Romain Rolland

“ Since the hour when the Lord God, by His all-powerful Grace, judged me worthy not only of seeing Michael Angelo Buonarroti, the unique painter and sculptor—a privilege which I should hardly have dared to hope for—but of enjoying his conversations, affection, and confidence, I undertook, in recognition of such a favour, to collect together everything in his life which appeared to me to be worthy of praise and admiration, in order that the example of such a man might be useful to others. ”

“ The course of my life has reached, on a stormy sea and in a fragile boat, the common port where we land to give an account and a reason for every good and impious work. Consequently, I recognise now how full of errors was the passionate illusion which made me turn art into an idol and a monarch; and I see clearly what every man desires for his hurt. ”

“ After renouncing everything which kept him alive, a new life—like the spring which blossoms again—sprang up in Michael Angelo's devastated heart, and love burnt with a brighter flame. But it was a form of love in which there was hardly a trace of either egoism or sensuality. It consisted in the mystical adoration of the beauty of a Cavalieri, in the religious friendship of Vittoria Colonna—the passionate communion of two souls in God. ”

“ Even if everything you possess in the world is taken from you, you will lack nothing so long as I exist . . . I would rather be poor and know you were alive than have all the gold in the world and know you were dead . . . If you cannot, like others, have the honours of this world, be content with having bread, and live with Christ, good and poor, as I do here. For I am wretched, and yet I torment myself neither over life nor honour—that is to say over the world. I live under very great difficulties and in a state of infinite distrust. ”

“ In the National Museum in Florence is a marble statue which Michael Angelo called "The Victor." It represents the beautiful nude figure of a young man, with curly hair over a low forehead. Standing erect, he has placed his knee on the back of a bearded prisoner, who bends and, like an ox, stretches his head forward. But the victor looks not upon him. When about to strike he stays his hand, and turns away his sad mouth and irresolute eyes. His arm falls back towards his shoulder. He throws himself backwards. A desire for victory no longer fills his heart—it is repulsive to him. ”

“ GOD CREATING THE SUN AND MOON
In the Sistine Chapel
around him was becoming gloomy. The Renaissance was declining. Rome was on the eve of being sacked by barbarians. The threatening shadow of a sad God was about to obscure the mind of Italy. Michael Angelo felt the tragic hour approaching, and suffered the keenest anguish. After dragging Michael Angelo from the inextricable enterprise in which he had become involved, Clement VII. resolved to direct his genius into a new channel, in which he could closely superintend him. He entrusted him with the building of the Medici chapel and tombs. ”

“ Universal disgust of things and of himself threw him into the Revolution, which broke out in Florence in 1527.
Up to that time Michael Angelo had shown in political matters the same indecision of mind from which he ever suffered in his life and in his art. Never did he succeed in conciliating his personal opinions with his obligations towards the Medici. This violent genius was, moreover, ever timid in action; he would not run the risk of struggling against the powerful ones of this world on the ground of politics and religion. ”

“ Blessed be joy, but blessed also be sorrow! One is the sister to the other and both are saints! They make the world and expand the souls of the great. They are strength, they are life, they are God! He who loves not both of them, loves neither the one nor the other. ”

“ I have supported every disgrace, suffered every difficulty, tormented my body with all sorts of fatigue and exposed my life to a thousand dangers solely in order to aid my house. And now that I have begun to raise it up a little, you amuse yourself by destroying in an hour what has taken years to build! . . . By the body of Christ this shall not be! For I am capable of tearing in pieces ten thousand such men as you, if that is necessary. Be wise, therefore, and do not drive one whose passions are different to yours to extremes! ”

“ He who thinks that he has robbed you of me does not benefit by his great crime because of his great fear. The fulness of pleasure, which extinguishes desire, is a less joy to lovers than misery, which is full of hope." [32]
We must try to imagine what the sack of Rome and the fall of Florence meant to the men of those days: the bankruptcy of justice—the most terrible of cataclysms. Many never recovered from it.
Men like Sebastiano del Piombo became laughingly sceptical. ”

