The Life of Michelangelo BuonarrotiSymonds, John Addington
History
The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti
Symonds, John Addington
Michelangelo Buonarroti, 1475-1564
Light is thrown upon these dissensions between Michelangelo and his
proposed assistants by a letter which Jacopo Sansovino wrote to him at
Carrara, on the 30th of June 1517. He betrays his animus at the
commencement by praising Baccio Bandinelli, to mention whom in the
same breath with Buonarroti was an insult. Then he proceeds: "The
Pope, the Cardinal, and Jacopo Salviati are men who when they say yes,
it is a written contract, inasmuch as they are true to their word, and
not what you pretend them to be. You measure them with your own rod;
for neither contracts nor plighted troth avail with you, who are
always saying nay and yea, according as you think it profitable. I
must inform you, too, that the Pope promised me the sculptures, and so
did Salviati; and they are men who will maintain me in my right to
them. In what concerns you, I have done all I could to promote your
interests and honour, not having earlier perceived that you never
conferred a benefit on any one, and that, beginning with myself, to
expect kindness from you, would be the same as wanting water not to
wet. I have reason for what I say, since we have often met together in
familiar converse, and may the day be cursed on which you ever said
any good about anybody on earth." How Michelangelo answered this
intemperate and unjust invective is not known to us. In some way or
other the quarrel between the two sculptors must have been made
up--probably through a frank apology on Sansovino's part. When
Michelangelo, in 1524, supplied the Duke of Sessa with a sketch for
the sepulchral monument to be erected for himself and his wife, he
suggested that Sansovino should execute the work, proving thus by acts
how undeserved the latter's hasty words had been.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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