PAOLETTI, John T. Michelangelo's Masks.

Michelangelo's Masks
Author(s): John T. Paoletti

Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 74, No. 3 (Sep., 1992), pp. 423-440
Published by: College Art Association
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Michelangelo's Masks
John T. Paoletti
Michelangelo's projected ensemble for the New Sacristy in S.

Lorenzo is so astounding in its density and complexity that it
is little wonder that a small detail of the sculptural program
symbols for night and sleep; as such they have not been discussed in any detail. Michelangelo, however, was not given to
has escaped serious historical or iconological attention. Yet
would have wanted a handful of symbols like those adorning

the Night to be redundant. Of all of these symbols the mask
may be the least well served by such a simple reading.
the well-known mask under the upper torso of the reclining

figure of Night which disguises the unresolved placement of
her left hand and arm (Figs. 1-2) does add an important
footnote to Michelangelo's biography in the form of a
personal and self-referential message which the patrons of
the chapel could hardly have failed to read.
The Night is anomalous-and thus particularly noticeable-among the four allegories representing the Times of
Day in the Medici Chapel insofar as it is the only one with
clearly defined attributes. The figure is identified by a crown
simple-minded didacticism, and it seems unlikely that he
The mask shows a face with distinctly-even exaggeratedly-muscled features, a prominent nose with flared nostrils, a curling beard and mustache, and a curiously unnatural curved upper lip which serves to frame two prominently
revealed teeth. The clue to the probable meaning of the

mask lies in Condivi's biography of Michelangelo published
in 1553, nearly twenty years after Michelangelo departed
Florence, presumably leaving the carving of the statues of
marked with a crescent moon and a star, a garland most
the Medici Chapel as we see them now. According to
often described as one composed of poppies, an owl, and the
Condivi, who was undoubtedly informed by Michelangelo
mask; Panofsky has also reminded us of the mouse that

Michelangelo "failed to carve," a small component that was
apparently once part of the iconographical scheme of the
himself, the first work of sculpture that the artist had ever
Chapel.1 These various attributes, the mouse excepted, have
entered into the standard literature merely as appropriate
I would like to thank William Wallace, Sheryl Reiss, and Clark Maines for
their reading of the text in draft form and for their comments. This
paper also benefitted from conversations with Wendy Stedman Sheard,
who offered penetrating perceptions into its content and helpful

criticisms of its direction. Creighton Gilbert also kindly read this paper
and, although he did not agree with all of its conclusions, provided
incisive observations about its arguments. I have benefitted as well from

correspondence with Paul Barolsky, whose sparks of intellectual insight
ignited many passages in the text. Sabine Eiche assisted in procuring
photographs, for which I am very grateful. I am also indebted to
made was a copy in marble of an antique head of a faun,

"already old in appearance with a long beard and a laughing countenance ... ," then in the collection of Lorenzo
the Magnificent.2 Although the mask of the Night is not
2 Condivi/Wohl, 11; Condivi/Frey, 20: "In vista gia vecchio, con lunga
barba e volto ridente." Vasari does not include this anecdote in his life of
Michelangelo until his second edition of 1568; in the 1550 edition he

identifies the work that Michelangelo made for Lorenzo merely as "una
testa antica"; see Vasari/Barocchi, I, 10-11, and ii, 95-97. A recent
consideration of this mask appears in Barolsky, passim, esp. 29-30,

where the author maintains that the mask is a provocative literary
fiction. Barolsky's views parallel a number of ideas developed in this
paper, although I did not know his text at the time of the writing of my
own; he does not consider the mask of the Night in his book. Whether or
paper was completed.
not an actual antique mask existed in Lorenzo's collection (and I believe

it did) does not affect the point that Barolsky makes in his book that
I E. Panofsky, "The Mouse that Michelangelo Failed to Carve," Essays in

Memory of Karl Lehmann (Marsyas, suppl. 1), New York, 1964, 242-251.
self-fashioning.
Night, saying merely that "to signify Time [Michelangelo] meant to carve
and it is unlikely that it ever will be. E. Miintz, "Les Collections
Wesleyan University for providing the sabbatical leave during which this
Although Condivi does not specifically associate the mouse with the
a mouse" ("per la significatione del tempo voleva fare un topo, havendo
lasciato in su l'opera un poco di marmo"), he does say that the figures of
Day and Nzght were "collectively [to represent] Time which consumes
all" ("significandosi per queste il Glorno et la Notte e per ambi due il
Tempo che consuma il tutto") (Condivi/Wohl, 67; Condivi/Frey, 136),
thus connecting in a loose way the mouse with the personification of
either Day or Night. It should be noted here that the identification of the
garland at the foot of Night as one of poppies does not come from
16th-century sources. Neither Condivi (ibid.: "la civetta et altri segni"),

nor Vasari, or Lomazzo, or Borghini identify the flowers of the garland
specifically; in Francesco Bocchi's Le bellezze delle citta di Firenze, ed. G.
Cinelli, Florence, 1677, 526, the garland is described merely as a
"festone di frutta." An anonymous reader of this paper has indicated

that C. Holroyd included a translation of Condivi's Life in the second
edition of his Mzchel Angelo Buonarroti, London, 1911, and inexplicably
included the identification of the flowers in the garland as "poppy
heads" (p. 183); this is apparently the first reference to this flower in
connection to the Night. It must be said that, given the summary nature
of the carving, moder historians might be wise to imitate the reticence
of the early writers.
Michelangelo chose this image as an appropriate one for his own

The antique mask, assuming that it did exist, has not been identified
d'antiques formees par les Medicis au XVIe siecle," Memoires de l'Acaddmie
des Inscrptions et Belles-lettres, xxxv, Pt. 2, 1895, 85-168, includes an

inventory from 1553-68 in which two "maschere grande antiche" are
listed along with "dua maschere grande simile [sic], l'una guasta al viso"
(p. 136). This last damaged item in the inventory suggests Condivi's
description of the mask that Michelangelo copied, whose mouth, "on
account of its antiquity, could hardly be distinguished or recognized .. ."
(Condivi/Wohl, 11). The ruined aspect of the antique mask forms a part
of the Condivi tale that has unfortunately been elided in the literature; it
suggests another facet of Michelangelo's genius, namely that he was able
to construct a convincing version of the antique from fragmentary
evidence. On this score, we are reminded of Bertoldo's bronze Battle
relief based on a ruined marble sarcophagus in Pisa. For recent, not

completely convincing suggestions for the identification of this mask
with one now in the Museo Archeologico, Florence, see A. Parronchi,
"La testa di fauno," Opere giovanzli di Mzchelangelo, III. Miscellanea

