Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Katie Lambert and I'm Sarah Downey, and today we
Speaker 1: have our third installment and our Medici super series michel Angelo,
Speaker 1: and we can't talk about the Medici family without mentioning
Speaker 1: their role as patrons of the arts and Lorenzo the
Speaker 1: Magnificent alone worked with Botticelli, Barocchio, Leonardo da Vinci, and obviously,
Speaker 1: most famously with the young michel Angelo. But michel Angelo's
Speaker 1: a relationship to the Medici family didn't end with Lorenzo.
Speaker 1: He goes from a teen living at their palazzo to
Speaker 1: a man with a Medici hit on his head. So
Speaker 1: we've got to figure out how this happened and how
Speaker 1: did an impoverished boy from a rocky outpost become one
Speaker 1: of the greatest artists of history. And it's critical to
Speaker 1: understand michel Angelo's importance in his own lifetime before we
Speaker 1: can appreciate him historically, though, because it explains a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's this moody, guilty kind of guy. He loves Florence,
Speaker 1: that's central about his character. But he's so incredibly famous
Speaker 1: while he's alive, that his career is really well documented.
Speaker 1: He was actually the first Western artist to have a
Speaker 1: bio published while he was still alive. And he actually
Speaker 1: has two rival bios. There's the saries, the lives, and
Speaker 1: then there's also, I guess what you would consider more
Speaker 1: of a an authorized biography by his assistant. And we
Speaker 1: also have a lot of his stuff, his letters and
Speaker 1: sketches and poetry. And consequently, a man of this caliber
Speaker 1: and somebody who's so famous has a huge effect on
Speaker 1: his contemporaries, even his seniors like Leonardo da Vinci. Leonardo
Speaker 1: left Florence for Milan, came back twenty years later and
Speaker 1: found the art world a completely different place. And we
Speaker 1: have a great quote from Heart's History of Italian Renaissance,
Speaker 1: which we pulled from a lot for this podcast, and
Speaker 1: he says of michel Angelo that one could accept him
Speaker 1: or rebel against him, but one could not ignore him.
Speaker 1: So with that quote, we will take you to michel
Speaker 1: Angelo's early life. He was born michel Angelo de Lodovico
Speaker 1: Buonarotti Simony on March six, fourtevent and pray say a
Speaker 1: Florentine outpost and rather barren region and his father was
Speaker 1: Ludovico de Simoni Buonarotti, and he was of a noble family,
Speaker 1: or they had been noble for many generations, but they
Speaker 1: had lost that. They were also very poor, and his
Speaker 1: father was serving as the governor of the region, and
Speaker 1: they returned to Florence only about a month after michel
Speaker 1: Angelo was born, when his father's term came up. And
Speaker 1: one important fact from this time though, he had a
Speaker 1: wet nurse from a village of stone cutters, and he
Speaker 1: liked to play at this connection a lot. The fact
Speaker 1: that he had his love of sculpture and stone cutting
Speaker 1: almost instilled from from his and see and his father
Speaker 1: and uncle were against him becoming an artist because of
Speaker 1: that noble lineage. They thought he should be above physical labor.
Speaker 1: But they finally gave up and when he was thirteen,
Speaker 1: which was a bit old to start, they placed him
Speaker 1: in Domenico Gerlandio's studio for a term of three years,
Speaker 1: and he's a paid apprentice, which was a big deal,
Speaker 1: and he leaves after a year because he is just
Speaker 1: so good. When he's invited by Lorenzo the Magnificent to
Speaker 1: his home where he can work in the Medici gardens
Speaker 1: and the art school that's held there, and he does
Speaker 1: receive some instruction when he's living with Lorenzo, but most
Speaker 1: of the benefit comes from just being around all of
Speaker 1: the amazing artworks that Lorenzo owns the Medici statuary. They
Speaker 1: have all this ancient Roman sculpture, ancient coins and cameos,
Speaker 1: and a fair amount of interesting modern Renaissance stuff as well.
