The Magnifici Tomb: A Key Project in Michelangelo's Architectural Career Author(s): Andrew Morrogh Source: The Art Bulletin,

Vol. 74, No. 4 (Dec., 1992), pp. 567-598 Published by: College Art Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3045911 Accessed: 28/04/2010 20:47
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It is rare to encounter a highly significant project by a major architect that has barely been noticed by architectural historians, and especially surprising when some of the drawings for it are well known. Yet this is the case with Michelangelo's unexecuted project for the Magnifici Tomb in the Medici Chapel (Figs. 2-3). No doubt the tomb's neglect can be explained in part by the scant treatment generally accorded to the architecture of Renaissance tombs, but then barely a third of its history has been written in any form.' Fortunately, however, nearly all the main phases of the project are documented in drawings, whether originals or copies. A close reading of them yields new insight into the crucial period of Michelangelo's self-education as an architect. When Michelangelo began his series of designs, he was a most accomplished sculptor, but an inexperienced and somewhat awkward architect. In response to the commission, he took up the challenge of designing an unprecedented type of double tomb. The drawings show him setting himself problems and experimenting with styles: he was educating himself in architectural design. Within three years, he developed an extraordinary skill in composition. The final project is a brilliant, tightly packed work made possible by his use of plans as well as elevations in developing the design, and by his remarkable method of directed yet free play of imagination, a method somewhat akin to doodling (Figs. 21-22). In the final drawings for the Magnifici Tomb, we see, for the first time, the motif of coupled inset columns, soon to be put to use in the Laurentian Vestibule (Fig. 27). Here Michelangelo developed a highly original choreography of columns, blocking and reblocking them in relation to the wall and to the viewer. The level of accomplishment seen in the Library is inexplicable without his experience on the Medici tombs. Michelangelo's idiosyncratic architecture of the mid- 1520s is commonly interpreted as expressionist work, isolated from the norms of its day. A study of the sixteenth-century context for the Tomb project offers no basis for this reading, but points rather to the key contemporary concepts of magnificence and originality, and to Michelangelo's own pride in the ingenious solution of difficulties. A complete picture of the project must also include Michelangelo's patron, Clement VII, who channeled his inspiration toward the development of an innovative and complex style.

The Background
The Medici Chapel (Figs. 1-3) springs from the convergence of the dynastic aims of the Medici family2 with Michelangelo's own ambition to produce a great ensemble of sculpture and architecture. It was conceived as a work of papal magnificence. For the first time, a Medici pope, Leo X (1513-21), reigned in Rome, and Medici rule in Florence was, for the moment, secure. The chapel, started in 1519,3 was to commemorate the first two dukes in the family, Giuliano, Duke of Urbino, and Lorenzo, Duke of Nemours, on whom great hopes had been placed. The one had died in 1516, the other only a month before it was decided to build the chapel. It was also to serve for the two MagnificiLorenzo the Magnificent (d. 1492) and his brother, Giuliano the Magnificent (d. 1478). From the outset, Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, the Pope's cousin and de facto governor of Florence, was involved with the chapel. It was he who announced the project in 1519, saying that he wished to spend about 50,000 ducats on the Medici Chapel and the Laurentian Library together.4 At this stage, the Cardinal probably conceived of the new chapel as a copy of the Old Sacristy of S. Lorenzo, which contained tombs of some eminent earlier members of the family.5 Michelangelo's responsibilities would presumably not have extended to a new design for the chapel; he seems to have been engaged as a sculptor. But soon he took the overall design of the New Sacristy into his own hands, driven no
2 F. Hartt, "The Meaning of Michelangelo's Medici Chapel," in Beitrage Berlin, 1951, 145-155; J. Pope-Hennessy, Italhan fur Georg Swarzenskz, HzghRenaissanceand BaroqueSculpture,3rd ed., New York, 1985, 22-25; C. E. Gilbert, "Texts and Contexts of the Medici Chapel," Art Quarterly, xxxIv, 1971, 391-409; R. C. Trexler and M. E. Lewis, "Two Captains and Three Kings: New Light on the Medici Chapel," Studzes Medzeval zn and Modern Hzstory,Iv, 1981, 91-177. This last study is marred by an inadequate knowledge of Michelangelo's correspondence and tomb designs. 3 Elam, 157-165. 4 G. Corti, "Una ricordanza di Giovan Battista Figiovannl," Paragone, n.s. xv, 175, 325. 5 Wilde, 1955, 57; for the date, see Elam, 164. For the early building history of the Medici Chapel, see also H. Saalman, "The New Sacristy of San Lorenzo before Michelangelo," Art Bulletzn,Lxv1i, 1985, 199-228.

This article is drawn from research toward a monograph on the Medici Chapel, which will deal more fully with the drawings than is possible here. A grant from the Stern Fund of the Art Department of the University of Chicago enabled me to pursue the project in summer 1990, as did a Junior Faculty Research Grant from the same university the following summer. I am most grateful to Howard Burns, under whose tutelage I first became interested in tomb design, and to Caroline Elam, who introduced me to the problems of the New Sacristy. Ralph Lieberman has been a staunch and valuable friend, without whom this article could not have appeared in its present form: he discussed the chapel with me in situ, took photographs for me, and made all the measurements of the present Magnifici Tomb used in this study. I am indebted to an anonymous reader for helpful comments. Lastly, I wish to thank my wife, Andrea Kirsh, whose careful editing has done much to improve my text. The most useful accounts are those of Tolnay, 1969, and Perrig. No detailed study of the tomb has yet attempted to trace its design history later than 1521.

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doubt by the same extraordinary ambition that had led him to describe his project for the fagade of S. Lorenzo as "the mirror of architecture and sculpture of all Italy." From then on, an exceptional series of documents show how Cardinal Giulio (later Pope Clement VII) eagerly participated in the design of both chapel and tombs, and, very notably, in that of the Library.6 In this rare picture of collaboration between an outstanding patron and a great architect, we catch glimpses of something even rarer: the part played by the patron in the architect's development. Accepting that the New Sacristy should be based on the Old gave Michelangelo a great opportunity. Unlike the vast majority of chapels, which open onto a church from a broad arch opposite the altar, the Old Sacristy is closed off from the church, with a door in one corner. When the arrangement was repeated for the New Sacristy, Michelangelo had at his one of disposition an unusually self-contained space-and unusual size. He used what was, in effect, his extra fourth wall for the Magnifici Tomb, enabling the group of tombs to organize the space to exceptional effect. The Magnifici Tomb, on the chapel's main axis, was to have played a

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6 See the section below, "The Magnifici Tomb and the Laurentian Vestibule."

dominant role; but, as executed, it is architecturally its weakest feature. If the type of space gave Michelangelo a new opportunity, so too did the possibility of taking the chapel's design into his

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4 A. Sansovino, Tomb of Ascanio Sforza. Rome, S. Maria del Popolo (photo: Alinari/Art Resource, N.Y.) own hands. Unlike the Old Sacristy, the Medici Chapel was planned from the start so as to admit tombs into its walls. Michelangelo, elaborating on the Old Sacristy, carried the vertical membering around all four sides of the main space.7 The membering, like the rest of the Chapel's articulation, is in pietra serena, the dark gray sandstone of Florence. On one side, an arch frames the entrance to the little presbytery of the chapel (Fig. 1). This is repeated on the other three walls as a blind arch enclosing a recess. The recess for the tomb proper is framed at the sides by unmolded piers, and at the top by an overhanging architrave. The arrangement may be seen most clearly in the south wall of the chapel, where the recess for the Magnifici Tomb has been only partly filled (Fig. 2). Michelangelo took particular care to relate the tombs to their architectural setting. The major tombs of the past had been designed as self-sufficient structures set into, or against, a neutral wall (Fig. 4). Even in the Chapel of the Cardinal of

Portugal in S. Miniato, an especially integrated design, the architectural elements of the tomb are kept distinct from the marble frame, which relates to the architecture of the chapel as a whole. In the Dukes' tombs, Michelangelo for the first time achieved a tight fit between the tomb structure and the larger architecture.8 Achieving a similar fit with the columns of the Magnifici Tomb proved to be one of the hardest tasks he had to face. (The present tomb does not show his intentions in this respect.) In the long run, the Medici Chapel pointed the way to a new type of chapel design, in which the tombs formed an integral part of the larger architecture. The unity for which Bernini's chapels are famous is predicated on Michelangelo's pioneering efforts at the Medici Chapel.9 Yet another special feature of the commission was the number of tombs required. Normally, commissions were for a single tomb commemorating a single individual. In a few recent cases, a pair of tombs had been commissioned, most notably Andrea Sansovino's in S. Maria del Popolo (Fig. 4). But now Michelangelo was to memorialize four individuals at once in a single chapel. His great problem was that the chapel contained only three tomb recesses. For a time he considered ignoring the recesses and placing the four memorials together to form a composite structure that was to stand free in the center of the chapel.1' By spring 1521 he had decided upon the final arrangement, which gave each of the Dukes his own tomb, but required the Magnifici to share a new type of double tomb, in which their sarcophagi were set side by side. Particularly in the early designs, Michelangelo's aim was to create an ensemble of a unique type. With much ingenuity, he attempted to achieve a degree of parity also between the memorials of the four dead men-and between the three tomb structures. Adjusting the design and iconography, he soon succeeded in establishing parallels, and yet differentiating, among the tombs (Figs. 10-11). At that stage the ensemble may even have involved a sort of sacra conversazione between the Dukes and the Madonna, which may make us think of Bernini; but formal and thematic relationships were probably more important for Michelangelo (as for Sansovino) than a vitalization of the space through drama, as Bernini would later pursue it.ll The role played by the designs for the Medici tombs in Michelangelo's development should be seen against the background of a Renaissance architect's training. There was, of course, no formal education in the profession. Instead, Michelangelo, like other architects, came to the profession with design experience in an allied field, which could be put to use in architecture.'2 As a sculptor, he had acquired a sufficient knowledge of architecture to design the Julius Tomb, but he does not seem to have enjoyed the close relationship with an established architect that, for instance,

7 On the architecture of the chapel, see Ackerman, 1986, 74-75, 298; and Elam. 8 The general point is made by Tolnay, 1969, 65-66. On Bernini's chapels, see I. Lavin, Bernini and the Unityofthe VisualArts, 9 Princeton, 1980. 10 Morrogh, 142-161. 11For the importance of the present Magnifici Tomb in the chapel, see,

for instance, Tolnay, 1948, 69; and Wilde, 1955, 64. The view that the present Dukes gaze at the Virgin is successfully contested by Gilbert (as in n. 2), 397, and by Lavin (as in n. 9), 31. 12R. A. Goldthwaite, The Building of Renaissance Florence, Baltimore, 1980, 356-367. See also J. S. Ackerman, "Architectural Practice in the Italian Renaissance," Journal of the Societyof Architectural Historians, xIII, 3, Oct. 1954, 3-4.

