Castel Sant'Angelo

“ Antonio, wild with grief, without resources, incapable of defending himself, and lost in the foreign city, died of sorrow at the end of 1533.
But, of all his assistants, the one whom Michael Angelo loved the most, and to whom his affection assured immortality, was Francesco d'Amadore, surnamed Urbino, of Castel Durante. He was in Michael Angelo's service from 1530 and worked under his orders on the mausoleum of Julius II. Michael Angelo was anxious as to what would become of him after he had gone. ”

“ Even Sir Wm. Gell (Top. of Rome, p. 552) repeats the old story. But the more careful Nibby (Dintorni di Roma, vol. ii. p. 58) has demonstrated, with the aid of a document in the archives of the Vatican basilica, that the name of this place between the Via Salaria and the Tiber, five miles from Rome, is derived from that of a Roman family which acquired the site (previously called Monte Sant’ Angelo) and built the castle in the XIVth century ”

“ The fastness of Sant’ Angelo, metropolis of European angel-worship, has grown up around this “devout and honourable cave”; on sunny days its houses are clearly visible from Manfredonia. They who wish to pay their devotions at the shrine cannot do better than take with them Gregorovius, as cicerone and mystagogue. ”

“ CAVE-WORSHIP
Why has the exalted archangel chosen for an abode this reeking cell, rather than some well-built temple in the sunshine? “As symbolizing a ray of light that penetrates into the gloom,” so they will tell you. It is more likely that he entered it as an extirpating warrior, to oust that heathen shape which Strabo describes as dwelling in its dank recesses, and to take possession of the cleft in the name of Christianity. Sant’ Angelo is one of many places where Michael has performed the duty of Christian Hercules, cleanser of Augean stables. ”

“ Similar figures exist nowhere, even in Italy. You will see there young, handsome, well-dressed men, peasants with bright eyes and a fierce expression, academy models with firm muscles and a proud bearing; but neither in a village nor at festivities, nor in the studios of Italy or elsewhere, at the present time or in the sixteenth century, does any real man or woman resemble the indignant heroes and the colossal despairing virgins which this great artist has placed before us in this funereal chapel. Michael Angelo found these types in his own genius and in his own heart. ”

“ Under shelter from the sun the very smells seem less; and in August scarce any price in health may appear too high to pay for a patch of shade which lasts throughout the day.
The curved roadway of Santa Lucia mounts the hill on which the kings of Anjou, having resolved to take up their residence in Naples rather than in Palermo, which was the former capital of the Two Sicilies, built their new castle—Castel Nuovo—still a fortress, though untenable in modern war. ”

“ 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 the Uffizi, Florence
run counter to each other. Their brains were full of gigantic projects. Julius II. wished to build for himself a mausoleum worthy of Ancient Rome. Michael Angclo seized upon this proud and imperial idea with passionate enthusiasm, and conceived a Babylonian project—a very mountain of architecture with more than forty statues of colossal dimensions. The Pope, equally enthusiastic, despatched him to Carrara to obtain all the necessary marble. Michael Angelo remained in the mountains more than eight months. He was a prey to superhuman excitement. ”

“ It is by far the oldest castle which Naples owns, and as its day came earliest so it passed the first. Castel Nuovo robbed it of its consequence, both as a royal dwelling and a place of arms; and now the noisy, feverish tide of life that beats so restlessly from east to west through the great city finds scarce an echo on the silent battlements of the Egg Castle, where Norman monarchs met their barons and royal prisoners languished in the dungeons. Inside the walls there is nothing to attract a visitor but memories. ”

“ Over the irregular walls of the subdued white and mellow gray houses and palaces, beyond the Tiber running red in the dying sunlight, over the round-walled castle of San Angelo, the dome of Saint Peter's rises full in the midst of the twinkling, hazy, red and golden light. Passing the stone-pines crowning Monte Mario, there gleam away to the left the far waters of the sea, over which the purple mist of young night tenderly, softly falls. ”

“ The Uffizi Gallery with its wonderful Tribune (a very shrine of exquisite relics) , the Palazzo Pitti, the Academy, Churches and Convents, all teem with masterpieces. But even here, in lovely Florence, Michael Angelo reigns supreme, from the proud eminence of that wonderful and overwhelmingly impressive Medici Chapel, on which, as on the Vatican at Rome, his genius has stamped its mark—unique, incomparable, overshadowing every other.
Wherever Michael Angelo's hand has been, devoutest attention is instinctively aroused; when the master speaks, all others hold their peace. ”

“ His artistic genius was early displayed, and he was put under masters to study. Lorenzo de’ Medici, pleased with his ability, took him to his palace, where he studied until his patron’s death in 1492. He was summoned to Rome by [187] Julius II., to design his tomb, and in 1508 he began the decoration of the Sistine chapel. When seventy years old he was called upon to take up architecture, and finish St. Peter’s, then under way. For the rest of his life he was engaged upon this church, together with several other buildings of Rome. Michael Angelo was not only an artist, but a writer ”

“ For a quarter of a mile the road is straight and narrow; then it broadens into an open space and Castel Franco appears. It is a castle indeed. All the old town is within vast crumbling red walls built on a mound with a moat around them. Civic zeal has trimmed the mound into public "grounds," and the moat is lively with ornamental ducks; while a hundred yards farther rises the white statue of Castel Franco's greatest son, no other than Giorgione himself, a dashing cavalier-like gentleman with a brush instead of a rapier. ”

“ Often, as at Venice, we leave our home without any definite object, and wander about the deserted part of Rome—that which once was the centre of its magnificence. Thus we viewed the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, built by Michael Angelo, with materials, columns and marbles, remnants of the Baths of Diocletian; it is one of the most striking and majestic of the Roman churches. Thus we found ourselves at the foot of the Capitol, and an inscription led us to visit the Mamertine prisons, a spot held sacred since St. Peter and other Christian martyrs were confined there. ”