Speaker 1: He also benefits from living with the Medici and seeing
Speaker 1: what life is like for this powerful political family. He
Speaker 1: dines with Lorenzo and with the Medaici boys, and during
Speaker 1: his spare time he goes around the city copying works
Speaker 1: of Giotto and Massaccio. It's actually in the Brancocci Chapel
Speaker 1: that he criticized the drawing of a sculptor and gets
Speaker 1: a broken nose for his trouble, something that he's so
Speaker 1: self conscious about for his whole life. And his first
Speaker 1: extant work from his teen years is a marble relief
Speaker 1: called the Madonna of the Stairs, which is rather crude
Speaker 1: in drapery, but great as far as the muscles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what he did with that. He also did the Battle
Speaker 1: of Lapiths and Centaurs, and Lorenzo dies in so Michelangelo
Speaker 1: is back with his dad in a modest house near
Speaker 1: Santa Croce, and during this time in his life is
Speaker 1: when he probably does a crucifixion for a meta chie
Speaker 1: son and also starts dissecting corpses to make it, which
Speaker 1: is something he'll do for the rest of his life
Speaker 1: to make his human figures realistic. It's kind of strange
Speaker 1: to think of our our famous Renaissance artists having these
Speaker 1: da Vinci did bodies donated. Pretty cool, yeah, But in
Speaker 1: fourteen ninety four he makes a brief visit to Venice
Speaker 1: and then to Bologna, and he probably also hears Savonarola
Speaker 1: preached during this time, who we have already podcasted on
Speaker 1: um and as an old man, he still reads Savonarola's
Speaker 1: work and remembers his voice, so he obviously has a
Speaker 1: big impression on him early on. But let's go back
Speaker 1: to Florence, which at the time was still the center
Speaker 1: of art. But art wasn't paying as well as it
Speaker 1: used to at this time, so a lot of artists
Speaker 1: were moving on from Florence and going other places. And
Speaker 1: in fourteen ninety six michel Angelo went to Rome. He
Speaker 1: was twenty one and Pope Alexander the sixth Lucrezia Borge's
Speaker 1: father was in charge, and there's obviously a lot of
Speaker 1: amazing stuff in Rome for the young michel Angelo to study,
Speaker 1: amazing um antiquities. But he does a lot of private
Speaker 1: commissions during this time too, like Bacchus for a rich Roman,
Speaker 1: which um, it's a it's an interesting statue. You can
Speaker 1: tell Bacchus has been definitely indulging in his drink of choice,
Speaker 1: and he does the Doni Madonna, the Brutiges Madonna, just
Speaker 1: nice little, nice little works that helped establish his early career.
Speaker 1: But his first major commission came in in when he
Speaker 1: was twenty three, and it was a pieta, which was
Speaker 1: an uncommon subject in Italy at the time. So pieta
Speaker 1: subject is the Virgin Mary holding Christ in her lap
Speaker 1: right after he's been taken off the off the cross,
Speaker 1: and it kind of echoes madonna and child scenes, except
Speaker 1: there's all this tragedy involved in it, and Michelangelo's piatak
Speaker 1: kind of defines the scene ultimately huge. Well, it's huge
Speaker 1: because you think you have to have a full grown Christ. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the madonna who's holding him has to be enormous. Michelangelis
Speaker 1: Pieta is also of note because it's his only signed sculpture.
Speaker 1: Va Sorry writes that some Lombards came to see it
Speaker 1: at St. Peter's and they thought it must be made
Speaker 1: by one of their own countrymen. And I guess Michelangelo
Speaker 1: got word of this, and so he snuck into St.
