Michelangelo.

Painter, sculptor, Renaissance man.

ABOUT THIS PLAY

The boy had a lavish talent for drawing. He and the other apprentices would take their artists' tools to a church in Florence and sketch the sculptures and paintings.

But sometimes the boy got a little too big for his smock. "[He] had the habit of making fun of anyone else who was there," remembered a fellow apprentice. "One day, he provoked me so much that I lost my temper ... and gave him such a punch on the nose that I felt the bone and cartilage crush like a biscuit. So that fellow will carry my signature till, he dies."

The name of the kid with the busted nose? Michelangelo (MY-kuhl-AN-juh-loh), who would become perhaps the greatest artist of the Italian Renaissance.

The Renaissance refers to the incredible flowering of European art, architecture, literature, and philosophy in the 14th-16th centuries. Italy's artists thrived during this time. Such geniuses as Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Donatello all left their marks on the world's cultural landscape. But perhaps no artist--before or since--has matched ability to capture human beauty as perfectly as that hardheaded kid named Michelangelo.

THE CAST

Giorgio Vasari (gee-YOR-gee-oh vuh-SAH-REE), Michelangelo's biographer

Ludovico (lu-duh-VEE-choh), his father

Michelangelo Buonarroti (bwewn-uh-ROH-tee), as a young apprentice and as an adult

Master Ghirlandaio (geer-LAHN-DIE-yoh), master of Michelangelo's apprenticeship

Lucrezia, his stepmother

Francesco Granacci (frahn-CHES-kohgrah-NAH-chee), another apprentice

Leonardo da Vinci, an artist

Lorenzo de Medici, Michelangelo's patron

Vittoria Colonna, Michelangelo's friend

Pope Paul III, head of the Roman Catholic Church 

Biagio de Gesena (bee-YAH-JEE-yoh duh seh-SEE-nah) Pope Paul's assistant

SCENE ONE FLORENCE, ITALY, 1488

Giorgia Vasari: I am Vasari, the biographer of the great Michelangelo. There is one thing everyone must know about this great artist: He smelled... a really stinky fellow. I found this letter from his father, Ludovico, which may explain why.

Vasari: Perhaps that was good advice. Michelangelo lived to be 89, which in his time was really old. But I always made a point of standing upwind of him. Now, his father had more advice for his son. But this time, Michelangelo didn't listen.

Ludovico: "Son... never wash yourself; allow yourself to be rubbed, but don't wash."

Ludovico: What's with this artist rot? We may be poor, Michelangelo, but we're one of Florence's oldest and noblest families. No son of mine will become an, artist, working with his hands like a common laborer. No! You will be apprenticed to the wool guild, become a merchant, and like it!

Michelangelo: But, Papa, Master Ghirlandaio, the painter, says I have a good hand and a good eye. What I see I can draw, and he's willing to take me as his apprentice!

Ludovico: Must I whack these ideas out of your head?

Lucrezia: Enough, Ludovico! A person is born into the world with his work in him. Who are you to argue with God's will?

Ludovico: Basta! Enough! Both of you--get out of my sight.

Vasari: Michelangelo defied his father's wishes and trained with Ghirlandaio, who specialized in frescoes--watercolor paintings on damp plaster. Michelangelo and the other apprentices made sketches, mixed colors, and plastered walls for the frescoes. That's how young people learned a trade in our day, by practicing, and working with people who knew their stuff. As Master Ghirlandaio explained;

Ghirlandaio: To become a master, you must learn even the smallest details of your craft.

Vasari: One day, a visitor stopped by

Michelangelo: Is that who I think it is?

Francesco Granacci: Yes! Lorenzo de Medici--ruler of Florence and great patron of the arts. Imagine if he became our patron some day!

Vasari: Wealthy patrons like the Medici family and the Roman Catholic Church made the Renaissance possible. They had the money to buy art and pay the artists. In turn, the artists created whatever their patrons wanted.

Lorenzo de Medici: Master Ghirlandaio, you have made Florence's frescoes look magnificent again. I want to do the same with the sculptures in our city. Would you be willing to give me your two best apprentices to train with my master sculptor?

Ghirlandaio: How could I refuse? Granacci! Michelangelo!

