"David with his sling, I with my bow"
Professor Joseph Connors
Lecture 13, Trachtenberg /Hyman pages: 310-316

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564)
Public competition for the facade of S. Lorenzo in Florence, 1515-20 (patron: Pope Leo X de' Medici, 1513-1521, same pope of Raphael's Stanze in the Vatican 1508-1521). Previous church F. Brunelleschi (church begun 1420; Old Sacristy begun 1421). Winner against Raphael, Antonio da Sangallo the Elder and Giuliano da Sangallo. Wooden model 1519. This is where Michelangelo, aged 40, graduated from sculpture to architecture. Never executed.

Fortifications for the Last Republic of Florence, 1528-29 (only plans)

Medici Chapel or New Sacristy at S. Lorenzo, Florence (by now mausoleum of the de' Medici family): 1519-completed 1526 (sculpture program stopped in 1527, resumed only in early thirties). In plan it runs parallel (right) to the Old Sacristy (left). Realized for burials of Giuliano Duke of Nemours (grandson of Cosimo il Vecchio, died 1516) and Lorenzo de' Medici Duke of Urbino (Cosimo's great-great-grandson, died 1519), both also known as "the Capitani" as well for Lorenzo II Magnifico and his brother Giuliano (both known as "the Magnifici", previously died and buried in the Old Sacristy)

Sculptures realized in 1524-34 n.b.:
tomb of Giuliano di Nemours (statues of Night and Day)
tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici (statues of Dusk and Dawn)

Laurentian Library, in S. Lorenzo monastery complex, Florence, begun in 1524 (completed in different phases of work in 1559, by others according to instructions that Michelangelo sent from Rome)

composed of long reading room and "ricetto"

Patron: Pope Clement VII de' Medici 1523-1534, pope during the impressive Sack of Rome of 1527, by Empereor Charles V.

New St. Peter's 1505 (begun April 18th 1506)
1505: Bramante's parchment plan, Uffizi Architettura 1 (UA1), and the Caradosso medal, showing an elevation corresponding to the parchment plan, 1506 (dies in 1514)

1514-20: Raphael of Urbino, fra Giocondo and Giuliano da Sangallo are architects of St. Peter's: choosen Raphael's project (collaborator from 1516: Antonio da Sangallo the Younger). Raphael dies in 1520

1520: Antonio da Sangallo the Younger (with Baldassarre Peruzzi)

1530-36: Baldassarre Peruzzi (dies in 1536)

1538-46: Antonio da Sangallo the Younger(dies in 1546): great wooden model, ready by 1547 (for Pope Paul III Farnese)

1546-64: Michelangelo officially nominated "architetto della fabbrica di S. Pietro" in January 1st 1547. From his 18 years direction will result the complete reformation of exterior of the N and S apses with giant pilasters instead of Sangallo's columns, the interior of the N and S crossing arms, the drum of the cupola. Michelangelo's models for the dome are dated 1557 (terracotta) and 1558-61 (wood): at his death in 1564 only the drum was finished. His attic is changed after his death (by Pirro Ligorio) and the cupola with lantern is finished in a steeper form by Giacomo Della Porta (double-shell, very steep dome: 1572) and executed by Domenico Fontana (1586-88). Lantern is finished in 1593.

1606-14: Carlo Maderno modifies the nave, rebuilds narthex and facade and adds belltower bases (dies in 1629: direction passes to G.L. Bernini)

Piazza del Campidoglio, mid XVI century
Marcus Aurelius equestrian statue: moved from S. John the Lateran's square and placed above the Capitoline hill in 1538
Palazzo dei Conservatori (right)
Palazzo Senatorio (middle)
Palazzo Nuovo (left)

Porta Pia, 1561-64 near the old Porta Nomentana
City gate in the Aurelian Wall of Rome, redesigned to face inwards, on the Via Pia. Both were named for the reigning pope Pope Pius IV de' Medici, 1559-1565. Doric and grottesque combined in strange ways. A late work that reveals Michelangelo at his strangest.

Terminology
pietra serena

For Further Reading (after Ackerman):
Paolo Portoghesi and Bruno Zevi, Michelangelo architetto, Turin, 1964. A tremendous collection of illustrations of all of M.'s architectural drawings and buildings. Use it for the pictures.

Giulio Carlo Argan and Bruno Contardi, Michelangelo architetto, Milan, 1990; English translation Michelangelo Architect, New York, 1993. Also use if for the pictures.

Creighton Gilbert, trans., and R. Linscott, ed., Complete Poems and Selected Letters of Michelangelo, Princeton, 1980. Some letters that relate to architecture are quite wonderful: nos. 44, 66, 67, 98, 100, 113, 114.

J. Wilde, Michelangelo: Six Lectures, Oxford, 1978, Ch. 5, "The Medici Chapel and the Laurentian Library," pp. 114-46. A wonderful book.

George Hersey, High Renaisance Art in St. Peter's and the Vatican, Chicago, 1993, ch. 3, "The New St. Peter's" is a good, clear explanation of how the church evolved between Bramante and Michelangelo

William Wallace, Michelangelo at San Lorenzo. The Genius as Entrepreneur, Cambridge, 1994. Lots of fun—about Michelangelo as in the quarries of Carrara, and the organizer of a huge workforce at S. Lorenzo, where he designed the New Sacristy with the Medici Tombs. Xerox of my review in the The New York Review of Books, 16.II.1995 is on our shelf.

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