Original subtitles

The following programme contains flashing images.

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC)

MAN: 'Was Michelangelo a saint or a sinner?

He's a saint of art.

He's certainly a patron saint of art

and probably one of the most famous artists in the world.

So in that sense,

he's saintly in that we still respect him and observe him

and go to his relics and the remains that he's given us.

But he thought of himself as a sinner.'

WOMAN: 'I think in this case, we have to separate

the artist from the man and when we think of an artist,

the public persona is always this genius,

this guy who had the hands of God to create these divine-like works.

Then it's hard to think of him in any other way than divine.

But maybe this is the perfect moment in time, in history,

to think about him as a human being, as a complicated human being.'

(WOMAN SPEAKS IN ITALIAN)

(MAN SPEAKS IN ITALIAN)

(SPEAKS IN ITALIAN)

(PIANO MUSIC FADES OUT)

I love Michelangelo on a very deep level.

He's the ultimate artist for me.

And I- I like to think of him more like a God than a mere mortal.

So, he's a complex man,

and maybe it's time for me to stop thinking about him as a God

and think about him as a man.

(WIND SWIRLS)

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC)

KATE: 'I never tire of being in Rome.'

'I've been coming here for 20 years for my career.'

'It's almost as if I left a little piece of myself here,

and then I reconnect with it again every time.

It's a place that just gives me so much energy.

When I'm walking these cobblestones,

I'm immediately connected to Renaissance Masters.

I'm looking at these ancient monuments

and I'm thinking of an entirely different world.

But a world that still informs my existence today.'

(CHURCH BELLS RING)

'It's such a layered city,

and I suppose I'm addicted to it.'

'I'm a pilgrim. I keep returning.

And there's one artist more than anyone else

that I'm in search for...

..that I'm always keeping an eye out for...

and it's Michelangelo.'

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

This is the tomb of Pope Julius II by Michelangelo.

It was supposed to be one of the most magnificent,

splendid, ground-breaking artworks in history.

And instead, it's completely mired in controversy.

It took 40 years to deliver. It is far diminished.

It is a modest artwork instead of a magnificent artwork.

(PENSIVE MUSIC CONTINUES)

And ultimately,

it's something that really threatens Michelangelo's reputation.

It involves lots of scheming, lots of letters,

lots of accusations, several popes,

Michelangelo's rivals, Raphael and Bramante.

Perhaps the biggest controversy about Michelangelo, this tomb.

The mausoleum was to be Michelangelo's commission of a lifetime

that was meant to secure his legacy forever,

secure it beyond our wildest dreams that we know today.

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

'I think the failed tomb of Pope Julius II

can give us a different insight into Michelangelo's personal life.

Without this tomb,

and the controversy that surrounded it at the time,

Michelangelo probably would not have created

some of his most magnificent work.

So one could argue that out of his darkest moments

rose some of his brightest achievements.'

(STIRRING MUSIC)

'As a sculptor, he had imagined something ambitious,

a marble monument like no other.

This tomb for Pope Julius II, known as the warrior pope,

was meant to become the eighth wonder of the world.'

'We are unaware of the details as we have no drawings.

But we do know that he wanted it to be magnificent.

A celebration of Christianity,

he wanted it to be a freestanding tomb

made entirely of the finest Carrara marble he would choose himself.

Never since classical times had a mausoleum like this

been built in the West for one man alone.

Michelangelo planned to finish it in under six years.

So why didn't he?'

This mausoleum would've immortalised Pope Julius II

as this king-like pope,

who was this architect of Rome who helped enable Rome to prosper

as one of the greatest cities artistically in the world.

It was supposed to be the Sistine Chapel in marble,

and instead we have Moses.

And don't get me wrong, I love Moses. It's a masterpiece.

But he was supposed to have serious company.

And instead, he's on his own.

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

(MAN SPEAKS IN ITALIAN)

The tomb ultimately cost a huge amount of money.

Maybe well into the hundreds of thousands of dollars

in modern equivalency.

But here's where, over the long, long history

of this tomb of 40 years, there were contracts

and there was agreements and there was funding,

and then there was promotion, more money presented.

Michelangelo didn't keep track of it!

And this is how he got into trouble. He didn't keep track of the money,

he didn't- he couldn't legitimise, or legitimate,

what he was spending his money on.

He was just a terrible, terrible money manager.

(IN ITALIAN)

(CAMERAMAN SPEAKS IN ITALIAN)

(IN ITALIAN) Mmm.

(IN ENGLISH) Stop.

(LAUGHTER) MAN: Well...

(SPEAKS IN ITALIAN)

(IN ITALIAN, CHUCKLING)

KATE (IN ENGLISH): I began my career at the British Museum,

talking about Michelangelo in these divine terms.

But I never really thought about him as a man before.

And when I think about the Tomb of Julius II,

I realised that I haven't acknowledged that perhaps...

perhaps Michelangelo was flawed, perhaps he made mistakes.

Why did this tomb take 40 years to deliver?

Why was he hounded by the family

asking for the artwork that he promised them?

Why did he take money and then maybe not deliver on the sculptures?

