Michel Fustier
MICHELANGELO AND THE SISTINE CHAPEL
Michelangelo is in conflict with the Pope Julius II and both are rather bad-tempered.
But, although the Pope is all-powerful, Michelangelo's prestige is such that
the Pope has to come to terms with him. Their disagreement does not prevent
the creation of several masterpieces, the most celebrated of which is the ceiling
of the Sistine Chapel.
CHARACTERS
The Pope, Julius II, a strong, very quarrelsome personality,
Michelangelo, with a tortured face and fiery eyes.
The historian on duty, who intervenes to link the episodes together..
1 - (in the palace of the Vatican)
POPE - I have been told that you are the greatest among living sculptors.
MICHELANGELO - Your Holiness… I think I have heard that too.
POPE - I want you in my service… I have decided that you are going to
be the sculptor for my monumental tomb.
MICHELANGELO - A tomb! Your Holiness is still fully alive…
POPE - Now, now… some day we'll die. But we refuse to be forgotten. So,
a monumental tomb having three levels of marble statues. Below, instead of columns,
a score of giant slaves; above, the great characters of Scripture, Moses, Saint-Paul
and so on; and on top, surrounded by angels sounding trumpets, the grave itself.
In which I will lie.
MICHELANGELO - And where will we build such a prestigious monument?
POPE - Right in the centre of Saint-Peter's basilica, in the very heart of Christendom.
I don't want to run the risk of going unnoticed. (they leave)
HISTORIAN ON DUTY – I am the historian on duty and my mission is to link
the acts together… Now Michelangelo starts working, but marble is very
expensive and the Pope, who is as parsimonious as he is megalomaniac, is not
inclined to pay. All the less since he is beginning to ask himself whether such
a tomb is really a good idea. Doubting goes so far that one day he refuses to
receive Michelangelo. Michelangelo is so furious that he leaves Rome for Florence,
his native town. The Pope in turn becomes livid with anger.
2 - (in Bologna)
POPE - So, Michelangelo, I have had to send someone to bring you back to me
here, in Bologna!
MICHELANGELO - Your Holiness, you have offended me!
POPE - Offended you, offended you… This is a very big word for a person
of no importance!
MICHELANGELO - I am a free artist of the Republic of Florence…
HISTORIAN ON DUTY - I'm going to play the part of cardinal Soderini, who then
awkwardly intervened in the quarrel, saying : "Your Holiness, you must
excuse Michelangelo. He is an artist and artists are rough and uneducated people
whose clumsiness must be forgiven." The Pope once more became extremely
angry:
POPE - Cardinal Soderini, you have just showed yourself to be more insulting
towards Michelangelo than I could have been myself. The clumsy one, the rough
one, the ignorant one, is you yourself. Off with you, cardinal!
HISTORIAN ON DUTY - And, yielding to the wrath of the Pope, the cardinal left
under the boos of the audience.
POPE - My dear Michelangelo, let us now talk calmly. Though I am the Pope, I
love waging war and, having just conquered Bologna, I want to leave a memory
of my victory here. Consequently I order you to make a statue of me in ceremonial
garments with the tiara on my head. Pronto!
MICHELANGELO - Holy father, and the tomb?
POPE - Be quiet! The tomb is for another day… For now I want a statue
that you will cast in bronze. Three times my natural size. Something striking!
MICHELANGELO - But, your Holiness, casting bronze is not my job!
POPE - That's none of my business. You'll put that monumental statue above the
main gate of the cathedral so that the people of Bologna can remember me whenever
they go to mass.
HISTORIAN ON DUTY - And Michelangelo, using the guns captured there by the heroic
papal troops, cast in bronze a huge statue of Julius II. He then he went back
to Rome, intending to buckle down to work again to the famous tomb…
3 - (in the palace of the Vatican)
POPE - Michelangelo, I have changed my mind : it will be no longer a tomb. A
tomb would bring me bad luck.
MICHELANGELO - But I have already commissioned the marble and it has been extracted
from the prestigious quarries of Carrara. And I have already started chiselling…
POPE - Don't be so cheap! I have decided to entrust you with the decoration
of the Sistine Chapel, where you'll paint a nice fresco. The ceiling of the
Sistine, doesn't that appeal to you?
MICHELANGELO - But that's not my job. I'm not a painter, I'm a sculptor.
POPE - You already told me that once before! And I was right not to believe
you. On that ceiling you'll represent… let us see, for instance, the twelve
apostles. A fine subject, isn't it? Now, start painting!.
HISTORIAN ON DUTY - And Michelangelo went to the chapel and contemplated its
white ceiling. Then he came back to the Pope, who, on that day, was in a genial
mood.
POPE - So, you are not very eager to paint the twelve apostles?
MICHELANGELO - No, I don't feel inspired by the subject.
POPE - Michelangelo, don't get on my nerves. Are the twelve apostles unworthy
of you? Can you forget that I am the successor of Saint Peter, the first of
the apostles?
MICHELANGELO - That's true. But don't forget that you are also the representative
of God.
POPE - Of course! So what?
MICHELANGELO - …Of God who created heaven and earth. That is his greatest
glory!
POPE - Yes, you are right. What are you aiming at?
