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Let no one be surprised that I do now
describe the life of Michelangelo,

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given that he is living still...

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because his immortal works
shall never die,

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his fame shall last for as long
as the world exists...

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His name shall live on in the mouths
of men and the quills of writers:

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despite the envy,
despite even death itself.

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I have had my whole life to understand...

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that stone cannot be bent
to the will of man,

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but...

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it must be denuded of all
that oppresses it.

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This marble resists,

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it rebels.

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Often, it rejects you.

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At times, it's indulgent.

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Just like this life.

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MICHELANGELO
ENDLESS

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Giorgio Vasari, born in Arezzo
in the year 1511

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painter, architect, writer on art.

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I am first of all, the first to have gone
beyond narrating simply

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what happened in the Lives of the most
excellent painters, sculptors

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and architects in Italy, from Cimabue
to my own day.

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I have claimed the right to judge,

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choosing the best over the merely good,
and the excellent over the best.

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I have noted down the approaches,
attitudes, manners...

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the lines and imaginings of these artists.

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I have investigated the causes and roots
of evolution in all of the arts.

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The greatest of the infinite felicities
for which I praise God,

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is the fortune of getting to know

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the great Michelangelo Buonarroti...
a Florentine.

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Of being a familiar and a friend.

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This is why I have written so many things
about him: all of them true.

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He was born on 6th of March,

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in the year 1475.

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From his earliest years, he would sketch
on paper, on the walls...

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Noting this, his father Ludovico decided
to send him to study

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at the workshop of master
Domenico Ghirlandaio,

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so that he could learn the admirable
and valuable art of painting.

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'Ere long, Ghirlandaio became aware
of this talent,

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out of the ordinary despite
his tender years, one day exclaiming,

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"This boy knows more than me".

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And Michelangelo was just thirteen.

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And so Ghirlandaio entrusted him
to the cares of Bertoldo,

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a disciple of the great Donatello,
at the Gardens of San Marco,

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where Lorenzo de' Medici
had set up a school

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for young painters and sculptors
of talent.

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I yearned for art more heroic
than painting.

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I liked getting my hands dirty.

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When I was a young 'un, I was sent to
wet-nurse at a family of stone-cutters.

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My nourishment: marble powder
mixed in with the milk.

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And when Lorenzo the Magnificent
called me to him

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and put me to the test with this stone,
I was able to show him my mettle.

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What did he say, the Magnifico?

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"You should know by now that oldsters
ne'er have all their teeth,

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there's always one or two gone!�

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I didn't think twice to make good
on his advice:

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that faun became old and toothless.

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Perhaps they appreciated my courage,

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before that sculpted head ever arrived
to be seen at Palazzo Medici,

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where I met the greatest thinkers
of my time,

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who gave me faith and guidance
in my works to come.

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I immediately set to work on a Madonna
with young child,

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imitating a technique of Donatello's.

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Engraved using Donatello's
"stiacciato� technique,

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the Madonna of the Stairs,
today at Casa Buonarroti in Florence,

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was Michelangelo's first work
to earn him notoriety.

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A very low relief, not much bigger
than a newspaper page,

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in which his scalpel barely grazes
the surface of the stone

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to create almost imperceptible volumes
and a wondrous sensation of space.

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Absorbed, imperturbable as a goddess
from the classical age,

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the Virgin Mary is wrapped in soft,
flowing drapery.

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Portrayed from behind, the Infant seems
totally abandoned to his mother's embrace,

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albeit with the physique
of a Hercules at rest.

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This bold perspective view of the symbolic
stairway cohabits with the presence

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of a simple marble cube on which
the Sacred Group sits:

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this perfect three-dimensional solid is
an extremely early sign of the passion

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for pure materials apparent in all
Michelangelo's art.

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Then one day, the chance to present
il Magnifico all of my appreciation.

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It was when Angelo Poliziano,
who thought of me highly,

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challenged me to try my hand
with Centaurs in battle.

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I was to gift it to Lorenzo de Medici,

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showing my fellows who I was,
the most skilful of all.

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A violent battle, bodies and limbs
entwined in a clash among nude figures,

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filling every corner of a scene
without the least hint of chaos...

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Michelangelo's Battle of the Centaurs,
housed today at Casa Buonarroti.

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In the centre, one figure looms
above all others,

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standing apart with the authority
of a proudly-raised right arm.

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Fifty years later, Michelangelo
would reprise this gesture

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for the Christ of his Last Judgement.

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I was no good at keeping my mouth shut.

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All too often I blurted out what
I thought of my fellow-students' art.

