athers, using for a background a landscape of Lucas van Leyden.
Agostino Veneziano made another engraving of it in 1523-24. Aristotele
da San Gallo made a drawing of the whole composition and in 1542 made
from the drawing an oil-painting (Holkham Castle, England). There exist
many fragmentary studies of the work in the Albertina Collection at
Vienna, the Accademia at Venice, the Louvre and Oxford University. They
can be put together by following a drawing of Daniele da Volterra in the
Uffizi. The battle included, besides the episode of the bathers, a
cavalry combat. "Si vedono infiniti combattendo di cavallo cominciare la
zuffa," says Vasari. The moment chosen was the one when a trumpet call
gave the alarm to the Florentines, surprised while bathing by the
Pisans.
[19] Especially from the notes where Lionardo described a battle in his
"Thatteto della Pittura," II, 145, a combination of photographic
exactness and academic rationalism.
[20] Never had so many nudes been seen in one composition except in the
Last Judgment at Orvieto. Michelangelo pushed so far his contempt not
only for any psychological analysis, but for all dramatic probability,
that he introduced into the midst of the composition a naked man lying
down and turning over lazily without seeming to take any notice of the
tumult around him. It was a classic bas-relief radiant with heroic
beauty and regardless alike of subject and feeling.
[21] Frescoes of Pinturicchio in the library of the Cathedral at Sienna,
finished in 1507.
[22] Frescoes of Signorelli in the chapel of the Cathedral of Orvieto,
finished in December, 1504. It is well known with what brutality
Michelangelo showed on many occasions his contempt for Signorelli and
for Perugino.
[23] At the end of a memorial in which he went over the whole history of
the monument of Julius II in order to clear himself from blame. (Lettere
di M. A.B., Ed. G. Milanesi, Florence, 1875, cdxxxv, p. 494.)
[24] Thode confirms this opinion, which was also held by Serlio in the
sixteenth century, in regard to the construction of St. Peter's.
[25] In 1519 we find traces of new correspondence between Michelangelo
and Turkey. A certain Tommaso di Tolfo of Adrianople begs him to come to
Turkey and to paint some pictures for the "Seigneur of Adrianople, who
is a connoisseur in art and has bought an antique."
[26] The statue was seven brasses (11.34 metres) high and the Pope was
represented as seated.
[27]
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