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brary, of the mid-1520s. Few other Renaissance architects can show such a rapid development in skill. This must be the result, above all, of Michelangelo's involvement with the Medici tombs, for he had no other project in the early 1520s of such a demanding character. The problem inherent in the Medici commission was how to fit the memorials of four men into three recesses.15 The solution of a double tomb for the Magnifici was a solution in appearance only, for it raised its own problems-whether considered by itself, in relation to the Dukes' tombs, or in relation to its recess in the chapel. As Michelangelo returned to the issues over a period of three years, he acquired a skill in composition that underlies all his later success. There are fascinating suggestions that he looked on the tomb designs as a means of experimentation with motifs, and, more generally, as an exercise in architectural ingenuity. Along with this attitude went a remarkable flexibility on matters of style; it is as if he were experimenting both with classicism and architectural license. It will be argued that the style of the Laurentian Library was at least in part a response to the encouragement of Clement VII. But even more significant are the clarity of analysis and the confidence in his own abilities that Michelangelo acquired while working on the Magnifici Tomb. Much remains obscure about the training of Renaissance architects. We know that in general they studied the works of antiquity and of modern masters; and we may guess that they saw at least their early commissions as opportunities for learning. No doubt Michelangelo's involvement with the Medici tombs falls into this latter category. What is striking is that he approached the tombs experimentally, somewhat as a design studio, and that designing such small pieces of architecture should, over a few years, have taught him so much. A Central Focus and "Comparability" (1521) Michelangelo's first series of drawings for the Magnifici Tomb derive from his ideas for a free-standing composite tomb placed in the center of the chapel. Square in plan, this was to give equal weight to the memorials for the two Dukes and the two Magnifici, each being set on a separate side (Fig. 5). Out of this series came a proposal for a double wall tomb for the two Magnifici, achieved simply by placing two of the sides together (Fig. 6). Michelangelo's first major compositional problem was how to give his novel conception a strong central feature, so that the tomb would not appear to split into two halves. His answer, seen in Uffizi 607E, was to create a three-bay superstructure, surmounting the two sarcophagi (Fig. 8). Although he would have liked the vertical axes of the two sarcophagi to correspond with those of the outer bays of the superstructure, he could not see how to bring it about. He did, however, devote considerable ingenuity to what I will call "comparability," or the achievement of a meaningful relationship between the double tomb and the two Dukes' tombs. This theme found its fullest expression in the scheme

5 Michelangelo, sketch for central tomb. London, British Museum, Wilde 25 (detail) (photo: Museum)

Antonio da Sangallo the Younger had with Bramante.'3 Like other Renaissance architects, he must have developed his skills primarily through work on his own projects. His first major commissions came to him because the Medici wished to employ him as a sculptor. Having been promised the sculpture for the fagade of S. Lorenzo, he contrived that he should be given the design of the architecture too. He then set about educating himself, as many other architects must have done, through copying antique details.'4 I have noted that he also took the architecture of the Medici Chapel into his own hands. Scholars agree in seeing the fagade model of 1517 and the pietra serena architecture of the chapel as early works, very different in character from the Laurentian Li-

13 C. L. Frommel, "Raffael und Antonio da Sangallo der Jfingere," in Raffaelloa Roma: Il convegnodel 1983, Rome, 1986, 263-266. 14 From the Codex Coner. See M. Hirst, Michelangeloand His Drawings,

New Haven and London, 1988, 93. On Michelangelo's previous architectural experience, see A. Nova, Michelangelo Milan, 1984, 11-13. architetto, 15 Morrogh, 142-161.

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6 Michelangelo, sketches for Magnifici Tomb (at bottom) and central tomb (at top, upside down). London, British Museum, Wilde 26v (photo: Museum)

of April 1521, which included the first definitive project for the Magnifici Tomb (Figs. 10-11). Michelangelo's skill as an architect in this period may be judged, on the one hand, by the ingenuity that he brought to the issue of comparability and, on the other, by his failure to deal with the problem of the axes. In this period, Michelangelo was experimenting with style. Overall, the tomb drawings of around 1521 show a great variety of approaches: from a somewhat meager severity to lush elaboration, from classicism taken at face value to a subversive treatment of it. Michelangelo had yet to decide on his stance with regard to matters of style. Instead, it seems clear that in the scheme of April 1521 he found opportunities for the exercise of his architectural ingenuity, and in doing so developed motifs to which he would return later. It appears likely that, during this period of experimentation,

he was consciously expanding his abilities and repertoire as an architect. His detail, especially the bizarre or unconventional, tends to be seen in isolation, and sometimes appears to have been grafted onto a straightforward composition to make it more interesting. Thus, in the scheme of Uffizi 607E (Fig. 8) he devoted some effort to integrating his (unconventional) triglyph brackets systematically into a larger composition; but, since the composition had been conceived without them, he could not achieve satisfactory results. Wilde 26. British Museum Wilde 26v (Fig. 6) shows Michelangelo's first attempt to set two sides of the central tomb together to form a double tomb, which would be fitted into the recess on the south wall of the chapel.16 The sketch shows
'6 Wilde, 1953, 51-53; Tolnay, 1975-80, no. 180; Morrogh, 152-153.

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two quite separate bays, each flanked by columns or pilasters, which produce an unclassical pair of solids in the center. Two features go back to the central tomb: the placing of the pedimented sarcophagi at the bottom,'7 and the panels above (compare Wilde 25: Fig. 5)18 topped by small niches. Since the proportions of each bay are similar to those of the central tomb, the tomb as a whole is broader than it is high. The recto introduces several ideas of great importance (Fig. 7). It lays down a feature that was to be basic for the composition of the tombs: the sarcophagi are surmounted by aedicules, an idea Michelangelo had developed for the central tomb. He adapted the tomb structure to the area available for it, heightening it in the course of drawing. By the time he had finished drawing, the structure took up most of the available recess. The heightening required the insertion of a plinth, or intermediate zone, underneath the aedicule at the right, for the sake of proportion. At a later stage, Michelangelo set himself the task of unifying the two halves of the tomb. He tried out a variety of elements for the central axis, concluding probably with the standing figure and tall panel behind. The recto was followed by two drawings that suggest that Michelangelo was as yet uncertain about the direction he should take. Returning to the verso (Fig. 6), he drew a final scheme for the central tomb, making use of the right half of the design on the recto. In Casa Buonarroti 107A, he sketched a double tomb, which is reduced from Wilde 26r.'9 The Schemeof Uffizz607E. The succeeding scheme is known only from copies, of which Uffizi 607E is the most carefully finished (Fig. 8). It should be said at once that the design reflects little credit on its author. Popp, writing in 1922, instance, the loosepointed to some of its weaknesses-for ness of the relationship between the sarcophagi and the tomb structure-and concluded that Michelangelo did not draw the original.20 Yet, since Tolnay's article of 1969, scholars have come to accept it as Michelangelo's work.21 Two of the copies bear inscriptions attributing the original to him. Joannides has recently identified a figure sketch by Michelangelo for one of the reliefs.22 Moreover, the scheme looks back to Wilde 26r (Fig. 7), shares distinctive peculiarities with the design of April 1521 (Fig. 11), and provides the basis for the far more sophisticated Wilde 28v (Fig. 18). Nothing could be more natural than that an architect who aimed to develop a three-bay superstructure from Wilde 26r, while keeping its two sarcophagi, should find it hard to bond these elements firmly together. Why assume that Michelan-

17 Tolnay,

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18Wilde, 1953, 47-51; Tolnay, 1975-80, no. 184. 19 Tolnay, 1975-80, no. 281; Neufeld, 276, places this drawing before Wilde 26r. But the River God and the central plinth were worked out in the course of that drawing. 20 A. E. Popp, Dze Medzci-Kapelle Munich, 1922, 129-130. Mzchelangelos, 21 Tolnay, 1969, 72-73; R. Zentai, "Un Dessin de Giovanni Battista Sangallo et les projets de fresques de la chapelle Medicis," Bulletin du Musee Hongrozsdes Beaux-Arts,1971, 79-92; Perrig, 257-259. 22Joannides, 1991.

gelo never found some problems difficult, or was as expert in 1521 as he later became? For us, the scheme's very drawbacks put the achievement of the later designs into sharper relief. The tomb structure should be imagined as taking up the whole width of the recess, the sarcophagi projecting forward into the space of the chapel. The tomb's overall height cannot be calculated with much accuracy: the rim of the bowl at the top could almost touch the overhanging pietra serena architrave, or it could be set as much as half a meter below. The foremost idea of the scheme is the reorganization of the design of Wilde 26r (Fig. 7) around a stronger central feature. Instead of aedicules at either side, there is a single one in the center. This was a decisive step forward, but it introduced a problem of axes which was solved only in 1523-24. The problem of the axes provides a useful criterion for judging Michelangelo's skills in architectural design. To illustrate it, let us assume that the two sarcophagi together are equivalent to the full 4.335m of the present recess, each being 2.168m long. Then their vertical axes must be 1.084m in from either side. When, as in the scheme of Uffizi 607E, the sarcophagi are a bit shorter, there is some leeway, but not very much; here, for instance, their axes are about 1.1-1.2m in from either side. But how well will these severely constrained axes tie up with the axes of the bays above? The only simple case is that of Wilde 26r (Fig. 7), in which the two bays achieve a natural alignment with the two sarcophagi. When the two bays are separated by a third, middle bay, their axes are necessarily moved outwards. In the present scheme, it appears that Michelangelo attempted to reduce the discrepancy in the axes by making the superstructure narrower than the pair of sarcophagi. (Compare the scheme of April 1521, whose broader superstructure involves a greater discrepancy: Fig. 11.) He camouflaged the areas between the superstructure and the pietra serena piers with a curtain, long associated with tombs; but for him, this was a remarkably un-architectural motif. It was equally difficult to relate the verticals of the plinth of the superstructure to the sarcophagi. To avoid a direct clash, Michelangelo introduced a plain basement. The articulation, developed from the strips and panels of Wilde 26r, is unusually dry and bare for Michelangelo, or indeed for a tomb of such importance. Responding no doubt to the lack of a proper order, he decided to use triglyph brackets, a non-canonical form, to serve as quasi-capitals.23 But he seems to have done so only after determining the articulation, at a stage when it was too late to incorporate the brackets satisfactorily. The verticals of the aedicule consist of superimposed strips, each of which is capped by a triglyph bracket or half-triglyph bracket. The outer verticals of the side bays are also capped with triglyph brackets, whose job it is to support

model for S. Lorenzo (H. A. Millon and C. H. Smyth, Mzchelangelo Milan, 1988, ill. on p. 71), and the grooved brackets of the door Archztect, on the north side of the church (P. Portoghesi and B. Zevi, eds., Turin, 1964, ill. 358). architetto, Michelangzolo

23 Compare the smooth block brackets of the outer doors in the fa;ade

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the entablature and perhaps provide a dignified termination to the tomb. But these outer verticals also form part of a frame, which continues in the horizontal at the top. If one reads them as part of the frame, their connection with the triglyphs appears far less logical than that which obtains between the uprights of the aedicule and their triglyphs. A second and more serious problem is that, unlike the outer verticals, the inner verticals of the side bays are not capped by brackets. The arrangement avoids confusion with the brackets of the aedicule, but it makes the side bays asymmetrical. Close examination reveals many further inconsistencies and insoluble dilemmas in the treatment of the brackets and entablature. The character of the copies would suggest that Michelangelo had worked out his original in some detail,24 as would the way the stepped supports of the aedicule are carefully integrated into the composition. It seems likely that he continued to work on the drawing for some time after the problems had started appearing. It is as if he could think only one move ahead-as if he needed to put even a triglyph bracket on paper before he could envisage its consequences. But he was soon to become much quicker at visualizing the implications of a developing design. The upper level of the tomb has a remarkably lively "skyline," of a sort exemplified by Sansovino's tombs in S. Maria del Popolo (Fig. 4). Michelangelo was apparently thinking, in traditional terms, of a crowning feature suitable for a tomb that projects from the wall. This "finial zone" was to remain a part of all designs for the Magnifici Tomb until 1524, when it was replaced by an attic better adapted to the overhanging pietra serena architrave. (The present ducal tombs illustrate the function of the attic in this respect; Fig. 1.) Michelangelo's choice of motifs also suggests a traditional outlook. The putti, each with a leg bent, who hold up the curtains are somewhat reminiscent of those on Desiderio's Marsuppini Tomb and of Andrea Sansovino's work; they also appear in one of Michelangelo's own early drawings for the fagade of S. Lorenzo.25 The central section consists of an attic, on which rest two lamps, a disc, and the bowl mentioned above. Of these, only the lamps, referring to everlasting life, have an obvious significance. The tomb's sculptural program has acquired greater definition. The Madonna and Child, a traditional feature of tombs, have come to play the chief role in the figure composition, paralleling the architectural role of the aedicule in which the pair rests. The group, with its standing Madonna, is evidently based on ideas for the Julius Tomb.26 On either side, reliefs represent the Garden of the Hesperides and Orpheus lamenting the loss of Eurydice.27 These pagan themes, though surprising in the immediate vicinity of the main group, formed part of Medici iconography. At the bottom, as in Wilde 26r, the figures of the Magnifici recline on their sarcophagi.

