Angelo

“ And Angelo, looking up in amazement, saw the face of an angel, and the bow dropped from his fingers.
When the music ceased, the children broke their ring and ran to Angelo where he lay upon the grass. They wondered to see him so still and pale, yet because his face was smiling they were not afraid.
"He is weary," they cried; "the good friar has fallen asleep—perhaps he has fainted. Let us run and call help for him."
But they did not understand that the messenger of Holy Death had passed among them and called Angelo in the odour of sanctity. ”

“ Sharp is the vinegar of sweet wine, and sharp
The words you speak, because the heart within you
Is sweet unto the core.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
How changed you are
From the Sebastiano I once knew,
When poor, laborious, emulous to excel,
You strove in rivalry with Badassare
And Raphael Sanzio.
FRA SEBASTIANO.
Raphael is dead;
He is but dust and ashes in his grave,
While I am living and enjoying life,
And so am victor. One live Pope is worth
A dozen dead ones.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Raphael is not dead;
He doth but sleep; for how can he be dead
Who lives immortal in the hearts of men? ”

“ That was a marvellous time in Rome. All its citizens had become so pleasure-loving that the world, stood still to wonder. When the pope banqueted, he had the golden plates from which fair women had eaten hurled into the Tiber, that they might never be profaned by a less noble use than they had known. From all this riot and madness of pleasure, Michael Angelo stood aside with frowning brow and scornful mien. He approved of nothing and of nobody--despising even Raphael, the gentle and loving man whom the pleasure-crazed people of Rome paused to smile upon and love. ”

“ Heaven save your honour!' Which when Angelo heard, he said within his heart: 'Amen, I would be saved from thee and from thy virtues': and then, affrighted at his own evil thoughts, he said: 'What is this? What is this? Do I love her, that I desire to hear her speak again, and feast upon her eyes? What is it I dream on? The cunning enemy of mankind, to catch a saint, with saints does bait the hook. Never could an immodest woman once stir my temper, but this virtuous woman subdues me quite. ”

“ So Count Angelo came to life again. But all desires and passions which had hitherto warmed or burned him were like dead embers. For the flame of them all had gone into one desire—the resolve to die in the odour of sanctity, and so to pass into Paradise safely and unafraid.
Therefore he put aside the fine garments which his trembling servants brought, and clad himself in sackcloth with a girdle of rope about his loins. ”

“ Enter Angelo, with Rachel.
Ang. Nay, gentle Rachel.
Rach. Away, forbear, ungentle Angelo,
Touch not my body with those impious hands,
That, like hot irons, sear my trembling heart,
And make it hiss at your disloyalty. ”

“ Who can imagine that region of supernal splendor, 'whose glories eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive'?
The strings of Angelo's heaven harp quivered as though stirred by the breath of God. ”

“ Their little voices are the natural key of music, their graceful carriage and sprightly abandon the very poetry of motion. As Michael Angelo’s imprisoned angel pleaded out of dumb marble, so the divinity within them pleads in the beauty of their forms, the clear heaven of their eyes, the white purity of their souls, for knowledge and enlargement. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Go to lord Angelo! When maidens sue, and kneel, and weep, men give like gods.' 'I will see what I can do,' said Isabel: 'I will but stay to give the prioress notice of the affair, and then I will go to Angelo. Command me to my brother: soon at night I will send him word of my success.'
Isabel hastened to the palace, and threw herself on her knees before Angelo, saying: 'I am a woeful suitor to your honour, if it will please your honour to hear me.' 'Well, what is your suit?' said Angelo. She then made her petition in the most moving terms for her brother's life. ”

“ For a brief moment I had entertained the idea that Ignatius, in passing Angelo by, had perhaps committed an oversight. It was impossible now for him not to perceive the artist; but with a face cold and impenetrable as marble he stood erect within the chancel, openly ignoring the other's mute appeal to be noticed. It was clear that his refusal to give the Communion to him was a deliberate act. The most exquisite penalty that can fall on the soul of a devout Catholic had fallen on Angelo. ”

“ I do, my lord.
Enter Angelo, Mariana, Friar Peter and Provost.
DUKE.
For this new-married man approaching here,
Whose salt imagination yet hath wronged
Your well-defended honour, you must pardon
For Mariana’s sake. But as he adjudged your brother,
Being criminal in double violation
Of sacred chastity and of promise-breach
Thereon dependent, for your brother’s life,
The very mercy of the law cries out
Most audible, even from his proper tongue,
“An Angelo for Claudio, death for death.”
Haste still pays haste, and leisure answers leisure ”