Michelangzolesca (Accademia Toscana di Scienze e Lettere "La
Colombaria," LVII), Florence, 1981, 2-26. The most recent synopsis of
this problem is by G. Agosti and V. Farinella, "La 'contrafazione' del
Fauno nel Giardino di San Marco," in Michelangelo e l'arte classzca (exh.
cat., Casa Buonarroti, Apr. 15-Oct. 15, 1987), Florence, 1987, 15-20.
424 THE ART BULLETIN SEPTEMBER 1992 VOLUME LXXIV NUMBER 3
1 Michelangelo, Tomb of Giuliano dei Medici. Florence, S. Lorenzo, Medici Chapel (photo: Gabinetto Fotografico della
Soprintendenza ai Beni Artistici e Storici di Firenze)
Mask
of
the
Night
(ph
laughing, it does betray the characteristically exaggerated

and slightly demonic features of antique faun images, and it
does, like the antique head presumably in Lorenzo's collection, have strands of a straggly mustache which extend over
the base of the Night. As part of his seemingly innocent tale,
Condivi included the telling bit of information that Michelangelo, in his copy from the antique, had completed the area of
the mouth that had worn away in the original "so that the
hollow of the mouth and all the teeth could be seen," much
as we now see them in the mask for the Night.3
Condivi, furthermore, reported that Lorenzo the Magnificent, while praising Michelangelo's work, chided the artist
for giving the image of an old man such perfect teeth. In
response, the tale goes, Michelangelo removed "an upper
tooth."4 Once again Condivi's elaborated description of
Michelangelo's premiere effort in sculpture vividly calls to
mind the mask of the Night. Although the existing mask in
the Medici Chapel does not appear to be missing an upper
tooth, its two teeth are so exaggerated and so carefully
framed that one cannot help seeing in it Michelangelo's
reconstruction of his own original work. It might be said here
that it is of little matter whether Condivi's story records a
factual event; Michelangelo chose to remember-or to
artifice of the (auto)biography. Vasari, in his second edition

of the Lives, included a descriptive detail of Michelangelo's
early sculptural copy that might also be connected with the
mask of the Night. In describing the faun's mask Vasari wrote
that "... fuor della antica testa, di suo fantasia gli aveva
traponato la bocca e fattogli la lingua e vedere tutti i denti
..." (different from the antique head and from his own
imagination he drilled out the mouth, made a tongue and
made all the teeth visible . . .),5 thus suggesting a transformation of the original antique model. In the mask of the Night a
tongue is also clearly visible rising behind the teeth (Fig. 2).
These anecdotal descriptions by Condivi and Vasari are so
odd in their details that unless they echo an as-yetunidentified literary topos from classical antiquity, they cannot be pure invention but must in some way record an object
and an event important in Michelangelo's own memory.6
Whether the antique mask and Michelangelo's "copy" of it

were identical in their individual physical characteristics is
moot-and also beside the point. The trail of this ancient

mask and its meaning for Michelangelo and Lorenzo seem to
zig-zag through works of art of the sixteenth century in

surprising ways; each appearance serves to emphasize the
importance of Condivi's story. Vasari's portrait of a pensive
construct-his origins as a sculptor through the image of the
Lorenzo the Magnificent (Fig. 3) is relevant here.7 Vasari
mask, a choice that, itself, should warn us of the possible
began this painting around 1534 just as Michelangelo left for
3 Condivi/Wohl, 12; Condivi/Frey, 20: "Si che si vedea il cavo d'essa con
tutti i denti." Although the two teeth so obviously revealed by the upper
lip of the mask of the Night must function as a synecdoche for "all the
teeth" mentioned in Condivi's description, there is a ridge of marble
behind the lower lip that could have been fashioned into a row of teeth.
1989, 14, and J. Cox-Rearick, Dynasty and Destiny in Medici Art: Pontormo,
Leo X and the Two Cosimos, Princeton, 1984, 236. Barolsky, 26-29,
continues his discussion of the "socratic satyr" by seeing this painting as
a manifestation of the literary reference that he believes informs
Condivi's tale of the faun's mask; this would presume that Vasari or his
It should be noted, however, that from the viewer's vantage point slightly
patron, Ottaviano de' Medici, found such a reference apt in 1534. For
below the mask, such teeth would hardly have been visible had they been
further interpretation of this painting as a personal reference to Vasari
carved.
and his family, see P. Barolsky, Why Mona Lisa Smiles and Other Tales by
4 Condivi/Wohl, 12; Condivi/Frey, 22: "Cav6 un dente al suo vecchio di Vasari, University Park, Pa., 1991, 92.
8 It must be noted, however, that no such mask appears in the 1492
quei di sopra. ... "
inventory of Lorenzo's possessions, written at the time of his death. For
5 Vasari/Barocchi, I, 10.
the copy of this inventory made at the request of Lorenzo di Piero in
6 Barolsky, 19-20, comes the closest to positing an antique reference by December 1512 (Archivio di Stato, Florence, Mediceo avanti il princisuggesting that the mask implies Socrates who is referred to in the pato, 165, fols. 1-120), see E. Miintz, Les Collections des Medicis au XVe
Symposium, among other things, as a satyr, thus meaning that MichelanSiecle, Paris and London, 1888; the document is incomplete in its
gelo "was like Socrates in his pursuit of beauty." On this subject we might published form. In an earlier article, "Les Collections d'antiquites de
note that Socrates' physical features were well known in the 16th century
Laurent le Magnifique," Revue archeologique, n.s. 38, 1879, 243-250; 39,
and that his portrait was included by Raphael in the School of Athens. 1880, 257-259, Muntz noted (p. 257) that the marbles in Lorenzo's
Socrates looked much more like Silenus than a satyr, although the two collection, for whatever reason, were not inventoried. For a recent study
are related. I am grateful to The Art Bulletin's anonymous reader for of Lorenzo's antiquities, see L. Beschi, "Le antichita di Lorenzo il
pointing out this distinction. It must be noted as well that the mask of the Magnifico: Caratteri e vicende," Gli Uffizz: Quattro secoli di una galleria
Night does not show the pointed, erect, and often long ears of antique (Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi, Florence, Sept. 20-24,
satyrs.
Given the slippage in terminology between satyrs and fauns in the

literature, some general statements about the two might be useful.
Fauns, originally identified with Pan, were typically shown with horns
and goat legs, but not with elongated ears. Such (horse's) ears were the
identifying characteristics of satyrs, normally companions of Bacchus.
Although Roman and Renaissance sculptors confused these attributes,
Michelangelo apparently did not, since his mask of the Night, a
reference, I believe, to the faun of Condivi's tale, apparently has no long

ears, but the satyr accompanying his Bacchus does. Michelangelo seems
to have elided this issue by eliminating any depiction of ears in his mask
in the Medici Chapel; in fact, the carving becomes quite rough at the end
of the mask, just at the point where ears might appear. Of course, the
operative texts here are those of Condivi and Vasari, which describe
Michelangelo's mask very clearly and which say nothing about elongated
ears as a distinctive feature of the antique sculpture in Lorenzo's
collection that they identify as a faun. In this light, it might be worth

reconsidering modem attributions of "faun" images with long pointed
ears reviewed by Agosti and Farinella (as in n. 2).
7 Florence, Uffizi, Inv. 1578; for the meaning of this painting, see U.
Davitt Asmus, Corpus Quasz Vas. Beitrage zur Ikonographie der Italienzschen
Renaissance, Berlin, 1977, 41-113. See also L. Corti, Vasarz, Florence,
1982), 2 vols., ed. P. Barocchi and G. Ragionieri, Florence, 1983, i,
161-176. Any attempt to see the mask depicted in Vasari's painting as