Speaker 1: Peter's at night and and chiseled in his signature. But
Speaker 1: if you go to St. Peter's today to see the Pieta,
Speaker 1: unfortunately it's behind bulletproof glass, because in nineteen seventy seven
Speaker 1: deranged geologists had to go and attack it. So I'm
Speaker 1: not laughing and attacking the statue. I am laughing that
Speaker 1: the attack was by a deranged geologist. Okay. During this time,
Speaker 1: michel Angelo is also working on a public project. Perhaps
Speaker 1: you've heard of it. It's the David Statue, and it
Speaker 1: was to be made from a block of marble that
Speaker 1: was from the fourteen sixties and had already been partially
Speaker 1: blocked by Augustino di Duccio, who had been working on
Speaker 1: a design probably done by Donna Tello, and it was
Speaker 1: intended to go on the Cathedral of Florence to match
Speaker 1: and go with Donna Tello's Joshua. But because it's so awesome,
Speaker 1: people don't want to put it up so high. The
Speaker 1: Republic wants it in front of the Palazzo de Priori,
Speaker 1: which is now the Palazza de Vecchio, as a symbol
Speaker 1: of the republic. The Medici, remember, have been in exile
Speaker 1: since shortly after Lorenzo the Magnificence death. We talked about
Speaker 1: that a little bit in our previous podcast. And the
Speaker 1: night the statue is installed, pro Medici youths hit it
Speaker 1: with rocks. So here we have the dr in geologist,
Speaker 1: the pro Medici youths, all these people hating on michel Angelo. So,
Speaker 1: since Florence is a republic again and we don't have
Speaker 1: Medici power, we have a guy called Sodorini who's the
Speaker 1: gold Felonieri for life, and that's basically the protector of
Speaker 1: the Republic, the standard bearer. And he doesn't like how
Speaker 1: nude David is, so he commissions a girdle essentially of
Speaker 1: bronze and copper leaves to to go around David's way underpants. Yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly has to developed for David, which is which is
Speaker 1: pretty lame if you think about it. Some side notes
Speaker 1: on the David Statue. During the third expulsion of the
Speaker 1: Medici from Florence in seven a bench is throne from
Speaker 1: the window of the Palazzo da Priory and it shatters
Speaker 1: David's left arm in hand, and a teenage Fusari and
Speaker 1: another teenager end up saving the pieces for reattachment. And
Speaker 1: the marble of the statue was also soft and suffered
Speaker 1: a lot from being in the rain, so in the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century it was moved to the skylit rotunda of
Speaker 1: the Academia after David's success. Michelangelo has lots and lots
Speaker 1: of big projects. He liked ambitious work. He liked doing
Speaker 1: the you know, big big things, but he didn't like
Speaker 1: working with assistance, so he didn't get a lot done.
Speaker 1: He was very difficult to work with um. For example,
Speaker 1: there was this huge fresco for the Solidel Grand can
Speaker 1: Cilio that he was supposed to do, or twelve marble
Speaker 1: apostles for the Florence Cathedral, and he ends up only
Speaker 1: doing St. Matthew. But he gets a customer in Rome
Speaker 1: that he can't refuse Pope Julius the Second, So in
Speaker 1: fifteen oh five Pope Julius says basically, come to Rome,
Speaker 1: make me a tomb, put forty statues on it. It's
Speaker 1: a huge commission, and michel Angelo spends about a year
Speaker 1: bringing marble from Carrara before the Pope calls off the project.
Speaker 1: He realizes it's going to be too expensive, and Michelangelo,
Speaker 1: always suspicious of of other artists, even just onlookers and
Speaker 1: his own family, thinks that Bremonti, who's also working at St. Peter's,
Speaker 1: might have had a hand in the Pope's decision to
Speaker 1: cut off funding, and he is so so angry. He's
Speaker 1: famous for his fits of rage. He storms back to
Speaker 1: Florence in fifteen o six and this project, the tomb commission,
Speaker 1: turns out to be a real nightmare for michel Angelo
Speaker 1: his whole life. He's very much invested in the project,
Speaker 1: but it goes through multiple design changes, lots of halted work,
Speaker 1: stop payment. It's it's always sort of hovering over him
Speaker 1: for his for nearly his entire life. But he considered
Speaker 1: himself a sculptor, not a painter like we often think
Speaker 1: of him, so that's why this was so important to him.
Speaker 1: And we also came across a little fact that we
Speaker 1: couldn't figure out where else to put, so we're just
Speaker 1: going to throw it out there right now. We mentioned
Speaker 1: he was a little bit strange, and if you want
Speaker 1: a fashion tip from michel Angelo, he wore boots made
Speaker 1: from cured dog skin for months at a time, and
Speaker 1: when it came time to remove them, his skin peeled off.
Speaker 1: So we have our raging dog skin booted michel Angelo.