And I think that, as art historians,

sometimes we're guilty of just putting forward

the story of Michelangelo and all of his accomplishments.

And we don't like to think about all the messy, complicated stuff.

I want to really understand this artist that I love so much.

You know, to be a true art historian is to see an artist in the round.

And that's what I need to do.

(BIRDS TWEETING)

(GENTLE MUSIC)

'Michelangelo's born in 1475, in a really tiny place,

Caprese, it's near Arezzo, in the Tuscan countryside.

Michelangelo came from a family which had very noble origins.

He was always very keen to stress this, it was important to him.

But by no means was- did he grew up in a family

which had a huge amount of wealth.'

And over 500 years later,

this is still one of the most remote parts of Italy I've ever seen.

And it spectacular. It's not about people.

It's not about buildings. It's not about money.

It's not about status. It's not about power.

This place just seems to be about light and nature.

And actually, Michelangelo's making more sense as an artist for me.

It's really important for me to come back to this place

and trace his footsteps and say, "He was born".

(CHUCKLING) He was- He was flesh and blood, just like me.

And I think this art is known the world over.

This, sort of, person who set the benchmark for what art could be

was born right here.

(STIRRING MUSIC)

He doesn't grow up with a lot of money.

There's no financial stability.

There's definitely always a concern in Michelangelo...

Even when he's in his much later years

and he shouldn't be worrying about money, he does worry about money.

And you can see his letters with his father.

His father's constantly writing to him to say,

when he's a young man, "You should be more financially secure,

but you mustn't live in poverty.

But at the same time, you mustn't live extravagantly."

There's all these pressures on him

and that stays with him throughout his entire life.

It's definitely a really psychological trait in Michelangelo

to both uphold the good name of the family,

but not be seen to be too luxurious.

And I think you see that in the way that he handles money.

I mean, he's slightly negligent when he handles money.

He's very concerned about money, but he doesn't count every penny,

he's so busy with his work, so he's a bit of a contradiction.

Well, Michelangelo was the person in the family that made money.

And so, um, yes, his father

was constantly asking for money from Michelangelo.

And so Michelangelo's a little bit irritated

that other members of his family weren't making as much money.

But Michelangelo made a LOT of money in his life.

I mean, he- by the end of his life, he was a multimillionaire,

but he didn't spend money on himself.

He spent money on everything else, his art and mostly on marble.

So, the... money was always a tension,

as it probably is in many families.

(ANTONIO SPEAKS IN ITALIAN)

Well, Michelangelo came from an old, noble family...

uh, impoverished nobility.

And so, his father would naturally expect Michelangelo

to become a member of the government or a notary,

or something that was not manual labour,

which is what art was considered,

a manual labour and not very prestigious.

'When Michelangelo as a young man says he wants to become an artist,

you can imagine his family were really shocked

to the point of thinking they might be disgraced

by him becoming an artist.

But he obviously just feels it on a very instinctive level.'

But I think what becomes very clear

is that by the time that Michelangelo is 13,

he's basically just drawing at school.

(CHUCKLES) He just wants to be an artist.

And his father and his uncle try and convince him not to be an artist.

But eventually they submit, and he goes to become an apprentice

at the workshop of Ghirlandaio, who's a very respected Florentine artist.

'So, I've come to Florence to retrace his footsteps

and think about him in all of his complexity.

The Tomb of Julius II, it seems like quite a contemporary problem.

You know, there's fake news.

There's people trying to slander Michelangelo.

They're trying to cancel him, they're trying to bring him down.

Was he a saint, or was he a sinner? I don't know.

Could Michelangelo ever be so innocent?

I've always thought him to be so.

But now thinking about it, I realise it's a much more complex picture.

And I need to think carefully

and try and understand him as flesh and blood.'

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC)

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC)

(BIRDS TWEETING)

KATE: This is the cloister of the Church of San Lorenzo in Florence,

and it's a site of huge significance in Michelangelo's career.

It's the Medici family church.

It's a place where he had a huge success

with the Medici Family Chapel.

WILLIAM: And so the Medici helped

pave the way for a Michelangelo career.

And that career began, really,

not actually in the Medici garden,

but with the Ghirlandaio workshop,

where probably because of the Medici connection,

Michelangelo was... His way with smoothed into

the most impressive and important workshop in all of Florence

A painter's workshop,

which is not how we think of Michelangelo being trained.

Michelangelo is, however, only there one year,

and that's unusual for an apprentice.

He gets summoned, he gets picked. Lorenzo the Magnificent says,

"Send me two of your best pupils to Ghirlandaio."

And Michelangelo's selected.

And then, this really just changes the course of Michelangelo's life.

He's got this humanist education.

He's looking at ancient sculptures in the gardens,

he's being tutored by great artists,

he's living a princely kind of life with this very wealthy Medici family.

And what's critical is that he would become very close,

almost like family, with two future popes.

(WOMAN SPEAKS IN ITALIAN)

(CURIOUS MUSIC)

Michelangelo really, as yet,

is not a sculptor when he's living in the Medici household.

