Michelangelo: Saint or Sinner

1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,400 The following programme contains flashing images. 2 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:11,074 Watch Online Movies and Series for FREE www.osdb.link/lm 3 00:00:20,720 --> 00:00:23,720 Was Michelangelo a saint or a sinner? 4 00:00:24,600 --> 00:00:26,360 He's a saint of art. 5 00:00:26,400 --> 00:00:28,680 He's certainly a patron saint of art 6 00:00:28,720 --> 00:00:31,240 and probably one of the most famous artists in the world. 7 00:00:31,280 --> 00:00:32,800 So in that sense, 8 00:00:32,840 --> 00:00:36,400 he's saintly in that we still respect him and observe him 9 00:00:36,440 --> 00:00:39,400 and go to his relics and the remains that he's given us. 10 00:00:39,440 --> 00:00:41,680 But he thought of himself as a sinner. 11 00:00:42,560 --> 00:00:45,080 I think in this case, we have to separate 12 00:00:45,120 --> 00:00:48,080 the artist from the man and when we think of an artist, 13 00:00:48,120 --> 00:00:51,120 the public persona is always this genius, 14 00:00:51,160 --> 00:00:54,760 this guy who had the hands of God to create these divine-like works. 15 00:00:57,320 --> 00:01:00,720 Then it's hard to think of him in any other way than divine. 16 00:01:00,760 --> 00:01:04,560 But maybe this is the perfect moment in time, in history, 17 00:01:04,600 --> 00:01:08,800 to think about him as a human being, as a complicated human being. 18 00:02:01,160 --> 00:02:05,080 I love Michelangelo on a very deep level. 19 00:02:05,120 --> 00:02:07,000 He's the ultimate artist for me. 20 00:02:07,040 --> 00:02:10,280 And I- I like to think of him more like a God than a mere mortal. 21 00:02:10,320 --> 00:02:12,320 So, he's a complex man, 22 00:02:12,360 --> 00:02:15,360 and maybe it's time for me to stop thinking about him as a God 23 00:02:15,400 --> 00:02:17,640 and think about him as a man. 24 00:02:35,400 --> 00:02:39,040 I never tire of being in Rome. 25 00:02:42,040 --> 00:02:45,600 I've been coming here for 20 years for my career. 26 00:02:47,200 --> 00:02:50,280 It's almost as if I left a little piece of myself here, 27 00:02:50,320 --> 00:02:53,240 and then I reconnect with it again every time. 28 00:02:53,280 --> 00:02:56,240 It's a place that just gives me so much energy. 29 00:02:56,280 --> 00:02:58,520 When I'm walking these cobblestones, 30 00:02:58,560 --> 00:03:03,000 I'm immediately connected to Renaissance Masters. 31 00:03:03,800 --> 00:03:05,840 I'm looking at these ancient monuments 32 00:03:05,880 --> 00:03:08,600 and I'm thinking of an entirely different world. 33 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:14,280 But a world that still informs my existence today. 34 00:03:19,200 --> 00:03:21,720 'It's such a layered city, 35 00:03:21,760 --> 00:03:24,080 and I suppose I'm addicted to it.' 36 00:03:26,800 --> 00:03:29,720 'I'm a pilgrim. I keep returning. 37 00:03:29,760 --> 00:03:32,600 And there's one artist more than anyone else 38 00:03:32,640 --> 00:03:34,280 that I'm in search for... 39 00:03:35,640 --> 00:03:38,240 ..that I'm always keeping an eye out for... 40 00:03:38,280 --> 00:03:40,080 and it's Michelangelo.' 41 00:03:55,640 --> 00:03:58,760 This is the tomb of Pope Julius II by Michelangelo. 42 00:03:58,800 --> 00:04:01,680 It was supposed to be one of the most magnificent, 43 00:04:01,720 --> 00:04:04,520 splendid, ground-breaking artworks in history. 44 00:04:04,560 --> 00:04:08,280 And instead, it's completely mired in controversy. 45 00:04:08,320 --> 00:04:11,200 It took 40 years to deliver. It is far diminished. 46 00:04:11,240 --> 00:04:14,640 It is a modest artwork instead of a magnificent artwork. 47 00:04:29,120 --> 00:04:30,760 And ultimately, 48 00:04:30,800 --> 00:04:33,560 it's something that really threatens Michelangelo's reputation. 49 00:04:33,600 --> 00:04:35,960 It involves lots of scheming, lots of letters, 50 00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:38,200 lots of accusations, several popes, 51 00:04:38,240 --> 00:04:40,680 Michelangelo's rivals, Raphael and Bramante. 52 00:04:40,720 --> 00:04:44,600 Perhaps the biggest controversy about Michelangelo, this tomb. 53 00:04:44,640 --> 00:04:48,480 The mausoleum was to be Michelangelo's commission of a lifetime 54 00:04:48,520 --> 00:04:51,480 that was meant to secure his legacy forever, 55 00:04:51,520 --> 00:04:55,400 secure it beyond our wildest dreams that we know today. 56 00:04:59,720 --> 00:05:02,680 'I think the failed tomb of Pope Julius II 57 00:05:02,720 --> 00:05:06,200 can give us a different insight into Michelangelo's personal life. 58 00:05:06,240 --> 00:05:07,760 Without this tomb, 59 00:05:07,800 --> 00:05:10,520 and the controversy that surrounded it at the time, 60 00:05:10,560 --> 00:05:13,040 Michelangelo probably would not have created 61 00:05:13,080 --> 00:05:15,680 some of his most magnificent work. 62 00:05:15,720 --> 00:05:18,920 So one could argue that out of his darkest moments 63 00:05:18,960 --> 00:05:22,080 rose some of his brightest achievements.' 64 00:05:42,760 --> 00:05:46,680 'As a sculptor, he had imagined something ambitious, 65 00:05:46,720 --> 00:05:49,120 a marble monument like no other. 66 00:05:49,160 --> 00:05:53,200 This tomb for Pope Julius II, known as the warrior pope, 67 00:05:53,240 --> 00:05:56,640 was meant to become the eighth wonder of the world.' 68 00:05:59,160 --> 00:06:03,000 'We are unaware of the details as we have no drawings. 69 00:06:03,040 --> 00:06:05,920 But we do know that he wanted it to be magnificent. 70 00:06:05,960 --> 00:06:08,000 A celebration of Christianity, 71 00:06:08,040 --> 00:06:10,720 he wanted it to be a freestanding tomb 72 00:06:10,760 --> 00:06:15,800 made entirely of the finest Carrara marble he would choose himself. 73 00:06:16,600 --> 00:06:20,240 Never since classical times had a mausoleum like this 74 00:06:20,280 --> 00:06:23,360 been built in the West for one man alone. 75 00:06:23,400 --> 00:06:27,200 Michelangelo planned to finish it in under six years. 76 00:06:27,240 --> 00:06:29,240 So why didn't he?' 77 00:06:30,320 --> 00:06:33,680 This mausoleum would've immortalised Pope Julius II 78 00:06:33,720 --> 00:06:36,600 as this king-like pope, 79 00:06:36,640 --> 00:06:41,360 who was this architect of Rome who helped enable Rome to prosper 80 00:06:41,400 --> 00:06:44,880 as one of the greatest cities artistically in the world. 81 00:06:44,920 --> 00:06:47,800 It was supposed to be the Sistine Chapel in marble, 82 00:06:47,840 --> 00:06:49,440 and instead we have Moses. 83 00:06:49,480 --> 00:06:52,320 And don't get me wrong, I love Moses. It's a masterpiece. 84 00:06:52,360 --> 00:06:54,920 But he was supposed to have serious company. 85 00:06:54,960 --> 00:06:56,800 And instead, he's on his own. 86 00:07:25,400 --> 00:07:29,520 The tomb ultimately cost a huge amount of money. 87 00:07:29,560 --> 00:07:33,280 Maybe well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars 88 00:07:33,320 --> 00:07:35,480 in modern equivalency. 89 00:07:35,520 --> 00:07:38,800 But here's where, over the long, long history 90 00:07:38,840 --> 00:07:41,120 of this tomb of 40 years, there were contracts 91 00:07:41,160 --> 00:07:43,320 and there was agreements and there was funding, 92 00:07:43,360 --> 00:07:46,520 and then there was promotion, more money presented. 93 00:07:46,560 --> 00:07:48,400 Michelangelo didn't keep track of it! 94 00:07:48,440 --> 00:07:51,600 And this is how he got into trouble. He didn't keep track of the money, 95 00:07:51,640 --> 00:07:54,400 he didn't- he couldn't legitimise, or legitimate, 96 00:07:54,440 --> 00:07:56,800 what he was spending his money on. 97 00:07:56,840 --> 00:07:59,720 He was just a terrible, terrible money manager. 98 00:08:26,760 --> 00:08:30,080 Mmm. 99 00:08:30,120 --> 00:08:32,120 Stop. 100 00:08:32,160 --> 00:08:34,680 Well... 101 00:08:55,560 --> 00:08:58,280 I began my career at the British Museum, 102 00:08:58,320 --> 00:09:00,680 talking about Michelangelo in these divine terms. 103 00:09:00,720 --> 00:09:03,040 But I never really thought about him as a man before. 104 00:09:03,080 --> 00:09:05,840 And when I think about the Tomb of Julius II, 105 00:09:05,880 --> 00:09:09,080 I realised that I haven't acknowledged that perhaps... 106 00:09:09,120 --> 00:09:13,120 perhaps Michelangelo was flawed, perhaps he made mistakes. 107 00:09:13,160 --> 00:09:16,480 Why did this tomb take 40 years to deliver? 108 00:09:16,520 --> 00:09:19,480 Why was he hounded by the family 109 00:09:19,520 --> 00:09:21,920 asking for the artwork that he promised them? 110 00:09:21,960 --> 00:09:25,960 Why did he take money and then maybe not deliver on the sculptures? 111 00:09:26,000 --> 00:09:28,000 And I think that, as art historians, 112 00:09:28,040 --> 00:09:30,680 sometimes we're guilty of just putting forward 113 00:09:30,720 --> 00:09:33,480 the story of Michelangelo and all of his accomplishments. 114 00:09:33,520 --> 00:09:37,320 And we don't like to think about all the messy, complicated stuff. 115 00:09:37,360 --> 00:09:40,520 I want to really understand this artist that I love so much. 116 00:09:40,560 --> 00:09:44,480 You know, to be a true art historian is to see an artist in the round. 