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9 Michelangelo, sketch for Duke's tomb. London, British Museum, Wilde 27 (photo: Museum)

"Comparability." In 1521, Michelangelo devoted much ingenuity to devising a clear disposition of the tombs that would satisfy the difficult requirement that he commemorate four men in three recesses. His solution to the problem had two main stages. In the first stage he drew upon his experience in designing the short-lived project for a central tomb, to achieve a degree of similarity between the memorials of the four dead men, each of whose sarcophagi were to be set on or near the ground. He worked this scheme out simultaneously in Wilde 26r for the Magnifici Tomb and in Wilde 27 for the Dukes' tombs (Figs. 7, 9).28 He evidently intended the two sketches to be directly comparable, for he drew them to the same scale. His treatment of the figures is also significant. Initially each tomb was to contain a single pair of reclining figures: the Magnifici on their sarcophagi in Wilde 26, the River Gods at the bottom of Wilde 27. Later he doubled them, taking over the Allegories on the ducal sarcophagi from the Magnifici, and the River God of Wilde 26 from those of Wilde 27. In this first stage, then, Michelangelo aimed to achieve comparabil-

24 Perrig, 258. 25 Casa Buonarroti 45A, in Tolnay, 1975-80, no. 497. 26Tolnay, 1969, 73. Compare the Metropolitan Museum drawing, in Tolnay, 1975-80, no. 489. 27Joannides, 1991, 259-260.

28 For Wilde 27, see Wilde, 1953, 53-56, and Tolnay, 1975-80, no. 185. Its derivation from projects for the central tomb is discussed by A. Prater, MichelangelosMedici-Kapelle,Stiftland, 1979, 70. Its relationship to Wilde 26r has never been properly analyzed; for what concerns the figures, Neufeld is of some value. In the present paragraph I cannot do more than summarize my position, which is based on examination of the originals.

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ity primarily between the sarcophagi, and secondarily between the reclining figures. In the second stage, Michelangelo aimed at comparability in the superstructure of the three tombs. The introduction of a three-bay superstructure, which took place in the scheme of Uffizi 607E (Fig. 8), was a prerequisite for this stage; but it was only later, in April 1521, that he drew the full consequences for the architecture and the iconography of the Magnifici Tomb (Fig. 11). Michelangelo's desire to create a unified grouping of tombs goes far to explaining why their composition is so unusual for the period. Normally, the sarcophagus would be set into a recess within an impressive architectural enframement somewhat above the ground (Fig. 4). Michelangelo's sarcophagi, on the other hand, are placed in front of a basement, on or near the ground, thereby achieving a degree of equivalence that would not have been possible in any other way. The arrangement implies a similar disposition for the Dukes' tombs. Such was the placement of the sarcophagi that Michelangelo could even suggest that the altar, through its proportions and (highly unusual) siting, was an honorary fifth sarcophagus (Fig. 1). When, with the erection of the present Magnifici tomb, its two planned sarcophagi were eliminated, the chapel lost a centralizing yet axial feature on which Michelangelo had set great store. One may suspect that Michelangelo often cast his mind back to Sansovino's tombs at S. Maria del Popolo (Fig. 4).29 Identical in composition, the two large tombs dominate the section of the choir in which they stand, forming a matrix for a sculptural program that is elaborated across the space. That Michelangelo was interested in Sansovino's reclining Cardinals seems clear from the postures of the Magnifici on Wilde 26r (Fig. 7).30 It is also striking that the four Times of Day, like Sansovino's four Cardinal Virtues, are divided between two tombs. Sansovino made much use of formal variation among similar figures in the two tombs; thus, one cardinal rests his head on a raised forearm, the other on a horizontal forearm. He varied the postures of the Vzrtues with great subtlety, so that they may be read both as pairs within a tomb and as pairs across space. Michelangelo's reclining figures, including the present Times of Day, show a similar formal variation at all stages of the design. That the variations appear more controlled than in, say, the various

renditions of the Slaves for the Julius Tomb, may be due to Sansovino's example. All in all, it seems likely that Sansovino's tombs indicated to Michelangelo the possibilities for a tightly interwoven sculptural-cum-architectural ensemble, organized around the walls of a chapel. Though they may not have provided Michelangelo with specific architectural inspiration, they would have served to illustrate the value of comparability.

The SchemeofApril 1521. In April 1521 Michelangelo ordered much marble for the tombs from Carrara, including a block for a seated figure of the Virgin.31The order implies that the design was essentially settled. On stylistic grounds, two finished designs for the tombs should be dated to this period.32 One, Louvre 838, is for a Duke's tomb, drawn by Michelangelo himself (Fig. 10). The other, for the Magnifici Tomb, exists in many copies, the best-known being Louvre 837, but other copies are informative too. I reproduce Parker 349, at the Ashmolean Museum (Fig. 11). Everything suggests that the project had been worked out in considerable detail, and that the copies, in most respects, are very faithful.33I shall refer to this composition as the scheme of April 1521. The design represents the culmination of Michelangelo's attempt to integrate the tombs, but it also shows a new interest in architectural elaboration. If the scheme of Uffizi 607E was meager and jejune (Fig. 8), that of April 1521 is so rich in its architecture, sculpture, and decoration as to suggest horror vacui. The intermediate zone of the previous scheme has been omitted, allowing for a heightening of the two main levels. The main story, articulated by half-columns on pedestals, with a broad spacing in the middle, is reminiscent of a triumphal arch-even if the arch itself is omitted. Similarly, in a sheet of about this period that deals with the triumphal arch theme, Michelangelo sketched two designs that again lack arches (British Museum, Wilde 22).34 In general, he avoided the use of blind arches in his architecture. The superstructure is broader than in the previous scheme, taking up almost the whole width of the recess. That in fact only the top of the cornice extends to the edges of the recess (Fig. 11)35 results from a problem that will be discussed below. Into the central bay of the tomb, Michelangelo inserted an aedicule, an unusual feature to find in a triumphal arch, but deriving from his previous scheme. The treatment of the planes in the central bay

29 On the tombs, see G. H. Huntley, Andrea Sansovzno, Cambridge, Mass., 1935, 57-64, 97-98, and C. L. Frommel, "'Capella Iulia:' Die Grabkapelle Papst Julius' II in Neu-St. Peter," Zeztschrzft Kunstfur geschzchte, XL, 1977, 49, n. 97. Discussions of the tombs pay little attention to the sculptural program, which to me, at least, would suggest that they were designed together. (By the same token, the two surviving alternative designs were most probably for a project involving only one tomb, see Huntley, figs. 70-71.) 30 Popp (as n. 20), 164. Neufeld, 277, suggests that the shallow volutes on which the effigies rest in Wilde 26r were derived from the shrouds beneath the Cardinals' bodies in Sansovino's tombs. 31 G. Milanesi, ed., Le letteredz Mzchelangelo coz Buonarrotzedzteed znedzte rzcordzed z contrattzartzstzcz,Florence, 1875, 694-696; L. Bardeschi Ciulich and P. Barocchi, eds., I rzcordz Mzchelangelo,Florence, 1970, dz 106; cf. Elam, 169-171. 32Tolnay, 1975-80, nos. 186, 194 (the latter is a copy, see below). Joannides, 1972, 541-546, argued that these two projects represent the definitive designs of April 1521. For a review of the literature on both,

and for a checklist of versions, see Perrig, 284, n. 67; 282, n. 57. K. Weil-Garris Posner, "Comments on the Medici Chapel and Pontormo's Lunette at Poggio a Caiano," Burlizngton Magazzne,cxv, 1973, 641-649, should be consulted. The attributions of Louvre 838 and 837 are the subject of dispute: see, most recently, Joannides, 1991, 261-262, n. 5. I do not accept that Louvre 837 is in Michelangelo's hand. Moreover, if it were the original from which the other copies derive, we should expect it to contain the fullest information, which is not the case. 33 One of the copies, Louvre 18359, contains many vertical measurements: see n. 37 below. Similarities with details in Louvre 838 and other designs for the Magnifici Tomb vouch both for the care with which the original was drawn and for the fidelity of the copies. 34 Wilde, 1953, 37-42; Tolnay, 1975-80, no. 272. See also Ackerman, 1986, 155. 35 Most of the copies (but not Louvre 837) show vertical boundaries, which represent the edges of the tomb recess. It is most likely that, as Parker 349 shows, the cymatium of the cornice was to extend to the boundaries, but not to exceed them.

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11 After Michelangelo, design for Magnifici Tomb (scheme of April 1521). Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, Parker 349 (photo: Museum)

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is of great complexity, whose justification I will describe shortly. A serious flaw in Michelangelo's design appears in the basement. Vertical divisions there and in the horizontal strip above it indicate that the basement should project at the sides, in conformity with the outer bays of the superstructure. Yet, curiously, the verticals run down only to the legs of the Magnifici. The division into three bays was apparently not to be continued beneath the troughs of the sarcophagi. Perhaps we should imagine that the division was to start somewhere behind the cornices of the sarcophagi. Whatever the case, the lack of relationship between the bay system of the basement and the sarcophagi is perplexing. And this underscores an even greater problem, the discrepancy between the axes of the sarcophagi and those of the outer bays, which has been exacerbated since the previous project. That the problems do not derive from the copyists, but do indeed go back to Michelangelo, is attested by a development of the present scheme in his own hand (Fig. 16). By comparison with his later projects for the tomb, the scheme of April 1521 can only be described as immature. The details of the two tomb designs show that they were meant to be seen together. The Magnifici scheme shares with Louvre 838 (Fig. 10) the high plinths, the legs, and the segmental pediments of the sarcophagi; the severely contracted entablature; the placing of the tablets for inscripvolutes and tions; and two features of the capitals-their The arrangement of the attic is related, with necking heights. small statues of mourners, candelabra, and swags in each. On a larger scale, the designs share the tripartite division of the seated central is less usual-the main story, and-what figure. Yet, architecturally, the Magnifici Tomb is intended to assert a certain superiority over the Dukes' tombs. The triumphal arch form, which had come to be accepted for monumental tombs and altars, would probably have been thought more dignified than the composition of the Dukes' tombs.36 With the pedestals, its order is higher than that of Louvre 838 (Fig. 10). Its cornice is set about 60cm higher than that of Louvre 838, reaching almost to the pietra serena architrave. (The low plinth above is virtually at the architrave level.)37 And the tomb is more richly decorated. The sculptural program too may be understood as claiming a superior status for the Magnifici Tomb. Each tomb has seven main figures. In Louvre 838 at least five of them have antique connotations: the Duke in ancient armor being crowned by genii, the Sun and the Moon (= Times of Day?) on the sarcophagus, the two River Gods. In the Magnifici design all the figures of the main story must, to judge from their dress, represent saints or personages from the Bible. The

arrangement suggests a contrast between sacred and profane, as Tolnay has noted.38 The sacred figures are larger than their secular counterparts, suggesting their greater spiritual significance. This remains true of the executed statues of the Madonna and the Dukes today, even after changes in design and scale. If, as seems likely, the Duke is looking in the general direction of the Virgin, there is some suggestion of a sacra conversazzone,39to be completed perhaps by the other Duke, toward whom the Virgin's breast is turned. In the Virgin's aedicule, Michelangelo has achieved a happy match between sculpture and architecture. As has been seen, the aedicule is derived from the scheme of Uffizi 607E, but it is given more robust, if also less conventional, forms. The filling-in of the capital zone is decisive. Nowhere else, either in this design or in Louvre 838, is there such an impressive group of horizontals, nor such a weighty pediment. The arcs of the pediment are struck from a point at the top of the Virgin's head, making it central to the design, a device Leonardo had employed for Christ's head in the Last Supper. Thanks to the aedicule, the Virgin is not only the dominant figure in the tomb of the Magnifici, but to some degree in all the tombs, and hence in the chapel as a whole. Underlying Michelangelo's carefully orchestrated group of tombs was a strategy for dealing with an awkward problem of disposition. Of the three tomb structures, that of the Magnifici was necessarily the odd man out. For symmetry's sake, it could be placed only opposite the altar. In the original of Uffizi 607E, Michelangelo introduced the Madonna and Child, in the central position that the group traditionally held in tombs; and, to either side, he placed mythological reliefs (Fig. 8). The architecture at this stage is somewhat meager. The scheme of April 1521 shows that Michelangelo had meditated on the key role that-for was desirable for the formal reasons, if for no other-it Magnifici Tomb to play. He greatly emphasized its religious component, and excluded the mythological reliefs. He thus not only sharpened the contrast in subject matter with the Dukes' tombs, but provided a dominant spiritual focus for them. The architecture too was radically redesigned along lines congenial to, but differentiated from, the Dukes' tombs; it became suitably rich and impressive. It is hard to find in the drawings any evidence for a view that has some currency today, that the Magnifici Tomb was conceived, from the start, as a combination of tomb and retable.40 Rather, it seems gradually to have acquired its religious function, responding, at least in part, to needs of a formal nature. The history of the Magnifici Tomb presents a paradox. Michelangelo seems to have done his utmost to give it greater visual and spiritual significance than the Dukes'