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I already knew it wasn't of my standard.

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Whether it was for my teasing words,
my presumption perhaps even jealousy

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that the Magnifico thought so well of me,
that young Torrigiano,

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a pupil like myself at Bertoldo's school,
punched me square in the face.

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This muzzle, this deformed nose
that he gave me,

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remains his best-known work.

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00:12:23,992 --> 00:12:28,533
After three days
of tempestuous weather, lightning,

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a thunderous omen,

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il Magnifico, protector, benefactor,

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ideal father figure, expired.

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Michelangelo, now without his patron,
felt he was lost.

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He sought help and protection
from the Prior

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at the convent of Santo Spirito, which
was also a hospital. And there...

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the young Michelangelo started skinning
cadavers to study human anatomy:

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00:13:11,867 --> 00:13:17,242
ligaments, bone structure,
muscles, the veins.

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Long nights spent in dim light allowed
him to perfect his line,

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typical of his later years...

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At just twenty, I had the ultimate
mystery of death in my hands.

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At just twenty.

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After - and for the rest of my life -
I believed I could beat death with art.

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I was wrong...

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I owe even more to a Cardinal,
Monsignor Raffaele Riario,

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who after buying one of my Cupids
I made to look like it was ancient,

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invited me to his home.

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When I saw Rome that first time,
I realized why they call it eternal.

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What magnificence, what ancient marble!

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His challenge:

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"Can you make something, my boy,
to make something of quite such beauty?"

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"Give me the time and I'll show you
what I can do.�

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And with a block of marble bought
for little money in the streets of Rome,

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I made Bacchus.

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The Pagan god of joy and happiness,
conserved at the Bargello Museum,

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was Michelangelo's great leap forward,

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his first time ever making
a large-scale work.

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A young nude, his body soft and sensual,
drunk on wine and pleasure,

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his gaze lost in the distance,
barely able to keep hold of his goblet...

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Meanwhile, a small satyr,
lost in Dionysian ecstasy,

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plunges his smiling face into a bunch of
grapes purloined from the inattentive god.

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When I showed it to Cardinal Riario,

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he was unable to comprehend the vitality
I had managed to infuse into the stone,

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or that this Bacchus would have
lived longer

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than any other body that made
of human flesh and blood.

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I found myself in Rome, alone,

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with no clients and no money
to send home to my father,

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who hoped, thanks to my work
to pull the family

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out of the poverty of those years
of great difficulty.

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It was only thanks to Jacopo Galli,
a dear true and lifelong friend

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that I did not lose confidence,

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that I did not decide to slink back
to Florence, a loser.

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Jacopo had good contacts at court
with the Pope,

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with the delegation
of Charles VI, King of France.

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"And I, lacobo Gallo, promise
the Most Reverend Monsignor

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that the said Michelangelo shall
undertake the work infra one year,

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and it shall be the most gorgeous work
in marble there is today in Rome...

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When I read the contract which Jacopo,

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from faith in and love for me signed
with the Cardinal,

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I was moved... and afraid because...

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the time was tight
and my ambition immense.

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No longer did I have to make do
with leftover blocks of marble.

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As soon as I was commissioned
to make a Pieta,

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I left for Carrara. When I got there...

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What a spectacle, those walls,
glinting in the light of the sun!

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I had never seen this much white in stone.

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The most beautiful marble in the world,
since time immemorial and forever.

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I took days to choose
the purest materials.

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Made by God and just for me it seemed,

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for my hands to turn into eternal works.

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On the road on the way back to Rome,

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my mind filled with those great words
of Dante's,

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when in Paradise he turns to the Madonna:

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"Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son,

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Humble and high beyond all creatures�.

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It all become clear to me...

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And I set to making my Pieta.

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Before this work, no sculptor
ever imbued marble

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with more grace and refinement
than what Michelangelo achieved,

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at the tender age of twenty-four;

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the full value and power of art
is evident in this Pieta.

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The beauteous details... the divine
clothes in which the virgin is draped...

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beyond them, Christ, dead and naked.

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Such expertise in the muscles, veins,
the tendons taut over the bones,

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his wrists, the joints between the body,
arms and legs.

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Although some say that he fashioned
Our Lady too young,

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they fail to consider
that uncontaminated virgins

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maintain and conserve

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a lightness in their lineaments for
a long time, free of all blemish.

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People marvel that the hand of a man
could create in such a short time

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a thing so admirable and divine.

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Simply, a miracle that a rock,
initially so totally formless,

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can have been crafted to this perfection,

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beyond what nature can achieve
in bodily flesh.