117 00:09:44,520 --> 00:09:47,000 And that's what I need to do. 118 00:09:52,960 --> 00:09:56,520 'Michelangelo's born in 1475, in a really tiny place, 119 00:09:56,560 --> 00:09:59,840 Caprese, it's near Arezzo, in the Tuscan countryside. 120 00:09:59,880 --> 00:10:03,360 Michelangelo came from a family which had very noble origins. 121 00:10:03,400 --> 00:10:06,560 He was always very keen to stress this, it was important to him. 122 00:10:06,600 --> 00:10:09,240 But by no means was- did he grew up in a family 123 00:10:09,280 --> 00:10:11,760 which had a huge amount of wealth.' 124 00:10:11,800 --> 00:10:13,600 And over 500 years later, 125 00:10:13,640 --> 00:10:17,240 this is still one of the most remote parts of Italy I've ever seen. 126 00:10:17,280 --> 00:10:19,720 And it spectacular. It's not about people. 127 00:10:19,760 --> 00:10:22,080 It's not about buildings. It's not about money. 128 00:10:22,120 --> 00:10:24,240 It's not about status. It's not about power. 129 00:10:24,280 --> 00:10:27,560 This place just seems to be about light and nature. 130 00:10:27,600 --> 00:10:31,520 And actually, Michelangelo's making more sense as an artist for me. 131 00:10:31,560 --> 00:10:33,720 It's really important for me to come back to this place 132 00:10:33,760 --> 00:10:36,360 and trace his footsteps and say, "He was born". 133 00:10:36,400 --> 00:10:39,040 He was- He was flesh and blood, just like me. 134 00:10:39,080 --> 00:10:41,280 And I think this art is known the world over. 135 00:10:41,320 --> 00:10:44,680 This, sort of, person who set the benchmark for what art could be 136 00:10:44,720 --> 00:10:47,600 was born right here. 137 00:10:53,960 --> 00:10:55,920 He doesn't grow up with a lot of money. 138 00:10:55,960 --> 00:10:57,920 There's no financial stability. 139 00:10:57,960 --> 00:11:00,320 There's definitely always a concern in Michelangelo... 140 00:11:00,360 --> 00:11:02,400 Even when he's in his much later years 141 00:11:02,440 --> 00:11:05,360 and he shouldn't be worrying about money, he does worry about money. 142 00:11:05,400 --> 00:11:07,240 And you can see his letters with his father. 143 00:11:07,280 --> 00:11:09,320 His father's constantly writing to him to say, 144 00:11:09,360 --> 00:11:12,400 when he's a young man, "You should be more financially secure, 145 00:11:12,440 --> 00:11:13,800 but you mustn't live in poverty. 146 00:11:13,840 --> 00:11:16,040 But at the same time, you mustn't live extravagantly." 147 00:11:16,080 --> 00:11:17,480 There's all these pressures on him 148 00:11:17,520 --> 00:11:19,600 and that stays with him throughout his entire life. 149 00:11:19,640 --> 00:11:23,560 It's definitely a really psychological trait in Michelangelo 150 00:11:23,600 --> 00:11:26,680 to both uphold the good name of the family, 151 00:11:26,720 --> 00:11:28,840 but not be seen to be too luxurious. 152 00:11:28,880 --> 00:11:31,400 And I think you see that in the way that he handles money. 153 00:11:31,440 --> 00:11:33,960 I mean, he's slightly negligent when he handles money. 154 00:11:34,000 --> 00:11:37,120 He's very concerned about money, but he doesn't count every penny, 155 00:11:37,160 --> 00:11:39,520 he's so busy with his work, so he's a bit of a contradiction. 156 00:11:39,560 --> 00:11:42,640 Well, Michelangelo was the person in the family that made money. 157 00:11:42,680 --> 00:11:45,080 And so, um, yes, his father 158 00:11:45,120 --> 00:11:47,800 was constantly asking for money from Michelangelo. 159 00:11:47,840 --> 00:11:51,120 And so Michelangelo's a little bit irritated 160 00:11:51,160 --> 00:11:54,000 that other members of his family weren't making as much money. 161 00:11:54,040 --> 00:11:56,960 But Michelangelo made a LOT of money in his life. 162 00:11:57,000 --> 00:12:00,000 I mean, he- by the end of his life, he was a multimillionaire, 163 00:12:00,040 --> 00:12:02,200 but he didn't spend money on himself. 164 00:12:02,240 --> 00:12:06,040 He spent money on everything else, his art and mostly on marble. 165 00:12:06,080 --> 00:12:09,080 So, the... money was always a tension, 166 00:12:09,120 --> 00:12:11,920 as it probably is in many families. 167 00:12:42,720 --> 00:12:46,120 Well, Michelangelo came from an old, noble family... 168 00:12:46,160 --> 00:12:48,120 uh, impoverished nobility. 169 00:12:48,160 --> 00:12:51,000 And so, his father would naturally expect Michelangelo 170 00:12:51,040 --> 00:12:53,920 to become a member of the government or a notary, 171 00:12:53,960 --> 00:12:57,000 or something that was not manual labour, 172 00:12:57,040 --> 00:12:58,680 which is what art was considered, 173 00:12:58,720 --> 00:13:01,360 a manual labour and not very prestigious. 174 00:13:03,640 --> 00:13:06,520 'When Michelangelo as a young man says he wants to become an artist, 175 00:13:06,560 --> 00:13:08,920 you can imagine his family were really shocked 176 00:13:08,960 --> 00:13:11,120 to the point of thinking they might be disgraced 177 00:13:11,160 --> 00:13:12,760 by him becoming an artist. 178 00:13:12,800 --> 00:13:16,280 But he obviously just feels it on a very instinctive level.' 179 00:13:17,080 --> 00:13:18,640 But I think what becomes very clear 180 00:13:18,680 --> 00:13:20,800 is that by the time that Michelangelo is 13, 181 00:13:20,840 --> 00:13:22,680 he's basically just drawing at school. 182 00:13:22,720 --> 00:13:24,800 He just wants to be an artist. 183 00:13:24,840 --> 00:13:28,000 And his father and his uncle try and convince him not to be an artist. 184 00:13:28,040 --> 00:13:31,280 But eventually they submit, and he goes to become an apprentice 185 00:13:31,320 --> 00:13:35,520 at the workshop of Ghirlandaio, who's a very respected Florentine artist. 186 00:13:39,960 --> 00:13:42,840 'So, I've come to Florence to retrace his footsteps 187 00:13:42,880 --> 00:13:45,200 and think about him in all of his complexity. 188 00:13:45,240 --> 00:13:49,560 The Tomb of Julius II, it seems like quite a contemporary problem. 189 00:13:49,600 --> 00:13:50,800 You know, there's fake news. 190 00:13:50,840 --> 00:13:52,840 There's people trying to slander Michelangelo. 191 00:13:52,880 --> 00:13:55,440 They're trying to cancel him, they're trying to bring him down. 192 00:13:55,480 --> 00:13:57,720 Was he a saint, or was he a sinner? I don't know. 193 00:13:57,760 --> 00:14:00,520 Could Michelangelo ever be so innocent? 194 00:14:00,560 --> 00:14:02,240 I've always thought him to be so. 195 00:14:02,280 --> 00:14:05,760 But now thinking about it, I realise it's a much more complex picture. 196 00:14:05,800 --> 00:14:07,600 And I need to think carefully 197 00:14:07,640 --> 00:14:10,360 and try and understand him as flesh and blood.' 198 00:14:28,800 --> 00:14:32,000 This is the cloister of the Church of San Lorenzo in Florence, 199 00:14:32,040 --> 00:14:35,120 and it's a site of huge significance in Michelangelo's career. 200 00:14:35,160 --> 00:14:37,040 It's the Medici family church. 201 00:14:37,080 --> 00:14:38,960 It's a place where he had a huge success 202 00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:41,240 with the Medici Family Chapel. 203 00:14:43,280 --> 00:14:45,280 And so the Medici helped 204 00:14:45,320 --> 00:14:47,360 pave the way for a Michelangelo career. 205 00:14:47,400 --> 00:14:49,440 And that career began, really, 206 00:14:49,480 --> 00:14:51,480 not actually in the Medici garden, 207 00:14:51,520 --> 00:14:54,120 but with the Ghirlandaio workshop, 208 00:14:54,160 --> 00:14:56,600 where probably because of the Medici connection, 209 00:14:56,640 --> 00:14:59,600 Michelangelo was... His way with smoothed into 210 00:14:59,640 --> 00:15:02,800 the most impressive and important workshop in all of Florence 211 00:15:02,840 --> 00:15:04,480 A painter's workshop, 212 00:15:04,520 --> 00:15:07,840 which is not how we think of Michelangelo being trained. 213 00:15:09,400 --> 00:15:12,360 Michelangelo is, however, only there one year, 214 00:15:12,400 --> 00:15:14,160 and that's unusual for an apprentice. 215 00:15:14,200 --> 00:15:17,080 He gets summoned, he gets picked. Lorenzo the Magnificent says, 216 00:15:17,120 --> 00:15:19,920 "Send me two of your best pupils to Ghirlandaio." 217 00:15:19,960 --> 00:15:21,520 And Michelangelo's selected. 218 00:15:21,560 --> 00:15:24,600 And then, this really just changes the course of Michelangelo's life. 219 00:15:24,640 --> 00:15:26,760 He's got this humanist education. 220 00:15:26,800 --> 00:15:28,840 He's looking at ancient sculptures in the gardens, 221 00:15:28,880 --> 00:15:31,040 he's being tutored by great artists, 222 00:15:31,080 --> 00:15:35,320 he's living a princely kind of life with this very wealthy Medici family. 223 00:15:35,360 --> 00:15:38,120 And what's critical is that he would become very close, 224 00:15:38,160 --> 00:15:40,840 almost like family, with two future popes. 225 00:16:35,840 --> 00:16:38,360 Michelangelo really, as yet, 226 00:16:38,400 --> 00:16:41,320 is not a sculptor when he's living in the Medici household. 