the one copied by Michelangelo is, of course, problematic, especially
since it does not appear to be worn or damaged, as Condivi described it
(see above and n. 2). Moreover, Miintz's 1895 publication of the Medici
collections in the 16th century (as in n. 2) showed that by the time of the
1553 inventory of Cosimo I's guardaroba, they contained a number of

masks that may or may not have originally been part of Lorenzo's
collection: "una maschera di bronzo antica" (p. 130); "Dua mascherine
piccole, l'una di metallo, l'altra di bronzo" (p. 131); "Una maschera
antica di bronzo di br. 1/4" (p. 132); "Una maschera di bronzo antica"
(p. 133); "Dua maschere piccole, una di metallo et l'altra di bronzo" (p.
133). The fact that these masks were bronze and do not appear in the
1492 inventory of Lorenzo's collection that did list antique bronze
objects suggests that they were 16th-century acquisitions. Whatever the
allegorical meanings that Vasari intended by the placement of a mask

that is smooth and idealized (despite its curious mustache) next to the
well-known ugliness of Lorenzo or by the depiction of Lorenzo's features
as a reverse image of the antique mask, it remains that he connected the
mask to Lorenzo, thereby indicating the importance of this item in the
history and legends surrounding Lorenzo's collection.
MICHELANGELO'S MASKS 427
3 Giorgio Vasari,
Lorenzo the Magnifi-
cent. Florence,
Uffizi (photo:
Alinari)
Rome, permanently as it turned out, thereby leaving the

sculpture for the Medici Chapel incomplete. In this painting
Lorenzo is seated before a shelf displaying a grotesque and

toothy faun's mask as well as gold vessels; these forms most
probably stand for his great collection of precious objects

and plate. The allegorical meaning of the mask aside, its
presence in Vasari's painting, as if it were yet another object
in a group, does provide important evidence for a reconstruc-
tion of Lorenzo's collection.8 In fact, in a letter written to

Alessandro de' Medici at the time of the painting of the
portrait, Vasari explicitly stated that he wished to show
Lorenzo "con tutti quegli ornamenti che le gran qualita sue
gli fregiavano la vita . .." (with all the ornaments whose great
qualities surrounded his life .. .).9 Of all the antique objects
in Lorenzo's collection that Vasari might have depicted he

chose the faun's mask as particularly appropriate. It is this
resonance between collector and object that clearly had
meaning in the sixteenth century and that needs to inform
our understanding of the mask of the Night.
9 K. Frey, Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasaris, Munich, 1923, 18. The
dating of the letter is uncertain, since only the month ofJanuary is given
at the end; the letter may be from either 1533 or 1534. I am indebted to
The Art Bulletin's anonymous reader for this reference.
provoked by the commission for the Chapel from Lorenzo's

son and nephew.
Michelangelo's deeply personal yet masked reference to
Lorenzo seems to have further resonances of meaning
beyond simple homage to his early patron. Close inspection
of the mask reveals that its physical features, despite the

caricature-like distortions that they demonstrate, in fact
resemble what we know of Michelangelo's own features.11
The use of the mask in the Medici Chapel might then be
compared to Michelangelo's subsequent use of Saint Bartholomew's flayed skin for his self-portrait in The Last Judgment,
his first major commission in Rome after leaving Florence, or

to his earlier self-portrait in the head of Holofernes in the
spandrel of the Sistine Ceiling, first mentioned by Charles de
Tolnay (Fig. 4).12 A well-known drawing by Michelangelo

offers further insight into his self-portraiture and a corroboration of his use of the mask as a conceit. Generally referred
to as the Sogno (Fig. 5), it shows the central male nude figure
uncomfortably seated on an open box and leaning on a

globe, in a pose much like those of the Times of Day on the
tombs in the Medici Chapel.13 Within the box are a number
of masks, the most prominent of which is the center one of an
old man with a forked beard, an open mouth, and noticeable
teeth. This mask virtually replicates, although in a somewhat
softer manner, the mask of the Night and must also be some
4 Michelangelo, Head of Holofernes, detail from the Sistine

Ceiling (turned 90 degrees). Vatican City, Sistine Chapel
11 The major study of the portraits of Michelangelo is still that of
Steinmann.
12 C. de Tolnay, Michelangelo: The Sistine Ceiling, Princeton, 1969, 95-96.

I want to thank Creighton Gilbert for reminding me of the self-portrait
as Holofernes. The Sistine self-portrait should be compared with the

Bonasone portraits and may provide a source for the range of images
Even if the mask of the Night and the later literary dederiving from it; see Steinmann, 42-43. Perhaps the drawing of a
scription of Michelangelo's precocious copy of the antiquebearded male head in profile that has been problematically connected to
do not coincide on every point, it is useful to underscore that,a number of figures on the Sistine Ceiling should now be associated with
the head of Holofernes and considered a self-portrait as well; see
according to Condivi, it was the exchange between Lorenzo
Tolnay, 1975-80, I, no. 153r, p. 114.
and Michelangelo over the faun that inspired the head of the 13 There are two versions of this drawing; the one formerly in the Seilern
Medici family to bring the young artist into what wouldCollection, London, and now in the Courtauld Institute, London, is genbecome a very long and close, if sometimes troubled, rela-erally accepted as autograph, while the version in the Morgan Library,
tionship with the Medici. It is also useful to remember in this New York, inv. no. IV, 7A, is thought to be a copy (Tolnay, II, no. 333r,
pp. 102-103). The latter drawing is currently catalogued under Mar-
regard that Michelangelo was also to have built a tomb forcello Venusti. I would like to thank Stephanie Wiles of the Morgan
Lorenzo the Magnificent in the New Sacristy, so memories ofLibrary for her kind assistance in showing me the drawing. The sphere
on which the male nude reclines in each drawing is usually described as a
his first dealings with his early patron would undoubtedly