He's something like being trained in something like a courtier,

sort of on the margins of the court of the Medici.

But then, with the death of Lorenzo de' Medici,

Michelangelo really needed a career, he needed some kind of income.

And so he carved the Cupid as a showpiece,

as a demonstration that he could carve

as well as the antique sculptors of the ancient world could carve.

And this Cupid was sent to Rome

as if it had been discovered as an ancient work of art.

(ANTONIO SPEAKS IN ITALIAN)

But his big break came from Raffaele Riario,

who actually asked Michelangelo, "What can you do?"

You know, "OK, I've seen you carve the Cupid,

but what can you do new for me?"

And so, Michelangelo actually then carved the Bacchus.

(CURIOUS MUSIC)

Then a French cardinal noticed the Bacchus

and wanted a grave memorial for himself,

which is what the Pieta was.

It was to mark the grave of this very powerful French cardinal.

Michelangelo finally gets what he's looking for,

a really serious commission by a serious cardinal for the Vatican.

And he's gonna make a Pieta.

(STIRRING CLASSICAL MUSIC)

(IN ITALIAN)

(SOFT MUSIC)

So this really was Michelangelo's coming out,

his debut sculpture that made him famous immediately in the world.

And one way it's famous is not only is it beautifully carved,

but it's a beautiful, carved piece of marble.

It's just an absolute miracle sculpture.

And I think he changes sculpture in that moment.

People look at this work and they're incredibly jealous

of this young artist in his twenties in Rome.

They think, "Who the hell does he think he is,

this young Michelangelo, making a work like that?"

It surpasses everything his contemporaries have achieved.

And it really just speaks to the ancients.

So, it's such a critical moment in Michelangelo's life.

And I think it's the moment where he thinks he's suddenly made it.

He returns to Florence

and he really wants to make his name in his homeland.

This is really important for him.

He gets a gift of a commission.

It's for the Duomo.

Unfortunately... (CHUCKLES) It's a bit of a poisoned chalice

because they give Michelangelo "the giant",

which is this enormous block of marble

that three different artists have had to go at.

It's absolutely enormous and it's been quarried

40 years before, which makes it even harder to carve.

And so actually, it's a really difficult commission

to give this young artist.

But Michelangelo knows this is his big moment.

(DRAMATIC MUSIC)

The David is Michelangelo, world stage,

and fame with the David. Why?

(DRAMATIC MUSIC CONTINUES)

Look at the scale of David.

Nobody in the Renaissance had carved any sculpture

nearly of this scale,

and much less a nude figure

that was so impressively naturalistic.

So, the David was actually not even called "the David".

People just called it "Il Gigante".

(WOMAN SPEAKS IN ITALIAN)

(IN ITALIAN)

So, Michelangelo was flourishing as an artist in Florence.

Especially after the David, all kinds of commissions came his way.

But suddenly, he gets a call from Rome.

'Pope Julius II would like him to come to Rome

to carve a mausoleum,

a monumental burial tomb for the pope.'

So when he gets this papal summons in 1505,

it changes the course of his life because it means suddenly

he is right at the apotheosis of the art world.

He has been summoned by a pope.

Not just any pope, but a pope who wants to rebuild Rome.

(GENTLE MUSIC)

(BIRD CAWS)

(IN ITALIAN)

KATE: I think it's really difficult to grasp quite what this means,

because the papacy didn't just represent Christendom,

it represented power.

Pope Julius II was a warrior pope,

and he really wants to dominate Italian politics.

So we've got money, we've got power,

but also he's an extraordinary patron of the arts.

So, I think if you put it in today's terms, you could say,

"Oh, maybe it's like representing your country at the Venice Biennale."

But it's bigger than that.

It's almost something that we have to imagine for ourselves.

Like, imagine if the Princess of Wales and the Prince of Wales

decided to build a completely new palace in London

and have one artist come and be their court artist.

Maybe that's what this is like.

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

(WOMAN SPEAKS IN ITALIAN)

(CONTINUES IN ITALIAN)

But what I think is most important about this whole project

is at the beginning of this project,

there was no contract, there was no drawing.

It was a verbal agreement between the Pope and the artist

to create this eighth wonder of the world.

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC)

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC)

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

(IN ITALIAN)

(GENTLE MUSIC, BIRDS TWEETING)

KATY: 'Michelangelo's life is intrinsically linked with marble.

It makes him and it also breaks him.

He becomes obsessed with it.'

'I've come to Florence, to Casa Buonarroti,

a house he bought for his family,

to find out exactly how he imagined this tomb to be...

..and to get an idea of how much marble

he was going to need to make it.'

(CURIOUS MUSIC)

'This place holds one of the largest Michelangelo archives.'

And in this archive are actually letters,

correspondences between Michelangelo and the heirs.

And my journey has brought me here

because in these letters, I'll be able to shed more light

on what went on.

When we look at letters, I think what we can do

is actually put ourselves in the shoes of those who lived that time.

And to get that first hand experience is extraordinary.

'I can see from this document most of the measurements for the tomb,

and the number of statues that Michelangelo wanted to create.

