Why did Michelangelo hide in a cellar? He had been sentenced to death by Pope Clement VII.
Michelangelo was born near Florence in 1475. At the time, Florence was a Republic and not part of Italy. Italy wasn’t unified until 1848 and between the fall of the Roman Empire and unification Italy was made up of a collection of republics. The most powerful of those republics were Naples, Venice, Florence, Milan, and the papal states. Each of the republics was ruled by a powerful political family. Florence was controlled by the House of Medici who had made a fortune through banking.
Michelangelo started his career in Florence, studying at a school founded by the Medici. He went from strength to strength and ended up in Rome, being commissioned to create religious works for the church. He returned to Florence in 1499 and created one of his most famous works, the Statue of David. When it was finished, a group of artists, including Leonardo da Vinci decided where to put it. Da Vinci was twenty years older than Michelangelo, but they hated each other. It is odd to think of two of the most famous artists in the world having conversations, but they used to mock each other. Da Vinci considered sculpture, the medium Michelangelo excelled in, to be a workman’s construction rather than art. Da Vinci was famous for never finishing projects because he was interested in so many different things. Michelangelo was very hard working and finished everything, yet he was unsociable and famously never washed.
Michelangelo returned to Rome and worked on several commissions before he was commissioned to paint the Sistine Chapel. The story goes that he wasn’t the first person to be commissioned. The architect of St Peter’s Basilica was Donato Bramante and he was commissioned to paint the ceiling as well. However, Michelangelo had been asked to build a tomb for the pope and that angered Bramante. He considered Michelangelo to be an upstart and he persuaded the pope to commission Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Bramante believed that Michelangelo was a sculptor and wouldn’t be able to paint, and his failure would put him back in his place. As we know from the final work, Michelangelo was also an incredible painter.
Michelangelo continued to receive commissions, including several from the Medici family in his hometown of Florence. He was asked to create a mausoleum for the Medici family. He designed a chapel which has two large tombs for members of the Medicis. He started work in 1520 and it took him about fifteen years to finish because he was asked to do many other jobs as well. He was asked to design a library for the new pope in Rome, Pope Clement VII, who was born Guilio de Medici. He was a very religious person, but he was a Medici, and he did what the Medici’s wanted.
While Michelangelo was working on the library, in 1527, he heard that the people of Florence had started a rebellion against their Medici leaders. The Medici had supported Michelangelo, but he decided his loyalty lay with the people of Florence. He went to join them in 1528 and he used his artistic skills to design the fortifications around the town. The Medici weren’t happy with this and they used their forces alongside the forces of the papal state, thanks to Pope Clement VII and laid siege to the town.
The people of Florence couldn’t beat the siege and the town fell to the Medicis in 1530. They were annoyed that Michelangelo had betrayed them, and Pope Clement VII sentenced him to death. Michelangelo did what any sane person would do, and he ran away and hid. He had the perfect place to hide. Nobody knew where he was, but he hid in a cellar beneath the mausoleum he was building for the Medici family. There was a hidden trap door, and he hid in a cellar that was lit by one small window. While he was hiding down there, he drew on the walls with charcoal. He stayed down for about three months before he was suddenly pardoned by the pope. As angry as the Medici were, they wanted him to finish the tombs. Michelangelo came out and continued working. He lived for another 34 years and completed many more masterpieces.
The cellar he hid in was discovered purely by chance in 1974. Nobody knew where Michelangelo had hidden for those three months until then, over 400 years later. And that is what I learned today.
Photo by TonyNojmanSK: https://www.pexels.com/photo/an-aerial-shot-of-the-city-of-florence-in-italy-13173096/
Sources
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/michelangelos-hidden-drawings
https://www.grunge.com/293220/this-is-why-michelangelo-hid-under-the-medici-chapel-for-3-months/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Medici
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Clement_VII
https://www.quora.com/Did-Da-Vinci-know-Michelangelo
https://www.romewise.com/michelangelo-and-the-sistine-chapel.html