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So great was Michelangelo's love for
this work that he carved his name

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above the girdle around Our Lady's
breast. Here alone, and nevermore.

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Why did I sign it?

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Because of the rumour around
that my Pieta was the work

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of a sculptor from Lombardy,
a certain Cristoforo Solari.

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All of that exertion! How could I allow
another man to benefit?

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Then, after, I never had to sign
a thing again.

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I could have returned to my father,
with honour and dignity.

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00:22:50,742 --> 00:22:54,200
My friends called me to Florence
to add lustre

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00:22:54,575 --> 00:22:57,242
to the Republic of Gonfaloniere
Pier Soderini.

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Such nourishment for my ambition!

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00:23:05,325 --> 00:23:11,033
Michelangelo was the first to think
that sculpture is an art achieved

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by removing all material
that is superfluous.

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One where the Maker reduces it to
the form that it took in his mind's eye.

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He found it in the workshops of the
Opera del Duomo, a block of marble

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that was big enough, already worked
by two artists who had thinned it,

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hacked at it, then left it abandoned.

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00:23:34,950 --> 00:23:39,408
At Santa Maria del Fiore, this is how
Michelangelo slaved away for three years,

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hidden from view, by day and by night,

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trying to resuscitate someone
who was believed to be dead.

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00:23:49,700 --> 00:23:54,992
And it came to pass that the work really

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00:23:55,867 --> 00:23:59,408
did suck the breath from all of
the statues ancient and modern,

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00:23:59,492 --> 00:24:01,492
Greek, Latin, whatever they were.

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00:24:02,450 --> 00:24:06,533
He who beholds it need not concern
themselves with seeing

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00:24:06,617 --> 00:24:09,450
any other works of sculpture
made in this day

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00:24:09,867 --> 00:24:13,742
or in the time of any other creator.

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00:25:38,117 --> 00:25:41,533
The most incredible thing about
this gigantic work is,

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put simply, the challenge.

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A heroic and athletic young man
with a lean physique

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00:25:49,658 --> 00:25:54,242
immortalized in the moment before hurling
a rock at the cruel philistine giant

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00:25:54,325 --> 00:25:56,617
who had been terrorizing
the people of Israel.

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00:25:58,575 --> 00:26:03,158
His legs ready to spring, muscles tense,

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00:26:04,742 --> 00:26:06,367
veins in relief,

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00:26:08,617 --> 00:26:14,325
a proud expression on his face,
they all highlight this vital moment:

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00:26:15,450 --> 00:26:19,533
the peak of concentration
that precedes action.

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00:26:29,742 --> 00:26:34,325
Pier Soderini fell in love with this
statue, which rises more than 5 metres,

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00:26:34,408 --> 00:26:36,242
before it was even finished.

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00:26:36,325 --> 00:26:40,742
He appointed a committee of the greatest
artists of the day,

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including Leonardo and Botticelli,

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00:26:43,200 --> 00:26:47,700
to find the ideal spot for such
an extraordinary work.

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00:26:51,575 --> 00:26:55,700
Moving it from Florence Cathedral
to Piazza della Signoria

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00:26:55,783 --> 00:26:57,450
was a heroic undertaking:

224
00:27:00,158 --> 00:27:05,242
swinging from a rudimentary crane,
secured with ropes and pulleys,

225
00:27:05,325 --> 00:27:11,867
it took more than forty men four days
to haul it to its final destination,

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00:27:12,867 --> 00:27:15,158
right outside Palazzo Vecchio.

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00:27:19,950 --> 00:27:25,408
In the late 1800s, David was moved once
again, to the Galleria dell'Accademia.

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00:27:25,492 --> 00:27:27,658
It remains there to this day,

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00:27:29,992 --> 00:27:33,075
the eternal symbol
of the City of Florence.

230
00:27:49,950 --> 00:27:51,575
David with his catapult,

231
00:27:53,283 --> 00:27:54,700
me a bow drill.

232
00:27:56,575 --> 00:27:59,658
With a simple catapult,
David defeated Goliath.

233
00:28:00,700 --> 00:28:04,908
I felt just like David,
powerful and proud.

234
00:28:05,783 --> 00:28:07,658
I had risen to my challenge:

235
00:28:08,867 --> 00:28:13,575
with my bare hands and a bow drill,

236
00:28:16,367 --> 00:28:18,992
I extracted eternal life
from living marble.

237
00:28:22,575 --> 00:28:24,075
To think, my David...

238
00:28:25,742 --> 00:28:28,408
took the spot occupied
by Donatello's Judith!

