Michelangelo,
one of the greatest artists of all time, created his most important,
but not his first, fake at the behest of the son of Lorenzo de
Medici, one of the greatest art patrons of all time.
Michelangelo
Buonarroti was born in Caprese (1475),
where
his father briefly was the podesta or chief magistrate. The family
possessed only modest means. The father, Ludovico, was an undynamic
soul whose self-assigned task was to hold on to a small inherited
farmstead at Settignano about three miles northeast of Florence. His
service in Caprese lasted only a year.
If
Ludovico lacked personal ambition, he demanded more of his son. He
was not pleased with the boy’s predilection for art, for the
boy was often found in the churches sketching the paintings hanging
on every side. Michelangelo had not only to contest with his father
but his father’s brother as well. But he wore them down, and at
13, on the advice of Francesco Granacci, the boy’s 19-year-old
friend, they apprenticed him to the workshop of Domenico and David
Ghirlandajo, who were working on a fresco for the choir of S. Maria
Nouvella.
This
was as good a choice as could be made at the time, for Domenico was
the best artist in Florence and was without peer in his portrayals of
everyday Florentine life. He was called Ghirlandajo because he was
the first to deck the heads of children he painted with garlands. He
was, too, the first artist to reject the false taste of putting gold
and silver ornaments into pictures and demonstrated how these colors
might be imitated in oils with a more harmonious effect. Domenico had
his hand in all public works of the time, and Pope Sixtus IV called
him to Rome to work on the Sistine Chapel.
This
Domenico-Michelangelo relationship was not a happy one. The contract
called for the boy to be paid eight florins his first year, 10 his
second, and 12 thereafter. In truth, Michelangelo could learn little
from the brothers – he was actually self-taught through the
copying of masters.
Domenico
was jealous of the boy’s drawing superiority. The boy is said
to have corrected one of the master’s drawings, using a few
bold strokes to improve the presentation of a female figure.
Michelangelo
could have learned from his master, but he refused to, for he was
apprenticed to painters when he wanted to be a sculptor. At least he
should have learned the technical secrets of plaster preparation for
frescoes from the Ghirlandajos, but he failed even this, and it would
haunt him later. Still, his genius lay in both fields, and he brought
off successful counterfeiting in both.
Condivi,
his pupil in later years, tells how Michelangelo borrowed a
particular painting to copy, this being part of the method by which
painters leaned to paint. When he had completed his replica, he
smoked it. Michelangelo showed both pieces to all those present in
Domenico’s studio, but no one could detect the replica. There
was no evident difference between the original and the counterfeit.
To further prove his skill, Michelangelo kept the original and
returned the copy. The owner never detected the switch and never knew
of it until the artist confessed and traded back.
The
painting fake foreshadowed the sculpture fakery that plunged
Michelangelo into peril.
Five
years before Michelangelo was born, a bloody conspiracy to
assassinate Lorenzo Medici and his brother and seize control of
Florence was touched off on Easter Sunday when a 17-year-old
Cardinal, Raffaelle Rosario, visiting from Rome, raised the chalice
while celebrating mass in the cathedral. It was a pre-arranged
signal, and the cardinal’s extended family was at the heart of
it. The cardinal knew what was going to happen. He was part of the
Pazzi Conspiracy. A gang of killers dressed as priests immediately
attacked Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano, who were co-rulers of
Florence. Lorenzo managed to escape, though wounded, but his brother
was killed.
Portrait of Lorenzo de Medici by Girolamo Macchietti
The
attempted coup became a complete disaster. Eighty conspirators were
sentenced to death, including the Archbishop of Pisa and Pazzi family
members. The leaders were hurled out the windows of the Vecchio
palace with ropes attached to their necks. In their last moments they
quarreled vehemently among themselves.
Rosario
returned to Rome and became an ominous force to be reckoned with.
When
Lorenzo married, the great “conservative” wedding feast
for 200 guests was limited to 50 courses, consuming many of the 150
calves and 4000 capons and pullets given by wedding guests. Unlike
Lorenzo, his wife Clarice was narrow, bigoted, and a foreigner.
Nevertheless, she honored him with nine pregnancies, ten births, and
seven living children. When she died of tuberculosis, he turned her
quarters, the Casino Mediceo, into a memorial school and gardens for
artists.
There
hadn’t been any great sculptors in Italy since Donatello.
Lorenzo hired Bertoldo, Donatello’s assistant, to run a school
for sculptors. Bertoldo went scrounging for pupils and managed to pry
Michelangelo and Granacci from the grasp of Ghirlandajo.
