Tabernacle or Trap?
Nov 30th, 2007 by admin
Maybe while Michelangelo was working on his models for the little statues of Proculus and Petronius, the Prior or some other lucid prelate dropped in on him to see how things were coming along. He was perhaps a man who liked beautiful figures and smiled in surprise when he saw these lively studies by the young sculptor. Then he thought a moment and the smile died. He might have asked: “Are those our two great saints?”
“Yes, sir,” said Michelangelo. “This is Petronius and this is Proculus.”
“Do you think people dressed like that in their time?”
“I don’t know,” said Michelangelo. “They might have.”
“Proculus is very active,” said the old prelate, a bit foxily. “What do you think he is doing? He looks annoyed or angry—not a very saintly expression, is it?”
Though he was not yet twenty, Michelangelo wasn’t a stranger to philosophical or theological talk. At the Medici palace he had dined with and heard some of the best minds of Italy discussing all the important problems. He quickly came up with an answer:
“He could be going out to fight the battle for the Faith. Perhaps he is angry at some injustice. Christ was angry and looked so when he drove the money-changers out of the temple.”
The prelate looked hard at Michelangelo for a moment to see if he knew he was being hypocritical, decided he did, and relaxed, nodded.
“That might well be but he does look a lot like a young man who is no saint at all. Don’t forget: these statues are going to be placed in church, where all can see them while they pray. A church should be a place of recollection, a place of retreat from the world outside. The outside should stay outside. Nothing a Christian’s eyes might fall on should distract him from the deep meaning of life. These our two saints are examples of how to live.”
“But they would not have prayed all the time,” said Michelangelo.
The prelate was ready to give up. “No, I suppose they wouldn’t.” He didn’t really want to quarrel: he didn’t really want to stop the young sculptor from making beautiful statues. He wasn’t sure himself just how much of the lovely world a man could enjoy with a good conscience. “Go on with your little Proculus,” he said. “It’s a very nice figure. I only want you to think about what you are doing, about the propriety of such a figure in church. Promise me you will.”
“All right.”
Which is it—this world or the next? Why show off the human body? What was his reason for glorifying it? Sure, it was the temple of the soul but it was also a trap. Are we going to turn away from the delights of this world or fondle them dangerously? Did Michelangelo remember the teachings of the Friar Savonarola?
At that very moment back in Florence the great painter Sandro Botticelli was taking a last look at some of his beautiful paintings—the most worldly of them, as he thought. “God forgive me,” he said. “How could I have been so wrong?” And he threw them onto a bonfire. Savonarola had convinced him of his error.
Michelangelo would think about this contradiction the rest of his long life. As he matured, the nervous, robust beauty of his figures changed. By the time he was an old man the defiant scowls of his Proculus and his David had long since given way to faces of resignation and grief: the old Nicodemus of the Duomo Pietà, which Michelangelo meant for his own grave, is his self-portrait.
Michelangelo's self-portrait as Nicodemus in the Duomo Pietá, Florence (Click twice on thumbnail to enlarge)