239
00:29:09,908 --> 00:29:14,200
Do you now see why they've always
called him the "giant"?

240
00:29:34,950 --> 00:29:39,283
Messer Agnolo Doni, a cloth merchant
of great wealth,

241
00:29:39,742 --> 00:29:43,075
was very keen to own a work
of Michelangelo's,

242
00:29:43,158 --> 00:29:46,325
so he commissioned a tondo on panel,

243
00:29:46,408 --> 00:29:51,825
in which Our Lady, kneeling down,
holds the Infant out to Joseph

244
00:29:51,908 --> 00:29:56,700
who with great love, tenderness and
reverence takes him into his arms.

245
00:29:57,325 --> 00:30:00,825
Once the work was finished, Michelangelo
asked him seventy ducats.

246
00:30:04,117 --> 00:30:07,158
Agnolo Doni, a man of some savvy,

247
00:30:07,242 --> 00:30:11,992
thought the cost
too high for a simple painting...

248
00:30:16,825 --> 00:30:19,700
so he offered to pay forty ducats for it.

249
00:30:23,033 --> 00:30:26,617
Instead, Michelangelo claimed
a hundred ducats.

250
00:30:28,242 --> 00:30:31,617
Well, Agnolo Doni, who liked the work,

251
00:30:32,283 --> 00:30:36,325
said he'd give him the seventy
that he'd initially asked for.

252
00:30:38,075 --> 00:30:41,158
Michelangelo was not at all happy.

253
00:30:41,242 --> 00:30:46,533
Indeed, believing that Agnolo Doni
lacked faith in his art,

254
00:30:46,617 --> 00:30:48,408
he went and doubled the price.

255
00:30:48,742 --> 00:30:52,367
A hundred and forty ducats,
or the whole deal was cancelled.

256
00:31:02,617 --> 00:31:07,200
In the end, desiring that tondo
at all costs, Agnolo Doni

257
00:31:08,033 --> 00:31:11,158
was forced to cough up the price
he was asking.

258
00:31:41,200 --> 00:31:44,533
The Doni Tondo,
housed at the Uffizi Gallery,

259
00:31:44,617 --> 00:31:48,783
is the only work we know for certain
Michelangelo painted on wooden panel.

260
00:31:51,492 --> 00:31:54,908
The Holy Family is an ancient,
recurrent motif.

261
00:31:55,367 --> 00:31:58,700
Here, Michelangelo crafted it
as if he were sculpting.

262
00:31:58,783 --> 00:32:01,825
He used clear, shimmering, intense colours

263
00:32:01,908 --> 00:32:04,992
to create an effect that leaves us
slightly uneasy,

264
00:32:05,367 --> 00:32:08,325
a far cry from the traditional
tranquillity of such scenes.

265
00:32:11,283 --> 00:32:17,242
Michelangelo was well-schooled in the
symbols so important to Florentine nobles.

266
00:32:18,075 --> 00:32:21,242
In this composition, he seems
to have drawn inspiration

267
00:32:21,325 --> 00:32:24,075
from Saint Paul's epistle
to the Ephesians.

268
00:32:25,450 --> 00:32:30,825
The low yet impassable wall therefore
represents original sin,

269
00:32:30,908 --> 00:32:34,575
separating the Christ Child
from the small Baptist

270
00:32:34,658 --> 00:32:38,992
and young nude figures who are pulling
their garments off.

271
00:32:39,492 --> 00:32:45,575
As Christians, they can be free at last
from sin, stripping away their sins,

272
00:32:45,658 --> 00:32:47,950
they become new men.

273
00:32:55,283 --> 00:33:00,200
The wondrous yet unfinished Pitti Tondo,
today at the Bargello Museum,

274
00:33:01,408 --> 00:33:03,783
depicts another Holy Family.

275
00:33:06,617 --> 00:33:10,533
Here, Michelangelo chose a classical
composition in which,

276
00:33:10,617 --> 00:33:15,908
impassive as a Hellenic Queen, the Virgin
is distracted from her reading

277
00:33:16,533 --> 00:33:18,867
by the Infant beside her.

278
00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:25,700
I have always thought,

279
00:33:27,075 --> 00:33:31,075
the closer a painting resembles a relief,
the more successful it becomes.

280
00:33:33,575 --> 00:33:36,450
A brief period of peace, calm,
and easing off,

281
00:33:37,367 --> 00:33:39,825
something I no longer had in my life.

282
00:33:42,242 --> 00:33:44,158
But ambition never stops gnawing,

283
00:33:44,908 --> 00:33:47,408
it brooks no peace or happiness at all.

