was

optimistically suggested at the time – evidence of Leonardo’s presence there, but it is

perhaps a fragment of the artistic community that existed around the Sapienza and

Santissima Annunziata in the first two decades of the sixteenth century.17

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             XIV, XV, XVI, Florence, 1839, vol. 2, pp.49-128. See also now <http://www.archive.org/details/carteggioinedit05gayegoog> 14 “spingarde e artiglierie”: Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Carte Strozziane II, 51 vol. 2, f. 253r. For the date of 1495, see Mozzati, at n.13 above, p.197. For a chronology of the changes made to the Sapienza in this period, see Ferretti, E., ‘La Sapienza di Niccolò da Uzzano e le stalle di Lorenzo de Medici’, in A. Belluzzi and E. Ferretti (eds.), La sede della Sapienza a Firenze. L’Università e l’Istituto Geografico Militare a San Marco, Florence, 2008, pp.30-67 and by the same author, ‘La Sapienza di Niccolò da Uzzano: l’istituzione e le sue tracce architettoniche nella Firenze rinascimentale’, Annali di Storia di Firenze, vol. 4, 2009, pp.89-149 http://www.dssg.unifi.it/SDF/annali/annali2009.htm. 15 Ibid., p.112. 16 For the fullest and most recent discussion of Rustici and the Company of the Cauldron, see Mozzati, T., Giovanfrancesco Rustici: Le Compagnie del Paiuolo e della Cazzuola: Arte, letteratura, festa nell'età della maniera, Florence, 2008. 17 Bambach, C. C, ‘In the Footsteps of Leonardo’, Apollo, vol. 521, 2005, pp.34-43.

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Tommaso Mozzati has suggested that Leonardo may have acted in some

capacity as a advisor to the Ten of Liberty on the manufacture and design of weapons

from his arrival in Florence in spring 1500.18 Certainly the proximity of Leonardo’s

dwelling to the main foundry for Florentine weapons is tantalising, though as yet no

definite reference to him in the archives has been found. What has not been

previously noted is that a number of his painting commissions at this time seem

directly connected to the Ten. His 1501lost St Anne cartoon which was exhibited at

the Annunziata, was once thought to be connected with the commission for the high

altar in the church, but is much more likely to have been destined for Antonio

Giacomini-Tebalducci’s chapel in the church.19 Antonio Giacomini was a hero of the

Florentine wars, himself a sometime member of the Ten, and renowned for his

effective work as a military commissary, key to the strategy to retake Pisa and keep

Florentine subject towns in check.20 The association of Giacomini with the Virgin and

Child with St Anne cartoon would, perhaps, partially explain its popularity in spring

1501 when people reportedly thronged to see it.21

Leonardo perhaps met Francesco del Giocondo through the Annunziata – the

Giocondo family also held patronage rights to a chapel there – but as the Giocondo

family silk business also supplied material to the Ten, it could possibly also have been

                                                                                                               18 See Mozzati, at n.13 above. 19 As suggested in Zöllner, F., Leonardo da Vinci 1452-1519: The Complete Paintings and Drawings (Cologne, London, 2003), 143-5 and 237; see also Villata at n.9, above, p.178. 20 For Giacomini’s reputation, Van Veen, H. Th., ‘Antonio Giacomini: un commissario repubblicano nel Salone dei Cinquecento’, Prospettiva vol. 25, 1981, pp.50-56. For his membership of the Council of 10, see Guicciardini, F., The History of Florence, New York and London, 1970, p.208. He is mentioned frequently, and admiringly, in contemporary chronicles: Landucci, L., A Florentine Diary from 1450 to 1516, trans., A. de Rosen Jervis, Florence, 1969, pp.192-193, 215; Cambi at n.6 above, pp.187, 312; Masi, B., Ricordanze di Bartolomeo Masi: Calderaio fiorentino dal 1478 al 1526, Florence, 1906, p.65; Cerretani at n.8 above, pp.18, 28, 40, 45, 46, 62, 79, 93. Antonio Vespucci was his secretary 1503-4; see Schlechter at n.1 above, section 52. 21 See Vasari, G., Le Vite de' più eccellenti pittori scultori e architettori: nelle redazioni del 1550 e 1568, ed. R. Bettarini and P. Barocchi, Florence, 1966-87, vol. 4, pp.29-30. This would support Robert Maniura’s suggestion that the popularity of this image was essentially votive: ‘Voting with their Feet: Art, Pilgrimage and Ratings in the Renaissance’, in G. Neher and R. Shepherd (eds.), Revaluing Renaissance Art, Aldershot, 2000, pp.187-200.

