Italian Genius In The Renaissance

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30366, 15 February 1964, Page 10

Italian Genius In The Renaissance

[Specially written for “The Press” by A. M. MENZIES]

'THIS year’s counterpart 400 years ago was a highly significant * one for the world intellectually; there could be few parts of it more significant than this week’s corresponding one. - Mid-1564 brought the birth of William Shakespeare, but in Italy three days in February separated the birth of Galileo Galilei and the death of Michelangelo Buonarroti. The label of coincidence has been given to these events as it has been also to the fact that in the same year Galileo died (1642) Isaac Newton was born.

Such coincidence was, hardly unlikely in the era' of the great revival of learn-1 ing which spread from Italy; throughout the world and] which produced men whose stature has never been surpassed. . Michelangelo’s . artistic genius, Galileo's scientific 1 wisdom, and the strength of; personality of both would I have made them intellectual! titans of any age. Their; long lives mixed triumph, I pre-eminence and influence! with disappointment, humiliation and gloom. Both were from Tuscany where Florence was a centre of the Renaissance, where members of the aristocratic, | ruling Medici family were patrons of culture and provided unrivalled atmosphere for its development. It was an era of striking accomplishment in painting, sculpture, architecture, music, literature, philosophy, science and technology. Galileo is not usually included in the period of the Italian Renaissance., but most authorities are extremely wary of giving the movement strict chronological boundaries. In the intellectual awakening Galileo was an exemplification of the development of natural science and historical criticism as Michelangelo was of the revival of classical art. This week they are linked by anniversary of birth and death. ... Master Of All Four hundred years ago on Tuesday Michelangelo died in Rome. The Pope wanted him buried in St. Peter’s but his nephew took the body back to his native Florence where it was buried in pomp before more than 100 artists. It has been said of him that “jack of all trades, he was master of all” —an incomparable sculptor, a painter of the first rank, a great architect, an eminent engineer, a charming poet, and a profound student of anatomy and physiology. As well, he was of awe-inspiring, forceful character. Born on March 6, 1745, at Caprese, a small town near Florence, Michelangelo diowed skill as a young sculptor, attracting the attention of Lorenzo de Medici who became his patron. From then, dividing his time between Florence and Rome, he served the Medici family and a succession of popes who loved art.

At the beginning it was obvious he was extremely gifted. A scientific study of anatomy and the preaching

•nd writings in Florence of the Dominican Friar, Savonarola, later martyred, gave him early his passion for ttie human body and a consciousness of sin, two principle influences on his art. After the death of his generous patron in 1492, Michelangelo thought it wise to leave Florence and by 1496 he was in Rome. The outstanding work of this period and one of his first great masterpieces of sculpture was the Pieta in which the dead Christ, a fullygrown man. lies on the knees of the Virgin, a beautiful young woman. It is considered a perfect fusion. of Gothic and classical art. Statue Of David Michelangelo returned to Florence in 1501 where, at the request of the city authorities he carved a statue of David from a block of marble already partly spoiled by someone else. A huge figure, it subjects mass to thought and shows the mighty energy and sense of struggle so much a part of Michelangelo’s art. Summoned to Rome in 1505 by Pope Juluis 11, who commissioned his tomb, Michelangelo spent eight months in a quarry only to become a victim of court intrigue when he returned. The Pope had refused to see him so he left for Florence.

Great as the artist was and much-vaunted as was the patronage of art shown by the Renaissance princes, Michelangelo was a constant victim of the inconsistencies of his patrons. In greatlyreduced form, the tomb was finished much later but it contains the famous and gigantic Moses.

He was forced to return to Rome by the Pope and protesting he was a sculptor not a painter, was given the task of painting the ceiling frescoes of the Sistine Chapel. Without assistants — he could not work with them —he used his brush for more than four years from a lofty

scaffold to tell on a grandiose scale the Biblical story from Creation to flood. It has 145 pictures comprising 394 figures, many of them 10 feet and much other decoration as well.

The frescoes, among the wonders of the world, are marvels of his design and execution, and they express vividly the neoplatonic idea expressed in his sonnets that natural beauty, particularly of the human body, is a symbol of Divine beauty. Only 37 when the. ceiling was unveiled in 1512, Michelangelo was already old and embittered. He lived to 89, executing one great work after another—the marble prisoners, Day and Night, Dawn and Evening, the Last Judgment fresco behind the

altar in the Sistine, sometimes considered the most famous single painting in the world, the design of the dome for St. Peter's; the marvellous arid tragic Pietas of his old age, and a great deal of . architecture. All showed the brooding grandeur of his mature years. He was revered throughout Europe as the greatest living artist, almost the greatest of all time. Without Peer Says one recent critic: “Leaving aside the great religious teachers, I cannot think of any other man in history who has commanded such great respect.” ’ Four hundred years ago today, three days before Michelangelo died, Galileo was born in Pisa, down the Arno from Florence. If Renaissance art in Italy is considered to have ended with the death of Michelangelo, I the same humanism it inj eluded was still producing ' changes in scientific thought i and Galileo was part of that i movement. He was a great scientist in I several fields, in mathematics, mechanics, and optics, as well as in astronomy; he was also a learned classical ■scholar, a good musician, and a gifted writer. Sent to the University of Pisa to study medicine, he soon became interested in

mathematics and science, showing an unwillingness to accept unquestioningly statements not based on evidence. In 1589 he was appointed professor of mathematics at the university but fell foul of the Aristototileans by propounding and demonstrating the novel theorem that falling bodies, great or small, descend with equal velocityHe found resignation prudent and took the mathematics chair at the University of Padua.

In his 18 years at Padua, Galileo lectured brilliantly to thousands of pupils from all parts of Europe, popularising the Copernician hypo-

thesis that the earth is not the centre of the universe but one of a number of planets revolving round the sun.

It was while he was ait Padua he heard of a “spyglass” in Flanders “which made distant objects appear very close.” Galileo made his own famed telescope, hardly . ; more powerful than a present opera glass. From lit he discovered the markings on the sun and established its rotation, thus, by analogy proving the essential truth of the Copernican system. Most Europeans had believed the sun too pure a body to be sullied by spots. Galileo discovered the mountains on the moon, the phases of Mars, four satellites of Jupiter (named in honour of the Medici), the rings of Saturn ' and the structure of the Milky Way. It was the dawn of telescopic astronomy. When he showed that four small bodies were circling a big one, Jupiter, he had a strong argument infavour of the heliocentric theory.

Arrainged

Recalled to Florence. Galileo was set up as philosopher and mathematician to the Grand Duke of Tuscany but his forthrightness, sarcasm, and the ease with which he discredited conventional views had been making him influential enemies who thought him a dangerous heretic. He was a good Catholic, but he provoked ihe displeasure of some of the more conservative ecclesiastical leaders with his views, which they considered “erroneous as to faith.” This led first to a warning and later to his appearance before toe inquisition for a wearisome trial. He was forced to abjure by oath and he finished his days in increasing blindness and sadness under virtual house arrest at his villa near Florence, summing up and completing his discoveries in mechanics.

Throughout his career, Galileo was preoccupied with Copernican astronomy and the mathematical theory of motion. His important contributions were later integrated into Newton’s theory of planetary dynamics. In 1642, when Galileo died, Newton was born. ■