284
00:33:49,783 --> 00:33:53,825
Gonfaloniere Pier Soderini asked me
to paint frescoes along one wall

285
00:33:53,908 --> 00:33:57,658
of the Sala del Maggior Consiglio,
at Palazzo dei Signori.

286
00:33:59,825 --> 00:34:03,158
On the other wall, none other
than Leonardo Da Vinci.

287
00:34:04,950 --> 00:34:06,825
How could I resist the challenge...?

288
00:34:14,867 --> 00:34:18,283
I began by working on the cartoons
in complete secret.

289
00:34:18,367 --> 00:34:22,908
I drew the preparatory cartoon
for my Battle of Cascina,

290
00:34:23,992 --> 00:34:27,242
the same size as the scene
I wanted to depict.

291
00:34:48,700 --> 00:34:51,325
When Michelangelo's drawing
became public knowledge,

292
00:34:51,408 --> 00:34:53,117
it attracted immense admiration.

293
00:34:53,742 --> 00:34:55,867
Artists flocked to see it from
all over Europe,

294
00:34:55,950 --> 00:34:58,783
a practice usually reserved
for the casts of statues.

295
00:34:58,867 --> 00:35:03,325
They came to touch it, copy it and,
in the end, pilfer pieces of it

296
00:35:03,408 --> 00:35:05,158
as if it were a holy relic.

297
00:35:06,533 --> 00:35:10,825
Before a few decades were out,
there was nothing left of the cartoon...

298
00:35:10,908 --> 00:35:12,242
And the legend was born.

299
00:35:18,450 --> 00:35:23,325
However, a copy of the central portion,
made by Aristotile da Sangallo,

300
00:35:23,408 --> 00:35:27,908
has survived, preserving
at least a recollection.

301
00:35:32,533 --> 00:35:38,158
The tangle of naked bodies, frozen in
the moment just before battle is joined,

302
00:35:38,825 --> 00:35:43,158
is merely a pretext for the artist to
show off what he is really interested in:

303
00:35:44,575 --> 00:35:46,825
the heroics of the ideal body.

304
00:36:01,533 --> 00:36:03,658
I never did finish that fresco.

305
00:36:05,242 --> 00:36:08,867
My one consolation, that Leonardo
had to give up too.

306
00:36:10,033 --> 00:36:13,742
His usual malaise of trying out
new techniques,

307
00:36:14,533 --> 00:36:17,908
he wound up making a huge mess up
of wax and oils,

308
00:36:18,575 --> 00:36:20,575
the whole thing gone to pot.

309
00:36:21,742 --> 00:36:25,117
By now, my name was being
mentioned in palaces

310
00:36:25,200 --> 00:36:28,033
across Europe with reverence and respect.

311
00:36:28,742 --> 00:36:32,158
Even Pope Julius il wanted me
to make him something,

312
00:36:32,242 --> 00:36:33,867
to aggrandize himself.

313
00:36:36,825 --> 00:36:42,075
Such was the renown of Michelangelo
after his Pieta, the giant of Florence

314
00:36:42,158 --> 00:36:44,742
and the cartoon for the Battle of Cascina,

315
00:36:44,825 --> 00:36:47,075
that Julius il, now the pontiff,

316
00:36:47,158 --> 00:36:53,033
commissioned him to make his burial
monument, which in beauty,

317
00:36:53,117 --> 00:36:58,908
creativity and hauteur exceeded any other
ancient imperial burial.

318
00:37:36,242 --> 00:37:38,742
I spent eight months in Carrara,

319
00:37:38,825 --> 00:37:40,992
excavating that marble from the mountain.

320
00:37:45,242 --> 00:37:49,367
Cutting the stone,
choosing the crucial point,

321
00:37:49,950 --> 00:37:53,408
eliminating veins that made
the marble graceless...

322
00:37:54,617 --> 00:37:59,908
I almost went mad, not being able
to exercise my hands with a chisel.

323
00:37:59,992 --> 00:38:04,533
One day I found myself at the top
of the mountain, thinking,

324
00:38:04,617 --> 00:38:08,533
"I'll sculpt this, this whole thing,

325
00:38:14,450 --> 00:38:18,825
so that they'll be able to know what
I'm capable of from the coast!"

326
00:39:07,200 --> 00:39:11,033
Julius II's tomb was, for Michelangelo,
conceived as

327
00:39:11,117 --> 00:39:14,033
a veritable "mountain of marble�,

328
00:39:14,700 --> 00:39:19,408
a magnificent free-standing
three-dimensional structure

329
00:39:19,492 --> 00:39:23,575
surrounded by a forest
of larger-than-life statues.

