Madlad Michelangelo takes on the powerful Medici family- through art
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, whose name has been understandably shortened in our modern consciousness to simply "Michaelangelo", had an... er, complicated relationship with Florence's most powerful family, the Medici. No one can deny the influence the lavish Lorenzo de Medici (or Lorenzo the Magnificent, if one wanted to be low key about it) had on the young Michaelangelo- after all, the latter was his protegee.
In the dark of night, two years after Lorenzo's death, Lorenzo's eldest son, Pierro, fled Florence with his wife and children. The city had changed- religious zeal, led by Savonarola, had turned the city against the family. By that time, Michaelangelo had become one of Italy's greatest artists, and he found himself filled with Republican fervor. Seeing this, the City of Florence commissioned him to create the now famous statue of David- a Christian symbol of Florentine strength against anyone who wished to sully their great city...including the Medici.
And so for around 20 years, the Medici family was in exile. But as the internet had not been invented yet, they didn't spend their time scrolling FB as you and I would- instead, they got busy and had installed Giovanni, Lorenzo's second son, as pope. Just a reminder, but modern Italy as we know it came around 1861. Before that, you had the papal states, which were pretty much ruled by the pope, of which now a Medici was one.
So now, the Medici were back in Florence, with a vengeance. In 1519, they decided to build a church- the church of San Lorenzo- to show their authority and control (apparently that was the Renaissance period's version of flexing.) And to undertake this project, who else would they turn to but to the great artist who was once a starry eyed student under their wing: Michaelangelo?
"We'd like you to make for us a memorial chapel," they told the artist, who, in the family's exile, had worked against them. "Tombs that will make our family name live forever".
And Michaelangelo, whose heart was taken by the ideal of a Florentine republic, acquiesced- but what he produced was something that the family would have never expected.
The pictures below show the tombs the great artist created for the Medici. Michaelangelo had sneered at the idea of modeling the statues after the deceased buried therein; "In a thousand years, no one will know who you are".
On their sarcophagi, he sculpted four figures (you can see two of the figures in each picture)- dawn, dusk, day and night, to show the passing of time... and ultimately, mortality. The message was clear to the powerful family who, although shocked by the rebel, respected his genius - no matter your status in life, you cannot escape death.