227 00:16:41,360 --> 00:16:44,320 He's something like being trained in something like a courtier, 228 00:16:44,360 --> 00:16:47,880 sort of on the margins of the court of the Medici. 229 00:16:47,920 --> 00:16:50,400 But then, with the death of Lorenzo de' Medici, 230 00:16:50,440 --> 00:16:55,320 Michelangelo really needed a career, he needed some kind of income. 231 00:16:55,360 --> 00:16:59,400 And so he carved the Cupid as a showpiece, 232 00:16:59,440 --> 00:17:02,560 as a demonstration that he could carve 233 00:17:02,600 --> 00:17:06,920 as well as the antique sculptors of the ancient world could carve. 234 00:17:06,960 --> 00:17:09,240 And this Cupid was sent to Rome 235 00:17:09,280 --> 00:17:13,520 as if it had been discovered as an ancient work of art. 236 00:17:58,000 --> 00:18:01,080 But his big break came from Raffaele Riario, 237 00:18:01,120 --> 00:18:04,120 who actually asked Michelangelo, "What can you do?" 238 00:18:04,160 --> 00:18:06,880 You know, "OK, I've seen you carve the Cupid, 239 00:18:06,920 --> 00:18:09,160 but what can you do new for me?" 240 00:18:09,200 --> 00:18:12,320 And so, Michelangelo actually then carved the Bacchus. 241 00:18:29,560 --> 00:18:33,080 Then a French cardinal noticed the Bacchus 242 00:18:33,120 --> 00:18:36,440 and wanted a grave memorial for himself, 243 00:18:36,480 --> 00:18:38,160 which is what the Pieta was. 244 00:18:38,200 --> 00:18:41,160 It was to mark the grave of this very powerful French cardinal. 245 00:18:41,200 --> 00:18:43,880 Michelangelo finally gets what he's looking for, 246 00:18:43,920 --> 00:18:48,240 a really serious commission by a serious cardinal for the Vatican. 247 00:18:48,280 --> 00:18:50,320 And he's gonna make a Pieta. 248 00:19:49,200 --> 00:19:51,800 So this really was Michelangelo's coming out, 249 00:19:51,840 --> 00:19:56,560 his debut sculpture that made him famous immediately in the world. 250 00:19:56,600 --> 00:20:00,560 And one way it's famous is not only is it beautifully carved, 251 00:20:00,600 --> 00:20:03,480 but it's a beautiful, carved piece of marble. 252 00:20:03,520 --> 00:20:06,640 It's just an absolute miracle sculpture. 253 00:20:06,680 --> 00:20:08,680 And I think he changes sculpture in that moment. 254 00:20:08,720 --> 00:20:11,440 People look at this work and they're incredibly jealous 255 00:20:11,480 --> 00:20:14,480 of this young artist in his twenties in Rome. 256 00:20:14,520 --> 00:20:16,640 They think, "Who the hell does he think he is, 257 00:20:16,680 --> 00:20:18,760 this young Michelangelo, making a work like that?" 258 00:20:18,800 --> 00:20:21,680 It surpasses everything his contemporaries have achieved. 259 00:20:21,720 --> 00:20:23,600 And it really just speaks to the ancients. 260 00:20:23,640 --> 00:20:26,440 So, it's such a critical moment in Michelangelo's life. 261 00:20:26,480 --> 00:20:29,440 And I think it's the moment where he thinks he's suddenly made it. 262 00:20:29,480 --> 00:20:31,040 He returns to Florence 263 00:20:31,080 --> 00:20:33,160 and he really wants to make his name in his homeland. 264 00:20:33,200 --> 00:20:34,640 This is really important for him. 265 00:20:34,680 --> 00:20:36,880 He gets a gift of a commission. 266 00:20:36,920 --> 00:20:38,240 It's for the Duomo. 267 00:20:38,280 --> 00:20:41,040 Unfortunately... It's a bit of a poisoned chalice 268 00:20:41,080 --> 00:20:43,080 because they give Michelangelo "the giant", 269 00:20:43,120 --> 00:20:45,240 which is this enormous block of marble 270 00:20:45,280 --> 00:20:47,520 that three different artists have had to go at. 271 00:20:47,560 --> 00:20:50,360 It's absolutely enormous and it's been quarried 272 00:20:50,400 --> 00:20:53,400 40 years before, which makes it even harder to carve. 273 00:20:53,440 --> 00:20:55,560 And so actually, it's a really difficult commission 274 00:20:55,600 --> 00:20:57,200 to give this young artist. 275 00:20:57,240 --> 00:21:00,280 But Michelangelo knows this is his big moment. 276 00:21:08,680 --> 00:21:12,120 The David is Michelangelo, world stage, 277 00:21:12,160 --> 00:21:14,840 and fame with the David. Why? 278 00:21:19,600 --> 00:21:21,800 Look at the scale of David. 279 00:21:21,840 --> 00:21:24,920 Nobody in the Renaissance had carved any sculpture 280 00:21:24,960 --> 00:21:26,800 nearly of this scale, 281 00:21:26,840 --> 00:21:29,400 and much less a nude figure 282 00:21:29,440 --> 00:21:32,520 that was so impressively naturalistic. 283 00:21:32,560 --> 00:21:36,240 So, the David was actually not even called "the David". 284 00:21:36,280 --> 00:21:39,680 People just called it "Il Gigante". 285 00:23:17,720 --> 00:23:21,320 So, Michelangelo was flourishing as an artist in Florence. 286 00:23:21,360 --> 00:23:24,680 Especially after the David, all kinds of commissions came his way. 287 00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:27,520 But suddenly, he gets a call from Rome. 288 00:23:28,640 --> 00:23:32,000 'Pope Julius II would like him to come to Rome 289 00:23:32,040 --> 00:23:34,200 to carve a mausoleum, 290 00:23:34,240 --> 00:23:38,120 a monumental burial tomb for the pope.' 291 00:23:38,960 --> 00:23:41,840 So when he gets this papal summons in 1505, 292 00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:44,760 it changes the course of his life because it means suddenly 293 00:23:44,800 --> 00:23:47,640 he is right at the apotheosis of the art world. 294 00:23:47,680 --> 00:23:49,440 He has been summoned by a pope. 295 00:23:49,480 --> 00:23:53,000 Not just any pope, but a pope who wants to rebuild Rome. 296 00:24:59,040 --> 00:25:02,360 I think it's really difficult to grasp quite what this means, 297 00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:06,320 because the papacy didn't just represent Christendom, 298 00:25:06,360 --> 00:25:08,520 it represented power. 299 00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:10,560 Pope Julius II was a warrior pope, 300 00:25:10,600 --> 00:25:13,760 and he really wants to dominate Italian politics. 301 00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:15,720 So we've got money, we've got power, 302 00:25:15,760 --> 00:25:18,520 but also he's an extraordinary patron of the arts. 303 00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:20,800 So, I think if you put it in today's terms, you could say, 304 00:25:20,840 --> 00:25:23,760 "Oh, maybe it's like representing your country at the Venice Biennale." 305 00:25:23,800 --> 00:25:25,080 But it's bigger than that. 306 00:25:25,120 --> 00:25:27,560 It's almost something that we have to imagine for ourselves. 307 00:25:27,600 --> 00:25:30,040 Like, imagine if the Princess of Wales and the Prince of Wales 308 00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:32,600 decided to build a completely new palace in London 309 00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:35,640 and have one artist come and be their court artist. 310 00:25:35,680 --> 00:25:37,880 Maybe that's what this is like. 311 00:26:33,360 --> 00:26:37,200 But what I think is most important about this whole project 312 00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:39,560 is at the beginning of this project, 313 00:26:39,600 --> 00:26:42,160 there was no contract, there was no drawing. 314 00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:45,520 It was a verbal agreement between the Pope and the artist 315 00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:48,080 to create this eighth wonder of the world. 316 00:28:05,120 --> 00:28:09,040 Michelangelo's life is intrinsically linked with marble. 317 00:28:09,080 --> 00:28:12,040 It makes him and it also breaks him. 318 00:28:12,080 --> 00:28:14,240 He becomes obsessed with it. 319 00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:18,920 'I've come to Florence, to Casa Buonarroti, 320 00:28:18,960 --> 00:28:21,640 a house he bought for his family, 321 00:28:21,680 --> 00:28:25,360 to find out exactly how he imagined this tomb to be... 322 00:28:27,000 --> 00:28:29,680 ..and to get an idea of how much marble 323 00:28:29,720 --> 00:28:31,720 he was going to need to make it.' 324 00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:46,320 'This place holds one of the largest Michelangelo archives.' 325 00:28:46,360 --> 00:28:48,720 And in this archive are actually letters, 326 00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:52,280 correspondences between Michelangelo and the heirs. 327 00:28:52,320 --> 00:28:54,840 And my journey has brought me here 328 00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:57,680 because in these letters, I'll be able to shed more light 329 00:28:57,720 --> 00:28:59,600 on what went on. 330 00:29:01,120 --> 00:29:03,560 When we look at letters, I think what we can do 331 00:29:03,600 --> 00:29:07,800 is actually put ourselves in the shoes of those who lived that time. 332 00:29:07,840 --> 00:29:11,480 And to get that first hand experience is extraordinary. 333 00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:16,720 'I can see from this document most of the measurements for the tomb, 334 00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:20,480 and the number of statues that Michelangelo wanted to create. 