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through this connection.22 Antonio Segni, for whom Leonardo made a drawing of

Neptune, also had contacts with the council. In December 1503, Machiavelli reported

to the Ten that Segni was acting as a go-between in discussions between him, as

representative of Florence, and the Genoese captain of the papal ships, Mottino.23

Florimond Robertet, for whom Leonardo was painting the Virgin of the Yardwinder,

was one of the two men at the French court the Ten believed Florence could ‘have full

faith in’, urging its ambassadors to see him as often as possible in their instructions in

their mission to the French court of July 1500; by September, Machiavelli reported

that he was ‘the only person that has remained [Florence’s] friend’ at court ‘but we

shall lose him too very soon, unless we sustain his friendship with something more

substantial than words’.24

By the time he was commissioned for the Battle of Anghiari, then, Leonardo

had been working for a tightly-knit elite group of men in charge of the Florentine war

effort for the past three years. Agostino Vespucci, the secretary to the Ten was thus

well-placed to comment on his activities, and seems to have known Leonardo quite

well, not only writing the instructions for the battle scene in the Codex Atlanticus, but

also having leant Leonardo a book about geometry on one occasion.25

Perhaps then, painting in this period was a means to an end for Leonardo – a

way of associating himself closely with those men who could employ him as a

military engineer – hence his choice of living quarters. Leonardo had had experience

of this type of role in Milan, had briefly worked in this capacity in early 1500 in

Venice, and had given advice as an architectural engineer to the friars of the church of

San Salvatore al Monte just outside Florence in spring of the same year. He managed

to find a job with Cesare Borgia as ‘architect and general engineer’ from May 1502 to

                                                                                                               22 See, for example, ASF, Dieci di Balia, Ricordanze 10 (1500-1530), fols.22r and 23r. 23 See Cecchi, A., ‘New Light on Leonardo’s Florentine Patrons’ in C. C. Bambach (ed.), Leonardo da Vinci Master Draftsman, New Haven and London, 2003, p.131, and Machiavelli, The Historical, Political, and Diplomatic Writings of Niccolo Machiavelli, C. E. Detmold (trans.), 4 vols., Boston, 1882, vol. 3, letters XLIII and XLIV, of 7 and 12 December 1503 (http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php&title=776&search=%22mottino%22&layout=html#a_1848432). 24http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php&title=776&search=%22robertet%22&chapter=76232&layout=html#a_1847348 25 See Pedretti, C., ‘La Verrucca’, Renaissance Quarterly vol. 25, 1972, pp.417-425, p.418, n.8. For more on Vespucci, see Schlechter at n.1 above.

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around March 1503.26 This is sometimes understood in the literature as a betrayal of

his native city, as Cesare was Florence’s enemy – in fact the situation was more

complicated than that. The direct threat to Florence at this time came from Vitellozzo

Vitellozzi, Cesare’s lieutenant, who had revolted against him; it was not at all certain

in 1502 whether Cesare was going to support the Florentine cause or not. Florence

continued sending ambassadors to Cesare, most notably Niccolò Machiavelli, who

like Leonardo, was there in the Autumn and early winter of 1502. Interestingly, later

Leonardo was to play the role of a kind of living diplomatic gift when, in autumn

1504, the Ten sent him to advise Jacopo IV Appiani, the Lord of Piombino, about

fortifications for his city.27 By that time, Leonardo had been working for the Council

of Ten officially as a military engineer from for around 18 months, and is documented

as visiting the fortress of La Verruca to make plans to fortify it in June 1503, making

maps of recaptured territory for Florentine troops around the same time, and in July of

that year starting the ultimately ill-fated project for the diversion of the Arno, whilst

waiting to hear back from Sultan Bajazeth about the plans he had sent him for

constructing a bridge between Galata and Istanbul.28

In this way, two different pictures of Leonardo’s activities in Florence seem to

emerge – on the one hand a slow, uncooperative and vacillating painter, whilst on the

other, an innovative and rather productive military engineer who was trusted

repeatedly with commissions of the highest importance. Despite his efforts to further

his engineering career, it is as a painter, however vacillating, that he found fame.