globe, the line circling it being an equator. A painting after the Sogno by
have been fresh in his mind as he planned the funeraryan unknown 16th-century artist in the Casa Buonarroti essentially
monuments of the Medici Chapel. We may speculate, there- repeats the portrait characteristics noted in the drawing. Alessandro
Allori's Allegory of Human Life and Marcello Venusti's Allegory of Time
fore, that this mask is a personal and particular memento(Dream of Human Life), both now in the Uffizi (Inv. 1514v and 9434), are
historiae, echoed later by Condivi,10 which recalled Michelan-other painted copies after Michelangelo's drawing; see L. Berti, ed., Gli
gelo's first meeting with Lorenzo, and that it may have been Uffizi: Catalogo generale, Florence, 1979, no. P32, p. 120, and no. P1866,
p. 584.
14 The forked beard appears in virtually all the images of the mature
Michelangelo from the cinquecento. Of particular note are the bronze
10 There are further echoes of this mask in depictions of Michelangelo's busts after the original attributed to Daniele da Volterra (Fig. 7) and a
and Lorenzo's lives. In the 17th century in the Sala dell'Argenteria of the drawing pricked for transfer, also attributed to Daniele, which is now in
Pitti Palace, Ottavio Vannini painted an image of a youthful artist,the Tylers Museum, Haarlem. One might note that there is a suggestion
"Michelangelo ragazzino scolpisce la testa del Fauno," presenting theof the forked beard in two strands carved just below the edge of the block
bust of a faun or satyr to a seated Lorenzo. And as late as 1862 Emilioon which the mask rests. In an article that deserves to be better known,
Zocchi carved a marble statue, now also in the Pitti Palace, of Michelan- J. A. Testa, "The Iconography of the Archers: A Study of Self-Concealgelo as a very young boy chiseling away at a block revealing an antiquement and Self-Revelation in Michelangelo's Presentation Drawings,"
faun's grinning mask. The romantic nature of this tale obviously had Studies in Iconography, v, 1979, 45-72, discusses the drawings for
continuing power to inflame artistic imagination. The reference toTommaso Cavalieri in terms of their autobiographical content read
Lorenzo contained in the portrait-like mask becomes particularly
through metaphorical self-portraiture; she does not treat the mask as a
appropriate if one accepts Howard Saalman's (disputed) suggestion thatportrait image, however. One might also note the mask lying on its side
Lorenzo was the original ideator of the project for the New Sacristy
immediately to the left of the bearded self-portrait mask in the Sogno. Its
shortly before his death in 1492; see his "The New Sacristy of Sanprofile, with its rounded forehead and unmistakeable ski-jump nose, is
Lorenzo before Michelangelo," Art Bulletin, LXVII, 2, 1985, 199-228.
reminiscent of the physical features of Lorenzo the Magnificent; see my
discussion of the Prudence drawing below.
5 Copy of Michelangelo, II Sogno

[The Dream]. New
York, Morgan Library (photo: Morgan Library)
form of self-portrait, especially given the emphasis on the

forked beard which reproduced the affected style of Michelan-
of the painting. Rather, he invented a much more selfreflexive and complicated self-image whose meaning is
gelo's own beard.14 Thus it appears that Michelangelo
inextricably bound to the narrative in which it is embedded.

The sum of these and of other presumed self-portraits, with
all of their variant physiological differences, provides, then,
an intimate if hermetic psychological autobiography of the
accepted the convention of artists including their selfportraits in major sculptural programs, fresco cycles, and
drawing studies, yet he wryly turned that convention upside
down by fragmenting his own body and by giving the image
an implied personal content transcending mere documenta-
tion. The artist appears to have eschewed the typical selfportrait image used consistently throughout the quattrocento, which functioned merely as a signature at the periphery
artist.
The mask of the Night, for example, recalls the controver-
sial drawing of a male head now in the British Museum,

which shows what must originally have been blank eyes
(rather like an antique statue); the pupils appear to have
6 Attributed to Mich-
elangelo, Head of a
Bearded Man. London,
British Museum, Department of Prints
and Drawings (cour-
tesy Trustees of the
British Museum)
been added after the main structuring of the physiognomy,step it touches on issues of self-portraiture and concealment.
and rather awkwardly in the case of the right eye (Fig. 6).15Even if the drawing is not by Michelangelo, it does underAlthough the path between the mask of the Night and this score the likelihood of a person hidden in the mask. The
sculptor was in his fifties when he carved the Night, an age
drawing is hardly a straight one, it is tantalizing that at each
8 Jacopino del Conte, Portrait of Michelangelo, unfinished. New

York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Clarence Dillon
(photo: Metropolitan Museum)
7 Daniele da Volterra, Bust of Michelangelo. Florence,

Bargello (photo: Gabinetto Fotografico della Soprintendenza ai
eyes, the high cheekbones marked by balls of flesh, the
Beni Artistici e Storici di Firenze)
prominent jowl lines, and the mustache curving down over
the sides of the mouth. Obviously other aspects of the mask,
such as the round, slanted eyes and the pointed eyebrows, do
that corresponds roughly to what we can see in the mask,
not match portrait images of Michelangelo, but clearly the
although such connections of age and appearance are never
conceit of the mask precluded the complete identification of
completely conclusive.
its features with the person to whom it alluded. It is
More telling is a comparison of the mask with cinquecento
important to reiterate that in the mask of the Night, as in
portraits of Michelangelo, such as the well-known bronze

other self-portraits, representational self-depiction is transbust generally attributed to Daniele da Volterra and the
formed by metaphor, and the ensuing disguise acts to
unfinished but quite compelling portrait by Jacopino del
amplify meaning.
Conte (Figs. 2, 7-8).16 The broken nose with its lateralThe normal possibility of imminent revelation by the
swelling at the bridge, about which Michelangelo was appar-person behind any mask is an aspect of the form that
ently so sensitive and which is notable in all portraits of him,
Michelangelo wittily reverses by presenting the mask of the
corresponds to the features of the mask, as do the deep-setNight as a covert self-portrait. He lies not behind the mask,
15 British Museum, London, 1895.9.15.51 lr; see J. Wilde, Italian Draw16 For a discussion of the bust attributed to Daniele da Volterra, which is
ings in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum:
now in the Bargello, and its variants, see Steinmann, 55-69, pls. 54-71;
Michelangelo and His Studio, London, Trustees of the British Museum,
see also P. Barolsky, Daniele da Volterra: A Catalogue Raisonne, New York
1953, no. 57, pp. 93-95, pl. LXXXIX, and Tolnay, ii, no. 220r, p. 46,
and London, 1979, no. 27, p. 112. For an early history of the Jacopino
where the drawing is connected to the mask of the Night. Wilde (pp.
painting now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1977.384.1) and for
94-95) points to a traditional connection of the British Museum Headthe
of numerous portraits after it, see Steinmann, 23-38, pls. 8-30. All
a Bearded Man with the Saint Bartholomew of the Last Judgment, an
discussions of portraits of artists are now indebted to W. Prinz's "Vasari's
association that bears serious reconsideration. The extreme to which
Sammlung von Kunstlerbildnissen," Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen
writers have gone to find Michelangelo self-portraits in masks is evident Institutes in Florenz, xII, 1966, 5-158; I am grateful to Wendy Stedman
in a little-known article by A. M. Bessone Aurelj, "Una curiosita per Sheard for this reference.
l'iconografia michelangiolesca," II Vasari, ii, 1928, 12-17, where the
author proposes that a winged mask under the right false window of the
mezzanine story of the Porta Pia is a self-portrait of the artist.
but on the very face of it. He even seems to invite the viewer'smask to open discussion of his sculptural career. As Paul
participation in the ruse. One should note, for example, that Barolsky has noted, Michelangelo characterized his physiogthe eyes of the mask, unlike those of any other figural imagenomy in a later poem by saying, "My face has the shape that
in the Chapel, align with the position of a viewer standing in causes fright."l9 Condivi's connection of the mask with
the center of the room, and that, although the mask itself is Lorenzo's first perceptions of the artist's abilities may also be
raised above the eye level of anyone standing before it, the an example of Michelangelo's mordant humor, since Lorenzo
eyeholes are carved with an interior membrane behind the was notoriously unattractive physically; thus the commission
lid so that they appear to look down at the viewer, thus is made to reflect the patron with cruel Florentine humor.
setting up a potential dialogue in which the power of theThe distorted features of the mask of the Night also serve to
conceit takes on particular poignancy.17 The eyes of the pun on the idealized features of the Lorenzo and Giuliano
mask, moreover, are carved differently from antique proto-figures in the Chapel as well as on those of the Night. In a
types and are unlike the blank openings depicted in painted room filled with essentially blank faces to which we have
masks such as those in Vasari's portrait of Lorenzo the carefully assigned identities, the one face that has physiogMagnificent (Fig. 3). They show a second level of carving, a nomic distinction and intensity of gaze has hitherto re-
socket within a socket, which brings a verisimilitude andmained unidentified and undiscussed.20
vivacity to what would otherwise be a lifeless stare; a blank
Confirmation of the implied self-portrait in the mask of
look-often evident in photographs that do not show thethe Night can be found in a modest painting after the
inner carving-was clearly not intended by Michelangelo.'8sculpture by an unknown sixteenth-century artist, now in the
In a way impossible with any other image in the Chapel, we
can look the mask directly in the eye.
The mask-portrait functions rather like a joke, a facetia,
one that has hidden its many-faceted meanings from commentators, apparently even from someone like Vasari, who
knew Michelangelo, worked in the Chapel, and ultimately
read Condivi's tale. In fact, we might read Condivi's story as a
burlesque of the very idea of classical imitation as a means of
attaining artistic perfection and beauty, for the young artist
not only surpassed the antique with his very first sculptural
effort, but did so with a grotesque, rather than a beautiful
figure. Michelangelo's self-consciousness about his own disfigured facial features after Torrigiani had smashed his nose
may have something to do with his selection of the faun's
17 Paul Barolsky (in correspondence) has noted that persona in Latin