335 00:29:20,520 --> 00:29:25,840 It was supposed to be 7 metres wide, 11 metres deep and 8 metres high. 336 00:29:25,880 --> 00:29:30,120 It would have been adorned by over 40 life-size statues 337 00:29:30,160 --> 00:29:32,520 placed in St Peter's, all in marble. 338 00:29:32,560 --> 00:29:35,880 He puts an enormous emphasis on the marble he wanted to use... 339 00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:39,800 Not just any marble, it had to be the world-famous Carrara marble.' 340 00:29:43,600 --> 00:29:46,960 Michelangelo receives 1000 ducats from Pope Julius II 341 00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:50,320 to go off to the quarries to get the marble for this. 342 00:29:50,360 --> 00:29:53,240 Uh, again... Once again, Michelangelo insisting 343 00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:55,960 that he choose the best materials. 344 00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:59,600 So, he started a lifelong love 345 00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:02,480 for marble and for the marble quarries, 346 00:30:02,520 --> 00:30:05,240 a place where he probably was the happiest of all. 347 00:30:13,160 --> 00:30:15,520 'Michelangelo once wrote, 348 00:30:15,560 --> 00:30:18,880 "The sculpture is already complete within the marble block 349 00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:21,120 before I start my work. 350 00:30:21,160 --> 00:30:22,920 It is already there, 351 00:30:22,960 --> 00:30:26,920 I just need to chisel away the superfluous material." 352 00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:30,120 I am visiting the same marble quarry 353 00:30:30,160 --> 00:30:32,040 where Michelangelo spent eight months 354 00:30:32,080 --> 00:30:35,800 choosing the right slabs to use to create the 40 statues 355 00:30:35,840 --> 00:30:38,640 for the tomb of Pope Julius II.' 356 00:30:49,200 --> 00:30:52,240 'Michelangelo described this marble as being 357 00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:55,600 "of compact grain, homogenous, crystalline, 358 00:30:55,640 --> 00:30:57,880 reminiscent of sugar." 359 00:30:57,920 --> 00:31:00,280 I can see exactly what he meant. 360 00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:04,080 Carrara is in the Apuan Mountains, 361 00:31:04,120 --> 00:31:06,600 Italy's most marble-rich area. 362 00:31:08,040 --> 00:31:12,240 Hundreds of quarries have operated here since Roman times.' 363 00:31:25,760 --> 00:31:29,680 'I am meeting professor and sculptor Luciano Massari 364 00:31:29,720 --> 00:31:33,000 to find out more about Michelangelo's obsession with marble 365 00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:35,640 and these marble quarries.' 366 00:31:35,680 --> 00:31:37,560 What is so special about Carrara marble? 367 00:32:44,320 --> 00:32:48,240 So, after Michelangelo gets the commission from Pope Julius II, 368 00:32:48,280 --> 00:32:51,840 he comes to Carrara and it's here where he has to extract 369 00:32:51,880 --> 00:32:55,720 40 blocks of marble to create these 40 sculptures. 370 00:32:55,760 --> 00:32:58,480 What kind of feat was this for him then? 371 00:32:58,520 --> 00:33:00,520 And what does that translate to now? 372 00:33:34,880 --> 00:33:37,360 So, you as a professor, but also as a sculptor... 373 00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:40,520 When you're tackling Carrara marble, what do you do with it? 374 00:33:40,560 --> 00:33:44,080 And how would that be different to how Michelangelo tackled it? 375 00:36:44,960 --> 00:36:47,400 Michelangelo arrived in Rome 376 00:36:47,440 --> 00:36:50,600 after carefully selecting his marble, 377 00:36:50,640 --> 00:36:53,600 quarrying at Carrara to great expense. 378 00:36:53,640 --> 00:36:55,720 He then has to say goodbye to it, 379 00:36:55,760 --> 00:36:59,280 as it makes its way on a boat to Ripa Grande in Rome. 380 00:36:59,320 --> 00:37:01,680 It's gonna arrive in the port in Rome. 381 00:37:01,720 --> 00:37:04,760 And what a sight it would've been to see these enormous blocks 382 00:37:04,800 --> 00:37:09,080 arriving in Rome, ready to fulfil their artistic destiny. 383 00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:12,840 It's poetic to me, but it must've been terrifying to Michelangelo. 384 00:37:46,200 --> 00:37:49,760 So, when Michelangelo comes back to Rome with all of this marble 385 00:37:49,800 --> 00:37:53,480 and he's ready to start creating this greatest creation of all time, 386 00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:57,440 then he's gonna, all of a sudden, demand attention from the Pope 387 00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:00,840 that the Pope doesn't have time for. Time or money. 388 00:38:18,680 --> 00:38:21,480 I think the rupture between Michelangelo and Julius II 389 00:38:21,520 --> 00:38:23,920 came mainly when Michelangelo 390 00:38:23,960 --> 00:38:26,240 was unable to get an audience with the Pope. 391 00:38:26,280 --> 00:38:29,440 Uh, not only to get an audience, but to get money to... 392 00:38:29,480 --> 00:38:31,560 in order to continue this project. 393 00:38:31,600 --> 00:38:34,800 And so Michelangelo left Rome without the papal permission, 394 00:38:34,840 --> 00:38:37,560 and this is the rupture. You don't say no to a pope. 395 00:38:37,600 --> 00:38:42,320 And you don't just leave his employ without asking permission. 396 00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:56,360 The groundwork for the rupture was laid by Bramante, 397 00:38:56,400 --> 00:38:59,320 who was probably the person who convinced the Pope 398 00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:01,920 that it's not a good idea to build your own tomb monument 399 00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:04,000 in your own lifetime, this is unlucky. 400 00:39:04,040 --> 00:39:06,360 Well, Bramante is quite a character. 401 00:39:06,400 --> 00:39:08,960 He's the papal architect, 402 00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:11,640 is someone that really unsettles Michelangelo. 403 00:39:11,680 --> 00:39:14,840 And throughout the course of his life, Michelangelo complains 404 00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:18,520 about Bramante's influence on his own career. 405 00:39:18,560 --> 00:39:21,560 Pope Julius II really relies on Bramante. 406 00:39:21,600 --> 00:39:24,000 He's not just building him a tomb or painting him a picture, 407 00:39:24,040 --> 00:39:25,920 he's rebuilding St Peter's. 408 00:39:25,960 --> 00:39:29,480 And Bramante probably was helpful 409 00:39:29,520 --> 00:39:33,160 in redirecting the Pope's attention to the Sistine ceiling. 410 00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:36,640 "Why don't we have Michelangelo paint the Sistine ceiling instead?" 411 00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:40,680 Bramante hears Michelangelo's gonna build the tomb for Pope Julius II. 412 00:39:40,720 --> 00:39:44,000 He knows he is a supremely gifted sculptor. 413 00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:46,960 And he's jealous, and he says to Pope Julius II, 414 00:39:47,000 --> 00:39:49,480 "You should get him to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling." 415 00:40:21,800 --> 00:40:25,080 Bramante thinks that Michelangelo's totally gonna fail at the ceiling. 416 00:40:25,120 --> 00:40:29,320 It's absolutely enormous. And Bramante probably knows 417 00:40:29,360 --> 00:40:32,160 that Michelangelo only had one year with Ghirlandaio. 418 00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:34,880 He was a young man, he didn't have a long apprenticeship. 419 00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:37,240 He wouldn't have worked on any fresco cycles with him. 420 00:40:37,280 --> 00:40:40,040 In fact, probably, the day that Michelangelo turns up 421 00:40:40,080 --> 00:40:43,640 to the Sistine Chapel in 1508, thinking about making these frescoes 422 00:40:43,680 --> 00:40:46,440 is the closest he's ever come to making a fresco. 423 00:41:47,320 --> 00:41:50,520 There's about eight months there before he actually starts. 424 00:41:50,560 --> 00:41:52,560 He's doing a lot of drawing. 425 00:41:52,600 --> 00:41:55,320 He's making a lot of projects and a lot of designs. 426 00:41:55,360 --> 00:41:58,360 He's thinking about what's appropriate for the ceiling. 427 00:41:58,400 --> 00:42:02,160 He's consulting with the Pope about what is wanted on the ceiling. 428 00:42:02,200 --> 00:42:04,480 So, there's a long period there 429 00:42:04,520 --> 00:42:06,720 before Michelangelo actually starts to paint, 430 00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:10,400 where he's sort of figuring out that, "OK, I can do this." 431 00:42:10,440 --> 00:42:12,360 And this is typical Michelangelo, 432 00:42:12,400 --> 00:42:15,120 that he becomes a painter when he needs to become a painter. 433 00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:18,080 He became an architect when he was needed as an architect. 434 00:42:18,120 --> 00:42:20,360 He had never studied architecture in his life. 435 00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:24,000 He became a poet when he wanted to write poetry. 