36 Cf. Joannides, 1972, 545.

38

Tolnay, 1969, 73-76.

noted. Louvre 18359 is inscribed with many vertical measurements, which, despite one or two obscurities, tally sufficiently with the height to the cornice as given by Uffizi 258F (10 /2braccia). This drawing gives the breadth, between the vertical boundaries, as 72/ braccia, rather than the 7.42 braccia that the recess actually measures (4.335m). The disparity is probably due to a slight change during construction. To obtain a scale for the tomb of Louvre 838, I have assumed that it too was to measure braccia across. 7%2

37 Evidence for the measurements of the Magnifici project has not been

39 Ibzd. In the present chapel, the notion of a sacra conversazioneis

untenable; see above, n. 11. L. 4o0 D. Ettlinger, "The Liturgical Function of Michelangelo's Medici des Chapel," Mzttezlungen Kunsthzstorzschen tn Instztutes Florenz,xxll, 1978, 298-300; Perrig, 247.

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tombs. Yet it is clear from a letter of 1524 that the Pope saw the tombs of the Dukes as more important than those of the Magnifici.41 The number of figures required for this tomb was soon reduced to three, only one of which Michelangelo was to carve himself. We should distinguish between his contributions as a designer and as a sculptor. As a designer, he saw it as his job to create an impressive, coherent ensemble. As a sculptor, he was in no doubt that his patron wished him above all to immortalize the Dukes. The present design reveals a remarkable stylistic position. It makes traditional use of classical architecture to produce an impressive tomb, yet it subverts much of the spirit of that architecture through license and paradox. Its tone (along with that of Louvre 838; Fig. 10) is unique in the whole group of tomb designs. One is led to wonder about Michelangelo's stylistic commitments in his early career as an architect. The small of the Chapel of Leo X shows him disposed towardfacade for S. license,42 whereas the project for the facade Lorenzo and the pietra serena architecture of the Medici Chapel display him in a classical mood. Perhaps he welcomed opportunities to experiment.43 It is hard to avoid the suspicion that both the present scheme and the drawings of 1524 had a value to Michelangelo as exercises in architectural ingenuity. In each case, his experiments led him to develop new motifs, to which he returned later. There is this difference, however: in April 1521 he looked for rules to stretch, in 1524 for ways of solving problems. In 1521, Michelangelo exercised his ingenuity, not on the problem of the axes, but above all on the creation of paradoxes in the entablature. In the outer bays, the entablature breaks forward where one would least expect it, above the void of the niche. Underneath, the head of the niche is decorated with a shell, whose flat hinged part comes well forward, thus supporting the projecting entablature. Above, the cornice supports the statue of the mourner. (Compare the less coherent system of support for the putto of the previous scheme, which starts with a triglyph bracket; Fig. 8.) In the middle bay, a reverse paradox is achieved: contrary to all expectations, the disc rests on the tablet while passing in front of the cornice. Most probably, the central section of the entablature answers to the notional plane of the bay, visible below the tablet, while the tablet is flush, or almost flush, with the piers of the outer bays. Between disc and tablet is inserted once again the flat hinged part ofa cockle shell, but rotated, as if this time the rest of the shell were imbedded in the wall. This curious feature emphasizes that the paradox of the outer bays has been reversed. Among the unconventional features of the present design, the fine aedicule stands out. Its pilasters taper and have grotesque heads of bearded men as capitals. The inspiration was probably the caryatid herms of the Julius Tomb, such as appear in drawings of the project of 1513,44 but their

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12 Michelangelo, Tomb ofJulius II (detail of upper story). Rome, S. Pietro in Vincoli (photo: Morrogh) half-bodies have been reduced to heads. Michelangelo returned to this form in the upper story of the executed Julius Tomb (Fig. 12). In most copies of the scheme of April 1521, the central section of the pediment is recessed, probably to allow the tablet above to be visible. (Parker 349 shows, perhaps incorrectly, an unbroken horizontal cornice below.) Michelangelo returned to this motif in the pedimented door of the Laurentian Vestibule. The overhanging tablet above, projecting sharply from the rear plane of the wall, looks forward to the tablet in the pediment of the Porta Pia (Fig. 13). The plinths of the sarcophagi are decorated with reliefs showing pairs of reclining youths who stretch towards vaselike objects (Fig. 14). The scene is taken from the plinth of Michelangelo's 1505 design for the Julius Tomb, as seen in the drawing in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Fig. 15).45 In each case, the relief is flanked by console brackets. In the Metropolitan Museum drawing, the brackets provide physical support for the columns; in the scheme of April 1521, being set forward of the legs of the sarcophagi, they provide merely visual support, in a manner that anticipates the brackets of the Laurentian Vestibule (Fig. 27).
45 M. Hirst, MichelangeloDraughtsman,Milan, 1988, 26-28.

41 Barocchi and Ristori, III,78.

42J. Shearman, Mannerism,Harmondsworth, 1967, 71. derRenais43 Cf. C. von Stegmann and H. von Geymfiller, Die Architektur sance in der Toscana, viii, MichelagnoloBuonarroti, Munich, 1904, 45, on Michelangelo's severe, mixed, and free styles. 44 See esp. Wilde, 1953, no. 23; Tolnay, 1975-80, no. 55.

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13 Michelangelo, Porta Pia (detail of block with inscription), Rome (photo: Morrogh)

14 After Michelangelo, design for Magnifici Tomb (scheme of April 1521). Oxford, Christ Church, Byam Shaw 71 (detail) (photo: Christ Church)

15 Michelangelo, design for Tomb of Julius II. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Rogers Fund, 1962, no. 62.93.1 (detail) (photo: Museum)

MICHELANGELO'S

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16 Michelangelo, design for Magnifici Tomb, Paris. Louvre 686v (detail) (photo: Louvre) 17 Michelangelo, sketch for Magnifici Tomb. London, British Museum, Wilde 28r (photo: Museum) The Problem of the Axes (1523/24) The succeeding group of drawings is marked by a new seriousness of approach. Michelangelo solved the problem of the axes, seemingly with great ease. Now in a classical phase, he first ironed out many of the oddities of the scheme of April 1521, and then, in the original of the Stockholm drawing (Fig. 19), he designed a very tightly conceived tomb based on standard architectural groupings. From now on, tightness of conception was to be fundamental to Michelangelo's architecture. The order of the drawings. The project of April 1521 was followed by a group of drawings that almost all scholars have placed before it: Louvre 686v and British Museum Wilde 28r-v (Figs. 16-18).46 The key issue is the affiliation of Wilde 28v. If, as has been maintained, it represents a development from the scheme of Uffizi 607E (Fig. 8), then the whole group of drawings may be seen as leading up to the project of April 1521.47 And this project is indeed often treated as Michelangelo's final word on the Magnifici Tomb, even though to do so means ignoring the implications of the Scholz plan (Fig. 24). However, the discovery of a hitherto unpublished drawing at Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, Cronstedt Collection 470, casts a new light on the matter (Fig. 19).48 For this is evidently a copy of a lost project by Michelangelo, which is so much more sophisticated than the scheme of April 1521 that it can only be later. Wilde 28v may now be interpreted as leading up to it. We have then to examine a previously unsuspected stage of Michelangelo's thoughts about the Magnifici Tomb. Louvre 686v. In Louvre 686v (Fig. 16), Michelangelo made the scheme of April 1521 easier to read. He removed the tablet, enabling the aedicule to be heightened, and the pediment to be distanced from the Madonna's head. The outer bays have been rearranged, a square panel being inserted near the top, which leaves the space between the capitals free. The effect of the changes is to raise the center of gravity in the central bay and to lower it in the outer bays, producing a more homogeneous reading of the whole. Related changes bring about a much more clearly focused grouping of the statues. Michelangelo also simplified the planes of the wall on either side of the aedicule. The tapering pilasters of the earlier aedicule have been replaced by normal pilasters or, more probably, columns. As these

46Wilde, 1953, 56-58; Tolnay, 1975-80, nos. 193, 189. Tolnay here proposes that Wilde 28 should be dated to 1524, apparently believing that the marble for the Magnifici Tomb was first ordered then. 47 For this approach, see esp. Perrig, 257-266, and Joannides, 1991, 255-257.

48 380 x 243mm,

pen and ink. I am extremely grateful to Leon Satkowski for taking measurements of the drawing.

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alterations suggest, the phase leading up to the Stockholm design is characterized by a preference for the normal over the odd. In the basement zone of Louvre 686v, the plinths of the sarcophagi appear to have been lost in a trimming of the sheet. The main interest attaches to a first appearance of the figure of Fame below the Virgin. To make way for this figure, Michelangelo took the unusual step of recessing the basement in the area beneath the void of the aedicule. Later, this feature became an essential ingredient of the Stockholm design. Wilde 28. In Wilde 28r, Michelangelo made a first attempt at aligning a sarcophagus, that at the left, with the superstructure above it (Fig. 17). This was probably also his initial intention at the right, but, if so, it had to be abandoned, for the superstructure was too broad. The sarcophagi have been redesigned so that, for the first time since Wilde 26v, they do not carry reclining figures of the Magnifici. Like the Dukes' sarcophagi, they bear a form of segmental pediment. On the verso, Michelangelo made a breakthrough, creating a design that ties the sarcophagus directly to the outer bays of the superstructure (Fig. 18). (For the purposes of the discussion, the heavily drawn vertical member, an attempt at unifying the intermediate zone with the main story, should be disregarded.) He has recast the superstructure in the

narrower form suggested by the scheme of Uffizi 607E (Fig. 8), of which he was doubtless reminded by the intermediate zone. The main story now consists of a single order, and in the contains four, not six, vertical members-which, can only be half-columns. As in Uffizi 607E, there is context, now a full entablature, above which, in the central bay, a pediment and low attic project. In this way, Michelangelo has retained the idea of the aedicule. The sarcophagi have been redesigned so that their legs are aligned with the piers of the intermediate zone, and the flat tops of their lids are on the same level as its foot. The result is an unprecedented integration with the architectural composition. The figure of Fame has gone. Instead, the outer bays contain seated figures, presumably of the Magnifici. But if the sarcophagi were to extend the breadth of the tomb recess, and the outer bays of the tomb were to have the same axes as the sarcophagi, it followed that the superstructure must be a good deal narrower than the recess. This was a version of the problem that Michelangelo had masked with the curtain in the scheme of Uffizi 607E. Now he devised a far more elegant solution. Lightly to the left and right he drew verticals that break off at the ends of the sarcophagi. Comparison with the Stockholm drawing (Fig. 19) shows that these represent the outer edges of extensions to the structure. Two short horizontal lines to the left, continuing the

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cornice of the intermediate zone, indicate that Michelangelo already planned to carry the main horizontals across the extension. That such slight indications should be sufficient suggests that he had become much quicker in architectural apprehension than when he drew the original of Uffizi 607E.

