take away

His mother

Standing in the recessed wall of the eight­foot window, letting the thin March sun warm his bony shoulders, the boy's image went back to their home in Settignano, overlooking the valley of the Arno, when his mother had been alive. Then there had been love and laughter; but his mother had died when he was six, and his father had retreated in despair into the encampment of his study. For four years while his aunt Cassandra had taken over the care of the household, Michelangelo had been lonely and unwanted except by his grandmother, Monna Alessandra, who lived with them, and the stonecutter's family across the hill, the stonecutter's wife having suckled him when his own mother had been too ill to

nourish her son.For four years, until his father had remarried and Lucrezia had insisted that they move into Florence,

he had fled at every opportunity to the Topolinos. He would make his way down the wheat fields among the silver­green olives, cross the brook which marked the division of the land, and climb the opposite hill

through the vineyards to their yard. Here he would silently set to work cutting the pietra serena from the neighboring quarry into beveled building stones for a new Florentine palace, working out his unhappiness in the precision blows in which he had been trained in this stonecutter's yard since he was a child and, along with the stonecutter's own sons, had been given a small hammer and chisel to work scraps.

Notes

“His real battle began the moment a muscle became defined or a structural element e\began to emerge. Standing out from the rough blocking, he felt a thumping in his heart to shed away quickly the rest of the marble skin to reveal the human form below.

When he returned he approached the marble from a distance, saw its contours and masses, felt its continuity.

Every few cycles stepping back to see what he had accomplished. His feelings were always ahead of his physical capacity to carve.

“Go.” (religious context of Jesus “go”)

His mother

Standing in the recessed wall of the eight­foot window, letting the thin March sun warm his bony shoulders, the boy's image went back to their home in Settignano, overlooking the valley of the Arno, when his mother had been alive. Then there had been love and laughter; but his mother had died when he was six, and his father had retreated in despair into the encampment of his study. For four years while his aunt Cassandra had taken over the care of the household, Michelangelo had been lonely and unwanted except by his grandmother, Monna Alessandra, who lived with them, and the stonecutter's family across the hill, the stonecutter's wife having suckled him when his own mother had been too ill to

nourish her son.For four years, until his father had remarried and Lucrezia had insisted that they move into Florence,

he had fled at every opportunity to the Topolinos. He would make his way down the wheat fields among the silver­green olives, cross the brook which marked the division of the land, and climb the opposite hill

through the vineyards to their yard. Here he would silently set to work cutting the pietra serena from the neighboring quarry into beveled building stones for a new Florentine palace, working out his unhappiness in the precision blows in which he had been trained in this stonecutter's yard since he was a child and, along with the stonecutter's own sons, had been given a small hammer and chisel to work scraps.

Notes

“His real battle began the moment a muscle became defined or a structural element e\began to emerge. Standing out from the rough blocking, he felt a thumping in his heart to shed away quickly the rest of the marble skin to reveal the human form below.

When he returned he approached the marble from a distance, saw its contours and masses, felt its continuity.

Every few cycles stepping back to see what he had accomplished. His feelings were always ahead of his physical capacity to carve.

“Go.” (religious context of Jesus “go”)

Balducci accused him of trying to scape the world by fleeing into marble.

Did God really rest on the seventh day? In the cool of that long afternoon, when He was refreshed, might He not have asked Himself, “Whom have I on earth to speak for me? I had best create another species, one apart. I will call him ‘artist.’ His will be the task to bring meaning and beauty to the world.”

The sculptor carries into the marble the vision of a more luminous world than the one that surrounds him.

French Cardinal Groslaye

Michelangelo quit qork at sundown, went to the baths close by, steamed the marble dust out of his pores, put on a fresh shirt and hose ,brushed his hair forward over his brow.

Groslaye over dinner, “You know, my son, I am growing old. I must leave something behind me, something of a singular beauty to add to the beauties of Rome. A tribune from France, from Charles VIII and my humble self. I have secured permission from the Pope to dedicate a sculpture in the Chapel of the Kings of France in St. Peter’s. This is a niche that will take a life-size sculpture.”

Balducci accused him of trying to scape the world by fleeing into marble.

Did God really rest on the seventh day? In the cool of that long afternoon, when He was refreshed, might He not have asked Himself, “Whom have I on earth to speak for me? I had best create another species, one apart. I will call him ‘artist.’ His will be the task to bring meaning and beauty to the world.”

The sculptor carries into the marble the vision of a more luminous world than the one that surrounds him.

French Cardinal Groslaye

Michelangelo quit qork at sundown, went to the baths close by, steamed the marble dust out of his pores, put on a fresh shirt and hose ,brushed his hair forward over his brow.

Groslaye over dinner, “You know, my son, I am growing old. I must leave something behind me, something of a singular beauty to add to the beauties of Rome. A tribune from France, from Charles VIII and my humble self. I have secured permission from the Pope to dedicate a sculpture in the Chapel of the Kings of France in St. Peter’s. This is a niche that will take a life-size sculpture.”