It was supposed to be 7 metres wide, 11 metres deep and 8 metres high.

It would have been adorned by over 40 life-size statues

placed in St Peter's, all in marble.

He puts an enormous emphasis on the marble he wanted to use...

Not just any marble, it had to be the world-famous Carrara marble.'

Michelangelo receives 1000 ducats from Pope Julius II

to go off to the quarries to get the marble for this.

Uh, again... Once again, Michelangelo insisting

that he choose the best materials.

So, he started a lifelong love

for marble and for the marble quarries,

a place where he probably was the happiest of all.

(CURIOUS MUSIC)

'Michelangelo once wrote,

"The sculpture is already complete within the marble block

before I start my work.

It is already there,

I just need to chisel away the superfluous material."

I am visiting the same marble quarry

where Michelangelo spent eight months

choosing the right slabs to use to create the 40 statues

for the tomb of Pope Julius II.'

(CURIOUS MUSIC CONTINUES)

'Michelangelo described this marble as being

"of compact grain, homogenous, crystalline,

reminiscent of sugar."

I can see exactly what he meant.

Carrara is in the Apuan Mountains,

Italy's most marble-rich area.

Hundreds of quarries have operated here since Roman times.'

(CURIOUS MUSIC BUILDS)

'I am meeting professor and sculptor Luciano Massari

to find out more about Michelangelo's obsession with marble

and these marble quarries.'

What is so special about Carrara marble?

(IN ITALIAN)

(CURIOUS MUSIC)

So, after Michelangelo gets the commission from Pope Julius II,

he comes to Carrara and it's here where he has to extract

40 blocks of marble to create these 40 sculptures.

What kind of feat was this for him then?

And what does that translate to now?

(IN ITALIAN)

So, you as a professor, but also as a sculptor...

When you're tackling Carrara marble, what do you do with it?

And how would that be different to how Michelangelo tackled it?

(IN ITALIAN)

(IN ITALIAN)

(CURIOUS MUSIC)

(CONTINUES IN ITALIAN)

(DRAMATIC MUSIC)

(IN ITALIAN)

(LUCIANO SPEAKS IN ITALIAN)

(WHISPERS) OK...

(CONTINUES IN ITALIAN)

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

KATY: 'Michelangelo arrived in Rome

after carefully selecting his marble,

quarrying at Carrara to great expense.

He then has to say goodbye to it,

as it makes its way on a boat to Ripa Grande in Rome.

It's gonna arrive in the port in Rome.

And what a sight it would've been to see these enormous blocks

arriving in Rome, ready to fulfil their artistic destiny.

It's poetic to me, but it must've been terrifying to Michelangelo.'

(IN ITALIAN)

So, when Michelangelo comes back to Rome with all of this marble

and he's ready to start creating this greatest creation of all time,

then he's gonna, all of a sudden, demand attention from the Pope

that the Pope doesn't have time for. Time or money.

(IN ITALIAN)

(LAUGHS) (CAMERAMAN SPEAKS ITALIAN)

(IN ITALIAN) OK.

I think the rupture between Michelangelo and Julius II

came mainly when Michelangelo

was unable to get an audience with the Pope.

Uh, not only to get an audience, but to get money to...

in order to continue this project.

And so Michelangelo left Rome without the papal permission,

and this is the rupture. You don't say no to a pope.

And you don't just leave his employ without asking permission.

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC)

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC)

The groundwork for the rupture was laid by Bramante,

who was probably the person who convinced the Pope

that it's not a good idea to build your own tomb monument

in your own lifetime, this is unlucky.

Well, Bramante is quite a character.

He's the papal architect,

is someone that really unsettles Michelangelo.

And throughout the course of his life, Michelangelo complains

about Bramante's influence on his own career.

Pope Julius II really relies on Bramante.

He's not just building him a tomb or painting him a picture,

he's rebuilding St Peter's.

And Bramante probably was helpful

in redirecting the Pope's attention to the Sistine ceiling.

"Why don't we have Michelangelo paint the Sistine ceiling instead?"

Bramante hears Michelangelo's gonna build the tomb for Pope Julius II.

He knows he is a supremely gifted sculptor.

And he's jealous, and he says to Pope Julius II,

"You should get him to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling."

(CECILE SPEAKS IN ITALIAN)

Bramante thinks that Michelangelo's totally gonna fail at the ceiling.

It's absolutely enormous. And Bramante probably knows

that Michelangelo only had one year with Ghirlandaio.

He was a young man, he didn't have a long apprenticeship.

He wouldn't have worked on any fresco cycles with him.

In fact, probably, the day that Michelangelo turns up

to the Sistine Chapel in 1508, thinking about making these frescoes

is the closest he's ever come to making a fresco.

(IN ITALIAN)

WILLIAM: There's about eight months there before he actually starts.

He's doing a lot of drawing.

He's making a lot of projects and a lot of designs.

He's thinking about what's appropriate for the ceiling.

He's consulting with the Pope about what is wanted on the ceiling.

So, there's a long period there

before Michelangelo actually starts to paint,

where he's sort of figuring out that, "OK, I can do this."