means an actor's mask and that, of course, here the persona depicted is
none other than Michelangelo himself, thus a mask that reveals rather
than disguises. E. Pilliod, "Alessandro Allori's The Penitent Saint Jerome,"
Report of the Art Museum [Princeton University], XLVII, 1988, 2-26, esp.
18-19, has suggested that Alessandro Allori included a portrait of his
son, Cristofano, in the Penitent Saint Jerome (The Art Museum, Princeton
University) in the form of a mask.
18 I am indebted to William Wallace for this observation. C. Gilbert,

"Texts and Contexts of the Medici Chapel," Art Quarterly, xxxiv, 1971,
403-404, has commented on the unusual blank eyes of the two dukes,
connecting their "blindness" to comments put into the mouth of
Michelangelo in Donato Giannotti's How Many Days Dante Spent in Hell,
and suggesting that their very blankness conveys the meaning of death.
Just the opposite, then, must be true of the mask of the Night, where
Michelangelo portrays himself vibrantly alive and his history within the
Medici family as vividly, if metaphorically, remembered.
19 P. Barolsky, Infinite Jest, Columbia, Mo., 1978, 61. There he also
mentions that one of the capitals of the ducal tombs has a face with
grimacing teeth, not unlike the mask of the faun; see Michelangelo, no.
265, p. 453. F. Hartt, Michelangelo's Drawings, New York, 1970, no. 304,
p. 217; fig. 304, p. 224, connects a pen drawing which he calls a Head of a
Giant (?) (drawn over what he stated was a red chalk sketch by Antonio
Mini; Louvre 684r) to the mask of the Night. In Tolnay, I, no. 95r, it is
called Head of a Faun. A. Perrig, Michelangelo's Drawings: The Science of
Attribution, New Haven and London, 1991, pl. 52, attributes the drawing
entirely to Mini. Although caricatural, the drawing does suggest some
collection of the Casa Buonarroti (Fig. 9). The small painting, a rather perfunctory if competent image, includes two
rather odd and telling details: the mask has been adjusted in
relation to the figure to face the viewer directly, with a rather
wide-eyed stare, and it has been transformed by the addition
of a turban-like head wrapping. The latter, curious elaboration recalls both a drawing in the Ashmolean Museum,
Oxford (Fig. 10), in which Michelangelo depicted himself
with a similar turban, and a group of portraits deriving from
a painting usually attributed to Giuliano Bugiardini showing
the artist wearing a similar headdress (Fig. 11), a telltale
iconographical sign often used in portraits of artistsespecially sculptors.21 More interesting yet is Michelangelo's
so-called ironic profile self-portrait, also in the Ashmolean,
figure above Dawn and Dusk as Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, the son of
Piero di Lorenzo. A dissenting opinion, reversing the conventional
identifications, has been offered by R. Trexler and M. E. Lewis, "Two
Captains and Three Kings: New Light on the Medici Chapel," Studies in
Medieval and Renaissance History, IV, 1981, 91-177. The point to be made
is that the Medici figures cannot be identified by the physiognomic
characteristics provided (or not provided) in the statues, whereas
Michelangelo can be recognized in the particularized features of the
mask. Liebert, 242, proposed that the unfinished head of the Day was a
self-portrait, but he said nothing about the mask.
21 Parker, 135, no. 292r; see also Tolnay, I, no. 18r, p. 3. Neither Parker
nor Tolnay identifies the two heads as self-portraits of the artist. The first
to do so was Liebert, 95 and figs. 7-14. For the Bugiardini painting, see
Steinmann, 17-18 and pl. 3; this painting is related to a portrait drawing
of Michelangelo wearing a turban now in the Louvre, Inv. no. 2715
(Tolnay, I, no. 118r, p. 97). The use of the turban to denote an artist is
also reminiscent of portraits of Donatello, if, in fact, the panel in the
Louvre attributed to Uccello actually represents that artist. The portrait
of Donatello in the second edition of Vasari's Lives derives from this
painting and again shows Donatello with the turban. The presumed
portrait of Orcagna on his tabernacle in Or S. Michele also shows the
artist wearing a comparable turban, as if this were an identification of
occupation; see Prinz (as in n. 17), 60. Vasari's portrait of Donatello in

the Lives, freely copied in a 17th-century painting in the Uffizi (In
1890, no. 8158; Ghl Uffizi: Catalogo generale [as in n. 14], no. Ic761, 720
shows Donatello with a bifurcated beard not unlike that worn by
Michelangelo, thus connecting the two artists physically much as Vasari
had connected them artistically. This same portrait head of Donatello
aspects of Michelangelo's own physiognomy, especially in the high,
ball-like cheeks; one might also note that the mouth of the figure is appears reversed, along with another representing Ghiberti, in Francesco
Curradi's painting Michelangelo and Fame now in the Casa Buonarroti;
open, like the mask, revealing teeth.
see Steinmann, pl. 99. Wendy Sheard has also reminded me that Van
20 The figure in the niche above the Night and Day is usually identified as Eyck also depicted himself wearing a turban in the presumed selfGiuliano, Duke of Nemours, the son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, the portrait in the National Gallery, London.
9 Unknown 16th-century artist, Night, after Michelangelo. Florence, Casa Buonarroti (photo: Quattrone)
10 Michelangelo, A Nude Youth, and

Two "Self-Portraits," pen and brown
ink. Oxford, Ashmolean Museum
(photo: Ashmolean Museum)
scoring Michelangelo's consistent use of the portrait mask

and, like the ironic self-portrait, for the serious playfulness of
which he was capable when dealing with his own image.