Speaker 1: Angry michel Angelo. But the Pope isn't gonna stand michel
Speaker 1: Angelo's fits of rage and he's not gonna let him
Speaker 1: hide out in Florence, so he has the Florentine authorities
Speaker 1: returned michel Angelo to Rome, but this time he has
Speaker 1: another project for him, and it's a bronze colossal of
Speaker 1: the pope that seems like a very egotistical pope with
Speaker 1: his giant to him and now his bronze colossal um.
Speaker 1: Michel Angelo does this, but we have no drawings of it,
Speaker 1: no records of it. It's installed in the newly conquered
Speaker 1: Bologna and three years later, anti papal forces push it off,
Speaker 1: its pedestal melted, and cast it into a can in
Speaker 1: which they named La Julia, which is the feminine version
Speaker 1: of the Pope's name, and it's it's meant to be
Speaker 1: the cannon firing at the pope when he retreats from town.
Speaker 1: In fifteen o eight, michel Angelo had just gotten back
Speaker 1: to Florence once again, when the Pope once again says,
Speaker 1: come to Rome. There's this thing I want you to do.
Speaker 1: It's called the Sistine Chapel, and the Sistine Chapel is
Speaker 1: a special place for the popes. It's the chief consecrated
Speaker 1: space in the Vatican, and it's used for papal conclaves.
Speaker 1: If you want to think back to and Pope John
Speaker 1: Paul the second died and I had to pick a
Speaker 1: new pope. But it's mostly decorated at the time too.
Speaker 1: It's it's been around for a while, and it's got
Speaker 1: the Life of Moses, the Life of Christ, historic popes.
Speaker 1: Everything is done except the ceiling, and so the Pope
Speaker 1: suggests to michel Angelo, how about we include the twelve
Speaker 1: apostles on the ceiling, each with their own panel. Michelangelo
Speaker 1: is not a fan of this idea. He thinks it's
Speaker 1: way too straightforward, it's not gonna be interesting enough, and
Speaker 1: instead we end up with Old Testament profits and sibyls
Speaker 1: from antiquity, plus all these scenes from Genesis that go
Speaker 1: backward in time. When you enter the room, it starts
Speaker 1: with Noah, it progresses to God's separation of light and darkness.
Speaker 1: And the subjects probably would have been a little theologically
Speaker 1: complex for michel Angelo, so it's unlikely that he rejected
Speaker 1: the apostle idea and presented this plan instead. He probably
Speaker 1: couldn't even read Latin, so it's likely that michel Angelo
Speaker 1: had a theological adviser of sorts in Marco Vigierro de
Speaker 1: la Rovera, and he's the Pope's cousin and probably helped
Speaker 1: him out, you know, with the planning and choosing which
Speaker 1: subjects would be represented. In fift eight, michel Angelo sets
Speaker 1: to work on his preliminary sketches before he makes cartoons.
Speaker 1: And because I don't know a lot about Fresco making,
Speaker 1: Sarah's going to explain that part a little bit. Well. Really,
Speaker 1: simply the cartoons. You can't freehand on fresco, especially when
Speaker 1: it's these huge scenes that are going to be on
Speaker 1: top of a ceiling, So you make cartoons which are
Speaker 1: basically life size mock ups for what you're ultimately going
Speaker 1: to depict in fresco. You lay the cartoons up against
Speaker 1: wet and tonico, and you outline the edges with a stylist,
Speaker 1: which is a little metal instrument, so you can see
Speaker 1: these little pin pricks sometimes in the plaster. And then
Speaker 1: when you're actually applying the color to the to the fresco,
Speaker 1: you have to do it in pretty small stages, so
Speaker 1: you have the wet plaster on, you layer on the color.
Speaker 1: Um It's not like an oil painting or something where
Speaker 1: you're gradually putting more and more layers of color on
Speaker 1: on top of each other. You have to work quickly.
Speaker 1: Michel Angelo isn't perfect at this whole stylus in cartoon
Speaker 1: bit at first, and the first work has to be
Speaker 1: redone because it molds. But as he goes along he
Speaker 1: gets a lot more confident and works much faster, and
Speaker 1: eventually is able to eliminate some of those prep steps,
Speaker 1: like the complete drawings and the stylus pricks, and consequently
Speaker 1: the figures become a lot more expressive, and the whole
Speaker 1: thing remarkably only takes about four years, less than four
Speaker 1: years actually, probably including an interruption of about a year
Speaker 1: when the funds were cut and to do a little
Speaker 1: myth busting, I think a lot of people imagine michel
Speaker 1: Angelo reclined as he's as he's painting in these frescoes.