436 00:42:24,040 --> 00:42:27,080 So, he learned how to paint fresco rather quickly. 437 00:42:27,120 --> 00:42:29,920 Uh, it's a- it's a miracle. It really is a miracle, 438 00:42:29,960 --> 00:42:32,960 which is part of the astonishment of the Sistine, 439 00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:36,000 not just its scale and its grandeur, but the fact that this person 440 00:42:36,040 --> 00:42:37,960 who had never painted a fresco in his life 441 00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:40,600 painted the greatest fresco of all time. 442 00:42:44,800 --> 00:42:47,520 'In the middle of Rome, 443 00:42:47,560 --> 00:42:51,720 just in a tiny area, is a place that holds 444 00:42:51,760 --> 00:42:56,640 some of the most extraordinary masterpieces ever created.' 445 00:42:58,360 --> 00:43:00,200 'It's the Vatican City. 446 00:43:00,240 --> 00:43:03,360 And the jewel for me there is the Sistine Chapel. 447 00:43:04,200 --> 00:43:07,240 It's the ultimate work of art. 448 00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:12,160 You can't believe that it was designed and executed by one man. 449 00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:15,720 The sheer invention of it, the originality, 450 00:43:15,760 --> 00:43:18,440 it changes art history forever. 451 00:43:18,480 --> 00:43:21,360 But for me, it changes history forever. 452 00:43:21,400 --> 00:43:24,960 This is Michelangelo showing us what humankind is capable of. 453 00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:27,800 It works on an intimate level with me, 454 00:43:27,840 --> 00:43:30,400 but also works on a universal level. 455 00:43:30,440 --> 00:43:34,720 You don't need to know very much to fall in love with that chapel. 456 00:43:34,760 --> 00:43:36,840 I took my one-year-old daughter there 457 00:43:36,880 --> 00:43:40,920 and a noisy, rambunctious toddler suddenly just stood still. 458 00:43:40,960 --> 00:43:44,080 And that's when I knew that it was true, that it really... 459 00:43:44,120 --> 00:43:46,480 It really touches people.' 460 00:43:57,360 --> 00:44:00,920 'Even just standing in the Sistine Chapel with you now, 461 00:44:00,960 --> 00:44:03,720 my heart beats fast, I have goose bumps. 462 00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:07,080 It's hard to imagine that Bramante thought that Michelangelo would fail 463 00:44:07,120 --> 00:44:10,680 when he has achieved such an extraordinary thing, 464 00:44:10,720 --> 00:44:13,120 and I get to come in and enjoy it.' 465 00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:41,440 'For Michelangelo, it must have been, at times, brutal. 466 00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:45,360 I mean, this is a such a physical undertaking, isn't it?' 467 00:46:12,520 --> 00:46:14,400 Michelangelo is extremely excited 468 00:46:14,440 --> 00:46:17,040 about the tomb commissioned for Pope Julius II. 469 00:46:17,080 --> 00:46:20,040 We know that he begins work, he's full of youthful bravado, 470 00:46:20,080 --> 00:46:21,880 he wants to make something extraordinary. 471 00:46:21,920 --> 00:46:25,600 And yet, so quickly after getting the tomb commission, 472 00:46:25,640 --> 00:46:27,360 his attentions are diverted. 473 00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:29,080 I mean, he has no choice, does he? 474 00:46:29,120 --> 00:46:32,080 He has to follow what the pope wants him to do? 475 00:47:17,080 --> 00:47:20,520 It's almost as if sometimes it's not just the achievement of Michelangelo. 476 00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:22,960 Sometimes it feels like it's the achievement of humankind. 477 00:47:23,000 --> 00:47:24,920 If this is what stands for our culture, 478 00:47:24,960 --> 00:47:29,120 then it's an extraordinary thing that humankind can achieve this. 479 00:48:10,320 --> 00:48:15,320 The tomb of Pope Julius II is the most long, drawn out, protracted, 480 00:48:15,360 --> 00:48:19,800 ultimately disappointing part of Michelangelo's career, if you ask me. 481 00:48:19,840 --> 00:48:22,120 He gets the commission in 1505. 482 00:48:22,160 --> 00:48:26,320 He stops work in 1508, paints the Sistine Chapel, no less. 483 00:48:26,360 --> 00:48:28,720 1512, finishes the Sistine Chapel. 484 00:48:28,760 --> 00:48:33,120 But then in 1513, just a few months after the Sistine Chapel is unveiled, 485 00:48:33,160 --> 00:48:35,440 Pope Julius II dies. 486 00:48:54,560 --> 00:48:57,400 Pope Julius II dies without seeing the tomb 487 00:48:57,440 --> 00:48:59,920 he had commissioned from Michelangelo... 488 00:49:01,760 --> 00:49:04,280 A tomb that was going to be so grandiose, 489 00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:06,880 it would've overshadowed any other mausoleum 490 00:49:06,920 --> 00:49:08,920 in the Western world. 491 00:49:12,480 --> 00:49:14,800 'Although we don't have drawings, 492 00:49:14,840 --> 00:49:18,360 Michelangelo writes about his vision for this masterpiece. 493 00:49:18,400 --> 00:49:21,680 So, we know that it was meant to have two or three floors. 494 00:49:21,720 --> 00:49:24,840 It was meant to be adorned by no less than 40 statues 495 00:49:24,880 --> 00:49:27,680 as big and as perfect as the Moses. 496 00:49:27,720 --> 00:49:31,120 And it was meant to represent the Christian world.' 497 00:49:52,240 --> 00:49:54,480 'This tomb would've been so ground-breaking 498 00:49:54,520 --> 00:49:57,600 that experts have been trying to bring it back to life 499 00:49:57,640 --> 00:49:59,680 for decades. 500 00:50:03,680 --> 00:50:07,440 But only now does the right technology exist to do that.' 501 00:50:14,240 --> 00:50:16,640 So, Mitchell, tell us about what we're looking at here. 502 00:50:16,680 --> 00:50:19,040 We are using actual historical documents 503 00:50:19,080 --> 00:50:21,280 to create the volumes and the designs. 504 00:50:21,320 --> 00:50:23,440 We are using open source software 505 00:50:23,480 --> 00:50:25,440 to create the model right from scratch. 506 00:50:25,480 --> 00:50:28,720 Then we are going to apply materials in order to make it beautiful. 507 00:50:28,760 --> 00:50:31,280 And the process is part a technical effort 508 00:50:31,320 --> 00:50:33,840 and part an artistic effort because, of course, 509 00:50:33,880 --> 00:50:37,320 there is no real object to reconstruct. 510 00:50:37,360 --> 00:50:41,120 So we need to start from what we have and imagine what we don't. 511 00:50:41,160 --> 00:50:45,240 We are trying to remain as faithful as we can to the source material. 512 00:50:45,280 --> 00:50:49,120 But, of course, what we don't have, we need to fill in the blanks. 513 00:50:49,960 --> 00:50:54,320 We are here in the very beautiful setting of San Pietro in Vincoli 514 00:50:54,360 --> 00:50:57,240 as we are now wrapping up the digital reconstruction 515 00:50:57,280 --> 00:50:59,680 of the mausoleum by Michelangelo. 516 00:50:59,720 --> 00:51:03,280 And in this context, we are creating a 3D scan 517 00:51:03,320 --> 00:51:06,480 of the Moses statue, again by Michelangelo, 518 00:51:06,520 --> 00:51:10,840 which will be then placed within the 3D reconstruction of the mausoleum. 519 00:51:10,880 --> 00:51:13,400 It's a very important technical challenge for us. 520 00:51:13,440 --> 00:51:16,240 We are using one of the most advanced techniques. 521 00:51:16,280 --> 00:51:18,640 We're using a structured light scanner 522 00:51:18,680 --> 00:51:22,480 which uses high-energy pulsating light beams 523 00:51:22,520 --> 00:51:27,640 to recreate both the volumes and the surface of the statue. 524 00:51:27,680 --> 00:51:29,560 This 3D model will then be placed 525 00:51:29,600 --> 00:51:31,920 within our digital twin of the mausoleum 526 00:51:31,960 --> 00:51:33,760 to make it as real-life as possible. 527 00:51:33,800 --> 00:51:36,080 But with the flexibility 528 00:51:36,120 --> 00:51:39,160 and the capabilities of the 3D world, of course. 529 00:51:43,400 --> 00:51:46,840 'And the Moses stands there, still as always, 530 00:51:46,880 --> 00:51:51,600 in its timeless beauty with his ferocious gaze as it gets scanned 531 00:51:51,640 --> 00:51:55,480 and it awaits to be put where he should've been all along, 532 00:51:55,520 --> 00:52:00,280 on the mausoleum that Michelangelo wanted to carve all those years ago. 533 00:52:00,320 --> 00:52:01,960 But he never did. 534 00:52:02,000 --> 00:52:05,600 And the curse of the papal tomb continued.' 535 00:52:33,360 --> 00:52:36,920 'To think that this tomb became so intrinsically linked 536 00:52:36,960 --> 00:52:40,960 with his own life, reputation and success is astounding. 537 00:52:41,000 --> 00:52:44,240 As a deeply religious man, he wanted to deliver the world 538 00:52:44,280 --> 00:52:46,520 not just a tomb, but a symbol 539 00:52:46,560 --> 00:52:49,840 that celebrated Christianity in all its glory. 540 00:52:49,880 --> 00:52:51,600 But he failed. 541 00:52:51,640 --> 00:52:54,960 And this failure tormented him for the rest of his days. 542 00:52:55,760 --> 00:52:58,320 When the pope died in 1513, 543 00:52:58,360 --> 00:53:00,920 the pope's heirs, the Della Rovere family, 544 00:53:00,960 --> 00:53:04,920 were very keen on having the pope's tomb now completed. 