“ But the devotion of a noble heart is a holy thing; Genius is full of magic power, and the maiden did not always remain insensible to the love of Angelo, for he was spiritually beautiful, and when he moved in the world of his own creation, his face shone as it were the face of an angel. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Was the rejection of Angelo the result of the recital made to Father Ignatius by the silver-haired penitent? Of the nature of that confession I had only an inkling, but that it was the key to this priest's conduct I felt certain.
The first line of communicants retired to their seats. The artist did not move but remained kneeling solitary and silent, his lips pressing the cold marble chancel-rails, his hands clasped nervously above his dark hair, as if he were supplicating the Church, his mother, to receive and forgive an erring child. ”

“ Kneels and hides her face in Vittoria's lap.
Enter MICHAEL ANGELO.
JULIA.
Hush! make no noise.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
How is she?
JULIA.
Never better.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Then she is dead!
JULIA.
Alas! yes, she is dead!
Even death itself in her fair face seems fair.
How wonderful! The light upon her face
Shines from the windows of another world.
Saint only have such faces. Holy Angels! ”

“ On his nephew Leonardo fêting the birth of his son, Michael Angelo blamed him severely.
"This pomp displeases me. It is not permissible to laugh when the whole world is weeping. It is senseless to celebrate such a fête in honour of one who has just been born. You should reserve your gladness for the day on which a man who has lived well dies." ”

“ On January 1, 1533, Michael Angelo, then fifty-seven years old, writes from Florence to Tommaso de' Cavalieri, a youth of noble Roman family, who afterwards became his favourite pupil: "If I do not possess the art of navigating the sea of your potent genius, that genius will nevertheless excuse me, and neither despise my inequality, nor demand of me that which I have it not in me to give; since that which stands alone in everything can in nothing find its counterpart. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Angelo, and the Pope's Ambassador into Germany, wrote marvellous boldly and freely unto Eugene, Bishop of Rome, for that he went about to dissolve the Council of Basil.
Most blessed father! after the devout kisses of your blessed feet.
Now shall the whole world understaud aud know, whether your holiness have in you the bowels of fatherly love and charity, and the zeal of the house of God; whether you be sent to make peace or discord, to congregate or disperse; or whether you be that good shepherd that giveth his life for his sheep. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And indeed he was anything but a brute this good Signor Angelo, whom owing to a natural tonsure--a rim of black hair still circling his smooth bald head--his friends were wont to nickname Fra Angelico. He had never indeed left his native place more than twice in his life, nor on either occasion gone further than Rome. But then Rome is the world, he would say. He who has seen Rome, has seen everything. ”

“ Angelo, the Vatican Library turned into an arsenal, the new manufactory of arms at Tivoli, and finally the costly harbour of Civita Vecchia, are so many silent testimonies to the cherished desire of this pontiff to transform the eternal city into an inviolable symbol in stone of the temporal power of the Pope, and to accredit himself as a true mediæval vicegerent of Christ with the two-edged sword of the world. His athletic physique and iron energy were ever the vigorous executors of his ideas. ”

“ A learned man, who speaks all languages,
And wittiest of men; who wrote a book
Of the Adventures of Gargantua,
So full of strange conceits one roars with laughter
At every page; a jovial boon-companion
And lover of much wine. He too is coming.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Then you will not want me, who am not witty,
And have no sense of mirth, and love not wine.
I should be like a dead man at your banquet. ”

“ But Angelo replied, "We must not make a scarecrow of the law, setting it up to frighten birds of prey, till custom, finding; it harmless, makes it their perch, and not their terror. Sir, he must die." ”

“ Say, have you seen our friend Fra Bastian lately,
Since by a turn of fortune he became
Friar of the Signet?
BENVENUTO.
Faith, a pretty artist
To pass his days in stamping leaden seals
On Papal bulls!
MICHAEL ANGELO.
He has grown fat and lazy,
As if the lead clung to him like a sinker. ”

“ Three times he passed the flower shop by the bridge. The shop was closed, yet a light cast upon the flowers in the window displayed Angelo’s skill as a florist. He was an artist in this field. No one could equal him. Could a man be an artist and yet be a rascal? Angelo loved music. Often he had talked to Johnny of symphony concerts, and of grand opera. Could one love the best in music and yet be a villain at heart? ”

“ 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. ”