These drawings represent a seated female figure normally
identified as Prudence (Figs. 13-14); they apparently derive
from a lost original by Michelangelo.23 Standing before
Prudence is a nude putto holding a mask. In the Uffizi
drawing the mask looks vaguely simian and sinister, but it
functions perfectly well as a readable mask. In the British
Museum drawing, the mask is sketchier and more clown-like.
Each shows an eruption of hair over the high forehead, and,
despite slight differences, each shows the same general

outline, particularly in the sharp protuberance between the
eyes.
Perhaps the reason that this mask has escaped the attention of Michelangelo scholars is that it is a double image, a
conceit really meant to be read upside down rather than
right side up (Figs. 15a-b). If one inverts the two drawings,
the mask can be seen for what it really is, a caricature
portrait, comparable to the mask of the Night. This image is
difficult to interpret, however, since the copied drawings
must inevitably have transformed, however slightly, Michelan-
gelo's original figures. The inverted mask may be yet another

hidden self-portrait, especially since the hair/beard seems to
show the characteristic forked shape of Michelangelo's own
beard. Moreover, comparisons of these masks with the Ironic
Self-Portrait (Fig. 12) and the sagging features of the Saint
Bartholomew's skin from the Last Judgment show striking
11 After Giuliano Bugiardini, Portrait of Michelangelo. Florence,
similarities. It should be remarked, furthermore, that the
Casa Buonarroti (photo: Gabinetto Fotografico della Soprin- putto holding the mask is wearing a turban, albeit of a style
tendenza ai Beni Artistici e Storici di Firenze)
different from those already noted in images of Michelan-
gelo, and that he may therefore also be a surrogate represenin which the artist not only shows himself with a curious cap tation of the sculptor himself. The putto does, after all,
appear as a hunch-back, recalling Michelangelo's own infirfalling down over his right eye, but with his mouth wide open
mities
as he recorded them in the well-known visceral poem
to show his teeth (Fig. 12).22 It is significant that the carved
describing
the torments of painting the Sistine Ceiling.24 If
mask of the Night is banded over the forehead with a piece of
material suggesting the beginnings of a head covering. Nothis is the case, the image would represent Michelangelo
antique masks are carved in this manner; they show instead wittily presenting his own persona, but in a manner that
unruly tufts of hair appropriate to their dionysiac subject.
makes it difficult to read.
Three nearly identical drawings, rarely discussed in the The challenges of suggesting an identification for the
Michelangelo literature, are also instructive both for under- mask in the Prudence drawings are compounded by one
22 Parker, no. 322r; see also Tolnay, II, no. 310r, p. 92, where Tolnay
24 For the poem and Michelangelo's caricature of himself painting the
first identified this drawing as a self-portrait by Michelangelo. Tolnay (11,

ceiling, now in the Archivio Buonarroti, Florence, see Tolnay, I, no.
no. 316v) compares this head with a screaming faun (London, British
174r, p. 126, and Michelangelo, no. 5, pp. 70-72: "With my beard
Museum, 1895.9.15.493v), whose face is "quasi ridotto ad una maschera."
toward heaven, I feel my memory-box atop my hump;... In front of me
23 The best of these three drawings is now in the Uffizi (614E) and ismy hide is stretching out and, to wrinkle up behind, it forms a knot ...."
attributed to Battista Franco; another by a draftsman in the circle ofIn the light of this literary burlesque of his own appearance, it might be
Bandinelli is in the British Museum (Ff.I-5); a third is in the Ambrosiana useful to remember Vasari's account of Michelangelo's physical features
in Milan. For a brief discussion of the drawings see Wilde (as in n. 16),in relation to the mask of the Night. Vasari's description (I, 131-132) of
Michelangelo's "occhi piu tosto piccoli che no" (eyes more narrow than
no. 89, pp. 124-125, and P. Barocchi, Michelangelo e la sua scuola,
not) and his "labbra sottili" (thin lips) makes the features of the mask
Florence, 1962, I, 248-250, and II, pl. cccIx; for a discussion of these
seem like a deliberate and gross self-satire, not unlike the poem. The
works and of their iconography, see H. Thode, Michelangelo. Kritische
fact that the putto's nudity in the Prudence drawing is accentuated by the
Untersuchungen iiber seine Werke, Berlin, 1908, II, 347-348. In corresponframing cloak-thus suggesting that he is exposing himself before the
dence with me, Paul Barolsky made the compelling suggestion that the
female Prudence-must also be noted, but I will have to leave the
seated female represents Vanitas rather than Prudence and that, as such,
psychological interpretation of the image to others more qualified. In
she appears to be mocked by the mask-wearing putto. A telling echo of
this drawing is found in Stefano della Bella's etching Putto in a Masksuch a discussion, one would also have to consider Michelangelo's telling
placement of the owl under the raised leg of the Night, so that as
(1633-39), which is one of a group of prints illustrating antiquities in the
bird/phallus
it functions symbolically as something more than a referMedici collections in Rome; see P. D. Masser, Presenting Stefano della
ence to a time of day, as Liebert, 256, has already pointed out; as such,
Bella, New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1971, 55.
the compositional connection normally made between Night and Michelangelo's lost Leda moves from the formal to the iconographical and
psychological. See also the discussion of the Venus and Cupid below.
12 Michelangelo, Ironic Self-Portrait.

Oxford, Ashmolean Museum (photo:
Ashmolean Museum)
physical feature. The form of the nose in all of the drawingsdiscussion.26

is
The drawing poses problems of identification in
very different from Michelangelo's own mashed nose (Fig.

part because of the sketchy quality of everything to the left of
7). The distinctive elongated structure of the nose profile in

the central axis of the neck: this gives a shape and hairstyle to
the drawings is, however, essentially the same as that in

the head that may not have been initially intended. In
Vasari's portrait of Lorenzo the Magnificent (Figs. 3, 15a-b).addition, the hat, sometimes referred to as a beret, seems to
Thus, unlike the mask of the Night, which clearly seems to be
fall only behind the head, as if the artist were reluctant to
a direct self-portrait of Michelangelo, the drawings after

cover the classicizing crown of the head. The many unreMichelangelo's lost Prudence suggest a double reading as
solved aspects of the drawing suggest a mind moving back
both Michelangelo and Lorenzo.25 A telling comparison and
to forth between overlapping, layered, and sometimes
these inverted masks appears in another portrait drawing of
contradictory ideas. The figure in the drawing has been
this period. The Study of a Man's Head in Oxford (Fig. 16)
identified both as a heroicizing image of Lorenzo the
does not give incontrovertible support to the identification of
Magnificent and as a portrait of his son, Giuliano, Duke of
the inverted masks of the Prudence drawings as Lorenzo/
Nemours.27 Berenson's identification of the figure as Giuliano
Michelangelo, but it does add some information to theis supported by the incipient beret which characterizes the
25This double reading parallels that of Barolsky, 29, who saw the
27 The figure was first identified as Lorenzo the Magnificent by J. Q. van
"socratic satyr" as a reference to both Michelangelo and Lorenzo the
Regteren Altena, "Tre disegni di ritratti fiorentini," in Studi di storia
in onore di Antonio Morassi, Venice, 1971, 68-74, an' identification
Magnificent and the nose of the literary mask as a joint reference dell'arte
to
these same men. See also n. 14.
accepted by Tolnay in the Corpus and also by K. Langedijk, The Portraits

the Medici, Florence, 1983, II, no. 74.20, p. 1152. B. Berenson, The
26 Parker, no. 316r, pp. 155-156, pl. LXXXVI; Tolnay, II, no. 328, p. of
100.
Drawings of the Florentine Painters, Chicago, 1938, II, no. 1859, p. 259,
had identified the figure as Giuliano, Duke of Nemours.
13 Battista Franco, Prudence. Florence, Uffizi (photo: Gabinetto Fotografico della Soprintendenza ai Beni Artistici
e Storici di Firenze)
::
:0::
:~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~:
. a6
ii)
t: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~' ::
14 School of Baccio Bandinelli,