The Stockholm drawing. The Stockholm drawing (Fig. 19) has so many links with Wilde 28v that it must represent a lost project by Michelangelo, doubtless taken to the modello stage for presentation to the patron. There are parallels for the Madonna and Child on a sheet in the British Museum (Wilde

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31).49 The nude youths holding the tablet at the top are posed like one in the background of the Doni Tondo, and like a study for the Christ of S. Maria sopra Minerva.50 The sheet's foxed and discolored state makes some description of the design desirable. Four half-columns divide the main level into three bays, crowned by a full entablature with a triangular pediment above the central bay. As in the design of April 1521 (Fig. 11), the tomb structure stops short of the recess, the full breadth being taken up only by the cymatium of the cornice (visible at the left); however, in the Stockholm drawing, Michelangelo inserted a further strip between the outer half-columns and the edge of the recess (again more clearly visible at the left). The axes of the outer bays align with the axes of the sarcophagi. The sarcophagi stand on tall plinths, and lead the eye up to further plinths beneath the half-columns. It is not clear who the two statues in the outer bays represent. Since the figure at the left holds a book, they probably do not yet represent Saints Cosmas and Damian; for Saint Damian, as executed, carries a medicine bowl.51 Only in the 1530s, with the carving of the present statues, does it become clear that those saints are intended. Everywhere we see how Michelangelo's skill had developed since April 1521 (Fig. 11). At the lower level, the sarcophagi, like those of Wilde 28v, are integrated with the architecture to a quite remarkable degree. They attain prominence through their insertion, in the vertical sequence, between two of which reproduces the proportions of the plinths-each sarcophagi (as given by their greatest height and greatest breadth). The flat tops of these latter serve in turn as a base for the next grouping in the vertical sequence, the upper plinth and the outer bays of the superstructure. In assimilating the sarcophagi, the basement has gained a new clarity of vertical and horizontal articulation. Michelangelo's control over its every aspect has enormously increased since April 1521. The vertical continuities, though persisting from the basement into the main story, find their natural resolution in the pediment of the central bay, so that the double axes are united without strain. Fundamental to the shift in emphasis is the triangular disposition of the figures, which not only repeats the form of the pediment, but ensures a suitable prominence for the Virgin. And there are reprises of the

entablature being used to powerful effect. The detail contributes to the overall composition, most notably in the tablet that interrupts the architrave above the central bay. This creates a suitably triangular grouping with the reliefs of the outer bays, and serves to emphasize the pediment. One cannot but feel that it was necessary for Michelangelo to learn the full, pliant use of classical architecture before he could produce the deformations of the Vestibule. The sculpture. Between the scheme of April 1521 and the Stockholm design, the number of statues was gradually reduced. The scheme of April 1521 contained seven main figures (Fig. 11); Louvre 686v, six (Fig. 16); Wilde 28r, four (including that of Fame, Fig. 17); Wilde 28v, probably five (allowing two for the outer bays of the superstructure, Fig. 18); the Stockholm design, three (Fig. 19). In the early scheme, Michelangelo's attitude was consistent with the early phases of the Julius Tomb, or the fagade of S. Lorenzo: he aimed to impress through the sheer abundance of sculpture. In the later designs, he increasingly required that the sculpture should collaborate with the architectural composition. There could be no place for the reclining figures of the Magnifici. The seated figures of the Magnifici, whose relationship to the intermediate zone in Wilde 28v is problematic, were soon rejected. Perhaps Michelangelo came to see the figure of Fame, whose outstretched arms crossed the verticals of this zone, as disruptive of the lines of his architecture. The three remaining figures of the Stockholm drawing work with the architecture to a quite exceptional degree. Like so much else in the design, they suggest that Michelangelo was coming to see the tomb as first and foremost a piece of architecture. The dating. The dating of these drawings is closely connected with that of the Dukes' tombs. When compared with the projects of April 1521, both the present drawings and the tombs show a more sophisticated treatment of planes in the main story, and a reduction of the additive, often grotesque, ornamentation. The differences are such as to suggest that the final design of the Dukes' tombs and the Magnifici group of drawings are both somewhat later in date than 1521. For further clues, we must look to the historical context. Though the chapel was clearly a pet project of Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, it was also a highly expensive one, conceived under the Medici pope Leo X. Not surprisingly, during the reign of Adrian VI (December 1521 to September 1523), work on the chapel seems to have slowed down, no doubt at least partly for lack of funds.52 The situation greatly improved when, on November 18, 1523, Cardinal Giulio de' Medici ascended the throne as Pope Clement VII."53In December, Michelangelo visited him in Rome, and almost

triangular theme: the sloping lines of the Annunciation reliefs, and in the finial zone, the succession of curves formed by the swags, the youths, the cherub, and the topmost vase. Beside this design, Michelangelo's earlier attempts at providing a central focus for the tomb look jerky and unresolved. The project counts as a masterpiece of classical architecture within the field of tomb design. Michelangelo completely avoided bizarre detail, recalling his work for the fagade of S. Lorenzo. Horizontal continuities, so important in classical composition, are subtle but assured, the full

52 See also Elam, 169-171.

49Wilde, 1953, 62-64; Tolnay, 1975-80, no. 240. The drawing may be approximately dated by a rcordo of October 1524 on the verso. 5o In the collection of Brinsley Ford; see Tolnay, 1975-80, no. 94. 51 T. Verellen, "Cosmas and Damian in the New Sacristy,"Journal of the and CourtauldInstztutes, XLII, 1979, 274-277. Warburg

six blocks of marble for the chapel; see Milanesl (as in n. 31), 698. This may suggest that Cardinal Giulio, who was foremost of the papabdi, expected soon to be able to pursue work on the tombs more vigorously. PaceJoannides, 1972, 545, the question whether the contract represents a re-ordering of marble already ordered, or an entirely new order, is best left open.

53 On November 3 Michelangelo's agent in Carrara had contracted for

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certainly discussed the Medici Chapel and the Laurentian Library.54 The Pope could now indulge his enthusiasm for the chapel. In the succeeding months he asked to see designs for several parts of it. If Michelangelo was no longer satisfied with the tomb designs of April 1521, this was the time to rework them, relying on the Pope's willingness to spend money. Wilde 28r-v (Figs. 17-18) show that he was prepared to consider a standing figure of the Virgin (lightly drawn in Fig. 17), which would have meant rejecting the block of marble ordered in 1521. This again implies that funds were readily available. In January 1524, responding no doubt to the Pope's enthusiasm, Michelangelo started work on models for the Dukes' tombs.55 It may well have been in the models that an important modification was made, the finial zone being replaced by an attic, which binds the tombs tightly to the overhanging pietra serena architrave (Fig. 1); for this was just the sort of issue that the models might be expected to clarify. The change should be dated before March 8, 1524.56 Our group of Magnifici designs was probably drawn after Clement VII's accession in November 1523. For the terminus ante quem, the introduction of the attic on the models of the Dukes' tombs provides the best clue. It is significant that the group of Magnifici drawings still shows a finial zone, not an attic, for this suggests that they were designed prior to March 1524. In the final group of drawings for the Magnifici Tomb, most probably of March or April 1524, we see an attic, not a finial zone (Figs. 21-22); thus the tomb has been brought up to date with the Dukes' tombs. More generally, the introduction of the attic implies that Michelangelo saw a need to unify$ the tomb with the surrounding architecture of the chapel. This represents a watershed in the history of the Magnifici Tomb.

the entablature ofApril 1521 (Fig. 11) were long behind him; yet they too had had their value in his architectural education. It is significant that Michelangelo developed the design largely through the use of plans. No doubt this practice both reflects the extraordinary nature of the problems he faced and explains the density of his solution. His studies of possible relationships between piers and columns, based on differing degrees of projection and concealment, are the most original of sixteenth-century Italy. His choreography of columns was to characterize not only the Library, but also the Palazzo dei Conservatori and the Sforza Chapel.

Columnar Choreography (1524)

Michelangelo's final group of drawings deals with probably the most difficult set of compositional problems ever faced by an architect in designing a tomb. He wished to keep the vertical axis of the outer bays centered on the sarcophagi, as in the Stockholm drawing, while ensuring a tighter connection between the tomb and its surrounding structure; yet, with extraordinary punctiliousness, he insisted that the connection should not compromise the integrity of the tomb. It is hard not to suspect that, in setting himself these problems, he wished to develop his skills as an architect. Finally, having stimulated his imagination by a method somewhat akin to doodling, he produced an extremely dense five-bay solution, which incorporated inset coupled columns (Fig. 23). Later, he was to put the motif to a rather different purpose in the Laurentian Vestibule (Fig. 27). The apparent ease with which he developed the elements of the final design is a testimony to his creative process, to his clarity of analysis, and to his confidence in his abilities. His struggle with the triglyph-brackets in the scheme of Uffizi 607E (Fig. 8), his carefully prepared but inconsequential paradoxes in
54 Barocchi and Ristori, IIn,12. 55Ibzd., 19.
56 It is implied by the payment for balusters for a model of the tombs; see

Bardeschi Ciulich and Barocchi (as in n. 31), 116.

Compositionalproblems. Before proceeding to the drawings, I will examine a set of problems that lie near the core of Michelangelo's thoughts about the Magnifici Tomb. These concern the ideal requirements of the outer bays: that they should be centered on the sarcophagi and that they should reach to the edges of the tomb recess. The only straightforward solution was that of Wilde 26r, in which there were just two bays (Fig. 7); but that scheme suffered from its lack of a strong center. For a three-bay composition, one may state the general principle: if Michelangelo broadened the central bay, he narrowed the structure as a whole, and vice versa. The reasoning is as follows. The axes of the outer bays were fixed-as has been seen, to about 1.084m in from the edges of the recess. Broadening the central bay meant contracting the outer bays, not just on the inner sides, but also on their outer ones (to ensure symmetry along their axes). Consequently, for each unit of breadth given to the central bay, the overall structure was contracted by two units. The Stockholm drawing represents an excellent compromise between the requirements of the central bay and those of the structure as a whole (Fig. 19). The central bay could hardly be narrowed any further, without jeopardizing its dominant role in the composition. Even so, the outer columns have to be placed rather far from the edges of the recess, but Michelangelo reduced the gap through the expedient of the strips. Here is a further problem. Michelangelo could easily have continued the strip to the edge of the recess, provided that he also continued the full horizontal articulation, which would consequently have been cut by the pietra serena piers. Instead (as in the scheme of April 1521, Fig. 11) he detailed the edges of the tomb so that it might be read as a self-sufficient structure. Only the cymatium of the cornice could be allowed to reach the piers. The rest of the tomb structure must be narrower than the recess, so as to permit the cornice the projection it would require if the tomb were a free-standing structure. Hence the gap. Yet this solution was still open to criticism from an increasingly demanding Michelangelo. Already in 1521 he had designed a much tighter, more elegant relationship between the Dukes' tombs and the pietra serena piers (Figs. 1, 20). In the Dukes' tombs, the key feature is the use of projecting strips to flank the side bays of the main story. The inner strips are naturally read as part of a cluster of articulating members, whose main features are the pilasters. The outer strips are necessarily related to the inner, yet they abut instead against the pietra serena piers. They are square in plan, so that they may be read with equal

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difficulties, but it is interesting that among his many sketches, they never appear, even as a possibility. It is as if he intended to solve the problems of the Magnifici Tomb with the means proper to it, that is, with columns. Again we may suspect that he was using the tomb as an exercise in architectural ingenuity, in a manner akin to the scheme of April 1521. The drawings. The series consists of three main sheets, Ashmolean Museum Parker 308, British Museum Wilde 38, and a copy of the definitive project in the Metropolitan Museum of Art ("the Scholz plan") (Figs. 21-23).58 By good fortune, these document what appear to be the main phases of the design, the only serious loss being the elevation of the definitive project. They should most probably be dated to March or April 1524, since both Parker 308 and Wilde 38 contain sketches for the Laurentian Library of that period.59 The scheme shown in the Scholz plan, which follows the two sheets so closely, must date from much the same time. Parker 308. Michelangelo's first thoughts were to achieve a tight relationship, both vertically and horizontally, between the tomb and the pietra serena architecture of the chapel.60 In J, he sketched the left and central bays of the tomb, recasting the Stockholm design in the light of the Dukes' tombs: he introduced an attic, and set the outer half-column directly against an imagined pietra serena pier. It is notable that the column bears a cornice that can project only to the right. (The pediment drawn later should be ignored.) But the column on the other side of the bay bears a cornice that projects both to left and to right. It is clear from later sketches that, in Michelangelo's eyes, the resulting lopsided-

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ease as projectedfrom the wall, or as projectedfrom the and thusensuresthatthe outer pilasters piers.Michelangelo whileformingan integralpartof the marblestructure, strips, are relatedto the pietra serena piers,withwhichthey makea the fit.57This treatmenthas an importantcorollary: tight relatedboth to the pilastersof the tomband to strips,being the pietra serena betweenthose piers,establisha relationship dominantverticals.In a sense, the pietraserenapiers have been absorbedinto the compositionof the tomb, and the of tomb,in its turn,into the composition the chapel. In the final group of drawingsfor the Magnifici Tomb, Michelangelo applied the lesson of the Dukes'tombs. His new ideal for this tomb was that it be legible as a selfsufficient structure, be as tightlylockedinto the systemof yet the chapel as the Dukes'tombs.A specialcomplication was his desireto use columns,whichare far less adaptablethan in strips.Theycouldnot, for instance,be cut sideways halfby the pietraserenapiers,withoutrunningthe risk of seeming unduly beholden to those piers. Why did Michelangelo refuse to change to a strip-basedsystem?Given the constraints the Magnifici of Tomb, stripstoo wouldhavecaused

57 Prater (as in n. 28), 64, gives a different interpretation of the articulation of the outer bays, which appears to ignore the role of the strips.