And this is typical Michelangelo,

that he becomes a painter when he needs to become a painter.

He became an architect when he was needed as an architect.

He had never studied architecture in his life.

He became a poet when he wanted to write poetry.

So, he learned how to paint fresco rather quickly.

Uh, it's a- it's a miracle. It really is a miracle,

which is part of the astonishment of the Sistine,

not just its scale and its grandeur, but the fact that this person

who had never painted a fresco in his life

painted the greatest fresco of all time.

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC)

'In the middle of Rome,

just in a tiny area, is a place that holds

some of the most extraordinary masterpieces ever created.'

'It's the Vatican City.

And the jewel for me there is the Sistine Chapel.

It's the ultimate work of art.

You can't believe that it was designed and executed by one man.

The sheer invention of it, the originality,

it changes art history forever.

But for me, it changes history forever.

This is Michelangelo showing us what humankind is capable of.

It works on an intimate level with me,

but also works on a universal level.

You don't need to know very much to fall in love with that chapel.

I took my one-year-old daughter there

and a noisy, rambunctious toddler suddenly just stood still.

And that's when I knew that it was true, that it really...

It really touches people.'

(CURIOUS MUSIC)

'Even just standing in the Sistine Chapel with you now,

my heart beats fast, I have goose bumps.

It's hard to imagine that Bramante thought that Michelangelo would fail

when he has achieved such an extraordinary thing,

and I get to come in and enjoy it.'

(STIRRING MUSIC)

'For Michelangelo, it must have been, at times, brutal.

I mean, this is a such a physical undertaking, isn't it?'

(IN ITALIAN)

(KATE CHUCKLES)

(CONTINUES IN ITALIAN)

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC)

(IN ITALIAN)

Michelangelo is extremely excited

about the tomb commissioned for Pope Julius II.

We know that he begins work, he's full of youthful bravado,

he wants to make something extraordinary.

And yet, so quickly after getting the tomb commission,

his attentions are diverted.

I mean, he has no choice, does he?

He has to follow what the pope wants him to do?

(IN ITALIAN)

It's almost as if sometimes it's not just the achievement of Michelangelo.

Sometimes it feels like it's the achievement of humankind.

If this is what stands for our culture,

then it's an extraordinary thing that humankind can achieve this.

(IN ITALIAN)

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

The tomb of Pope Julius II is the most long, drawn out, protracted,

ultimately disappointing part of Michelangelo's career, if you ask me.

He gets the commission in 1505.

He stops work in 1508, paints the Sistine Chapel, no less.

1512, finishes the Sistine Chapel.

But then in 1513, just a few months after the Sistine Chapel is unveiled,

Pope Julius II dies.

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC)

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC)

(BELL TOLLS)

KATY: 'Pope Julius II dies without seeing the tomb

he had commissioned from Michelangelo...

A tomb that was going to be so grandiose,

it would've overshadowed any other mausoleum

in the Western world.'

'Although we don't have drawings,

Michelangelo writes about his vision for this masterpiece.

So, we know that it was meant to have two or three floors.

It was meant to be adorned by no less than 40 statues

as big and as perfect as the Moses.

And it was meant to represent the Christian world.'

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

'This tomb would've been so ground-breaking

that experts have been trying to bring it back to life

for decades.

But only now does the right technology exist to do that.'

So, Mitchell, tell us about what we're looking at here.

We are using actual historical documents

to create the volumes and the designs.

We are using open source software

to create the model right from scratch.

Then we are going to apply materials in order to make it beautiful.

And the process is part a technical effort

and part an artistic effort because, of course,

there is no real object to reconstruct.

So we need to start from what we have and imagine what we don't.

We are trying to remain as faithful as we can to the source material.

But, of course, what we don't have, we need to fill in the blanks.

We are here in the very beautiful setting of San Pietro in Vincoli

as we are now wrapping up the digital reconstruction

of the mausoleum by Michelangelo.

And in this context, we are creating a 3D scan

of the Moses statue, again by Michelangelo,

which will be then placed within the 3D reconstruction of the mausoleum.

It's a very important technical challenge for us.

We are using one of the most advanced techniques.

We're using a structured light scanner

which uses high-energy pulsating light beams

to recreate both the volumes and the surface of the statue.

This 3D model will then be placed

within our digital twin of the mausoleum

to make it as real-life as possible.

But with the flexibility

and the capabilities of the 3D world, of course.

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

'And the Moses stands there, still as always,

in its timeless beauty with his ferocious gaze as it gets scanned

and it awaits to be put where he should've been all along,

on the mausoleum that Michelangelo wanted to carve all those years ago.

But he never did.

And the curse of the papal tomb continued.'

(CURIOUS MUSIC)

'To think that this tomb became so intrinsically linked

with his own life, reputation and success is astounding.

As a deeply religious man, he wanted to deliver the world

not just a tomb, but a symbol

that celebrated Christianity in all its glory.

But he failed.

And this failure tormented him for the rest of his days.

When the pope died in 1513,

the pope's heirs, the Della Rovere family,

were very keen on having the pope's tomb now completed.