Prudence.
Ashmolean
Museum
(photo:
Ashmolean Museum)
This content downloaded
fromOxford,
193.48.45.27
on Wed, 21 Sep
2016 17:00:38
UTC
15a-b Details of Figures 13 and 14, inverted
many cinquecento portraits of Giuliano deriving from the

School of Raphael painting now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,28 as does the brow line of the figure and the
short hairstyle. The only problem here is that Michelangelo
has pulled the hat over the figure's left ear, whereas Giuliano
is always depicted with the hat over his right ear. Those who
wish to see Lorenzo in the figure of the Oxford drawing can
point to the nose, the protruding lower lip, and the jutting
jaw, features characteristic of Lorenzo which appear in

Vasari's portrait (Fig. 3). However, Lorenzo's brow line was
rather ovoid in shape, if we are to trust his death mask, and
he wore his hair shoulder-length, quite unlike what we see in
the drawing. This drawing most probably represents a

conflation of the images of father and son, both of whom
Michelangelo had known well from his time in the Medici
household, from 1489 to 1494, just as the masks of the
Prudence drawings seem to be a conflation of Michelangelo's
and Lorenzo's physical features.
In connection with all these drawings, one might recall

that Michelangelo's father had died in 1531. That event may
have precipitated a rather intense, if subconscious, rumina-
tion about a "paternal surrogate," as Liebert has suggested,29 a search that Michelangelo was to carry on in a
variety of ways during most of his adult life. The mask in the
28 See Langedijk (as in n. 27), II, 1046-1051.
29 Liebert, 46; Barolsky, 29. An interesting parallel to this situation has

16 Michelangelo, Study of a Man's Head. Oxford, As
been described by Kathleen Weil-Garris in her provocative article,Museum (photo: Ashmolean Museum)
"Bandinelli and Michelangelo: A Problem of Artistic Identity," Art the

Ape of Nature: Studies in Honor ofH. W.Janson, New York, 1981, 223-251.
It should be remembered that Condivi states that Lorenzo treated
Michelangelo "not otherwise than as a son" and that "MichelangeloPrudence

was
drawing allowed Michelangelo to be b
seated above Lorenzo's sons" (Condivi/Wohl, 13); Condivi/Frey,and

24: someone else, and to call up Lorenzo, who
"... ne altrimenti trattandolo si in altro si nella sua mensa che da
approving
and supportive of his art as Lodovico Bu
figliuolo ..." and "che Michelangelo sedette sopra i figliuoli
di
had been disapproving of his son's desire to be an
Lorenzo...."
17 After Pontormo, Venus and Cupid. Florence, Accademia (photo: Gabinetto Fotografico della Soprintendenza ai Beni Artistici e
Storici di Firenze)
concealed and carnivalesque imagery, moreover, is a fitting not unlike Vasari's roughly contemporary portrait of
form of reference to Lorenzo, who had been the inventor of Lorenzo.31 If a faun-like mask is a sign of Michelangelo's
carnival songs replete with humor and double entendres. presence in his work, as the previous examples cited seem to
Michelangelo had followed a long and sometimes arduous indicate, then we might also consider its possible meaning in
road from Lorenzo's garden to the Medici Chapel; that he this lost drawing and the surrogate role it played for the
artist. In the case of the Venus and Cupid, the bearded mask
displaces the act of viewing into the painting, thus removing
Night may signal both his profound indebtedness to LorenzoMichelangelo's active looking at the sexually available Venus
as well as his reluctance to be seen as an uncritical courtier
to the safe distance of the anonymous mask. For other (male)
viewers, this displacement calls attention to the voyeuristic
within the consorteria, especially after the events of 1494 and
1527.30
process in which they are engaged, especially since the mask
chose to recall the Medici patron who, according to Condivi,
had initiated his career with the conceit of the mask of the
has a decidedly leering aspect to it. Rather than pursue a

Additional complexities of meaning in Michelangelo's use
psychosexual reading of the painting, it seems sufficient here
of the mask can be suggested by consideration of another
painting, the Venus and Cupid now in the Accademia inmerely to indicate that in yet another instance Michelangelo
Florence (Fig. 17). This work, one of a number of copies of aseems to have used the mask as a surrogate for his own
presence in the work of art, and that, as in the Night and the
lost painting by Pontormo, itself after a lost drawing from the
early 1530s by Michelangelo, also contains a pair of a masks,drawing of Prudence, he uses it in depictions of women.32
87, and E. Steinmann, "Cartoni di Michelangelo," Bollettino d'arte, ser. II,
30 William Wallace's forthcoming work on the family connections among
5, 1925-26, 8-11. However, it is unlikely that Pontormo or his copyists
Michelangelo, the Rucellai, and the Medici may shed further light on
added the detail of the mask since Michelangelo seems to have kept
the issue of Michelangelo's feelings toward Lorenzo.
close watch on the development of the commission. I would like to thank
31 Unfortunately, the only certainly autograph sketch that survives of
William Wallace for reminding me of this painting.
Michelangelo's idea for this painting is a very quick ink drawing now in
32 Testa (as in n. 15), 56, pointed to the drawing in the Casa Buonarroti
the British Museum (Tolnay, II, no. 302r, pp. 87-88); this drawing shows
now generally accepted as a self-portrait as the Etruscan Hades (Tolnay,
only the reclining Venus figure and an approaching Cupid, with no
no. 312v, pp. 92-93), where the disguised artist again looks at a woman
indication whatever of the masks that are in the subsequent paintings
exposed breasts and where in another part of the small drawing he
and in a badly damaged cartoon now in the Capodimonte Museum with
in
has included a hand in thefica gesture.
Naples, apparently after Michelangelo's finished drawing; see Tolnay, II,
:
:I
--
:r - r
?:
i - :s :? ?-::-
::"fi:
.a;
18 After Michelangelo, Night from the Medici Chapel; Venus and Cupid. London, British Museum, Department of Prints
and Drawings (photo: Courtesy Trustees of the British Museum)
Michelangelo's own private, and as yet not completely