“ There his ironical smile was to be observed side by side with the melancholy, feverish nature of Michael Angelo, and it exasperated the sculptor. Michael Angelo, absorbed in his passions and his faith, hated the enemies of his passions and his faith, but he hated much more those who were without passion and belonged to no faith at all. The greater Leonardo was the more Michael Angelo felt an aversion for him; and he let no opportunity slip of showing it.
"Leonardo was a handsome man with engaging and distinguished manners. One day he was sauntering with a friend in the streets of Florence. ”

“ Since Dante recognised that, it is impossible to admit that he did not recognise that Cæsar was the tyrant of his country and that Brutus and Cassius did right to massacre him. For he who kills a tyrant, kills not a man but a beast with human face. All tyrants are devoid of the love which every one ought to naturally feel for his neighbour. They are deprived of human inclinations; they are no longer, therefore, men but brutes. ”

“ He possessed all the superstitions and fanaticism of that rough, strong family. They were the dust from which his being was formed. But from that dust sprang the fire which purifies everything—genius.
He who does not believe in genius, who knows not what it is, let him look at Michael Angelo. Never before was man thus its prey. The genius which filled him did not seem to be of the same nature as he: it was like a conqueror who had rushed upon him and held him enslaved. His will in no way entered into it, and one might almost say the same of his mind and heart. ”

“ There is only one form of heroism in the world, and it consists in seeing the world as it is—and in loving it.
The tragedy of destiny presented in the following pages is that of innate suffering, which has its origin at the root of a being, which gnaws it incessantly and will not leave it until its work of destruction is over. It shows us one of the most powerful of the types of that great human race which for nineteen centuries has filled the West with its cries of sorrow and faith—the Christian. ”

“ In 1490, Savonarola began his impassioned sermons on the Apocalypse. He was thirty-seven years of age. Michael Angelo was fifteen. The young artist saw the small, frail preacher, who was consumed by the Spirit of God, and the terrible voice which hurled thunderbolts on the Pope from the pulpit in the Duomo and suspended the bloody sword of God over Italy froze him with terror. Florence trembled. People rushed about the streets weeping and shouting like demented beings. The wealthiest citizens—the Ruccellais, the Salviatis, the Albizzis, and the Strozzis—demanded to enter into Orders. ”

“ I do not claim that the generality of mankind can live on those summits, but that once a year they ought to ascend them on a pilgrimage. There they will renew the air of their lungs and the blood of their veins. Up there they will feel that they are nearer the Eternal. And afterwards they will descend towards the plains of life with their hearts tempered for the daily struggle. ”

“ Vasari wished to look at the piece of sculpture, but Michael Angelo let the light fall, so that they were in darkness. And whilst Urbino was fetching another, the Master turned towards Vasari and said: 'I am so old that death frequently drags at my mantle to take me, and one day my person will fall like this light.' " He was absorbed by the idea of death: from day to day it became gloomier and more attractive. "There is not one of my thoughts," he said to Vasari, "on which death is not deeply engraved." ”

“ When Cecchino del Bracci died, Riccio proclaimed his love and despair from the housetops. "Ah! friend Donato!" he said. "Our Cecchino is dead. All Rome is in tears. Michael Angelo is making the drawing of a monument for me. I beg you to compose an epitaph and send me a consoling letter. My mind is drowned in sorrow. ”

“ The world will be poorer when your sorrow is no longer there. In this age of cowards, who tremble when face to face with sorrow and noisily lay claim to their right to happiness, which, as often as not, is the right to the unhappiness of others, let us have the courage to look sorrow in the face and venerate it! ”

“ Since the Lord yields to souls their bodies after death for peace or eternal torment, I beseech Him to leave mine, although ugly, in heaven, as upon the earth, near yours, for a loving heart is equivalent to a beautiful face. ”

“ For love of Vittoria, Michael Angelo also drew a Christ on the Cross, but not dead, as He is usually represented, but living, with His face turned towards His Father, and crying: 'Eli! Eli!' The body does not willingly abandon itself; it twists and contracts in the last sufferings of death. ”