545 00:53:04,960 --> 00:53:07,480 And, of course, they felt that they had already invested 546 00:53:07,520 --> 00:53:09,360 a huge amount of money, which they had. 547 00:53:09,400 --> 00:53:12,840 The family had already invested a huge amount of money in the project. 548 00:53:12,880 --> 00:53:15,800 So, this is the beginning of the difficulties of the tomb. 549 00:53:55,880 --> 00:53:57,720 The thing is, there's a new pope. 550 00:53:57,760 --> 00:54:01,080 It's Pope Leo X, which is one of Michelangelo's childhood friends. 551 00:54:01,120 --> 00:54:04,160 He's hanging around in the court of the Medici at the same time. 552 00:54:04,200 --> 00:54:06,640 He's Lorenzo the Magnificent's heir. 553 00:54:06,680 --> 00:54:09,440 He also wants to give Michelangelo 554 00:54:09,480 --> 00:54:11,240 his own commissions, his own projects, 555 00:54:11,280 --> 00:54:14,200 and he gives Michelangelo one of the most tantalising commissions 556 00:54:14,240 --> 00:54:15,840 he could possibly have asked for... 557 00:54:15,880 --> 00:54:19,000 to create the facade of San Lorenzo. 558 00:54:19,040 --> 00:54:20,680 And he wants a Medici tomb, 559 00:54:20,720 --> 00:54:24,320 so Michelangelo's busy trying to fulfil the wishes of a new pope. 560 00:55:19,280 --> 00:55:22,560 Now, what happens is they need to put a new contract in place. 561 00:55:22,600 --> 00:55:25,280 So, the heirs of Pope Julius II want to make sure 562 00:55:25,320 --> 00:55:28,640 that there's a really sort of clear arrangement with Michelangelo, 563 00:55:28,680 --> 00:55:30,440 because actually everything with the pope 564 00:55:30,480 --> 00:55:32,560 had been done more in a gentlemen's agreement. 565 00:55:32,600 --> 00:55:34,440 There was, sort of, no money set. It was like, 566 00:55:34,480 --> 00:55:37,560 "Have all the money in the world, make me the greatest tomb on earth." 567 00:55:37,600 --> 00:55:39,720 And it was all, kind of, relatively hyperbolic, 568 00:55:39,760 --> 00:55:42,080 whereas the heirs want to put a contract in place. 569 00:56:18,560 --> 00:56:21,040 I mean, he's awarded a huge amount of money. 570 00:56:21,080 --> 00:56:24,240 An equivalent of, say, a villa and a Ferrari, or something. 571 00:56:24,280 --> 00:56:28,520 It's not money for life, but it is an extraordinary amount of money. 572 00:56:42,480 --> 00:56:44,280 He spent lots of money. 573 00:56:44,320 --> 00:56:47,120 He spent lots of money, but he never spent money on himself. 574 00:56:47,160 --> 00:56:50,000 He actually lived rather simply, poorly. 575 00:56:50,040 --> 00:56:51,880 He spent money on marble. 576 00:57:15,600 --> 00:57:17,440 The heirs, on their perspective, 577 00:57:17,480 --> 00:57:19,760 when we put ourselves in the shoes of the heirs, 578 00:57:19,800 --> 00:57:22,600 they've paid Michelangelo a lot of money already to do this, 579 00:57:22,640 --> 00:57:25,000 yet they don't have the financial ability 580 00:57:25,040 --> 00:57:27,200 to go through with the original plans, 581 00:57:27,240 --> 00:57:29,040 so they have to downsize it. 582 00:57:30,840 --> 00:57:34,480 In 1516, the heirs give him another contract 583 00:57:34,520 --> 00:57:36,760 because they're really trying to keep him in line. 584 00:57:36,800 --> 00:57:39,800 They reduce significantly what the tomb should be. 585 00:57:39,840 --> 00:57:42,200 So, instead of being this amazing freestanding monument, 586 00:57:42,240 --> 00:57:44,080 it becomes a wall tomb. 587 00:57:44,120 --> 00:57:46,520 Far less exciting for Michelangelo, probably, 588 00:57:46,560 --> 00:57:49,120 even though it's still designed to be quite large. 589 00:58:09,280 --> 00:58:11,960 And then in 1523, there's yet another new pope, 590 00:58:12,000 --> 00:58:13,960 Pope Clement VII. 591 00:58:14,000 --> 00:58:16,960 Now, Clement VII is another childhood friend of Michelangelo, 592 00:58:17,000 --> 00:58:20,320 another Medici pope, who also wants Michelangelo 593 00:58:20,360 --> 00:58:23,400 to fulfil loads of extraordinary obligations for him too, 594 00:58:23,440 --> 00:58:27,240 including finishing the Medici tomb, and The Last Judgement. 595 00:58:27,280 --> 00:58:29,000 Michelangelo's now in a situation 596 00:58:29,040 --> 00:58:31,840 where there are so many competing demands for his time. 597 00:58:31,880 --> 00:58:35,720 He can't turn down the Pope for the heirs of Pope Julius II 598 00:58:35,760 --> 00:58:37,600 but he's also terrified of them. 599 00:58:37,640 --> 00:58:40,480 Michelangelo felt like he was a victim of this story, 600 00:58:40,520 --> 00:58:44,600 and Francesco Maria Della Rovere was certainly the, um, villain. 601 00:59:11,120 --> 00:59:15,040 Francesco Maria Della Rovere took over. 602 00:59:15,080 --> 00:59:19,800 And here was a man who's, sort of, a vicious soldier, 603 00:59:19,840 --> 00:59:22,520 and not very sensitive to the arts, and not very- 604 00:59:22,560 --> 00:59:24,880 not at all sensitive to Michelangelo, 605 00:59:24,920 --> 00:59:28,920 who felt like the family had spent far too much money already 606 00:59:28,960 --> 00:59:33,360 and Michelangelo was not producing anything or finishing this project. 607 00:59:33,400 --> 00:59:37,600 In fact, Michelangelo was actually accused of embezzling funds 608 00:59:37,640 --> 00:59:40,840 and misusing the funds, which he probably did. 609 00:59:40,880 --> 00:59:43,960 And so- But Francesco de Maria Della Rovere 610 00:59:44,000 --> 00:59:47,920 never was a friend of Michelangelo, and vice versa. 611 00:59:47,960 --> 00:59:49,440 They really didn't get along. 612 00:59:49,480 --> 00:59:52,600 And in which case, nothing was happening on the tomb. 613 00:59:52,640 --> 00:59:55,120 Michelangelo didn't- He always had an excuse 614 00:59:55,160 --> 00:59:58,720 about why he couldn't produce what Francesco Maria expected. 615 00:59:58,760 --> 01:00:00,640 So, it's a bit like you take a house... 616 01:00:00,680 --> 01:00:03,920 You wanna redo the kitchen, so you pay someone a lot of money 617 01:00:03,960 --> 01:00:05,680 because you want to get a new kitchen. 618 01:00:05,720 --> 01:00:07,960 Perhaps you want some Carrara marble fitted... 619 01:00:08,000 --> 01:00:10,440 And the builders are coming, 620 01:00:10,480 --> 01:00:13,240 but they're not really showing up, and at the end result, 621 01:00:13,280 --> 01:00:15,960 you haven't got anything better than you even begun with. 622 01:00:16,000 --> 01:00:17,920 And if you're the owner of the house, 623 01:00:17,960 --> 01:00:19,920 you're not gonna be too pleased about this. 624 01:00:19,960 --> 01:00:22,080 And in a way, this is almost parallel 625 01:00:22,120 --> 01:00:24,880 to what the heirs were experiencing with Michelangelo. 626 01:00:24,920 --> 01:00:28,480 They'd paid him a lot of money, yet he wasn't delivering. 627 01:00:41,840 --> 01:00:43,880 Michelangelo promises this, or promises that, 628 01:00:43,920 --> 01:00:46,600 and he'll do it in a certain amount of time with this amount of money. 629 01:00:46,640 --> 01:00:48,960 But this is yet the third or fourth time 630 01:00:49,000 --> 01:00:51,720 that Michelangelo has gone through this, you know, 631 01:00:51,760 --> 01:00:54,680 project in a different way with a different person. 632 01:00:54,720 --> 01:00:57,160 And the result of this, you know, 633 01:00:57,200 --> 01:01:00,320 imbroglio between him and Francesco Maria Della Rovere 634 01:01:00,360 --> 01:01:02,000 is that nothing was done. 635 01:01:28,000 --> 01:01:31,120 I mean, they are really on his case. He says, you know, 636 01:01:31,160 --> 01:01:35,200 "I'm losing weight, I'm losing sleep. They won't get off my back." 637 01:01:35,240 --> 01:01:37,760 So, actually, he kind of asks Pope Clement VII 638 01:01:37,800 --> 01:01:40,880 to sort of step in and protect him from the heirs. 639 01:01:40,920 --> 01:01:42,400 He's really worried about them, 640 01:01:42,440 --> 01:01:44,520 particularly Francesco Maria Della Rovere, 641 01:01:44,560 --> 01:01:46,600 who's actually a not particularly nice character 642 01:01:46,640 --> 01:01:49,480 and totally unsympathetic to Michelangelo. 643 01:03:47,680 --> 01:03:50,840 He was, in a sense, flattering Michelangelo, by saying, 644 01:03:50,880 --> 01:03:53,200 "You've already created the greatest fresco of all time 645 01:03:53,240 --> 01:03:54,720 in painting the ceiling. 646 01:03:54,760 --> 01:03:58,160 Could you finish the chapel, the great chapel of the Sistine, 647 01:03:58,200 --> 01:03:59,960 by painting The Last Judgement?" 648 01:04:00,000 --> 01:04:03,120 And here again, Michelangelo cannot say no to a pope. 649 01:04:27,960 --> 01:04:32,200 So the first big commission that takes Michelangelo away 650 01:04:32,240 --> 01:04:35,200 from Julius II's tomb is the ceiling. 651 01:04:35,240 --> 01:04:38,800 He completes the ceiling, he goes straight back to work on the tomb. 652 01:04:38,840 --> 01:04:42,560 And then, of course, the Della Rovere heirs are asking for a new contract. 653 01:04:42,600 --> 01:04:44,880 They want to get the work going again. 654 01:04:44,920 --> 01:04:47,440 And there are a succession of reasons why Michelangelo 655 01:04:47,480 --> 01:04:50,360 is delayed on the tomb. It becomes quite protracted. 