2) ‘you can never promise anything certain from painters and sculptors’

The Florentine ambassadors first told the Ten that the Pierre de Rohan, the

Mareschal de Gie (along with Robertet, Florence’s chief ally at the French court)

wanted a copy of Donatello’s bronze David in June 1501. ‘We have searched for

                                                                                                               26 See Heydenreich, L. H., ‘The Military Architect’, in L. Reti (ed.), The Unknown Leonardo, London, 1974, pp. 136-165; Leonardo da Vinci: Engineer and Architect, Montreal, 1987; Gille, B., The Renaissance Engineers, London, 1966, pp.143-190. 27 See Heydenreich, 1974 at n.25 above, pp.152-160. 28 Ibid., pp.144-152; Masters, R. D., Machiavelli, Leonardo and the Science of Power, Notre Dame, IND and London, 1995, pp.14-17; For the fortress at La Verrucca, see Pedretti, at n.25 above, and for Leonardo’s drawings relating to the Arno project, Pedretti, C., The Literary Works of Leonardo da Vinci ed. J. P Richter, Berkeley, 1977, notes to 1001-1008. Much of the information relating to the Piombino Project is in Madrid MS II; see Pedretti at n.25 above, pp.419-421.

  10  

someone who could cast a figure of David … and there is currently a dearth of good

enough masters here’, the Ten responded – despite the fact that Leonardo, who had

designed the colossal bronze equestrian statue of Ludovico Sforza, was living next

door to the main state bronze foundry at this time.29 It was, in fact, not until more than

a year later (12 August 1502) when Michelangelo was contracted to make a copy of

Donatello’s bronze David, to be finished by February 1503. It was only sent to France

in November 1508 - and its recipient was, in fact, Robertet, as the Mareschal de Gie

had by then fallen from the King’s favour.

In this context, it is worth briefly pointing out the huge volume of work that

Michelangelo was being given during these years. He was commissioned in August

1501 to complete the colossal marble David for the Duomo, and, when this was well

on the way to completion in April 1503, for twelve life-size marble sculptures of the

apostles, also intended for the Duomo.30 In summer 1504, he was commissioned for

his first large-scale work in fresco, the Battle of Cascina mural for the Great Council

Hall, and alongside that he was involved in making works for the Taddei, Doni and

Pitti families. In 1505 he went to Rome to start the tomb of Julius II and then design

and cast a colossal bronze sculpture of Julius at Bologna.31 The evidence we have of

Michelangelo’s early career suggests that he was rather a good organiser, a fast and

diligent worker and intent to meet his obligations whenever at all possible.32 At no

point, however, during the letters between the Ten and the ambassadors, is there a                                                                                                                29 ‘Noi habbiamo cercato chi ci possa gittare una figura di Davit … et ci è hoggi charestia di simili buoni maestri’. For a retranscription of the documents in full, and a diplomatic history of Michelangelo’s bronze David, see Gatti, L., ‘“Delle cose de'pictori et sculptori si può mal promettere cosa certa”. La diplomazia fiorentina presso la corte del re di Francia e il Davide bronzeo di Michelangelo Buonarroti’, Mélanges de l'Ecole française de Rome. Italie et Méditerranée, vol. 106, 1994, pp.433–472; p.441 for the quoted passage. 30 For the date of the completion of the marble David, see Hirst, M., ‘Michelangelo in Florence: David in 1503 and Hercules in 1506’, The Burlington Magazine, vol.142, no. 1169, August 2000, pp.487–492. Hirst’s finding suggests that Michelangelo was largely successful in keeping to his contracted time for the David project. 31 Hirst, M., ‘Michelangelo in 1505’, The Burlington Magazine, vol.133, no. 1064, November1991, pp. 760-766, p.762. 32 See, for example, his skills in project management described by Wallace, W., Michelangelo at San Lorenzo: The Genius as Entrepreneur, Cambridge, 1994, and Michael Hirst’s suggestion that Michelangelo’s resentment at being misrepresented in the long-running ‘tragedy’ of the unfinished tomb of Julius II was justified. See Hirst at n.31 above. Even in the case of the bronze David, Michelangelo was paid for casting the sculpture in October 1503, relatively soon after the contract date. See Gatti at n.29 above, p.444.

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suggestion that Michelangelo was swamped with other projects and had too much to

do – how, after all, is one to say to a chief ally that there are simply more important

commissions to attend to? The answer, instead, was to be found in Michelangelo’s

temperament.