Little
did the boy know that this relationship would lead him into art
forgery and a dangerous adventure with the increasingly powerful
Medici enemy, Raffaelle Riario. Uncle Girolomo Riario had just been
assassinated, and Raffaelle was trying to implicate Lorenzo.
In
his new surroundings, Michelangelo thrived. Financially, Banker
Lorenzo was over extended, some of its branches were failing, and the
school and garden were a big drain, but they brought him solace.
One
day he encountered Michelangelo polishing the marble mask of an old
faun, that minor Roman deity having head and body of a man and the
horns, pointed ears, tail, and hind legs of a goat. Lorenzo inspected
it closely. He praised the form and finish but said, “the faun
is an old man. Don’t you know age brings the loss of many
things?” As soon as his patron left, Michelangelo corrected his
mistakes with a few hammer blows.
Lorenzo’s
power was eroding. The mad monk reformist Savonarola condemned
humanism, the Renaissance achievements which Lorenzo magnified. His
influence swept Florence; yet when Lorenzo died, Savonarola was at
his bedside to give him a blessing.
Lorenzo’s
heir was his first son, Piero, as inept a successor as could be
imagined. The only sculpture Piero ever asked Michelangelo to do was
a snowman. The court magician saw the ghost of Lorenzo in a dream.
The specter warned that Michelangelo must get out of Dodge.
During
his brief absence, many of the beauties Michelangelo loved in
Florence were destroyed.
Back
home, Michelangelo found a lovely virgin block of Carrara marble and
from it brought forth a cupid, a sensuous cupid, the most dangerous
of all the pagan gods. Discovery of this classically executed piece
by the always-near, always-audible Savonarola partisans could have
put the sculptor on the stake. No one in Florence dared buy it.
Michelangelo
was told, perhaps by Piero, “Sell it in Rome. To get the best
possible price, pan it off as an antique.”
Cupid was
taken to a vineyard and buried in sour earth to rapid-age it. One can
imagine it being smuggled out of the studio at night in a horsecart
with well-oiled wheels. Intermediaries spirited the aged statue to
Rome to offer it to none other than Cardinal Raffaelle Riario, whose
rapacious acquisitiveness had become legendary.
The
magnificently browned Cupid was
of such classical sensuousness that it benefitted the cleric’s
taste. And he bought it.
But
Michelangelo was not out of the woods. The Cardinal had ears
everywhere, particularly in Florence. He began hearing vague
innuendos about his Cupid,
and he sent a trained spy to Florence to dig out the truth.
Stonecutters were not a major guild, and there were few sculptors.
The trail soon led to the young man who had been a favorite of the
hated Lorenzo.
Up
until this time Michelangelo had led what seemed to be a charmed
life. Now he was caught red handed by one of the most powerful men in
Italy.
The
contrite forger was summoned to Rome. He was told, “You are
forgiven. I will have you work for me.”
But
that wasn’t true. The story of the fake Cupid
got around. Michelangelo had made the Cardinal a fool as well as a
knave, and Michelangelo was forced to seek other commissions. A
Cardinal from France stationed in Rome was above the political fray,
and he commissioned an alter piece, the celebrated La
Pieta,
one of Michelangelo’s greatest.
It
is ironic that if the artist had not stooped to fakery and been
summoned to Rome, La
Pieta
might never have been created.
Lawrence Jeppson is an art consultant, organizer and curator of art exhibitions, writer, editor
and publisher, lecturer, art historian, and appraiser. He is America's leading authority on
modern, handwoven French tapestries. He is expert on the works of William Henry Clapp, Nat
Leeb, Tsing-fang Chen, and several French artists.
He is founding president of the non-profit Mathieu Matégot Foundation for Contemporary
Tapestry, whose purview encompasses all 20th-century tapestry, an interest that traces back to
1948. For many years he represented the Association des Peintres-Cartonniers de Tapisserie and
Arelis in America.
Through the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, the American Federation of
Arts, the Museum of Modern Art, and his own Art Circuit Services he has been a contributor to
or organizer of more than 200 art exhibitions in the United States, Canada, Japan, and Taiwan.
He owns AcroEditions, which publishes and/or distributes multiple-original art. He was co-founder and artistic director of Collectors' Investment Fund.
He is the director of the Spring Arts Foundation; Utah Cultural Arts Foundation, and the Fine
Arts Legacy Foundation
Lawrence is an early-in-the-month home teacher, whose beat is by elevator. In addition, he has spent the past six years hosting and promoting reunions of the missionaries who served in the French Mission (France, Belgium, and Switzerland) during the decade after WWII.