And, of course, they felt that they had already invested

a huge amount of money, which they had.

The family had already invested a huge amount of money in the project.

So, this is the beginning of the difficulties of the tomb.

(IN ITALIAN)

(IN ITALIAN)

The thing is, there's a new pope.

It's Pope Leo X, which is one of Michelangelo's childhood friends.

He's hanging around in the court of the Medici at the same time.

He's Lorenzo the Magnificent's heir.

He also wants to give Michelangelo

his own commissions, his own projects,

and he gives Michelangelo one of the most tantalising commissions

he could possibly have asked for...

to create the facade of San Lorenzo.

And he wants a Medici tomb,

so Michelangelo's busy trying to fulfil the wishes of a new pope.

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

(CRISTINA SPEAKS IN ITALIAN)

(IN ITALIAN)

Now, what happens is they need to put a new contract in place.

So, the heirs of Pope Julius II want to make sure

that there's a really sort of clear arrangement with Michelangelo,

because actually everything with the pope

had been done more in a gentlemen's agreement.

There was, sort of, no money set. It was like,

"Have all the money in the world, make me the greatest tomb on earth."

And it was all, kind of, relatively hyperbolic,

whereas the heirs want to put a contract in place.

(IN ITALIAN)

I mean, he's awarded a huge amount of money.

An equivalent of, say, a villa and a Ferrari, or something.

It's not money for life, but it is an extraordinary amount of money.

(IN ITALIAN)

He spent lots of money.

He spent lots of money, but he never spent money on himself.

He actually lived rather simply, poorly.

He spent money on marble.

(IN ITALIAN)

The heirs, on their perspective,

when we put ourselves in the shoes of the heirs,

they've paid Michelangelo a lot of money already to do this,

yet they don't have the financial ability

to go through with the original plans,

so they have to downsize it.

KATE: 'In 1516, the heirs give him another contract

because they're really trying to keep him in line.

They reduce significantly what the tomb should be.

So, instead of being this amazing freestanding monument,

it becomes a wall tomb.

Far less exciting for Michelangelo, probably,

even though it's still designed to be quite large.'

(DANIELE SPEAKS IN ITALIAN)

And then in 1523, there's yet another new pope,

Pope Clement VII.

Now, Clement VII is another childhood friend of Michelangelo,

another Medici pope, who also wants Michelangelo

to fulfil loads of extraordinary obligations for him too,

including finishing the Medici tomb, and The Last Judgement.

Michelangelo's now in a situation

where there are so many competing demands for his time.

He can't turn down the Pope for the heirs of Pope Julius II

but he's also terrified of them.

Michelangelo felt like he was a victim of this story,

and Francesco Maria Della Rovere was certainly the, um, villain.

(ALINA SPEAKS IN ITALIAN)

Francesco Maria Della Rovere took over.

And here was a man who's, sort of, a vicious soldier,

and not very sensitive to the arts, and not very-

not at all sensitive to Michelangelo,

who felt like the family had spent far too much money already

and Michelangelo was not producing anything or finishing this project.

In fact, Michelangelo was actually accused of embezzling funds

and misusing the funds, which he probably did.

And so- But Francesco de Maria Della Rovere

never was a friend of Michelangelo, and vice versa.

They really didn't get along.

And in which case, nothing was happening on the tomb.

Michelangelo didn't- He always had an excuse

about why he couldn't produce what Francesco Maria expected.

So, it's a bit like you take a house...

You wanna redo the kitchen, so you pay someone a lot of money

because you want to get a new kitchen.

Perhaps you want some Carrara marble fitted...

And the builders are coming,

but they're not really showing up, and at the end result,

you haven't got anything better than you even begun with.

And if you're the owner of the house,

you're not gonna be too pleased about this.

And in a way, this is almost parallel

to what the heirs were experiencing with Michelangelo.

They'd paid him a lot of money, yet he wasn't delivering.

(ANTONIO SPEAKS IN ITALIAN)

Michelangelo promises this, or promises that,

and he'll do it in a certain amount of time with this amount of money.

But this is yet the third or fourth time

that Michelangelo has gone through this, you know,

project in a different way with a different person.

And the result of this, you know,

imbroglio between him and Francesco Maria Della Rovere

is that nothing was done.

(IN ITALIAN)

I mean, they are really on his case. He says, you know,

"I'm losing weight, I'm losing sleep. They won't get off my back."

So, actually, he kind of asks Pope Clement VII

to sort of step in and protect him from the heirs.

He's really worried about them,

particularly Francesco Maria Della Rovere,

who's actually a not particularly nice character

and totally unsympathetic to Michelangelo.

(IN ITALIAN)

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC)

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC)

(IN ITALIAN)

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

(CONTINUES IN ITALIAN)

(PENSIVE MUSIC CONTINUES)

(CONTINUES IN ITALIAN)

(PENSIVE MUSIC CONTINUES)

(IN ITALIAN)

He was, in a sense, flattering Michelangelo, by saying,

"You've already created the greatest fresco of all time

in painting the ceiling.

