By Brad Miner.
But first a note from Robert Royal: Friends: Dostoyevsky made one of his characters say, "Beauty will save the world." There are many days when it seems doubtful that he was right. But it's worth always keeping in mind that there are deeper realities than the day-to-day controversies - even in the Church - which may ultimately decide what happens in this world and the next. Today, Brad Miner takes us through a masterly account of some of the works of a man who may have been the greatest Catholic artist ever - and in multiple media.
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Now for today's column...
There's another basilica called St. Peter's in Rome, located near the Colosseum. San Pietro in Vincoli ("St. Peter in Chains") is a minor basilica that gets its own share of visitors, many of whom come for just one reason.
Therein lies the "tomb" of Julius II, although the late pope is not interred there. Julius (Giuliano della Rovere) now lies in the other St. Peter's, the world's greatest church, next to his uncle, Pope Sixtus IV.
Julius, who had no small opinion of his august self, wanted a grand memorial to his life and papacy, so he brought Michelangelo Buonarroti to Rome to design it. The great, 30-year-old artist accepted with gusto, visualizing it as his life's great work. And it's to see this (especially its central sculpture) that people come to San Pietro in Vincoli.
What they see, however, is a work very much diminished from the original vision of Julius and Michelangelo because problems arose.
Julius decided that, having Michelangelo in his employ, the artist was just the man to illuminate the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo had begun to work on the tomb in 1505 but was forced to put the project on hold in 1508 to climb the scaffolding in the Chapel and begin painting what many consider the greatest achievement of the Renaissance (if not in the whole history of art), a project he worked on for four years, completing the ceiling on October 31, 1512.
Julius was relieved. Now, he assumed, he'd live to see the tomb that would be a monument to his monumental life. Michelangelo's original plan was for an enormous, free-standing, three-tiered sort of wedding-cake structure featuring 40 statues. It would be 23 feet wide, 26-1/4 feet tall, and 36 feet deep, and fairly dominate the interior of the new and equally enormous St. Peter's at the Vatican, then under construction. And it might have worked if sited there, but it was not to be. Because it was at this point that the project came to a halt.
Why is not entirely clear. To be sure, the construction of the new St. Peter's was a drain on the Vatican treasury, and its then-chief architect, Donato Bramante, was no friend of Michelangelo, and he may have convinced Julius that overseeing the construction of one's own tomb was bad form for a holy man.
And there were wars, of course - with Julius leading the army of the Papal States. And, on the gloomy horizon, religious dissent that would lead to the Protestant Reformation.
The Vatican balance sheet was sliding into the red.
But Julius would not abandon the tomb project. In fact, he issued a bull (February 19, 1513) declaring that Michelangelo would be the only one to craft his tomb - a very high-powered back-to-work order. Michelangelo had finished his work on the Sistine Chapel a few months before. So now, Julius must have thought: Now he can finish my tomb!
Two days later, the pope died.
Michelangelo did finish the "tomb" in 1545, just two years before Pope Paul III would name him Chie...