Speaker 1: That's not the case. He designs special scaffolding which is
Speaker 1: suspended by beams, and this allows him to paint standing up,
Speaker 1: so he's able to walk around, get his all his
Speaker 1: supplies together, and I must really hurt your neck. Well,
Speaker 1: and it does hurt his neck. He actually writes about
Speaker 1: about it and includes a little a little sketch of
Speaker 1: him looks very uncomfortable when the scaffolding only came down
Speaker 1: occasionally for him to to review his work and look
Speaker 1: up and see how it was looking. The first time
Speaker 1: was in fifteen ten, and from then all the figures
Speaker 1: get bigger when assumes he got down, looked up and
Speaker 1: realized when things are that small and detailed, you can't
Speaker 1: see them on the ground of the I can't see
Speaker 1: everything I painted there. So obviously, the most impressive scene,
Speaker 1: or the most famous scene, is the creation of Adam.
Speaker 1: It has been spoofed in a million ways, everything from
Speaker 1: et to George Michael's muscle suit. It's quite a quite
Speaker 1: a spectrum there um. But it's it's what we've been
Speaker 1: most impressed with. I'd say. The restoration of the Sistine
Speaker 1: Chapel ceiling took place from nineteen eighty to nine, and
Speaker 1: it removed centuries of lamp candle and incense smoke, a
Speaker 1: coat of animal glue, even Greek wine that had been
Speaker 1: added to brighten the colors. And for the longest time
Speaker 1: people had thought maybe Michelangelo just worked in very in
Speaker 1: a very muted palette. You know, he was a dark,
Speaker 1: moody guy kind of guy. But it turns out once
Speaker 1: all of that was removed, he worked in in vivid, brilliant,
Speaker 1: beautiful colors. It's supercolors. If you've if you've ever seen
Speaker 1: the Sistine chapeler seen real true to life photographs of it.
Speaker 1: Just bright, bright colors, sherbet colors on the But in
Speaker 1: fifteen thirteen, we're back to that old tomb for Julius,
Speaker 1: Michelangelo's both favorite and nightmare project, but this time there's
Speaker 1: a new design. He only finishes three figures, Moses and
Speaker 1: a couple of slaves, and he ends up keeping these
Speaker 1: for himself because the design on scale of the project
Speaker 1: changes once again and he keeps them until he's old
Speaker 1: before giving them to a family that helped him during
Speaker 1: an illness. But Julius dies in fifteen thirteen, and um,
Speaker 1: it sounds like the perfect time to make a tomb,
Speaker 1: but it's not. The funding drives up, and some other
Speaker 1: changes happened to at Julius's death that really affect Michelangelo
Speaker 1: and Florence as well. So it's time for us to
Speaker 1: catch up with the Medici. We haven't forgotten them. The
Speaker 1: Medici were expelled in fourteen ninety four, as we've said,
Speaker 1: but they came back in after austaing Soderini. The city
Speaker 1: is being ruled again in the old fashion, behind the
Speaker 1: scenes type of Medici way that Lawrence the Magnificent had pioneered,
Speaker 1: but this time it's by his son Giuliano, and his
Speaker 1: older brother is the powerful Cardinal Giovanni. But when Julius
Speaker 1: the Second dies, Cardinal Giovanni becomes Pope Leo the Tenth.
Speaker 1: So Leo the Tenth and michel Angelo have known each
Speaker 1: other since they were boys and michel Angelo was living
Speaker 1: in the Medici palace, and Leo obviously doesn't want michel
Speaker 1: Angelo working on a pope Julius project, and he doesn't
Speaker 1: even want him working on a papacy project. He's almost
Speaker 1: more of a Medici before he's a pope. So he
Speaker 1: brings he brings michel Angelo back to Florence to work
Speaker 1: on Medici approved projects. Things are a little bit sketchy
Speaker 1: and Florence at the time, though. Leo's replaced his brother
Speaker 1: with his nephew Lorenzo as ruler of Florence, and Lawrence
Speaker 1: is just not that great. He's mostly a puppet ruler.
