The brain of Italy was a prey to fever.[160] Michelangelo had destroyed the balance of mind of a period dried out by intellectualism and weakened by the taste for pleasure. The shock of his dazzling light on their eyes, too feeble to bear it, blinded them and inspired a delirium of imagination without poetry, without thought and without life. The Carracci were needed at the end of the century, if not to snatch Italian art from inevitable death, at least to lend it, emerging from its follies and delusions, an air of dignity and a cold distinction in which it could veil itself to die. The greatness of Michelangelo was thus fatal to Italian art. So it is with everything that rises too far above its own time. Decadence can only be averted or retarded by intelligent and moderate talents like the Carracci, who, hardly separated from the average of their times, are easily understood by it. They are the geniuses of common sense, and they are, therefore, useful to the common man. The heroes of art are also its tyrants; their glory kills, and the greater they are the more they are to be feared, for they impose on all men the laws of a personality which can exist but once. They are a devouring force; they illumine, but they burn; they have the right to be unique in their being and in their work. They seem to realise in themselves the whole aim of nature, and there is nothing left for those who follow but to be absorbed and disappear. It would be absurd to offer Michelangelo as a model to young artists. Should great men ever be taken as models in art? Is not that one of the errors of classical training? They are examples of energy, sources of force and beauty. It is well to look for a moment on their radiance, then tear ourselves from their contemplation and work. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE DATE IMPORTANT EVENTS PRINCIPAL WORKS 1475 March 6. Birth of Michelangelo at Caprese. 1488 April 1. He enters the school of Domenico and David Ghirlandajo. 1489 He enters the school of Bertoldo and becomes the protégé of Lorenzo de' Medici. 1490-1492 _Mask of a Faun._ _Madonna of the Stairs._ _Combat of the Centaurs._ 1492 April 8. Death of Lorenzo de' Medici. 1492-1494 In the service of Piero de' Wooden crucifix. Medici. Statue of _Hercules_. 1494 October. Flight to Venice Angel for the Arca of and Bologna. He worked at S. Domenico in Bologna. S. Petronio in Bologna. 1495 Return to Florence. _Giovannino._ _Sleeping Love._