656 01:04:50,400 --> 01:04:52,040 And then I turn and face this way and say, 657 01:04:52,080 --> 01:04:55,240 "Well, this is a whole other reason why the tomb is further delayed 658 01:04:55,280 --> 01:04:57,040 because he's working for other popes, 659 01:04:57,080 --> 01:05:00,400 for their plans and for their grand ambitions. 660 01:05:00,440 --> 01:05:03,480 And it's such an extraordinary thing, I'm so pleased it exists. 661 01:05:03,520 --> 01:05:08,000 But I'm sure the Della Rovere heirs were frustrated by this, perhaps, 662 01:05:08,040 --> 01:05:11,160 because they thought this is another reason why the tomb is not ready. 663 01:06:04,680 --> 01:06:06,760 Mmm. 664 01:06:23,200 --> 01:06:24,720 Mmm. 665 01:06:39,760 --> 01:06:41,960 As he painted The Last Judgement, 666 01:06:42,000 --> 01:06:44,280 Michelangelo himself was being judged 667 01:06:44,320 --> 01:06:48,640 for taking the Della Rovere money and not working on the tomb. 668 01:06:48,680 --> 01:06:53,160 His reputation as a godlike genius was being stained. 669 01:06:53,200 --> 01:06:55,880 I want to understand how this situation 670 01:06:55,920 --> 01:06:58,240 was perceived during his lifetime. 671 01:06:58,280 --> 01:07:00,200 Maybe he was right to set aside 672 01:07:00,240 --> 01:07:03,040 the much diminished tomb of Pope Julius II 673 01:07:03,080 --> 01:07:06,040 and focus on more ambitious projects. 674 01:07:06,080 --> 01:07:08,360 Maybe he had no choice. 675 01:07:08,400 --> 01:07:10,440 Nestled in the Tuscan hills, 676 01:07:10,480 --> 01:07:15,200 surrounded by nothing much but forest, is Castello Malaspina. 677 01:07:15,240 --> 01:07:19,080 This is where Michelangelo stayed during his many trips to Carrara, 678 01:07:19,120 --> 01:07:21,160 and where it's likely that he received 679 01:07:21,200 --> 01:07:24,400 a very scathing letter from Pietro Aretino 680 01:07:24,440 --> 01:07:26,680 Pietro Aretino was a powerful man 681 01:07:26,720 --> 01:07:29,120 who wielded an enormous influence 682 01:07:29,160 --> 01:07:31,520 on Renaissance art and politics. 683 01:07:31,560 --> 01:07:33,840 His opinions mattered a great deal. 684 01:07:33,880 --> 01:07:36,800 He could make or break reputations. 685 01:07:36,840 --> 01:07:38,880 In the letter he wrote to Michelangelo 686 01:07:38,920 --> 01:07:42,640 in 1545 about The Last Judgement, 687 01:07:42,680 --> 01:07:45,200 although full of innuendos, it's pretty clear 688 01:07:45,240 --> 01:07:47,480 that he was trying to raise suspicions 689 01:07:47,520 --> 01:07:49,680 about Michelangelo's moral standing. 690 01:07:49,720 --> 01:07:51,600 He writes, 691 01:07:51,640 --> 01:07:55,680 "Your art would be at home in some voluptuous Roman bathhouse, 692 01:07:55,720 --> 01:07:59,080 certainly not in the highest chapel in the world. 693 01:07:59,120 --> 01:08:03,360 Less criminal were it if you were an infidel, 694 01:08:03,400 --> 01:08:07,320 than being a believer, thus to sap the faith of others. 695 01:08:07,360 --> 01:08:09,160 Up to the present time, 696 01:08:09,200 --> 01:08:11,560 the splendour of such audacious marvels 697 01:08:11,600 --> 01:08:13,440 hath not gone unpunished." 698 01:08:15,240 --> 01:08:19,120 "Well, if the treasure bequeathed to you by Pope Julius, 699 01:08:19,160 --> 01:08:23,600 in order that you might deposit his ashes in an urn of your own carving, 700 01:08:23,640 --> 01:08:26,800 was not enough to make you keep your plighted word, 701 01:08:26,840 --> 01:08:29,400 what can I expect from you?" 702 01:08:32,520 --> 01:08:35,120 And in the first part of the letter, 703 01:08:35,160 --> 01:08:38,120 he's criticising Michelangelo's Last Judgement. 704 01:08:38,160 --> 01:08:40,000 But as we read on, 705 01:08:40,040 --> 01:08:44,560 we actually also see him looking at Pope Julius II's tomb. 706 01:08:44,600 --> 01:08:47,280 And by how it's phrased, it gives insight 707 01:08:47,320 --> 01:08:50,920 into how some of the public perceived Michelangelo 708 01:08:50,960 --> 01:08:54,280 and actually how, perhaps, he didn't handle well 709 01:08:54,320 --> 01:08:57,240 the relationship between the Della Rovere family 710 01:08:57,280 --> 01:09:00,200 and the Pope Julius II tomb. 711 01:09:00,240 --> 01:09:05,080 "God wills that Julius should live renowned forever in a simple tomb, 712 01:09:05,120 --> 01:09:07,160 inurned in his own merits, 713 01:09:07,200 --> 01:09:11,320 and not in some proud monument dependent on your genius. 714 01:09:11,360 --> 01:09:14,960 Meantime, your failure to discharge your obligation 715 01:09:15,000 --> 01:09:18,240 is reckoned to you as an act of thieving." 716 01:09:18,280 --> 01:09:21,400 Well, I mean, it's pretty harsh in a way. 717 01:09:21,440 --> 01:09:24,480 But, you know, I mean, it's interesting to see 718 01:09:24,520 --> 01:09:26,600 the public perceptions of Michelangelo 719 01:09:26,640 --> 01:09:29,400 and to see how people viewed him. 720 01:09:33,520 --> 01:09:36,800 In Michelangelo's time, art was the news. 721 01:09:36,840 --> 01:09:39,640 Art was the thing that people paid most attention to, 722 01:09:39,680 --> 01:09:41,480 other than maybe religion. 723 01:09:41,520 --> 01:09:44,080 So really, the art of the Renaissance 724 01:09:44,120 --> 01:09:46,000 was the news of the Renaissance, 725 01:09:46,040 --> 01:09:48,560 was the news of the time and the people. 726 01:09:51,640 --> 01:09:55,120 One of the most astonishing things about Michelangelo 727 01:09:55,160 --> 01:09:57,440 is that he was so famous in his lifetime 728 01:09:57,480 --> 01:09:59,920 that actually two biographies 729 01:09:59,960 --> 01:10:02,040 were written while he was still alive. 730 01:10:04,120 --> 01:10:07,800 He's probably the first artist ever 731 01:10:07,840 --> 01:10:09,560 to read his own biography 732 01:10:09,600 --> 01:10:12,160 and decide to edit it in some ways. 733 01:10:12,200 --> 01:10:14,720 And so, the first biography that was written of him 734 01:10:14,760 --> 01:10:17,360 was by Giorgio Vasari. 735 01:10:20,440 --> 01:10:22,720 Vasari would like to think that I would sit here 736 01:10:22,760 --> 01:10:25,160 and call him a great painter from the Italian Renaissance. 737 01:10:25,200 --> 01:10:27,600 But actually I sit here and call him a great writer. 738 01:10:27,640 --> 01:10:30,320 He almost founded the tradition of art history. 739 01:10:30,360 --> 01:10:33,840 He wrote a series of biographies of all of the great Italian artists. 740 01:10:33,880 --> 01:10:38,040 So, he gives us, like, a firsthand account of the Italian Renaissance. 741 01:10:56,000 --> 01:10:58,960 And while Michelangelo was certainly flattered by the fact 742 01:10:59,000 --> 01:11:02,120 that Vasari was writing a biography of this artist, 743 01:11:02,160 --> 01:11:06,200 he was reminded constantly of his many unfinished works. 744 01:11:06,240 --> 01:11:09,840 So, he wanted to sort of tell the story 745 01:11:09,880 --> 01:11:12,960 or control the media, control the message. 746 01:11:13,000 --> 01:11:17,080 And that's when he had Ascanio Condivi, a friend of his, 747 01:11:17,120 --> 01:11:19,840 really write an alternative biography 748 01:11:19,880 --> 01:11:22,840 that Michelangelo felt was closer to the truth. 749 01:11:36,200 --> 01:11:40,160 The thing is, is that Michelangelo wasn't particularly happy 750 01:11:40,200 --> 01:11:43,280 with how Vasari had framed him, essentially. 751 01:11:59,280 --> 01:12:01,480 So Michelangelo's very distressed 752 01:12:01,520 --> 01:12:03,680 at the prospect that people misunderstand. 753 01:12:03,720 --> 01:12:06,640 So, he commissions his own autobiography. 754 01:12:18,400 --> 01:12:20,280 So, we start to get the sense that Michelangelo 755 01:12:20,320 --> 01:12:22,360 almost wants to have his own press agent, you know? 756 01:12:22,400 --> 01:12:25,880 In today's terms, he wants to go out there and set the record straight. 757 01:12:25,920 --> 01:12:28,880 And he wants Condivi to write this authorised account 758 01:12:28,920 --> 01:12:31,000 of what happened with the tomb. 759 01:12:31,040 --> 01:12:33,800 And he calls it the great "tragedy" of the tomb. 760 01:12:56,600 --> 01:12:59,600 It's almost like Michelangelo's desperately trying 761 01:12:59,640 --> 01:13:02,840 to reposition himself and secure his legacy. 762 01:13:02,880 --> 01:13:04,680 And I think, you know, in today's parlance 763 01:13:04,720 --> 01:13:07,600 we would say that it was cancel culture coming to get him. 764 01:13:07,640 --> 01:13:12,240 He was a subject of gossip, subject of rumours, and he hated that. 765 01:13:12,280 --> 01:13:14,920 He thought he was a man of noble standings. 766 01:13:14,960 --> 01:13:18,880 He's not someone whose name should be smeared in the tabloids, 767 01:13:18,920 --> 01:13:21,320 as it probably felt to him, as we see it now. 768 01:13:21,360 --> 01:13:23,960 And today, we see it the whole time 769 01:13:24,000 --> 01:13:26,080 with members in the public eye, 770 01:13:26,120 --> 01:13:29,440 for example, certain members of the royal family. 771 01:13:29,480 --> 01:13:31,840 They might not be so clear on paper. 