Speaker 1: He's very repressive and he dies early, but now before
Speaker 1: fathering his one legitimate child, Catherine de Medici, who we
Speaker 1: will talk about in some future podcast. You'll get an
Speaker 1: episode for sure. So Leah the Tenth puts his cousin,
Speaker 1: Cardinal Giulio de Medici, in charge, and you'll probably remember
Speaker 1: him from our Popsy Conspiracy podcast. He's Giuliano de Medici's son,
Speaker 1: who's the guy who's actually killed at the Duomo, his
Speaker 1: illegitimate son. So Giulio and michel Angelo work really closely
Speaker 1: together and they have a pretty respectful give and take relationship.
Speaker 1: Um And in fifteen sixteen, michel Angelo has commissioned to
Speaker 1: design a facade for the Medici's churches of San Lorenzo,
Speaker 1: and he actually builds a road to the mountains just
Speaker 1: to get marble for this facade and this design of his,
Speaker 1: but the contract is annulled in fifty and angry michel Angelo.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's got good reason to be angry about
Speaker 1: this stuff, but he's very upset. He ends up instead
Speaker 1: working on kind of a smaller scale project for San Lorenzo,
Speaker 1: which is the Medici Chapel, designing tombs for some of
Speaker 1: the Medici heirs who have died early. And the tombs
Speaker 1: have these beautiful figures of night and day and dawn
Speaker 1: and dusk, and they're actually often mistaken for the tombs
Speaker 1: of more illustrious family members. They're they're pretty much nobody's
Speaker 1: in the grand scheme of Medici family members, but they
Speaker 1: have these lovely elaborate tunes. But we have a bit
Speaker 1: of a Medici break and interlude in power when Leo
Speaker 1: the tenth died in Fife and a Dutch pope took
Speaker 1: over Adrian the sixth, who's very into reform and cleaning
Speaker 1: up Medici messes in general, and consequently he doesn't last
Speaker 1: too long. He was probably poisoned, and he was succeeded
Speaker 1: by Cardinal Giulio de Medici, who became Clement the seventh,
Speaker 1: and Clement kept his day job ruling Florence as well
Speaker 1: as taking over the papacy. Yeah, just because he's pope
Speaker 1: doesn't mean he's about to leave everything at home behind. Well,
Speaker 1: and this is when the people of the city realize
Speaker 1: they're owned by the papacy, and they're not happy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they have this great um history of being a republic,
Speaker 1: and now they realize what their true position is. So
Speaker 1: by fifteen, Clement has gotten himself into too much trouble
Speaker 1: with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles the fifth, and this
Speaker 1: results in a violent sacking of Rome in fifty seven,
Speaker 1: which ends the High Renaissance, this great period of of
Speaker 1: art that we we think of, you know, Michelangelo's peak,
Speaker 1: it's over. This results in the Violet Sacking of Rome,
Speaker 1: which happens in fifteen and ends the High Renaissance, and
Speaker 1: Clement is forced to flee Rome and a lot of
Speaker 1: people think, you know what, maybe this is the judgment
Speaker 1: of God on Medici. Rome Laurence definitely think so, and
Speaker 1: they take the opportunity to throw off the Medici and
Speaker 1: reinstate the Republic. But while the city is besieged, Michelangelo
Speaker 1: designed fortifications. He really understood defensive structure as well, which
Speaker 1: is interesting again to see how his talents could go
Speaker 1: across so many different areas. How I mean, he's a
Speaker 1: renaissance man to put it in a cliche, but yeah,
Speaker 1: that somebody can do um great fresco work and you know,
Speaker 1: gorgeous sculpture, sculpture and then designed fortifications. It's pretty crazy.
Speaker 1: But Florence is captured again in fifteen thirty and the
Speaker 1: new Medicie government is pretty strict, and Michelangelo is actually
Speaker 1: ordered to be assassinated for helping the Republic, for helping
Speaker 1: with those fortifications and all that, and the Canon of
Speaker 1: San Lorenzo. And this is how crazy it is. It's
Speaker 1: the Medici church. The Canon of San Lorenzo hides him
Speaker 1: until the Pope, the Medici pope issues in order to
Speaker 1: spare his life so he can get back to work
Speaker 1: on the Medici chapel. It's just also twisted and tied up.