None of these drawings has received much analysis. For Parker 308, see Wilde, 1953, 75-76; L. Dussler, Die Zeichnungen des Michelangelo, Berlin, 1959, no. 345; Tolnay, 1975-80, no. 191; C. Elam, "The Mural Drawings in Michelangelo's New Sacristy," Burlington Magazine, cxxIII, 1981, 594. For Wilde 38, see Wilde, 1953, 74-76; Tolnay, 1975-80, no. 561; C. Elam, "Michelangelo: His Late Roman Architecture," inAA Files. Annals of the Architectural AssociationSchool ofArchitecture,I, 1981-82, 72 (the first correct identification of the drawing). The Scholz plan is an anonymous copy of a plan that corresponds to the executed Medici Chapel, with the exception of the Magnifici Tomb--which must represent a project. It was first published by Tolnay, 1948, 164; for what concerns the Magnifici Tomb, see esp. Ackerman, 1964, 27, and P. dal Poggetto, I disegni muralidi Michelangeloe sua scuola nella SagrestiaNuova di San Lorenzo, Florence, 1979, 50-52. However, the tomb can never have been erected in the form shown, as Ackerman and, hypothetically, Dal Poggetto consider. In addition to these drawings, two template sheets for the bases of the columns should be mentioned: Casa Buonarroti 59A, 61A (Tolnay, 1975-80, nos. 203-204). Lastly, for the fragmentary plan that has been discovered in the presbytery of the Medici Chapel, see Dal Poggetto (as above), 194-195. 59 For Parker 308v, which shows an early design for the ceiling of the Library, see C. de Tolnay, "Un 'pensiero' nuovo di Michelangelo per il soffitto della Libreria Laurenziana," Criticad'arte, Ix, 1955, 237-240. I am not persuaded by the arguments of Ackerman, 1964, 38, for a later date. Wilde 38 contains three unnoticed sketches in black chalk at the top for the Laurentian staircase. They have very much in common with Archivio Buonarroti I, 80, fol. 219 (Tolnay, 1975-80, no. 523, upside down: see Hirst [as in n. 14], fig. 196), and they surely date from the same period. 60 The sketches on Parker 308 cannot receive full treatment here. Internal and other evidence indicates that they were most probably drawn in the following order: elevations J and B; plans E, D, F, G, H (with the variant I); elevations C and A.

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ness of the bay implied an undue interference of the chapel architecture with that of the tomb. After B, Michelangelo stopped drawing elevations, and started drawing plans. This unusual method of developing a tomb design enabled him to work with overlapping planes, and led ultimately to a bravura intricacy of plan that is quite exceptional. Already in E, the first plan, we see what was to be the leitmotif of the sheet: a column set half into the side of the recess, behind the pietra serena pier. In effect, a halfcolumn is presented to our gaze, cut, as it were, by the pier; but, with a fascinating quibble, Michelangelo insists that it is really a full column, whose other half continues behind the pier. In this way, we can have our cake and eat it: the tight fit, and the self-sufficient tomb. But Michelangelo seems to have realized that the issue was not quite so simple, for he drew a short line through the pietra serena pier at the left, most probably representing the problematic projection of the tomb cornice. He was faced with an uncomfortable choice between the notional integrity of the tomb and that of the pietra serena pier. If the tomb was to be self-sufficient, its cornice should project not only where it could be seen, but even where it could not, inside the pier-which would thus lose its self-sufficiency. That Michelangelo pressed ahead with his scheme, despite its problematic aspects, illustrates the atmosphere of fantasy in which he undertook his series of plans. If a fiction provoked new thoughts, it served its purpose. Next, Michelangelo gave his imagination free rein to develop relationships between piers and half-projecting, half-obscured columns. The highly original studies that follow depend upon a notion akin to that of blocking in choreography, as columns are moved singly and in pairs, in relation to the piers. In sixteenth-century architecture, the variety of settings for columns seen here has perhaps its only parallel in Michelangelo's own work at the Palazzo dei Conservatori.6' In D, he elaborated the central recess. He extended it toward the left, so that the side of the recess is on axis with the column in front. If the plan is turned upside down, it is evident that he has reproduced the relationship that already existed between the pietra serena pier and the outer column. Seen from the front, the tomb would present, at its edges, a (pzetraserena) pier covering half a column, and at the center, a column covering half a (marble) pier. Thus, not content with the half-obscured column as a means of locking the edge of the tomb to the pietra serena piers, Michelangelo introduced a reversed version of the motif into the center of the tomb for greater coherence. The reversal, surely more striking on paper than in stone, has its justification in the stimulus it could offer to his imagination. In F, Michelangelo continued to elaborate the design, again with an eye to coherence of pattern: the half-obscured column now forms part of the very structure of the tomb. There is no elevation to work out the complex central is so deep that it would break into the recess-which

adjoining chapel of the church. But Michelangelo was continuing to develop motifs through a willing acceptance of fictions. Next, he transformed F into G, treating the outer bays in the same way as he had treated the central bay. It is fascinating to observe that such a simple procedure converted F into something very different. H is the richest in ideas among the entire series of drawings, developing the choreography of columns to a new complexity. There is every indication that it was drawn in the same fantastical and elaborative vein as the previous plans, but that Michelangelo found in it the basis for a workable design. Especially significant are the "broad marble piers," or projecting outer bays, which were to serve as backdrops for the statues of the saints. It is part of their conception that they should be flanked on either side by columns; they project sideways with "lugs," so as to cover half the column in the manner already established. The columns are set tightly in pairs at right angles to the plane of the wall, in a development from the previous plan; partly recessed, they anticipate the paired inset columns parallel to the plane of the wall that appear in all subsequent designs. Behind the pietra serena piers, Michelangelo, momentarily at a loss, drew further piers corresponding to the columns. Michelangelo drew the elevation C in order to work out the implications of H. He introduced what I believe is a further column behind the pietra serena pier, so that a pair of columns are fitted into the gap at the edge of the tomb, each of them half-visible. The complex arrangement of columns prefigures the final design. Michelangelo saw from the drawing that the outer bays (i.e., the marble piers) were no longer on axis with the sarcophagi. Turning to A, he attempted to solve the problem simply by broadening the marble piers at the expense of the central bay. But the change in proportions cannot be sufficient: a greater gap is needed between the pietra serena pier and the broad marble pier, if (in accordance with the principle stated earlier) the central bay is not to be impossibly narrow. Wilde 38. The main plan of Wilde 38 shows Michelangelo returning to his speculative mode (Fig. 22). In the final elevations of the previous sheet, the two outer columns were each half-visible; now, one column is completely visible from the front, the other totally obscured. The change has the character of the transpositions of Michelangelo's recent plans, in that it increases his range of alternatives. Perhaps too he was interested in the effect of the hidden column, which the visitor might notice only after long looking at the tomb. Years later, in the Sforza Chapel, he was to return to this idea.62 The lugs of the marble piers have been removed, so that the columns come almost into line with the front faces of those piers. The plan was most probably not drawn to scale, for the columns are much larger (in relation to the breadth of the recess) than we should expect for the tomb. It is therefore

See my article, "The Palace of the Roman People: Michelangelo at the der Palazzo dei Conservatori," forthcoming in Romischesjahrbuch BzbblothecaHertzzana,xxviI, 1993.

61

62 Cf. Elam, 1981-82 (as in n. 58), 72.

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uncertain whether Michelangelo intended to center the marble piers on the sarcophagi. If that was indeed his intention, the gap between these piers and those in pietra serenawould (again in accordance with the principle stated above) have required more than a single column of the usual size to fill it. It is interesting that in the subsidiary plan above the main one, Michelangelo seems to have come to precisely this realization. Without bothering to draw the marble pier, he filled the gap with a full column and a half-column. By now it is clear that he saw the gap as a feature that might be varied

in order to center the marble piers on the sarcophagi. By now too he returned to the existing outlines of the tomb recess. But his sketch contains a problem that previously he had taken pains to avoid: the half-column, being cut off by the side of the recess, runs the risk of appearing too closely assimilated with the architecture of the chapel. The Scholz plan. This plan requires a word of introduction (Fig. 23). The projection in front of the recess represents the low marble plinth on which, as in front of the Dukes' tombs, the sarcophagi would rest. Were they drawn in, they would be

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24 Author's redrawing of Scholz plan (Fig. 23) with plinths of present statues indicated in broken lines. Axes of marble piers are marked (photo: Morrogh)

on axis with the broad marble piers.63 The central bay would contain the group of the Madonna and Child. The statues of two saints would sit in front of the marble piers, which are edged, rather curiously, with aedicule frames, probably to serve as a backdrop for the statues. The sides and rear of the tomb recess are clad with marble. At the sides, the marble cladding was to project slightly beyond the pietra serena piers, doubtless to distinguish the tomb from the architecture of the chapel. I have redrawn the plan of the tomb recess in Figure 24, with inevitable approximations owing to the small scale of the Scholz drawing.64 The Scholz plan shows that in his final design Michelangelo redeployed the paired columns at the edges of the tomb, thus avoiding the half-column of Wilde 38. However, the columns on either side of the marble piers were to be partly covered by the aedicule frames. The loss of an elevation for the final design obliges us to turn to the earlier elevations for suggestions as to its treatment. They provide three clearly defined alternatives. In Parker 308 C, the tomb is composed of two very different systems of articulation: the order, bearing an entablature with an attic above, and the broad marble piers, which, interrupting the order, reach directly to the pietra serena architrave. To a large extent, the design combines the plan of H with the elevation of the scheme of April 1521 (Fig. 11). There, the central and outer bays, lacking strong horizontal connections, appear somewhat dislocated from each other.

This effect is now fundamental to the sharp division between the order (compare the central bay in the scheme of 1521) and the broad marble piers (= the outer bays). However, the interweaving of the two systems is much clearer, thanks to such changes as the removal of the pediment and tablet from the central bay. Michelangelo was later to put this system to use in designs for the tombs of the Medici popes (intended for the choir of S. Lorenzo) of about 1526.65 Applied to the Scholz plan, the system would require that the marble piers break through the main order of the tomb into the attic. In Parker 308 A, Michelangelo broadened the marble piers at the expense of the central bay. The marble piers now bear an aedicule, which would presumably serve as a backdrop for a statue. The upper elements of the aedicule are aligned with the capitals and cornice of the columns, thereby integrating the broad marble piers more tightly with the order than in the previous elevation. The elevation in Wilde 38 offers us a glimpse, unique among Michelangelo's drawings for the Medici Tombs, of the tomb in its setting (compare Fig. 3). To left and right are the pietra serena piers; above, the entablature; on top, the blind pietra serena arch of the second order of the chapel. At the base, two lightly drawn rectangles represent the sarcophagi. The superstructure appears, a little deceptively, as a serliana. At the edges are the full columns and half-columns of the subsidiary plan; next come the broad marble piers (not the openings of a normal serliana). The cornice above the columns is carried across the marble piers without a break. The columns are thus closely tied in with the piers, in striking contrast to Parker 308 C. The central bay, which seems to lack the columns of the main plan, should probably be understood as no deeper than the existing tomb recess. Above the broad marble piers, an attic achieves a neat fit with the pietra serena architrave. The central recess is bridged by a blind arch, a form that (as I have noted) Michelangelo generally avoided in his architecture, preferring to use simply horizontals and verticals. Here the arch may be justified by its role in the overall composition of the wall: the tomb repeats, in its essentials, the scheme of the pietra serena architecture. Thus, the tomb's arch corresponds to the blind pietra serena arch at the top, its narrow outer bays to the outer bays of the lower story of the chapel (not shown on the drawing).