It is worth mentioning that the satyr-like mask in the
explained, ruminations about his own sexuality. In its physipainting from the School of Pontormo partially obscures an
ognomic intensity, the bearded mask also seems to suggest

idealized, perhaps female mask which looks away from the
more than the familiar iconography of masks
Venus. The standard meaning of the opposed masks something
as
hanging from the bow of Cupid. A drawing after Michelanimages of comedy and tragedy seems to be displaced here by
gelojuxtaposes the Night and the Venus and Cupid (Fig. 18),33Michelangelo's relationship with Lorenzo the Magnificent
thus indicating that these two images had resonance with one and with the Medici family. As such, it reflects that compli-
another both for Michelangelo and for some of his close cated history with humor, with irony, and with not a little
friends. The drawing is provocative for the change it intro- sadness just prior to Michelangelo's departure from Floduces into the mask of the Night; here Night rests her left rence forever.
hand on the crown of the head of the mask, almost appearing
to pull its hair, and the figure's startled expression seems a John T. Paoletti is the author of articles on Italian Renaissance
frightened response to the action. Night, coyly in this painting and sculpture and of articles and exhibition catalogues
instance, seems not to be asleep at all, but well aware of the concerned with art in Europe and the United States since 1960
joke she is playing on Michelangelo as mask.
[Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. 06459].
Other than as a disguised self-portrait recalling Michelangelo's personal history in the house of his reputed patron,
the meaning of the mask remains elusive. Seen merely as an
individual part of a larger sculptural project, the mask might
serve simply as a symbol of death, a symbol that was clearly
not inappropriate for a tomb sculpture. By the time of Ripa's Barolsky, P., Michelangelo's Nose: A Myth and Its Maker, University Park,
Pa., 1990.
third edition of the Iconologia in 1611, the skeletal form of
Frequently Cited Sources
death appears with a mask tied to its forehead, suggestingCondivi, A., The Life of Michelangelo (Rome, 1553), trans. and ed. A. S.
Wohl and H. Wohl, Baton Rouge, 1976; Le Vite di Michelangelo Buonarroti
some widespread understanding, at least in learned circles of
scrztte da Giorgio Vasarz e da Ascanio Condivi, ed. C. Frey, Berlin, 1887.
this time, that the mask was a disguise for death.34 Given
Michelangelo's own hypochondria and his concerns for hisLiebert, R.S., Michelangelo. A Psychoanalytic Study of Hzs Life and Images,
New Haven, 1983.
own mortality, such a union of self-portrait and emblem of
death through the image of the mask would hardly be Michelangelo, The Poetry of Michelangelo, trans. with notes J. Saslow, New
Haven, 1991.
surprising, especially since he was to make precisely this
same connection in the flayed skin of Saint Bartholomew in Parker, K.T., Catalogue of the Drawings zn the Ashmolean Museum, II,
his Last Judgment just a few years later. Yet the mask of the
Night seems primarily to be an extended reflection on
Oxford, 1956.
Steinmann, E., Dze Portraitdarstellungen des Mzchelangelo, Leipzig, 1913.
Tolnay, C. de, Corpus dei disegnz di Mzchelangelo, 4 vols., Novara,

1975-80.
33 British Museum, 1946.7.13.371; attributed by Wilde (as in n. 16), no.

99, p. 128, to Salviati.
Vasari, G., La vita di Michelangelo nelle redazionz del 1550 e del 1568
34 C. Ripa, Iconologza, Padua, 1611, 361-362.
vols., ed. P. Barocchi, Milan and Naples, 1962.

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Michelangelo's Masks

Author(s): John T. Paoletti

Michelangelo's projected ensemble for the New Sacristy in S.

has escaped serious historical or iconological attention. Yet

would have wanted a handful of symbols like those adorning

the well-known mask under the upper torso of the reclining

simple-minded didacticism, and it seems unlikely that he

revealed teeth. The clue to the probable meaning of the

marked with a crescent moon and a star, a garland most

the Medici Chapel as we see them now. According to

often described as one composed of poppies, an owl, and the

Condivi, who was undoubtedly informed by Michelangelo

mask; Panofsky has also reminded us of the mouse that

Chapel.1 These various attributes, the mouse excepted, have

entered into the standard literature merely as appropriate

who offered penetrating perceptions into its content and helpful

incisive observations about its arguments. I have benefitted as well from

ignited many passages in the text. Sabine Eiche assisted in procuring

photographs, for which I am very grateful. I am also indebted to

made was a copy in marble of an antique head of a faun,

Michelangelo until his second edition of 1568; in the 1550 edition he

consideration of this mask appears in Barolsky, passim, esp. 29-30,

paper was completed.

not an actual antique mask existed in Lorenzo's collection (and I believe

I E. Panofsky, "The Mouse that Michelangelo Failed to Carve," Essays in

and it is unlikely that it ever will be. E. Miintz, "Les Collections

16th-century sources. Neither Condivi (ibid.: "la civetta et altri segni"),

Cinelli, Florence, 1677, 526, the garland is described merely as a

"festone di frutta." An anonymous reader of this paper has indicated

edition of his Mzchel Angelo Buonarroti, London, 1911, and inexplicably

included the identification of the flowers in the garland as "poppy

Michelangelo chose this image as an appropriate one for his own

d'antiques formees par les Medicis au XVIe siecle," Memoires de l'Acaddmie

des Inscrptions et Belles-lettres, xxxv, Pt. 2, 1895, 85-168, includes an

to construct a convincing version of the antique from fragmentary

evidence. On this score, we are reminded of Bertoldo's bronze Battle

relief based on a ruined marble sarcophagus in Pisa. For recent, not

"La testa di fauno," Opere giovanzli di Mzchelangelo, III. Miscellanea

424 THE ART BULLETIN SEPTEMBER 1992 VOLUME LXXIV NUMBER 3

426 THE ART BULLETIN SEPTEMBER 1992 VOLUME LXXIV NUMBER 3

laughing, it does betray the characteristically exaggerated

that it is of little matter whether Condivi's story records a

factual event; Michelangelo chose to remember-or to

artifice of the (auto)biography. Vasari, in his second edition

These anecdotal descriptions by Condivi and Vasari are so

Whether the antique mask and Michelangelo's "copy" of it

moot-and also beside the point. The trail of this ancient

zig-zag through works of art of the sixteenth century in

construct-his origins as a sculptor through the image of the

Lorenzo the Magnificent (Fig. 3) is relevant here.7 Vasari

mask, a choice that, itself, should warn us of the possible

began this painting around 1534 just as Michelangelo left for

a manifestation of the literary reference that he believes informs

Given the slippage in terminology between satyrs and fauns in the

Michelangelo apparently did not, since his mask of the Night, a

reference, I believe, to the faun of Condivi's tale, apparently has no long

ears as a distinctive feature of the antique sculpture in Lorenzo's

collection that they identify as a faun. In this light, it might be worth

Renaissance, Berlin, 1977, 41-113. See also L. Corti, Vasarz, Florence,

1982), 2 vols., ed. P. Barocchi and G. Ragionieri, Florence, 1983, i,

161-176. Any attempt to see the mask depicted in Vasari's painting as

1553 inventory of Cosimo I's guardaroba, they contained a number of

objects suggests that they were 16th-century acquisitions. Whatever the

allegorical meanings that Vasari intended by the placement of a mask

PAOLETTI, John T. Michelangelo's Masks.

PAOLETTI, John T. Michelangelo's Masks.