Some of the most famous, poetry, sculpture, painting & architecture in the world was created by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, who spent most of his lengthy career creating monumental works of art for 7 consecutive Popes. Regarded as the greatest living artist of his day, he remains one of the impressive artists of all time. Among his creations: the Pieta, David ,the Sistine Chapel, the Laurentian Library, the Last Judgment, St. Peter's Basilica. The Renaissance painter & sculptor whose frescoes adorn the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican was put in charge of the restoration of St. Peter’s by Pope Paul III in 1546, a job he held until his death in 1564. His greatest contribution to the basilica is its central dome or cupola, a universally acknowledged architectural triumph.
Michelangelo wrote 48 epigrams commemorating the adoration of his young lover Cecchino dei Bracci who died at age 16. The drawings, with legs spread wide & thighs for days, are of Tommaso De'Cavalieri, a handsome young nobleman, whom he met in 1532 when he was 57 & Tommaso 23. Michelangelo wrote 300 beautiful, astounding sonnets to him that became a much loved book after his death. Michelangelo wrote love letters & ardent love poems to him and in 1533 sent him a series of erotic drawings, the most famous of which depicts Zeus disguised as an eagle abducting a young Ganymede. In Michelangelo's drawing, the eagle presses its body tightly against the back of the smiling, yielding Ganymede. The drawings, with legs spread wide & the thighs to die for, were likely in the image of Tommaso De'Cavalieri. The 2 men were lovers for over 30 years.
Michelangelo's poems to Cavalieri were extravagant:
“Your name nourishes my heart & soul filing each with such sweetness ... If my eyes had their share of you, only think how happy I would be.” In another he wishes his hairy skin to be made into a breastplate for Tommaso & “Were I two slippers he could own & use as base to his majestic weight, I would enjoy two snowy feet at least.”
“If I must be defeated to be blessed,
Don't marvel that one, naked & alone,
should prove a prisoner of an armored knight.
The love I speak of aspires to the heights;
woman is too dissimilar, & it ill becomes
a wise & manly heart to burn for her.”
Michelangelo seems to have more inhibited about his sexuality than Leonardo da Vinci, but Leonardo lived in Florence & Michelangelo in Rome, a generation later, & the time & place were not as permissive.
& then there is that 13 foot hunk of rock hard man that I met one day at The Academia in Florence...
Nice thoughts and remembrances of Michaelangelo. Truly an inspirational artist.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to use that "snowy feet" line one of these days.
ReplyDeleteGod bless him.
I have a magnet of the David on my 'fridge, and every time my mother comes over, she moves it to the side so she doesn't have to look at it. I asked why, one day and she said "Penises do not belong anywhere near your food."
ReplyDeleteI had never known that much about him before.
ReplyDeleteSecretia