“ But in nature, as in art and as in love, it was God for whom he was seeking, and to whom he daily drew nearer. He had always been a believer. Though he was not to be easily deceived either by priests or monks or devotees of either sex, and though, should an opportunity offer, he treated them without tenderness, [21] there was never, it would seem, the slightest doubt in his faith. At the time of the illness or death of his father and brothers, his first concern was ever that they should receive the sacrament. ”

“ Michael Angelo's sadness, which provoked fear in men and made all instinctively flee, was part and parcel of his being.
But this was nothing. The ill consisted not in being alone but in being alone with himself, in being unable to live with himself, in not being master of himself, in disowning, combating and destroying himself. His genius was coupled with a soul which betrayed it. People sometimes speak of the fatality which relentlessly followed in his footsteps and prevented him carrying out any of his great projects. ”

“ Is he who is weaker less worthy of love? He is infinitely worthier of it, inasmuch as he has greater need of it. I raise not statues to inaccessible heroes. Cowardly idealism, which diverts our eyes from the woes of life and the weaknesses of the soul, I abhor. ”

“ Michael Angelo lived in a state of continual enthusiasm. The suffering caused by the excess of strength with which he was, as it were, inflated forced him to act, to act ceaselessly, without an hour's repose. "I am wearing myself out with work as never man did before," he wrote. "I think of nothing else save working day and night."
This unhealthy craving for activity caused him not only to accumulate tasks and accept more commissions than he could execute—it degenerated into a mania. He wished to sculpture mountains. ”

“ Neither painting nor sculpture are any longer capable of calming the soul, turned towards that divine love which opens, to take us, its arms upon the cross." [28] But the purest flower which faith and suffering sent forth in the old sorrowful heart of Michael Angelo was divine charity. ”

“ Vittoria informed Michael Angelo of a religious construction which she proposed to raise, and immediately Michael Angelo offered to examine the site and draw up a plan.
"I should never have dared to ask so great a service," replied the Marchesa, "although I know that in everything you follow the teachings of the Lord, who lowers the haughty and raises up the humble. . . . Consequently, those who know you esteem the person of Michael Angelo much more than his works, whilst those who do not know you personally glorify the weakest part of yourself—that is to say, the work of your hands. ”

“ Michael Angelo's love for Tommaso dei Cavalieri is calculated to disconcert the minds of many, whether honest or dishonest. Even in the Italy of the closing days of the Renaissance it gave rise to unpleasant interpretations, and Aretino made outrageous allusions to it. [2] But the insults of an Aretino—such men are common to all ages—could not reach a Michael Angelo. "They formed in their hearts a Michelagniolo out of the stuff of which their own hearts was made." [3]
No one possessed a purer soul than Michael Angelo. No one had a more religious conception of love. ”

“ If I do not possess the art of navigating on the sea of your powerful genius, you will excuse and not despise me, because I cannot compare myself to you. He who is unique in everything can have no equal.” (Michael Angelo to Tommaso de’ Cavalieri, January 1, 1533.) ”

“ Iniquitous and criminal Death thought to stifle the echo of her virtues and tarnish the beauty of her soul. Her writings have done the contrary; they illuminate her with more life than she possessed in her lifetime ”

“ Never will I admit that, because a man is very great, the world is not sufficient for him. Uneasiness of mind is not a sign of grandeur. Any want of harmony between a being and things, between life and its laws, proceeds, even in the case of great men, not from their greatness but their weakness. ”

“ One cannot work with one's hands at one thing and with one's head at another, especially in sculpture. They say that this serves to spur me on; but I contend that the goad is a bad one and may turn in the opposite direction. It is already more than a year since I have received an allowance and I struggle against poverty. I am very much alone, in the midst of my difficulties, and I have so many of them that they occupy me more than my art. ”

“ Another wrote:
"They tell me that you have refused your allowance, abandoned your house and stopped work. That seems to me to be an act of sheer madness. My friend, you are playing into the hands of your enemies . . . Occupy yourself, therefore, no longer with the mausoleum of Julius II. and take your allowance; for they give it willingly." [43]
Michael Angelo determined to have his own way, so the pontifical treasury played him the trick of taking him at his word, and the allowance was stopped. ”