“ This colossal genius died in Rome, and was carried by the light of torches from that city back to his better loved Florence, where he was buried. His tomb was made in the Santa Croce, and upon it are three female figures representing Michael Angelo's three wonderful arts: Architecture, sculpture and painting. No artist was greater than he. ”

“ Surely few men in history better deserve to be remembered than Michael Angelo, whose rugged face looks more like that of a hard-headed old Scotchman, than of one who belonged to the handsome Italian race. And yet that brain was full of beautiful creations, and in his life of eighty-nine years he produced enough to leave, not only to Florence, but to Rome, many monuments of his genius. He was great in several forms of art—as painter, sculptor, and architect—and even had some pretension to be a poet. ”

“ Leonardo was not alone in feeling anxious over the heritage. All Italy was Michael Angelo’s heir, especially the Duke of Tuscany and the Pope, who were very desirous not to lose the drawings and plans relative to the constructions of San Lorenzo and St. Peter. In June 1563, at the instigation of Vasari, Duke Cosimo charged his ambassador, Averardo Serristori, in view of Michael Angelo’s physical decline, to enter into a secret understanding with the Pope, to the effect that a strict watch should be exercised over his servants and all who frequented his house. ”

“ Probably Leonardo da Vinci was gifted in as many different ways as Michael Angelo, and in his own lines was as powerful. This Florentine's life was as tragic as it was restless.
There is a tablet in a room of a castle which stands high upon a rocky mount, near the village of Caprese, which tells that Michael Angelo was born in that place. The great castle is now in ruins, and more than four hundred years of fame have passed since the little child was born therein.
The unhappy existence of the artist seems to have been foreshadowed by an accident which happened to his mother before he was born. ”

“ The school of Bologna, founded by the three Caracci, numbers in its ranks Guido Rent (1575-1642) , gifted with imagination and sensibility, and Salvator Rosa (1615-1673) , who depicted the more wild and somber aspects of nature and of life.
MICHAEL ANGELO AND RAPHAEL.—The two foremost names in the history of Italian art are Michael Angelo and Raphael. "If there is one man who is a more striking representative of the Renaissance than any of his contemporaries, it is Michael Angelo. In him character is on a par with genius. His life of almost a century, and marvelously active, is spotless. ”

“ On this grey morning the sea breaks heavily about the black reef on which the castle stands, and the walls, darkened almost to the colour of the rock itself, assume a curious aspect of vast age, such as disposes one to seek within their girth for some at least among the secrets of old Naples. Nor will the search be vain; for this hoary fortress is Castel dell'Uovo, "The Castle of the Egg," so called, if we may lend an ear to Neapolitan tradition, because Virgil the Enchanter built it on an egg, 11 on which it stands unto this hour, and shall stand until the egg is broken. ”

“ Thus it seems now to the strayed traveller who, breaking his journey at Castel Bolognese, simmers for four hours in an omnibus along with priests, flies, fleas, and old women. The cortège from Papal territory saw a vastly different city of it when it approached the gates in the early spring of 1494. The young leafage shimmered like a veil of golden gauze, the poplar buds were pink and brown, the chestnuts had all their candles afire; larks by dozens were abroad in the clear sky. ”

“ When thou art older thou wilt beard the weak, and the strong thou wilt wheedle.”
“I must change my nature, then,” answered Angelo, (who was of somewhat small stature, and not yet come to his full growth,) trying still to raise himself above the heads of the crowd.
The soldier looked at him approvingly; and as he looked he sighed, and his lips worked with some strange emotion.
“Thou speakest well,” said he, after a pause. “Pardon me the rudeness of the question; but art thou of Italy?—thy tongue savours of the Roman dialect; yet I have seen lineaments like thine on this side the Alps.” ”

“ Angelo is a vast and ancient building, dating back at least eight centuries, but devoid of regularity, and not indicating the date of its erection by the style of its architecture. The ground floor consists of innumerable small rooms, a few large and lofty apartments, and an immense hall. The walls, which are full of chinks and crannies, are of that immense thickness which proves that our ancestors built for their remote descendants, and not in our modern fashion; for we are beginning to build in the English style, that is, barely for one generation. ”

“ The castle suffered so much from the earthquake of 1560, that the then Visconte demolished the ruins, and engrafted upon them the more modern Italian villa, which I was now approaching. A large round-tower of dark red brick-work, with ponderous crenelated battlements, reared its time-worn front above the erection of the sixteenth century. It was a fragment of the ancient Castello di Santugo, and its superstructure rose on the foundations of a Grecian, Roman, or Gothic fortress, of unknown name and antiquity. From its summit the standard of Naples waved heavily in the light evening wind. ”

“ BENVENUTO.
But your old friends!
MICHAEL ANGELO.
All dead by violence. Baccio Valori
Has been beheaded; Guicciardini poisoned;
Philippo Strozzi strangled in his prison.
Is Florence then a place for honest men
To flourish in? What is there to prevent
My sharing the same fate?
BENVENUTO.
Why this: if all
Your friends are dead, so are your enemies.
MICHAEL ANGELO.
Is Aretino dead?
BENVENUTO.
He lives in Venice,
And not in Florence. ”

“ Elmo to Castel Nuovo no less firmly than they credit the existence of vast caverns filled with gold and jewels lying underneath Castel dell'Uovo, guarded for ever from the sight of man by the chafing of the waves.
Naples presents us with a strange blend of romance and common sense—the modern spirit, practical and useful, setting itself with something like the energy of the old Italian genius towards the gigantic task of acquiring the arts of government, and turning a people enslaved for centuries into one which can wield the hammer of its own great destinies. ”