63 The view that Michelangelo's final design involved sarcophagi contra-

dicts Vasari's position concerning the present basement, implied in a letter of 1569 to Piero Gondi: ". . . per dare fine a un cassone, che e di marmo, il quale haveva fatto Michelagnolo Buonarruoti per mettervi i corpi di Lorenzo Vecchio et Giuliano suo fratello, padri di dua papi, Sua Eccellenza [i.e. Duke Cosimo de' Medici] l'ha fatto murare in detta sagrestia .. ."; G. Vasari, Der literarischeNachlass, ed. K. Frey, 3 vols., 461. Lapini, presumably reflecting Munich-Burg am Main, 1923-40, nII, the official view, also refers to the basement as a "cassone grande"; A. Lapini, Diariofiorentinoda 252 al 1596, ed. G. O. Corazzini, Florence, 1900, 124. Yet the Scholz plan surely requires that Michelangelo did design sarcophagi, for otherwise the marble plinth in front of the tomb makes little sense, particularly in the context of the Dukes' tombs, and the extraordinary planning of the superstructure lacks a motive. Sarcophagi had appeared in the closely related elevation on Wilde 38. Most probably the marble for the sarcophagi was never worked. As noted below, it is striking that Vasari apparently did not ask

Michelangelo about his intentions concerning the tomb; he preferred to erect it in an incomplete form. 64 The drawing measures 436/443 x 298/290mm. The columns and much else were drawn free-hand. In my drawing, I have taken their diameter as 23cm, from the Stockholm drawing. I have derived the approximate projection of the base moldings from Casa Buonarroti 59A and 61A (Tolnay, 1975-80, nos. 203-204). I have assumed that (as seems to be the case in Wilde 38) the columns would be set as close to the edges of their recesses as their bases would permit. I have also assumed that the lower, rough plinth of Saint Cosmas (on the right in Fig. 24) would be trimmed to the same dimensions as the plinth immediately above. It is quite possible that the lower plinth of the Virginwould also be trimmed, but I have shown it complete, not wishing to guess at the amount. 65 British Museum Wilde 39, Casa Buonarroti 46A, and 128A: Tolnay, 1975-80, nos. 192, 277, 279.

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The three elevations differ in the relationship of the outer columns to the marble piers, and in the treatment of the cornice/entablature above the outer columns. In Parker 308 C and A, this feature is discontinuous, suggesting that Michelangelo did not yet see the outer columns fully as a pair. Moreover, the columns are set somewhat behind the lugs of the marble piers (compare Parker 308 H). In Wilde 38, the removal of the lugs enables the columns to come forward to almost the same plane as the piers. It seems natural that the cornice should run continuously across both the piers and the columns, and aforthort that it should not be interrupted between the outer columns. Since, in the Scholz plan, the relationship between the piers and the columns is similar, probably here too the cornice would have connected them, projecting above the piers. The Laurentian Vestibule gives a rough idea of what we should expect (Fig. 27). In at least one respect, the elevation on Wilde 38 is an unreliable guide to that of the final design, for it lacks the columns of the central bay. Whether these would have borne an arch in the final design is best left open. For the aedicules, whose frames project sideways so remarkably in the Scholz drawing, only Parker 308 A can give the slightest idea of what Michelangelo might have intended. There is perhaps no other example of a tomb face being chopped up into so many little bits to perform different functions. Let us return to the two ideal requirements for the outer bays: that they should be centered on the sarcophagi, and that they should reach to the edges of the tomb recess. The two requirements are now divided between two units, the piers and the coupled columns, so that in effect we have a five-bay structure. One reading of this would stress the columnar recessed bays; the other, the broad marble piers, projecting conveniently (with their statues) toward the sarcophagi. But the two readings are integrated by the suggesin part to the projecting frames of the tion that-thanks columns on either side of each pier owe aedicules-the allegiance to it, as in Parker 308 C and A. Michelangelo was to return to this theme in the drawings for the papal tombs of about 1526. The paired outer columns play a crucial role in integrating the tomb with the architecture of the chapel: rather like the strips in the outer bays of the Dukes' tombs, they are instrumental in relating the edges of the recess to the marble piers. The elevation on Wilde 38 suggests how the integration might work on a larger scale. By now, Michelangelo

completely abandoned the fiction that the tomb represents an essentially free-standing structure that just happens to be set into a wall. Behind the extraordinary bravura of Michelangelo's final project lies an exceptional flexibility of approach. He was prepared to use plans, not just elevations, for developing a tomb design; to toy with problematic groupings that other architects would have avoided (the relationship of the column to the pietra serena pier in Parker 308 E, etc.); to create patterns on paper. His sketches lack the straightforward, end-directed quality of so much Renaissance planning; in their attention to pattern, and apparent freedom from practical constraints, they have something of the deliberate relaxation of the doodle.66 Michelangelo seems to have felt that his problems required precisely such indirect means for their solution. In its executed state, the Magnifici Tomb is the great disappointment of the Medici Chapel. In place of Michelangelo's dense and sophisticated design is little more than a marble box, which serves as a plinth for the three statues, and the unarticulated void of the recess above. The state of the tomb is the more poignant, since we know that much of the marble required for Michelangelo's design had been worked.67 Yet it seems unlikely that the marble needed for the sarcophagi was ever carved;68 and, though the columns were ready, there was perhaps some doubt about the details of the superstructure. Probably about May or June 1559 Vasari erected the present tomb, surely aware that he was following Michelangelo's intentions only to a limited extent.69 He seems, remarkably, to have made no effort to consult his greatly admired friend. Yet when one considers how difficult it had been to extract from Michelangelo a final design for the Laurentian staircase,70 Vasari's lack of contact over the tomb may appear expeditious-and even wise. had decided that the three statues, Suppose Michelangelo long since carved, were no longer suitable? Calculations suggest that the front face of the present tomb, though doubtless composed of marble cut for Michelangelo's basement, has lost half or three-quarters of a meter in total height.71 The three statues are accordingly seen from too low; the lankly proportioned Madonna in particular requires a higher viewing point.72 The positions of Saints Cosmasand Damzan conform only roughly to Michelangelo's intentions. It is proper that the Saznts should gaze
toward the Madonna73 (compare the Stockholm drawing: Fig.

see E. H. Gombrich, "The Grotesque Heads," in The HeritageofApelles,Oxford, 1970, 57-75. 67 See the letter of 1546 from Pierfrancesco Riccio to Duke Cosimo de' Medici, published by W. Aschoff, Studzen zu Niccolh Tribolo, diss., Frankfurt am Main, 1967, 136: "...L'altre statue sono tutte conducte in detta sacrestia, et se pare all'Ex. V. si potranno mettere nel luogo dove hanno da stare, che e un altare di rimpetto allaltro, et vi sono li marmori et le colonne lavorati in maggior parte, che si mettera insieme con una miseria....
68

66 On Leonardo's doodles,

See n. 63 above.

69 Lapini (as in n. 63), 124, dates the re-interment of the Magnifici in the tomb toJune 3, 1559; Vasari (as in n. 63), II, 461, to May 22.
70 R. Wittkower, "Michelangelo's Biblioteca Laurenziana," in Idea and Image, London, 1978, 35-42; Ackerman, 1964, 35-36.

71 The platform of the present tomb is 1.465m above the pavement. To judge from the Scholz plan, the columns were to rest on it directly. Following the scheme of April 1521 and the Stockholm design, we may calculate the total height of the columns as ten times their diameter, i.e., ca. 2.34m. We still have ca. 2.58m of the total height of the tomb to account for (i.e., up to the pietra serena architrave). None of the late elevation sketches suggests any such top-heaviness. It seems desirable that the upper part of the tomb be rather lower than the columns, and probably also than the basement. We should therefore probably add around a half or three-quarters of a meter to the height of the basement, reducing the height of the upper zone by the same amount. 72Wilde, 1955, 58, reached the same conclusion. 73Verellen (as inmn. 51), 274-277.

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19), and, given the bare wall behind them, suitable that they
should be evenly spaced in the recess.74 Yet the plan shows

that Michelangelo intended a tighter grouping of the three statues, with a greater differentiation in depth (Fig. 24). In formal terms, the composition would have approximated a pyramid. More closely packed, the figures would appear more dramatic in their differences of mood, the stillness of the Madonna in her recess contrasting with the agitation of the saints in front of the broad marble piers. Even so, a glance at the tightly integrated Stockholm scheme is enough to suggest that the loss of Michelangelo's elevation for the tomb sadly impairs our understanding of the executed sculpture. The Magnifici Tomb and the Laurentian Vestibule My discussion so far has paid the Laurentian Library but inadequate notice. In particular,I have argued that Michelangelo developed the motif of the coupled inset columns for the Magnifici Tomb, thereby begging the question of the tomb's relationship to the Vestibule (Fig. 27). Michelangelo's taste for recessed columns had its origins in his earlier career, and especially in his use of balusters. He evidently admired the base of Donatello'sJudith, which has balusters set into its corners, for he used the type in the thrones of the Sistine Ceiling75 and twice in the Medici Chapel (the altar and the "thrones"of the Dukes' tombs, Fig. 1). He had also been a friend of Giuliano da Sangallo, who had drawn an ancient tomb on the Via Appia outside Rome containing single recessed columns,76and who had used the motif, in a rather different form, in an early plan for St. Peter's.77 Michelangelo was sketching single recessed columns for the Vestibule as early as March or April 1524, in a sheet now at Haarlem (Fig. 25, plan at upper right),78 but whether this sheet, or those for the Magnifici tomb came first,we cannot say. The next survivingdesign for the walls of the Vestibule, Casa Buonarroti 48A, shows coupled recessed columns (Fig. 26).79It dates at the earliest from April 1525, when the motif had already been developed in connection with the Magnifici Tomb. There were excellent compositional reasons why Michelangelo should have been led to its creation for the tomb; none, so far as I can see, for the Vestibule.