330
00:39:25,533 --> 00:39:31,492
What, in his mind's eyes, should
have been his finest artistic triumph

331
00:39:31,575 --> 00:39:37,700
ended up becoming the "tomb tragedy".
Started in 1505,

332
00:39:37,783 --> 00:39:40,783
it would not see the light of day
until forty years later,

333
00:39:40,867 --> 00:39:45,408
in a vastly reduced version compared
to the initial plan.

334
00:39:50,283 --> 00:39:54,825
Pursuing this obsession with almost
superhuman energy, the artist

335
00:39:54,908 --> 00:39:59,492
left us the greatest example of what
modern critics refer to as

336
00:39:59,575 --> 00:40:02,200
Michelangelo's "un-finished works".

337
00:40:09,658 --> 00:40:12,783
There is no other way to define
the Prisoners,

338
00:40:12,867 --> 00:40:17,117
which jut out of the marble,
exposed and raw...

339
00:40:20,533 --> 00:40:24,867
The stone itself imprisons
the chained-up slaves,

340
00:40:25,617 --> 00:40:29,408
immortalized in the twists
of classical statuary.

341
00:42:09,283 --> 00:42:13,825
Michelangelo's Moses, made to decorate
Julius II's tomb,

342
00:42:14,367 --> 00:42:16,117
is the true masterpiece of this work.

343
00:42:18,242 --> 00:42:24,367
The ancient patriarch's face is an ideal
portrait of Pope Julius I,

344
00:42:24,450 --> 00:42:26,492
who was known for his "terribleness�.

345
00:42:26,742 --> 00:42:30,825
He is portrayed here in a pose that is
both vigilant and pensive.

346
00:42:32,450 --> 00:42:37,992
Sculpted at twice natural size, almost
thirty years elapsed before Moses

347
00:42:38,075 --> 00:42:42,200
was finally placed in the Basilica
of San Pietro in Vincoli.

348
00:42:45,158 --> 00:42:48,200
It is said that to make the most
of the statue's face,

349
00:42:48,283 --> 00:42:50,742
vibrant with life and energy,

350
00:42:50,825 --> 00:42:53,992
Michelangelo oriented the head towards
the natural light

351
00:42:54,075 --> 00:42:57,158
that enters through a small window
in the basilica.

352
00:42:58,825 --> 00:43:03,033
A prodigious touch that puts the seal
on an immense work.

353
00:43:14,742 --> 00:43:18,242
That Moses seemed so... so well-crafted

354
00:43:18,325 --> 00:43:21,617
that it was almost strange he was bereft
of his own intellect.

355
00:43:23,867 --> 00:43:28,033
When I believed I'd found the inspiration
I'd sought my entire life...

356
00:43:30,367 --> 00:43:32,283
What a huge blow to me...

357
00:43:34,283 --> 00:43:35,700
<i>Julius A</i>

358
00:43:37,867 --> 00:43:39,867
snatched the chisel from my hand.

359
00:43:46,867 --> 00:43:51,658
The blame lies with Bramante,
a great old friend of Raphael's,

360
00:43:52,075 --> 00:43:55,033
who, having seen the Pope far
too enamoured

361
00:43:55,117 --> 00:43:57,825
of Michelangelo's expertise with marble,

362
00:43:57,908 --> 00:44:01,575
convinced Julius il that it was
tempting fate,

363
00:44:01,658 --> 00:44:04,783
erecting a tomb while he was still alive.

364
00:44:05,325 --> 00:44:09,783
He persuaded him therefore to suspend
this magnificent project.

365
00:44:12,533 --> 00:44:17,158
And given that Michelangelo was
no expert in painting frescoes,

366
00:44:17,700 --> 00:44:22,283
wishing to make things more difficult
still, he invited the Pope

367
00:44:22,367 --> 00:44:26,783
to commission him to decorate
the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

368
00:44:31,700 --> 00:44:35,908
Pope Julius il had commissioned
from Raphael School of Athens.

369
00:44:36,950 --> 00:44:38,783
For his private apartment.

370
00:44:45,242 --> 00:44:50,908
Raffaello, he had... depicted me
as Heraclitus,

371
00:44:53,283 --> 00:44:57,033
the philosopher with thoughts deep
as a Delian diver.

372
00:45:10,242 --> 00:45:14,200
I was commissioned to make
a truly vast fresco.

373
00:45:17,742 --> 00:45:22,158
Raffaello, provoking me.
I was forced to respond,

374
00:45:22,783 --> 00:45:26,033
I had to compete with him in his own art,
compete and win.