Speaker 1: And the Medici ruler at the time, Alessandro, who's the
Speaker 1: first hereditary Duke of Florence. They've they've ditched that. Oh,
Speaker 1: we're just behind the scenes running the republic thing for us. So, um,
Speaker 1: he's a pretty cruel guy. So when Clement dies and
Speaker 1: michel Angelo doesn't have that protection of the Medici Pope anymore,
Speaker 1: he gets out of Florence. He's worried for his life.
Speaker 1: So he leaves Florence for Rome for the last time
Speaker 1: in fifteen thirty four, hoping to return someday. But this
Speaker 1: is the point in his life where he starts contemplating
Speaker 1: his own mortality. We have lots of letters to his
Speaker 1: family from this time. Um, he's really concerned about his
Speaker 1: nephew marrying and you know, carrying on the family name.
Speaker 1: And some have suggested because some of his later letters
Speaker 1: in his life that he was homosexual, because he wrote
Speaker 1: a lot about his strong attachments to young men. But
Speaker 1: there's another theory saying, you know, there aren't any similar
Speaker 1: indications from when he was younger, so maybe this is
Speaker 1: when he was looking for a surrogate son. He also
Speaker 1: writes a lot of poetry along with his letters, and um,
Speaker 1: just to show again what sort of a strange guy
Speaker 1: he is, he starts taking to wearing hair shirts under
Speaker 1: his clothes. Mimicking John the Baptist, and he's still working
Speaker 1: though don't think of him as fading off into obscurity.
Speaker 1: In Rome, he has some of his his biggest stuff here.
Speaker 1: The new Pope, Paul the Third commissions michel Angelo to
Speaker 1: come back to fresco work and come back to the
Speaker 1: Sistine Chapel after a hiatus of twenty five years, and
Speaker 1: he works on the last Judgment, which is interesting for something.
Speaker 1: It's the same artist, the same location, but it's such
Speaker 1: a different style. It's um it's the difference of a
Speaker 1: quarter century, I guess. But he really turned to architecture
Speaker 1: a lot in his later years because it was less physical.
Speaker 1: His art before that was a bit hard on the body.
Speaker 1: And most notably he was the head architect of projects
Speaker 1: at St. Peter's. He designed the dome of St. Peter's,
Speaker 1: which Sarah's been emailing me pictures of all day. But
Speaker 1: it was built after his death, and it's not clear
Speaker 1: just how much of the design followed what he intended
Speaker 1: to do and how much of it was other people.
Speaker 1: So michel Angelo died February eighteen, fifteen sixty four, in Rome,
Speaker 1: and an interesting thing about him for somebody who is
Speaker 1: so famous during his own lifetime that fame doesn't slip
Speaker 1: away at all. I mean, if anything, he becomes more
Speaker 1: famous when when we see his influence on later artists,
Speaker 1: and that brings us to an art related Listener Mail.
Speaker 1: So this edition of listener Mail is real mail. We
Speaker 1: got a postcard as we we love getting postcards. As
Speaker 1: we mentioned, I'll tacked up on our window and this
Speaker 1: one is a postcard of remembrance the storm on the
Speaker 1: Sea of Galilee, and it's from Chloe and she wrote,
Speaker 1: I'm sending this card along and hopes that both of
Speaker 1: you will do a podcast on the Isabella start Gardner
Speaker 1: Museum or the highs that took place there twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: And I think this is such a good idea. I
Speaker 1: definitely think we're going to be doing a podcast on
Speaker 1: the subject, because we actually have a really cool article
Speaker 1: on it already. Yes, five Biggest art Heists, and we
Speaker 1: also have one called how to Steal a Painting. You
Speaker 1: can find them both if you search on our homepage
Speaker 1: at www dot how stuff works dot com, and you
Speaker 1: can also follow us on Twitter at mist in History.
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Speaker 1: out the stuff you missed in History Glass Blog on
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