The student of the Magnifici Tomb can hardly ignore the critical attention lavished, in this century, on the coupled columns of the Vestibule (Fig. 27). The problem faced by scholars is that, while it is normal for the order to stand in front of the wall, in the Vestibule the situation is reversed. And the room poses other problems too. The overwhelming critical response has been to treat it as an instance of architectural expressionism without parallel in the sixteenth century. Thus Wittkower found in it "irreconcilable conflict," "a situation of doubt and uncertainty."80s One is often left with the impression, from reading modern studies, that Michelangelo's aim was to create a work of pure art, for which broader questions of function and the expectations of the patron were irrelevant.81 Yet major works of architecture were not built in such circumstances in the sixteenth century, if indeed they ever have been. Again, the concept of expressionism belongs to the twentieth century. It is true that Michelangelo, like other architects, worked out his own solutions in light of his own sense of what was architecturally interesting or appropriate, but he did so with public purposes and an audience in mind. In place of the expressionistic interpretation, it will be salutary to apply some critical concepts available in the sixteenth century.82 It is to be expected that Michelangelo's artistic ideals should be appropriate to the purposes of his princely clients. The point is implicit in Niccol6 Martelli's often-quoted words of 1544 about the statues of the Dukes in the Medici Chapel: the sculptor did not copy them from life, "but gave them a grandeur, a proportion, a decorum, a grace, a splendor, such as he thought would bring them greater praise."83 Surely Michelangelo's architecture at S. Lorenzo, including the tomb structures, was informed by similar aims. In architecture, Michelangelo had a penchant throughout his life for expensive, elaborate solutions, which would convey a much-admired quality in a rich patron: magnificence.84 In this respect, the development of the Laurentian Vestibule has exemplary value. The Haarlem drawing seems to show a simple treatment with pilasters making way for a richer one with columns (Fig. 25). For these a precedent existed in another vestibule, that to the Sacristy of S. Spirito.85 There, the columns are free-standing; here, for statical reasons, they had to be recessed into the wall.86 Later, Michelangelo set them in pairs, as he had done in the

see Tolnay, 1948, pl. 225. 75Nova (as in n. 14), 101, figs. 58, 60. 76C. Huelsen, II librodz Gzuliano Sangallo,Cod. Barb. lat. 4424, da 215. Leipzig, 1910, fol. 70v. Cf. Sinding-Larsen, The tomb is sometimes referredto as thatof AnniaRegilla. 77 Uffizi 8Ar: F. Wolff Metternich, Dze fruhen St.-Peter-Entwurfe15051514, ed. C. Thoenes, Tiubingen, 1987, pl. 70. Wolff Metternich's attemptedreconstructions, 73-75, are useful,but not convincing. pls. 78Tolnay, 1975-80, no. 219v. 79Ibid.,no. 527. The motif of the coupled recessed columns seems to have been only recently taken over into the Vestibule, since the treatmentof many importantdetails, such as the corner, is still in the 89Ar, processof beingworkedout. I do not believethatCasaBuonarroti no. a four-bay design, has anythingto do withthe Vestibule; ibzd., 524. 80Wittkower in n. 70), 58-67. (as

74Cort's engravingimpliesthat the presentplacinggoes backto Vasari;

81 Cf. Ackerman, 1986, 97: "As in modern practice, the patron [i.e., the Pope] was constantly concerned with the utilitarian programme while the architect strove for a maximum of expressive effect within its confines." Ackerman's analysis of the Library accords with this statement of his position. 82 Shearman (as in n. 42), 75, 135-137; Sinding-Larsen has applied this approach to the Vestibule in greater detail. nelle redazzonz 1550 e del del Quoted in G. Vasari, La vita di Mzchelangelo 1568, ed. P. Barocchi, 5 vols., Milan and Naples, 1962, in, 993. 84 For this concept, see A. D. F.Jenkins, "Cosimo de' Medici's Patronage of Architecture and the Theory of Magnificence, "Journal of the Warburg and CourtauldInstitutes,XXXIII, 1970, 162-170; and J. Onians, Bearersof Meaning, Princeton, 1988, 123-129. 85 C. de Tolnay, Mzchelangelo, Princeton, 1975, 137.
86 Sinding-Larsen, 214.
83

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i -1

.
.

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25 Michelangelo, sketches for Vestibule. Haarlem, Teylers Museum, Inv. A 33b v (photo: Museum) Magnifici Tomb. Their justification is, I believe, to be found less in compositional needs than in their very rich impression, which is enhanced by the extraordinary abundance of emphatic, elaborately carved detail all around. It bespeaks the patron's magnificence. In the Magnifici Tomb, regardless of compositional need, the coupled columns would again have appeared to rich effect. For contemporary critics, Michelangelo was the champion of originality in architecture.87 What Vasari admired in the Vestibule was the novelty of Michelangelo's invention, together with the exceptional quality of his design. Calling the room "marvelous," he praised the grace of the whole and of the details, the convenience of the staircase and the bizarre breaks of its outer steps, and the novelty of the many parts.88 If we may judge from their silence, early critics were far less affected by the shocking, paradoxical quality of the recessed coupled columns than we are today.89 In Vasari's eyes, the columns probably helped to make the Vestibule marvelous, and were novel in themselves-an example, perhaps, of a within the rules of composition.90 license that yet remained 26 Michelangelo, sketches for Vestibule. Florence, Casa Buonarroti 48A (photo: Casa Buonarroti) In a famous passage, he implied that Michelangelo's innovations at the Medici Chapel and the Library "added" to what was sanctioned by common usage, Vitruvius and antiquity, opening up new possibilities for artists.91 Vasari's rhetoric is based on the Renaissance idea of artistic progress, to which Michelangelo would have subscribed.92 Thus the inset columns of the Vestibule and of the Magnifici Tomb, strange though they seem to us, partake of a mainstream ideal in Renaissance art. Michelangelo's innovative approach was stimulated by his preoccupation with the "difficulties" of art.93 At the Medici Chapel, the need to fit the tombs of four men into three recesses provoked him to two very novel solutions, the composite central tomb and the double tomb with sarcophagi laid side by side. As has been seen, he gradually acquired a deeper understanding of the problems posed by the double tomb, producing first a rigorous solution along classical lines

87j. Connors, "Ars tornandi: Baroque Architecture and the Lathe," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, LIII, 1990, 227-229. Connors has found mention of a lost architectural treatise said to be Michelangelo's work, which plausibly concluded that the best lessons were those of the architect's own genius. 88Vasari-Milanesi, 193-194; quoted by Sinding-Larsen in criticism of Wittkower. 89Vasari-Barocchi (as in n. 83), III,866-873. 90 See Vasari-Milanesi, IV,9 (introduction to the third part of the Lives): ... una licenzia che, non essendo di regola, fosse ordinata nella regola, e potesse stare senza fare confusione o guastare l'ordine"; cited by

Sinding-Larsen, 219. Compare the classicist A. C. D'Aviler's praise for 2 the Ionic capitals of the Palazzo dei Conservatori (Coursd'architecture, vols., Paris, 1691, I, 292): "La figure extraordinaire de ce chapiteau m'a fait naistre l'envie de donner la representation, pour faire connoitre qu'il y a des compositions heureuses hors de la severit6 des regles, lors qu'elles partent d'un grand fond de dessein." 91Vasari-Milanesi, vil, 193. 92 See E. H. Gombrich, "The Renaissance Idea of Artistic Progress and Its Consequences," in Norm and Form, 2nd ed., London, 1971, 1-10.
9 D. Summers, Michelangelo and the Language of Art, Princeton, 1981,

177-185.

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27 Michelangelo, Vestibule, Laurentian Library, Florence (photo: Alinari/Art Resource, N.Y.)

(the Stockholm design) and then the more personal definitive design. For a contemporary, the ingenuity of Michelangelo's solutions, and the inventions to which he was led, would have been two of the main reasons for admiring these stages of the Magnifici Tomb. Michelangelo's attitude toward originality surely owed much to his patron, who had long taken an intelligent interest in his architecture. Cardinal Giulio had pointed out the problems of the central tomb, and made an imaginative proposal of his own, in 1520.94 The next spring, he followed the construction of the chapel, complaining vigorously about some pieces of cornice;95 surely at that time he discussed the problems of the Magnifici Tomb with Michelangelo. There was further opportunity for discussion when Cardinal Giulio was again in Florence, from October 1522 to April 1523.96 After the Cardinal became pope, in November 1523, most of the discussions about the chapel and the Library took place by letter. He now appeared as a most astute patron of

architecture, concerned with both practical matters and the finer points of design. We must extrapolate his probable attitudes toward the Magnifici Tomb from the correspondence about the Library. Once practical considerations had been satisfied, he was all for novelty.97 One of Clement VII's responses is especially significant. Michelangelo had sent him a highly unusual design for the door that leads from the Vestibule to the Reading Room; it was to admit a dedicatory inscription, the only one in the Vestibule. The Pope replied that he had not seen a more beautiful door, neither ancient nor modern.98 He surely realized that not just the inscription, but the nature of its display, would make a statement about his patronage. His words suggest that he was more than satisfied to have the door represent him in this way. The Pope's encouragement assumes the greater significance when we remember Michelangelo's fluctuating attitudes toward the issue of classicism. Viewed from the perspective of the Library, even the well-assimilated classicism of the

94 Morrogh, 144. 95 Elam, 166-167. 96 L. von Pastor, TheHistoryofthe Popesfrom the Close ofthe MiddleAges, 40 vols., London, 1891-1953, Ix, 185-187.

97Cf. Elam, 171.

98 Barocchi and Ristori, III, 220; see also p. 224.

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Stockholm drawing appears as a short-lived interlude. The decisive turn taken by Michelangelo's architecture in 1524 or 1525 may have much to do with the Pope's channeling of his protege's inspiration. The result was an innovative, difficult style, the subject of uneasy comment in contemporary artistic circles.99 It is striking that most of Michelangelo's later architecture in Rome adheres more closely to traditional norms than does the Library. His work there for Pope Clement identifies his patron with architectural innovation; surely too the intricate brilliance of the final Magnifici design reflects the Pope's encouragement of Michelangelo's originality.

Frequently Cited Sources

Ackerman, J. S., 1964, The Architectureof Mzchelangelo. Catalogue, London. of , 1986, The Archztecture Mzchelangelo, 3rd ed., Chicago and Harmondsworth. Barocchi, P., and R. Ristori, eds., II Carteggio dz Mzchelangelo,5 vols., Florence, 1965-83. Elam, C., "The Site and Early Building History of Michelangelo's New Sacristy," Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Instztuteszn Florenz, XXIII, 1979, 155-186. Joannides, P., 1972, "Michelangelo's Medici Chapel: Some New Suggestions," Burlngton Magazzne,CXiv,541-551. , 1991, "A Newly Unveiled Drawing by Michelangelo and the Iconography of the Magnifici Tomb," MasterDrawings, xxIx, 255-262. Morrogh, A., "The Medici Chapel: The Designs for the Central Tomb," in Michelangelo'sDrawings (Studies in the Hzstoryof Art, xxxIII), 1992, 143-161. Neufeld, G., "Michelangelo's Times of Day: A Study of Their Genesis," Art Bulletzn,XLVil, 1966, 273-284. Perrig, A., "Die Konzeption der Wandgrabmaler der Medici-Kapelle," N.F. Vii, 1981, 247-287. Stadel-Jahrbuch, S. Sinding-Larsen, "The Laurenziana Vestibule as a Functional Solution," Acta ad Archaeologiam ArtzumHzstortam et Pertinentza,vill, 1978, 213-222. Tolnay, C. de, 1948, TheMediciChapel,Princeton. , 1969, "Nouvelles Remarques sur la Chapelle Medicis," Gazette des beaux-arts,6e per., LXXIII, 65-80. 4 dez Novara. , 1975-80, Corpus disegnzdzMzchelangelo, vols., scultori ed archztettori, ed. G. Vasari, G., Le vite de' pni eccellentz pzttorz, Milanesi, 9 vols., Florence, 1906. Museum:Michelangeloand Wilde, J., 1953, Italian Drawings in the Brittish His Studio, London. 1955, "Michelangelo's Designs for the Medici Tombs,"]ournal , and CourtauldInstztutes, of the Warburg XVilI, 54-66.

AndrewMorrogh'sexhibitioncatalogue, Disegni di architetti fiorentini 1540-1640, an introduction the holdings of the to Uffizi in the field, was publishedin 1985. One result of his researchon Mzchelangelo's hzs subsequent archztecture, article, "The Palaceof theRomanPeople:Michelangelo thePalazzodei at will appear in the R6misches Jahrbuch der Conservatori," Bibliotheca Hertziana nextyear [Department Art, Cochraneof Woods Center,5540 SouthGreenwood Art Avenue, Chicago,Ill. 60637].

99Compare the attitudes of Cosimo Bartoli in C. Davis, "Cosimo Bartoli and the Portal of Sant'Apollonia by Michelangelo," Mzttedlungen desKunsthistorischen Instituteszn Florenz, XIX, 1975, 275-276, and Ligorio in D. Coffin, "Pirro Ligorio on the Nobility of the Arts,"Journal of the Warburg and CourtauldInstitutes,xxviI, 1964, 201-202. For Vasari-Milanesi, see n. 91. See also Connors (as in n. 87), 229-230. Bartoli's words imply that Michelangelo's architecture was the subject of lively debate in Florence. And Vasari clearly had mixed feelings, if not about Michelangelo's architecture per se, then about its effects on other architects. It is significant that in his own architecture he played safe.