375
00:45:27,492 --> 00:45:31,950
I was to give those painted figures all
that marble had taught me.

376
00:45:32,033 --> 00:45:35,200
I was to fill that ceiling with bodies
and tendons and muscles,

377
00:45:35,283 --> 00:45:40,242
of a size that the whole world
would call a miracle.

378
00:45:42,617 --> 00:45:44,992
And I began by blotting out...

379
00:45:46,700 --> 00:45:50,408
that blue sky and its gilded stars.

380
00:45:54,367 --> 00:45:58,117
Then, I took down the scaffolding
Bramante had built,

381
00:45:58,200 --> 00:45:59,908
which went into the ceiling.

382
00:45:59,992 --> 00:46:03,242
I had another one built to my own design.

383
00:46:03,908 --> 00:46:07,825
I brought some friends down from
Florence, who alas made a mess up

384
00:46:07,908 --> 00:46:11,908
with the paints and were unable
to translate my fantasies.

385
00:46:12,742 --> 00:46:19,158
I sent them away, plunged into
depression, but I had to keep going...

386
00:46:19,242 --> 00:46:23,700
I had to triumph over Raphael...
over myself.

387
00:46:25,408 --> 00:46:29,408
And so, I did it all. I, alone.

388
00:47:09,742 --> 00:47:14,742
I found no satisfaction in what
I was doing. I couldn't see the end.

389
00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:20,867
It is so difficult to detach oneself
from one's own work...

390
00:47:27,200 --> 00:47:33,908
Jealous and preoccupied, I let no one see
the results of my toils.

391
00:47:34,825 --> 00:47:36,242
Not even the Pope.

392
00:48:01,992 --> 00:48:04,700
I remain in far-off fantasies,

393
00:48:04,783 --> 00:48:09,825
my work is not going how it deserves,
it seems to me.

394
00:48:11,992 --> 00:48:18,867
Ah, the difficulty of this work, one that
is still not my profession.

395
00:48:20,408 --> 00:48:23,867
And despite lavishing so much time,
no fruits do I see.

396
00:48:27,492 --> 00:48:28,992
May god help me.

397
00:48:40,450 --> 00:48:47,325
It is 1508. For the first time
in history, a Pope decides to give

398
00:48:47,408 --> 00:48:53,075
an artist "carte blanche� to decorate
the ceiling of a papal chapel.

399
00:48:55,200 --> 00:49:00,033
At 33 years of age, Michelangelo
is in the prime of his artistic powers.

400
00:49:00,367 --> 00:49:05,742
He brooks no form of simplification as
he prepares to take on this titanic task.

401
00:49:07,575 --> 00:49:12,617
A thousand square metres more or less,
practically every available space

402
00:49:12,700 --> 00:49:15,075
covered in a riot of human bodies:

403
00:49:17,492 --> 00:49:23,117
frowning, resigned, tense,

404
00:49:23,992 --> 00:49:25,450
frenetic...

405
00:49:29,825 --> 00:49:35,200
Framed within a visionary architecture
in which Michelangelo wilfully ignores

406
00:49:35,283 --> 00:49:41,200
all Renaissance rules of perspective,
proportion and verisimilitude.

407
00:49:43,408 --> 00:49:48,242
Rather than concealing pillars,
arches and cornices,

408
00:49:49,242 --> 00:49:52,367
he uses them to amplify the curvature
of the ceiling.

409
00:49:53,742 --> 00:49:58,033
The paints seem to have been mixed
not with lime but with light.

410
00:49:59,700 --> 00:50:04,700
He wielded his brushstrokes on
the plaster like a chisel on marble.

411
00:50:12,408 --> 00:50:16,992
Prophets and Sibyls dominate
the ceiling's surface,

412
00:50:17,075 --> 00:50:18,908
larger than all of the other characters.

413
00:50:19,950 --> 00:50:23,575
They seem to flow out
of the architectural context,

414
00:50:23,658 --> 00:50:29,325
clinging precariously to their thrones,
hanging perilously over the void.

415
00:50:31,617 --> 00:50:35,617
They announce the coming of Christ
with muscular movements

416
00:50:35,700 --> 00:50:37,283
and powerfully-twisting bodies.

417
00:50:40,700 --> 00:50:43,825
Their faces and expressions are severe,

418
00:50:45,033 --> 00:50:46,367
pensive...

419
00:50:48,658 --> 00:50:49,950
surprised.

