Nothing fed Renaissance art like competition. Some of the greatest works of the period were created in head-to-head artist competitions. These were said to bring out the best in each artist, but sometimes they led to disastrous results instead.
It all started because Bertoldo di Giovanni dreamed of completing the last marble work of Donatello left unfinished after Donatello's death. The best way to get it done right, Bertoldo thought, would be to pit the two best young sculptors in the San Marco garden against each other.
Michelangelo and Pietro Torrigiano were already competitive. Until Michelangelo came to San Marco, Pietro had been the star. At 19, Pietro was three years older and far more experienced. But because of Michelangelo, Pietro wasn't Bertoldo's golden boy anymore - and he didn't like that. What's more, Michelangelo enjoyed teasing him about it.
Early one morning, Bertoldo took his two young sculptors to the cathedral work yard to show them his greatest unfulfilled dream - a seventeen-foot-long piece of white Carrara marble. Bertoldo's eyes watered when he saw what they called "The Giant" lying on its side, covered in weeds. Bertoldo still remembered the hopeful look in Donatello's eyes when he first saw that tall thin block of marble. It was the look of a man trying to recapture the greatness of youth.
This large hunk of marble was supposed to have been Donatello's swan song. At 75 Donatello was too old to work the stone, so he showed his assistant Agostino de Duccio how to reveal the prophet that lay buried inside the block of marble. But it was not to be, for Donatello died not long after the carving began, and finishing it proved way beyond the skill of Agostino. Ten years later, another Donatello protege by the name of Antonio Rossellino, tried to work the block, but he too was not good enough.
If Bertoldo had been a marble sculptor, he would have finished "The Giant" just as he had completed Donatello's unfinished bronze pieces. But Bertoldo couldn't carve the marble, nor did he know of any sculptors who had the talent or guts to try. He hoped that by telling the story to the two young sculptors, one of them would finish it someday.
Immediately, both Michelangelo and Pietro said they wanted to be the one to finish what Donatello had started.
Perhaps Bertoldo should have stopped there. But instead he led the boys south from the cathedral, crossing the Arno and heading for Santa Maria del Carmine. He must have felt there was one last way to illustrate the importance of his story, especially knowing that Michelangelo had one day dreamed of being a painter.
"Masaccio!" Michelangelo said as soon as he saw the fresco cycle in the Brancacci Chapel. He couldn't count the times he had sat on the floor of the nave of Santa Maria Novella drawing Masaccio's Holy Trinity. And now he was looking at his hero's greatest work, a commission Masaccio never finished, having died at the age of 27.
"Donatello used to tell me how badly his friend Masaccio wanted to finish this painting before he died," Bertoldo told the boys.
"So who finished it?" Michelangelo couldn't take his eyes off the work.
"Filippino Lippi. Just imagine what it must have been like for him to be able to finish what Masaccio began."
Michelangelo studied the brushstrokes Lippi had used to finish the scenes. "I could have done better than Lippi, in fact, as well as Masaccio." There wasn't an ounce of doubt in his voice.
It was all too much for his jealous rival.
"Who the hell do you think you are?" asked Pietro. "First you say you can carve as well as Donatello and now you think you can paint as well as Masaccio. Just look at this picture. There's no way you're that good."
"But I am that good; both in marble and paint. And you know it." Again Michelangelo's voice was certain.
"Sure," Pietro said. He towered over Michelangelo. "You'll never be that good."
"I will be, but you'll never be."
The frustrated Pietro shoved Michelangelo up against the wall.
"Don't touch me!"
"You're not that good," Pietro shouted. "You'll never be that good. You're nothing."
The older, bigger, and faster boy was first to land a punch. It hit Michelangelo square on the nose, cracking the cartilage and spurting blood over both of them. Michelangelo dropped to the floor, unconscious.
When Bertoldo carted Michelangelo back to the Medici Palace, Lorenzo the Magnificent flew into a rage. "I want that bastard Pietro sent away, exiled. I never want to see his face in Florence again!"
Piero Torrigiano fled to Rome where he became a soldier. He eventually found work as a sculptor in England. Finally he made his way to Spain where he was thrown into prison during the Inquisition for mutilating his own marble statue of the Virgin Mary. He killed himself before the authorities had the chance to torture him on the rack.
As for Michelangelo, he must have remembered his lost fight every time he saw his flattened nose in the mirror. And sadly, Bertoldo died shortly after the incident, never knowing whether anyone would ever complete Donatello's giant dream.
David Clark's quest to solve the Sistine Chapel mystery started after his wife was killed shortly after they began a piece jigsaw puzzle of the ceiling. After five years of extensive research, he realized the ceiling is a brilliant diversion that hides a secret message by overwhelming the eye. Like a jigsaw puzzle it lures us to pull its hundreds of pieces together to make sense of the whole. However, its meaning cannot be found by putting the pieces together, but through finding the one piece Michelangelo left missing: the piece he lacks in his own life story.
Michelangelo's Puzzle will be told in 90 weekly pieces that when put together will reveal the meaning of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling on November 1, 2012, the 500th anniversary of the ceiling's dedication. Follow the story at http://sistinepuzzle.com/.
Love this tile as well. I especially love the blue-ish tinted tile.
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