‘As you know, you can never promise anything certain from painters and

sculptors’, the Ten told their ambassadors in December 1502. ‘The figure … will be

finished by S. Giovanni (24 June)’ they promise in April 1503, ‘if he keep his

promise, which is not very certain, given the brains of such people’. When the

sculpture still had not turned up in July 1503, the Ten explained to the ambassadors

that despite being ‘continually asked for … because of the nature of the man and the

quality of the object, you cannot expect for it to be hurried along in a few days’.33

Now it may be that Michelangelo was, indeed, difficult to work with – but in

earlier periods, this might well have simply led to the commission going elsewhere.

This was not the done thing in the early years of the Cinquecento. As Soderini

explained to Alberigo Malaspina in 1508, when discussing Michelangelo’s presence

at the marble quarries to find a block for a projected Hercules sculpture, ‘as there is

no other man in Italy able to create a work of such quality, it is necessary that he

alone, and no other, should come to see and direct [the removal of the block], because

all others, not knowing his fantasia could spoil it’.34 Patrons demonstrated their

elevated cultural sensitivities, and high levels of education, by understanding that true

creativity needed special treatment. This could be true of other arts - in September

1502 Gian de Artiganova compared the composers Josquin des Prez and Heinrich

Isaac for the benefit of Ercole d’Este. The latter musician was ‘rapid in the art of

composition … good-natured and easy to get along with … Josquin composes better,

                                                                                                               33  ‘come  voi  sapete,  delle  cose  de  pictori  et  sculptori  su  può  mal  promettere  cosa  certa”;  “La  figura  …  sarà  fornita  a  San  Giovaani  se  il  Maestro  ci  terrà  fermo  la  promessa  sua,  la  quale  non  è  molto  certa  atteso  e  cervelli  di  simili  genti”;  “Essi  di  poi  continuamente  sollecitata  et  si  sollecita,  ma  non  si  può  et  per  la  natura  dell’homo  et  la  qualità  della  cosa  experdiral  in  pochi  dí’;  Ibid.,  pp.442-­‐4.  34

‘Et  non  essendo  homo  in  Italia  apto  ad  expedire  una  opera  di  cotesta  qualità,  è  necessario  che  lui  solo,  et  non  altri  là  vengha  ad  vedere  et  dirizzarla,  perchè  ogni  altro  non  sapendo  la  fantasia  sua  lo  potrebbe  guastare’;  Vasari, G., Vita di Michelangelo nelle redazioni del 1550 e del 1568, ed. P. Barocchi, Milan, 1962, 5 vols., vol. 3, p.1080.

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but he composes when he wants to, and not when one wants him to’.35 To get the best

from these people, you had to give them special treatment, explained Piero Soderini,

again in reference to Michelangelo: ‘you need to show him love and grant him

favours, and then you will see him do such marvellous things’.36 The same year,

when Michelangelo left Rome after being consistently denied audience with the Julius

II, a papal brief was sent to Florence explaining that Julius forgave the sculptor as ‘we

know the nature of men of this type’.37

The idea that painters, sculptors and musicians might be particularly unreliable

was not new – observations about this had been current since at least the fourteenth

century.38 There becomes a sense, however, in the early sixteenth century, that

patrons almost coveted vacillation and unreliability from the painters and sculptors in

order to prove their magnanimity and refined tastes. In November 1504, Isabella

d’Este complained to Paride da Ceresara about the ‘bizarreness’ of painters in not

keeping promised deadlines – telling her agent to follow closely the progress of

Perugino on his painting for her camerino even though he had already explained that

it would be ready in time, then a few days later, exclaiming ‘how I desire to be well

served by painters! But the desire will be in vain, it is necessary that we accept from

them what they want, or know!39 Her experience with the Nativity painted for her by

Giovanni Bellini, which was delivered two years later than originally agreed,

probably confirmed her views – though once again, as with Michelangelo and

                                                                                                               35 See Wegman, R. C., ‘“And Josquin Laughed...”: Josquin and the Composer's Anecdote in the Sixteenth Century’, The Journal of Musicology, vol. 17, 1999, pp.319-357, pp.334-5. 36 ‘bisogna monstrargli amore et farle favore, et lui fara cose si maravigliera chi le vedrà’. Cited and discussed in Beck, J., ‘Cardinal Alidosi, Michelangelo, and the Sistine Ceiling’, Artibus Et Historiae, vol.11, no.22, 1990, pp.63-77, p.66. 37 ‘novimus huiusmodi hominum ingenia’: Bottari, G. G., and L. Crespi (eds.), Raccolta di lettere sulla pittura, scultura ed architettura: scritte da'più celebri personaggi che in dette arti fiorirono dal secolo xv. al xvii., 7 vols., Rome, 1754-1773, vol.3, p.320. Discussed (though translated slightly differently) in Wittkower at n.3 above, pp.38-40. 38 A good discussion of this is in Wegman at n.35 above, pp.337-354; see also Kemp, M., ‘From Mimesis to Fantasia: The Quattrocento Vocabulary of Creation, Inspiration and Genius in the Visual Arts’, Viator, vol. 8, 1977, pp.347–398 and Wittkower at n.3 above. 39 ‘desiderar essimo essere  così  bene  servite  da  li  pictori!  Ma  el  desiderio  seria  vano,  bisogna  che  accetamo  da  loro  quello  che  voleno,  o  scianno!’  For both letters, see Canuti, F., Il Perugino, Foligno, 1983, p.223.  

