Michelangelo Buonarroti (b. Caprese, 1475 - d. Rome, 1564) had a proverbial aversion for portraits, and self portraits were no exception to the rule.
Michelangelo's Self Portraits
As far as we can tell, Michelangelo left only two images of himself: one in painting, as the Flayed Skin of St. Bartholomew in the Last Judgement of the Sistine Chapel; the other sculpted, as the elderly Nicodemus in the Pieta now in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Florence. There is also a tiny but delightful sketch of himself painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, drawn in the right bottom margin of one of his handwritten sonnets (Casa Buonarroti archives in Florence, Italy).
Contemporary Portraits of Michelangelo
According to Giorgio Vasari, there were also only four contemporary portraits of the great master, all taken from life. We still have all four of them. They are two paintings (one by Giuliano Bugiardini dating from 1522, the other by Jacopino del Conte dating from 1535, see picture no. 1), a medal by Leone Leoni (1561) and the well known bronze bust (circa 1564-66, see picture no. 2) lovingly made by Daniele da Volterra, Michelangelo's favorite pupil, and based on the great master's funeral mask. To the best of our knowledge, hardly any additions can be made to Vasari's list, notably a watercolor by the Portuguese Francisco de Hollanda, a singularly domestic picture of Michelangelo at about sixty (picture no. 3).
Michelangelo's Features Described in Early Biographies
Two early biographies describe the features of Michelangelo in writing: Condivi (1553) combines his physical characteristics with his leanings, habits and thoughts, while Vasari, in the 1568 Giunti edition (picture no. 4), unhesitatingly copies the description written by his colleague, even down to the detail of certain streaks, wavering between gold and blue, in the great master's eyes.
Anecdotal Contemporary Portraits
As a result of his fame, there are also pictures that are partly anecdotal and partly pure imagination, that were made when the great master was alive. One engraving, coming from the British Museum, shows the artist in contemplation: an inscription on it shows how the engraver intended to portray Michelangelo at the age of twenty-three, during his first stay in Rome, when he made the Pietà for St Peter's. A book by Sigismondo Fanti of 1527 contains a portrait of "Michael Fiorentino" shown half naked as he frenetically carves a female figure for the New Sacristy in San Lorenzo, Florence.
Portraits Dating After Michelangelo's Death
In the early 1580s, after the death of Michelangelo, Federico Zuccari made a delightful picture, now in the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica in Palazzo Barberini, showing Michelangelo watching his brother Taddeo painting the façade of Palazzo Mattei. Michelangelo was also portrayed by artists of his day, including Raphael in the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican and Vasari in the Sala di Leone X in Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.
However, the fame of Michelangelo meant that large numbers of engravings and pictures were made in the sixteenth century, mostly taken from the above mentioned prototypes. About a hundred of them were listed by German art historian Ernst Steinmann in 1910-1911 when he put on at Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome an exhibit on Michelangelo's portraits.
Portraits of Michelangelo From the 17th to the 19th Century
Throughout the 17th and 18th Centuries, Michelangelo's portraits were fewer, but include for instance a wonderful image made by Antoon van Dyck in 1618 (picture no. 5, now in the Devonshire Collection in Chatsworth, UK). Finally, in the 19thCentury, Michelangelo became the legendary embodiment of the lone Renaissance genius, and inspired several pleasant and highly imaginative works from the Historic Romanticism.
Casa Buonarroti Exhibit
Anyone interested in the subject should seek out the catalogue of a recent (May - July 2008) exhibit on Michelangelo's portraits curated by Pina Ragionieri, director of Casa Buonarroti on via Ghibellina in Florence. Il Volto di Michelangelo (The Face of Michelangelo) gathered and displayed most of the above portraits in reverse cronological order. But when visiting an exhibition at Casa Buonarroti, one can also admire the room on the first floor -- known as the Galleria -- where Michelangelo's grand-nephew, about fifty years after his great relative's death, commissioned some of the finest artists working in Florence in the first part of the 17th Century to celebrate his public and private virtues.
Sources
- Pina Ragionieri et al., Il Volto di Michelangelo (exhibition catalogue, in Italian only). Florence: Mandragora, 2008.
- Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Artists. Oxford World's Classics.
Maddalena Delli - Maddalena Delli is an Italian freelance journalist and professional travel writer who also enjoys blogging, web design and photography.
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