Vasari: And so Michelangelo traded his paintbrush for a hammer and chisel, and became a live-in apprentice at the Medici palace. There, he met some of the great thinkers of the Italian Renaissance.

SCENE TWO

FLORENCE, 1503

Vasari: Marble chip by marble chunk, Michelangelo sculpted his reputation and fame. By 1500, people were comparing him to the great Leonardo da Vinci, who was 23 years older. The comparison didn't sit well with either of them. One day, Michelangelo was admiring a large sketch of a battle scene, when Leonardo entered.

Michelangelo (to himself): Magnificent. Look at how he captured the hands and bodies in motion. What a wonderful change from the stiff poses--Leonardo da Vinci (walking up from behind): You like my work?

Michelangelo: Uh, yes, of course, Leonardo. How are you? You're looking... older.

Leonardo: I can see from the dust under your nails that you're still bashing away at rocks. They say you can paint a little. You should give up sculpting. It's so messy.

Michelangelo: When you see David, my newest sculpture, you'll see that it's worth it. I hear you have been chosen to paint a battle scene on a wall at City Hall?

Leonardo: Yes. The leaders of our new republic hope that my painting will whip up some patriotic spirit in the citizens of Florence.

Michelangelo: We'll be fighting side by side. I'll be painting the fresco next to yours.

Leonardo: Do remember to use a paintbrush and not your chisel.

Michelangelo: Yes, sometimes I worry that I have so much talent and so little time.

Leonardo: Hmmph!

Vasari: Unfortunately, the frescoes never got beyond the sketching stage. Or, perhaps, fortunately. The two great artists might have killed each other.

SCENE THREE

ROME, 1538

Vasari: Michelangelo became the favorite artist of the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Julius II asked him to paint the vaulted ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He spent four years on the project (1508-1512), and complained of a stiff neck and paint falling in his eyes. But the finished work, which shows biblical history from the Creation to the Great Flood, became his most famous work.

In 1535, Pope Paul III named Michelangelo "Sculptor, Painter, and Architect of all the Vatican." Now in his early sixties, Michelangelo met a woman who appreciated his artistic talents.

Vittoria Colonna: Did I tell you, dear friend, that I visited the Sistine Chapel?

Michelangelo: And what did you think?

Vittoria: I feel like I learned more about you from your art than from all our hours of talking. Every image in your painting seems caught in the midst of motion--as if Adam and Eve, Noah, even the Creator himself could leap down among us.

Michelangelo: I'm now working on a fresco on the altar wall of the chapel.

Vittoria: What subject have you chosen?

Michelangelo: The Last Judgment. Here--I have a sketch for you.

Vittoria: I will treasure this forever.

SCENE FOUR

THE SISTINE CHAPEL, 1541

Vasari: As Michelangelo was completing The Last Judgment in 1541, he was interrupted by surprise visitors.

Michelangelo: Didn't I say no one was to be let in!

Pope Paul III: They couldn't very well keep me out, could they?

Michelangelo: Your Holiness!

Pope Paul III: What do you think of it, Biagio?

Biagio de Cesena: Your Excellency, look at all the naked bodies! This painting should be in a tavern, not in your personal chapel.

Michelangelo: Your Holiness

Pope Paul III: What a terrifying vision you have, Michelangelo, of our last day when we all shall be judged. All in one great swirl of energy, like a storm. So few are entering the kingdom of heaven! You have a pessimistic view of humanity, my dear Michelangelo. Still, this is magnificent. One painting that says more than a thousand sermons!

AFTERWORD

Vasari: In 1546, Pope Paul III asked Michelangelo to oversee the building of the Basilica of St. Peter, the most magnificent church of its time. The Basilica was not completed, however, until long after Michelangelo's death in 1564.

Many of the most famous works of art ever created emerged from Michelangelo's hands: the statues Pieta, David, and Dying Slave; the Medici tombs; and his paintings throughout the Sistine Chapel.

About art and the fulfillment of his talent, Michelangelo wrote: "Beauteous art, brought with us from heaven ... belongs to him who strives with every nerve."

Your Turn

Think About It

1. How did young people learn a vocation during the Renaissance?

2. Why do you think Michelangelo's work is still honored today?