Could you finish the chapel, the great chapel of the Sistine,

by painting The Last Judgement?"

And here again, Michelangelo cannot say no to a pope.

(IN ITALIAN)

(SMOOTH MUSIC)

KATE: So the first big commission that takes Michelangelo away

from Julius II's tomb is the ceiling.

He completes the ceiling, he goes straight back to work on the tomb.

And then, of course, the Della Rovere heirs are asking for a new contract.

They want to get the work going again.

And there are a succession of reasons why Michelangelo

is delayed on the tomb. It becomes quite protracted.

And then I turn and face this way and say,

"Well, this is a whole other reason why the tomb is further delayed

because he's working for other popes,

for their plans and for their grand ambitions.

And it's such an extraordinary thing, I'm so pleased it exists.(CHUCKLES)

But I'm sure the Della Rovere heirs were frustrated by this, perhaps,

because they thought this is another reason why the tomb is not ready.

(IN ITALIAN)

Mmm.

Mmm.

(GRAND MUSIC)

(MUSIC SOFTENS)

KATE: 'As he painted The Last Judgement,

Michelangelo himself was being judged

for taking the Della Rovere money and not working on the tomb.

His reputation as a godlike genius was being stained.

I want to understand how this situation

was perceived during his lifetime.

Maybe he was right to set aside

the much diminished tomb of Pope Julius II

and focus on more ambitious projects.

Maybe he had no choice.

Nestled in the Tuscan hills,

surrounded by nothing much but forest, is Castello Malaspina.

This is where Michelangelo stayed during his many trips to Carrara,

and where it's likely that he received

a very scathing letter from Pietro Aretino

Pietro Aretino was a powerful man

who wielded an enormous influence

on Renaissance art and politics.

His opinions mattered a great deal.

He could make or break reputations.

In the letter he wrote to Michelangelo

in 1545 about The Last Judgement,

although full of innuendos, it's pretty clear

that he was trying to raise suspicions

about Michelangelo's moral standing.'

He writes,

"Your art would be at home in some voluptuous Roman bathhouse,

certainly not in the highest chapel in the world.

Less criminal were it if you were an infidel,

than being a believer, thus to sap the faith of others.

Up to the present time,

the splendour of such audacious marvels

hath not gone unpunished."

"Well, if the treasure bequeathed to you by Pope Julius,

in order that you might deposit his ashes in an urn of your own carving,

was not enough to make you keep your plighted word,

what can I expect from you?"

And in the first part of the letter,

he's criticising Michelangelo's Last Judgement.

But as we read on,

we actually also see him looking at Pope Julius II's tomb.

And by how it's phrased, it gives insight

into how some of the public perceived Michelangelo

and actually how, perhaps, he didn't handle well

the relationship between the Della Rovere family

and the Pope Julius II tomb.

"God wills that Julius should live renowned forever in a simple tomb,

inurned in his own merits,

and not in some proud monument dependent on your genius.

Meantime, your failure to discharge your obligation

is reckoned to you as an act of thieving."

Well, I mean, it's pretty harsh in a way.

But, you know, I mean, it's interesting to see

the public perceptions of Michelangelo

and to see how people viewed him.

(GENTLE MUSIC)

In Michelangelo's time, art was the news.

Art was the thing that people paid most attention to,

other than maybe religion.

So really, the art of the Renaissance

was the news of the Renaissance,

was the news of the time and the people.

(GENTLE MUSIC)

One of the most astonishing things about Michelangelo

is that he was so famous in his lifetime

that actually two biographies

were written while he was still alive.

He's probably the first artist ever

to read his own biography

and decide to edit it in some ways.

And so, the first biography that was written of him

was by Giorgio Vasari.

KATE: Vasari would like to think that I would sit here

and call him a great painter from the Italian Renaissance.

But actually I sit here and call him a great writer.

He almost founded the tradition of art history.

He wrote a series of biographies of all of the great Italian artists.

So, he gives us, like, a firsthand account of the Italian Renaissance.

(IN ITALIAN)

And while Michelangelo was certainly flattered by the fact

that Vasari was writing a biography of this artist,

he was reminded constantly of his many unfinished works.

So, he wanted to sort of tell the story

or control the media, control the message.

And that's when he had Ascanio Condivi, a friend of his,

really write an alternative biography

that Michelangelo felt was closer to the truth.

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC)

(GENTLE PIANO MUSIC)

The thing is, is that Michelangelo wasn't particularly happy

with how Vasari had framed him, essentially.

(ANTONIO SPEAKS IN ITALIAN)

So Michelangelo's very distressed

at the prospect that people misunderstand.

So, he commissions his own autobiography.

(IN ITALIAN)

So, we start to get the sense that Michelangelo

almost wants to have his own press agent, you know?

In today's terms, he wants to go out there and set the record straight.

And he wants Condivi to write this authorised account

of what happened with the tomb.

And he calls it the great "tragedy" of the tomb.

(IN ITALIAN)

It's almost like Michelangelo's desperately trying

to reposition himself and secure his legacy.

And I think, you know, in today's parlance

we would say that it was cancel culture coming to get him.