772 01:13:31,880 --> 01:13:35,520 Yet, what they want to do is have authorised biographies, 773 01:13:35,560 --> 01:13:39,200 so people in 10, 50, 100 years' time 774 01:13:39,240 --> 01:13:43,600 will remember them the way that they want to be remembered. 775 01:13:44,920 --> 01:13:48,000 Well, I think it's a contemporary story, in the sense that... 776 01:13:48,040 --> 01:13:50,280 it's sort of tale as old as time, 777 01:13:50,320 --> 01:13:53,000 in terms of what we should believe and what we should not believe. 778 01:13:53,040 --> 01:13:55,520 Gossip has been swarming our world for millennia. 779 01:13:55,560 --> 01:13:57,200 And actually, if anything, 780 01:13:57,240 --> 01:13:59,880 it gives a more human aspect to Michelangelo, 781 01:13:59,920 --> 01:14:01,320 because at the end of the day, 782 01:14:01,360 --> 01:14:03,400 yes, he created these divine like figures, 783 01:14:03,440 --> 01:14:05,840 but he was also just a human... 784 01:14:05,880 --> 01:14:08,680 A human who wanted to secure his legacy 785 01:14:08,720 --> 01:14:13,200 and authorise how the public would perceive him in centuries to come. 786 01:14:13,240 --> 01:14:15,200 Toward the end of his life, 787 01:14:15,240 --> 01:14:19,440 Michelangelo shows a more cordial relationship with Vasari. 788 01:14:19,480 --> 01:14:22,600 He answers more of his letters, and you get the sense that 789 01:14:22,640 --> 01:14:25,960 Michelangelo's thinking about Vasari as the great biographer, 790 01:14:26,000 --> 01:14:29,640 and Vasari as, maybe, holding the key to part of Michelangelo's legacy. 791 01:14:29,680 --> 01:14:31,640 And after Michelangelo dies, 792 01:14:31,680 --> 01:14:35,000 Vasari, in the second edition of The Lives, 793 01:14:35,040 --> 01:14:37,160 the great biographies, 794 01:14:37,200 --> 01:14:40,320 entirely reworks the Michelangelo chapter. 795 01:14:40,360 --> 01:14:43,680 It's much longer, he incorporates huge swathes 796 01:14:43,720 --> 01:14:46,280 that were written in Condivi's authorised biography, 797 01:14:46,320 --> 01:14:48,520 although he doesn't actually mention Condivi. 798 01:14:48,560 --> 01:14:52,360 But what's fundamental is that Vasari is part of the campaign 799 01:14:52,400 --> 01:14:55,280 to set the record straight about Michelangelo's life. 800 01:14:55,320 --> 01:14:58,640 And so... the information about his ancestors, 801 01:14:58,680 --> 01:15:03,000 the information about the tomb, are changed. They're modified. 802 01:15:03,040 --> 01:15:04,720 And what we learn is that, you know, 803 01:15:04,760 --> 01:15:06,520 Michelangelo is the great man. 804 01:15:06,560 --> 01:15:09,400 And actually, to this day, art historians are still quite keen 805 01:15:09,440 --> 01:15:11,800 to talk about Michelangelo, the great man. 806 01:15:11,840 --> 01:15:13,640 There is no doubt whatsoever 807 01:15:13,680 --> 01:15:16,280 that Michelangelo wanted to tell the story his way, 808 01:15:16,320 --> 01:15:20,200 and to save, in a sense, some things of his legacy, 809 01:15:20,240 --> 01:15:22,800 especially to counter the accusations 810 01:15:22,840 --> 01:15:25,040 of money embezzlement, this sort of thing. 811 01:15:25,080 --> 01:15:27,640 Michelangelo had his own explanation, 812 01:15:27,680 --> 01:15:32,160 which Visari very much developed in his biography for Michelangelo 813 01:15:32,200 --> 01:15:34,120 after they got to know each other 814 01:15:34,160 --> 01:15:36,560 and after Michelangelo told Visari 815 01:15:36,600 --> 01:15:39,200 what was really the important parts of his story. 816 01:15:39,240 --> 01:15:42,320 And Visari then republishes his Lives of the Artist 817 01:15:42,360 --> 01:15:43,880 in a much expanded edition. 818 01:15:43,920 --> 01:15:45,880 I think the thing that's important to remember, 819 01:15:45,920 --> 01:15:48,280 as big a fan of Michelangelo as I am, 820 01:15:48,320 --> 01:15:50,520 is that he did keep the money. 821 01:15:50,560 --> 01:15:54,560 He continually agreed to deadlines that he couldn't meet. 822 01:15:54,600 --> 01:15:58,120 He kept the money. He claimed that ended up out of pocket, 823 01:15:58,160 --> 01:16:01,120 which is a bit duplicitous because it's not really true. 824 01:16:01,160 --> 01:16:02,880 We can see that from the records. 825 01:16:02,920 --> 01:16:06,200 So he's, by no stretch of the imagination, innocent here. 826 01:16:06,240 --> 01:16:09,960 Michelangelo misused the funds that the Della Rovere... 827 01:16:10,000 --> 01:16:13,520 excessive amounts of funds for the tomb. 828 01:16:13,560 --> 01:16:15,080 "We've spent a huge amount of money, 829 01:16:15,120 --> 01:16:18,320 40 years have gone by, and we still don't have a tomb." 830 01:16:36,360 --> 01:16:40,400 It's the fourth project when Guidobaldo Della Rovere takes over, 831 01:16:40,440 --> 01:16:42,720 who not only knows Michelangelo very well, 832 01:16:42,760 --> 01:16:45,960 but understands him and highly respects him, 833 01:16:46,000 --> 01:16:48,040 and mostly allows Michelangelo to work 834 01:16:48,080 --> 01:16:50,560 at his own pace and in his own time. 835 01:16:50,600 --> 01:16:54,520 That's the kind of patron that Michelangelo always worked best for. 836 01:16:54,560 --> 01:16:57,480 And it's not a surprise that it's under Guidobaldo 837 01:16:57,520 --> 01:16:59,480 that the tomb is finally finished. 838 01:16:59,520 --> 01:17:02,200 The new heir, Guidobaldo, is much more sympathetic, 839 01:17:02,240 --> 01:17:05,160 and at this point, it's been over 30 years 840 01:17:05,200 --> 01:17:07,960 since Pope Julius the second died. I mean, it's getting ridiculous. 841 01:17:08,000 --> 01:17:11,080 So he just says, when you've finished working for Pope Paul III, 842 01:17:11,120 --> 01:17:14,080 then you'll make it for me, right? And Michelangelo says yes. 843 01:17:14,120 --> 01:17:16,600 He's got someone finally who's sympathetic, 844 01:17:16,640 --> 01:17:18,800 who writes courteous letters, 845 01:17:18,840 --> 01:17:21,200 who treats him with the respect that he demands. 846 01:17:21,240 --> 01:17:24,160 So actually, it's quite amazing. Once that contract's in place 847 01:17:24,200 --> 01:17:26,400 and Pope Paul III's given him his protection. 848 01:17:26,440 --> 01:17:28,880 Michelangelo finishes it in two years. 849 01:17:28,920 --> 01:17:32,400 It took 40 years to nail down this commission. 850 01:17:32,440 --> 01:17:35,880 And ultimately, Pope Julius II's tomb 851 01:17:35,920 --> 01:17:38,240 is not something that we all talk about. 852 01:17:38,280 --> 01:17:41,640 We talk about Moses, we talk about one sculpture in this tomb. 853 01:17:43,640 --> 01:17:46,680 It's not even in the Vatican where it was supposed to be. 854 01:17:46,720 --> 01:17:49,760 And actually, I barely even notice 855 01:17:49,800 --> 01:17:53,320 the lying figure of Pope Julius II on the tomb, I just look at the Moses. 856 01:17:55,280 --> 01:17:58,120 So, it's not even what it's supposed to be. 857 01:17:58,160 --> 01:18:00,520 It's become something completely different. 858 01:18:03,280 --> 01:18:06,320 'This is such a long and protracted story. 859 01:18:06,360 --> 01:18:10,000 40 years, several redesigns... 860 01:18:10,040 --> 01:18:14,320 Several stories, 40 figures, bronzes 861 01:18:14,360 --> 01:18:18,080 Absolutely extraordinary, there's nothing like it. 862 01:18:18,120 --> 01:18:23,040 It remains a huge unfulfilled part of art history. 863 01:18:23,080 --> 01:18:26,160 And then slowly see it begin to diminish. 864 01:18:26,200 --> 01:18:28,360 Instead of becoming freestanding, 865 01:18:28,400 --> 01:18:30,600 that you would be able to walk around, 866 01:18:30,640 --> 01:18:32,960 it becomes wall-based. 867 01:18:33,000 --> 01:18:35,920 And then the number of figures gets reduced dramatically. 868 01:18:35,960 --> 01:18:39,440 We start losing things. We lose the niches, we lose the bronzes. 869 01:18:39,480 --> 01:18:41,320 So, a lot of the complexity 870 01:18:41,360 --> 01:18:45,080 and the thing that would've given the tomb this great advantage 871 01:18:45,120 --> 01:18:48,680 of having been so epic, that starts to fade away. 872 01:18:48,720 --> 01:18:52,280 And actually, when I think about Julius II's tomb now, 873 01:18:52,320 --> 01:18:56,000 I think about it as an unfulfilled promise 874 01:18:56,040 --> 01:18:59,000 that left me Moses.' 875 01:19:03,400 --> 01:19:05,520 'When I'm standing here, 876 01:19:05,560 --> 01:19:08,760 the redesigns, the contracts, 877 01:19:08,800 --> 01:19:10,760 it all fades to black. 878 01:19:10,800 --> 01:19:14,280 And what remains is a masterpiece. 879 01:19:15,400 --> 01:19:18,160 Michelangelo has made flesh and blood out of marble. 880 01:19:18,200 --> 01:19:22,320 He's made Moses a man, and he's a furious man. 881 01:19:22,360 --> 01:19:25,240 And I'm frozen to the spot looking at him. 882 01:19:25,280 --> 01:19:30,000 And there's this deep connection, and I feel the suspense in the air. 883 01:19:30,040 --> 01:19:32,760 And there's a question that I need answered. 884 01:19:32,800 --> 01:19:35,280 And like Michelangelo once said, 885 01:19:35,320 --> 01:19:37,520 "Why don't you talk, Moses? 886 01:19:38,360 --> 01:19:40,960 You've been witness to so much."' 887 01:19:41,305 --> 01:20:41,502 Do you want subtitles for any video? -=[ ai.OpenSubtitles.com ]=-