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Leonardo discussed above, this lateness was at least partly due to Bellini having a

great deal of other important commissions at the time.40

Isabella’s relationship with Leonardo has sometimes been portrayed as the

epitome of the renaissance reversal of power relations between celebrated artist and

petitioning patron.41 However, this is not really the story of a weak patron and a

confident artist. As certain artists attracted more and more attention from members of

the Italian elite, they became increasingly laden down with commissions, and the

increased emphasis on ‘fantasia’ meant that many of these patrons demanded work

that was done directly by the master. Power relations were such that it would have

been very difficult for any painter or sculptor to turn down commissions from a

powerful figure, no matter how busy the artist might be, and however unlikely it

might that the commission would ever get completed. The fact that artists could not

meet the demands of their social superiors could be interpreted as an insult to their

honour. For example, Isabella’s brother, Alfonso d’Este, having waited several

months for a painting of the Triumph of Bacchus from (the terrifically busy)

Raphaelwrote in 1520 to his agent in Rome, Alfonso Paolucci, that Raphael should

‘consider well what it means to pledge his word to one of our rank, and then to show

no more esteem for us than for a vile plebeian, having told us lies so many times’.42

This is despite the fact that his agent had already plead the now-familiar excuse of the

peculiar temperament of artists “men of this level of excellence all suffer from

melancholy”.43 Indeed, in later life, Michelangelo was even to make a comic play on

                                                                                                               40 Fletcher, J. M., ‘Isabella d'Este and Giovanni Bellini's Presepio’, The Burlington Magazine, vol. 113, no. 825, December 1971, pp.703-713. Some of the correspondence is translated in Chambers at n.9 above, pp.124-133. 41 See, for example, Wittkower at n.3, above, pp.34-38. 42 ‘ditegli come da voi che esso pensi bene quello che possa importare a dare parole ad un par nostro, e mostrare di non ci stimar più che un vil plebeio, havendoci ditto tante volte le bugie’. Discussed in Ibid, p.37, original letter in Shearman, J. (ed.), Raphael in Early Modern Sources 1483-1602, 2 vols., New Haven and London, 2003, vol.1, p.553. 43  ‘invero  li  homini  de  questa  excellentia  s[ono?]  tuti  del  melencolico’;  Ibid.,  pp.481-­‐2.  Discussed  in  Britton,  2003,  as  in  n.6  above,  p.  655;  see  also  Ibid.,  2008,  as  in  n.6  above,  where  he  argues  that  Raphael  is  portrayed  by  Vasari  as  an  exemplar  of  an  artist  whose  humours  are  in  balance.    

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his supposed eccentricity, describing himself as “vile, poor and mad” and speaking of

“my melancholy nature or, truly speaking, my craziness” in letters of the 1520s.44

Artists’ eccentricity, then, by this point could be a useful get out clause for

both parties, locating the artist outside traditional social structures and thus allowing

both the artist and the patron to emerge from a series of missed deadlines with their

honour intact. It avoided difficult conflicts and offense to both parties. The

momentum behind this tendency to interpret lateness as a sign of peculiarity and

talent – as opposed to unwillingness or time pressure – proved irresistible, even in the

face of oppositions from the artists themselves. Having a persona that was essentially

“fashioned” by others was, perhaps, the flip-side of fame.

                                                                                                               44  ‘omo  vile,  povero  e  macto’  (June  1520),  ‘mio  malinchonicho,  o  vero  …  mio  pazzo’  (May  1525)  in  Michelangelo,  Il  Carteggio  di  Michelangelo,  ed.  Paola  Barocchi  e  Renzo  Ristori,  vol  2,  p.232,  and  vol.  3,  p.156.  The  latter  is  discussed  in  Britton,  2003,  as  in  n.6  above,  p.662.