He was a subject of gossip, subject of rumours, and he hated that.

He thought he was a man of noble standings.

He's not someone whose name should be smeared in the tabloids,

as it probably felt to him, as we see it now.

And today, we see it the whole time

with members in the public eye,

for example, certain members of the royal family.

They might not be so clear on paper.

Yet, what they want to do is have authorised biographies,

so people in 10, 50, 100 years' time

will remember them the way that they want to be remembered.

Well, I think it's a contemporary story, in the sense that...

it's sort of tale as old as time,

in terms of what we should believe and what we should not believe.

Gossip has been swarming our world for millennia.

And actually, if anything,

it gives a more human aspect to Michelangelo,

because at the end of the day,

yes, he created these divine like figures,

but he was also just a human...

A human who wanted to secure his legacy

and authorise how the public would perceive him in centuries to come.

Toward the end of his life,

Michelangelo shows a more cordial relationship with Vasari.

He answers more of his letters, and you get the sense that

Michelangelo's thinking about Vasari as the great biographer,

and Vasari as, maybe, holding the key to part of Michelangelo's legacy.

And after Michelangelo dies,

Vasari, in the second edition of The Lives,

the great biographies,

entirely reworks the Michelangelo chapter.

It's much longer, he incorporates huge swathes

that were written in Condivi's authorised biography,

although he doesn't actually mention Condivi.

But what's fundamental is that Vasari is part of the campaign

to set the record straight about Michelangelo's life.

And so... the information about his ancestors,

the information about the tomb, are changed. They're modified.

And what we learn is that, you know,

Michelangelo is the great man.

And actually, to this day, art historians are still quite keen

to talk about Michelangelo, the great man.

There is no doubt whatsoever

that Michelangelo wanted to tell the story his way,

and to save, in a sense, some things of his legacy,

especially to counter the accusations

of money embezzlement, this sort of thing.

Michelangelo had his own explanation,

which Visari very much developed in his biography for Michelangelo

after they got to know each other

and after Michelangelo told Visari

what was really the important parts of his story.

And Visari then republishes his Lives of the Artist

in a much expanded edition.

I think the thing that's important to remember,

as big a fan of Michelangelo as I am,

is that he did keep the money.

He continually agreed to deadlines that he couldn't meet.

He kept the money. He claimed that ended up out of pocket,

which is a bit duplicitous because it's not really true.

We can see that from the records.

So he's, by no stretch of the imagination, innocent here.

Michelangelo misused the funds that the Della Rovere...

excessive amounts of funds for the tomb.

"We've spent a huge amount of money,

40 years have gone by, and we still don't have a tomb."

(IN ITALIAN)

It's the fourth project when Guidobaldo Della Rovere takes over,

who not only knows Michelangelo very well,

but understands him and highly respects him,

and mostly allows Michelangelo to work

at his own pace and in his own time.

That's the kind of patron that Michelangelo always worked best for.

And it's not a surprise that it's under Guidobaldo

that the tomb is finally finished.

The new heir, Guidobaldo, is much more sympathetic,

and at this point, it's been over 30 years

since Pope Julius the second died. I mean, it's getting ridiculous.

So he just says, when you've finished working for Pope Paul III,

then you'll make it for me, right? And Michelangelo says yes.

He's got someone finally who's sympathetic,

who writes courteous letters,

who treats him with the respect that he demands.

So actually, it's quite amazing. Once that contract's in place

and Pope Paul III's given him his protection.

Michelangelo finishes it in two years.

It took 40 years to nail down this commission.

And ultimately, Pope Julius II's tomb

is not something that we all talk about.

We talk about Moses, we talk about one sculpture in this tomb.

It's not even in the Vatican where it was supposed to be.

And actually, I barely even notice

the lying figure of Pope Julius II on the tomb, I just look at the Moses.

So, it's not even what it's supposed to be.

It's become something completely different.

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

'This is such a long and protracted story.

40 years, several redesigns...

Several stories, 40 figures, bronzes

Absolutely extraordinary, there's nothing like it.

It remains a huge unfulfilled part of art history.

And then slowly see it begin to diminish.

Instead of becoming freestanding,

that you would be able to walk around,

it becomes wall-based.

And then the number of figures gets reduced dramatically.

We start losing things. We lose the niches, we lose the bronzes.

So, a lot of the complexity

and the thing that would've given the tomb this great advantage

of having been so epic, that starts to fade away.

And actually, when I think about Julius II's tomb now,

I think about it as an unfulfilled promise

that left me Moses.'

(MUSIC BUILDS)

'When I'm standing here,

the redesigns, the contracts,

it all fades to black.

And what remains is a masterpiece.

Michelangelo has made flesh and blood out of marble.

He's made Moses a man, and he's a furious man.

And I'm frozen to the spot looking at him.

And there's this deep connection, and I feel the suspense in the air.

And there's a question that I need answered.

And like Michelangelo once said,

"Why don't you talk, Moses?

You've been witness to so much."'

(PENSIVE MUSIC)

(MUSIC FADES)

(GENTLE MUSIC)

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