MICHELANGELO - On the vault of the Sistine I don't want to paint anything other
than God creating the world.
POPE - It's you who mistakes himself for God the Father. Are you about to give
me orders?
MICHELANGELO - Can there be disagreement between God and his representative?
POPE - Creation, creation… it's much more difficult than the twelve apostles.
Well, now leave! What are you waiting for, paint it, paint your creation. That's
what you want to do… But I will not give you one penny more.
HISTORIAN ON DUTY - Michelangelo set to work… and three years elapsed.
Three years of very hard labour: the ceiling of the Sistine was immense, almost
as large as creation itself.
4 - (in the Sistine chapel)
POPE – (leaning on a walking stick) So, what are you up to? We want to
see what you have done.
MICHELANGELO – Your visit is premature!
POPE - The scaffold on which you paint prevents anybody from seeing what you
do: how could we judge it?
MICHELANGELO - You don't have to judge, I am an artist…
POPE - Really! Who will judge you then? When will it be finished?
MICHELANGELO - You get on my nerves! It will be finished when it's finished.
POPE - (mimicking Michelangelo) "You get on my nerves, it will be finished
when it's finished…" Is that the way to speak to the Pope? You are
nothing but a rascal (he hits him with his stick).
MICHELANGELO - This, I can't take. I quit… (leaves)
HISTORIAN ON DUTY - Julius II sent a messenger after Michelangelo. The messenger
said: "The Pope, being who he is, can't apologize. But he entrusted me
to tell you that in fact… he is sorry. And herewith he has given you five
hundred ducats…" Since Michelangelo, Pope or no Pope, was craving
to finish his ceiling, he came back and set to work again ….
POPE - Well, well, now four years have passed! This time, my dear old friend,
you must have finished.
MICHELANGELO - I still have places to embellish with gold and put blue on some
of the draperies…
POPE - Leave them alone… On All-Saint's Day I will celebrate a mass in
your chapel. For the last time remove these scaffolds… and let me see
your painting at a single glance… (pause) Michelangelo, I express my gratitude
to you. The ceiling of the Sistine is an eternal work of art. I was right to
give you my confidence and I… do apologize for my fits of anger…
You see, when one grows older, one becomes indulgent, so to speak!
MICHELANGELO - It was a pleasure, Holy Father, a real pleasure. But it is time
for me to return to my marble…
POPE - Certainly, all the more so since we are no longer young and have become
tired from waging war and…
MICHELANGELO - Do you mean that you are thinking of your tomb again?
POPE - Yes, Michelangelo, I think that it's time to go back to it. You must
continue with your work now and, well, that's how it is, you will finish it
after my death…
HISTORIAN ON DUTY - This is the end of the story of Julius II and Michelangelo,
whose quarrel held the Italy of the Renaissance breathless and marked an important
moment in the history of Art.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Michelangelo was born in 1475 in a village not far from the city of Florence.
His family was a modest one and he had hardly normal schooling. As a painter's
and sculptor's apprentice, he came to the attention of the famous Lorenzo da
Medici, called Lorenzo the Magnificent, who welcomed him into his palace and
furthered his apprenticeship as a sculptor. One of his first masterpieces is
the giant statue of David which is still located in front of the ancient palace
of Florence.
Julius II, who was a very warlike pope, heard of Michelangelo and decided that
he would be one of artists dedicated to his glory. The two men, both of impressive
stature, lived in violent conflict… Whence arose the ceiling of the Sistine
Chapel, as explained in the play. After the death of Julius II, Michelangelo
did not finish his tomb such it had been planned initially, but some of the
statues he had made for it became famous, like the Moses and the Captives.
The story of Michelangelo takes place in the period of history called the Renaissance
when, after centuries of a strict and restrained Catholicism, the world rediscovered
the liberty and the values of Greco-Roman antiquity. With regards to painting,
this lead to the representation of characters stripped of their clothes, showing
them such as God created them. In fact most of the characters of Michelangelo's
frescoes are naked and very beautiful, which scandalized lots of people.
Sculpture is an heroic art, very demanding physically, taking much time and
not allowing the slightest mistake. In the time of Michelangelo, sculpture was
all the more difficult because the huge blocks of marble had to be extracted
from the quarries of Carrara and transported with much pain and effort, by land
and by sea, up to the workshops of the sculptors. A sculptor could work two
or three years on the same statue. The first draft of Pope Julius' tomb, with
its multitude of statues, would have required up to fifty years of work.
Frescopainting is also a difficult art. It is necessary to paint very quickly
in sections on a freshly applied plaster surface coating. And it is very difficult
to paint without making a mistake! Artists used to make a first sketch on a
sheet of paper and then mark on the fresh plaster the main lines of what it
was possible to paint on the same day.
Michelangelo is one of the greatest artists in the world. All the projects he
undertook were treated with a generosity, a precision, a greatness, an eloquence
and a simplicity of spirit which are still evident today. He is contemporary
with a number of other great names such as Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Luther,
Erasmus… not to mention Charles V, Francois I, and Henry VIII who then
reigned respectfully in Spain, France and England.
Non commercial use allowed. Reg. SACD - Michel Fustier, 4 Chambfort, 69 100 Villeurbanne, France. Tel: 00 33 (0)4 78 84 25 28.