420
00:50:54,533 --> 00:50:59,283
What they have announced,
inspired by the Lord,

421
00:51:00,908 --> 00:51:06,075
is coming to pass in the scenes
painted around them.

422
00:51:28,283 --> 00:51:32,908
The nine scenes in the central panels
tell the stories

423
00:51:32,992 --> 00:51:36,533
of the Book of Genesis
in chronological order:

424
00:51:37,325 --> 00:51:41,992
the Origins of the Universe, of Mankind
and of Sin.

425
00:51:55,575 --> 00:52:00,492
God sunders the light from the darkness,
marking the start of the world.

426
00:52:04,242 --> 00:52:08,033
He creates the stars and the planets,
suspended in space.

427
00:52:10,492 --> 00:52:14,367
The supreme architect, he prepares matter

428
00:52:14,992 --> 00:52:17,367
by dividing land from water.

429
00:52:31,950 --> 00:52:38,450
In the Creation of Eve, the woman emerges
from one of Adam's ribs as he sleeps.

430
00:52:38,992 --> 00:52:42,950
God beckons her, inviting her to rise.

431
00:52:47,033 --> 00:52:52,367
In the Original Sin, a fig tree forever
changes the fate of humankind.

432
00:52:53,325 --> 00:52:58,200
Entwined in its branches, the two-faced
snake, the devil of temptation,

433
00:52:58,283 --> 00:53:02,158
while Archangel Michael,
holding his sword of justice,

434
00:53:02,242 --> 00:53:05,408
runs Adam and Eve out of Earthly Paradise.

435
00:53:06,408 --> 00:53:10,742
Guilt takes form in the shocking
transfiguration of the first woman

436
00:53:10,825 --> 00:53:15,575
and the first man, becoming grotesque
caricatures deformed by sin.

437
00:53:17,492 --> 00:53:21,867
In the Flood, groups of the naked flee
the thunderous waters

438
00:53:21,950 --> 00:53:23,700
and the wrath of God.

439
00:53:24,783 --> 00:53:28,533
Terrified yet resigned to what will come,

440
00:53:28,950 --> 00:53:32,742
they strive to save themselves
and their loved ones.

441
00:54:09,825 --> 00:54:14,950
However, the ceiling"s most extraordinary
fresco of all is the Creation of Adam.

442
00:54:15,700 --> 00:54:18,908
As an image, it is both primordial
and incredibly powerful.

443
00:54:22,533 --> 00:54:28,908
With vigour and elegance, the Creator
leans out into the infinity of space

444
00:54:28,992 --> 00:54:31,867
to bestow life upon the first man.

445
00:54:33,408 --> 00:54:38,450
Adam"s beautiful body,
"in the image of and resembling God",

446
00:54:38,533 --> 00:54:41,783
is a concentration of all the gifts
of creation.

447
00:54:46,158 --> 00:54:47,950
The spark of Life

448
00:54:48,283 --> 00:54:52,283
that is about to crackle from the hand
of God to Adam"s finger...

449
00:54:53,575 --> 00:54:58,825
Hands outstretched towards one another
without ever truly managing to touch...

450
00:55:00,200 --> 00:55:04,492
Analogous to the extreme tension
man feels as he tries to reach God.

451
00:55:05,575 --> 00:55:12,450
It is as if, in that infinitesimal space
between the two index fingers,

452
00:55:13,367 --> 00:55:15,283
Michelangelo attempts to define his art:

453
00:55:17,283 --> 00:55:21,658
that unbridgeable gap between
the human and the divine.

454
00:55:41,283 --> 00:55:44,658
There was a commission during that period
that would not let me be.

455
00:55:47,575 --> 00:55:49,033
An entombment.

456
00:55:50,158 --> 00:55:51,992
Like that of Julius il.

457
00:55:54,700 --> 00:55:56,908
It all brought me back to death,

458
00:55:58,867 --> 00:56:01,200
that enemy to fear and to challenge.

459
00:56:02,242 --> 00:56:03,283
But also,

460
00:56:08,367 --> 00:56:11,200
finally the end of our toil in this world.

461
00:56:40,783 --> 00:56:44,908
Leo X was elected Pope in 1513.

462
00:56:44,992 --> 00:56:49,200
The son of Lorenzo the Magnificent,
he commissioned Michelangelo

463
00:56:49,283 --> 00:56:52,450
to erect a temple in the Basilica
of San Lorenzo

464
00:56:52,533 --> 00:56:56,367
to bestow eternity upon the Medici family.

465
00:57:00,867 --> 00:57:05,200
Michelangelo created a place
of great spirituality

466
00:57:05,783 --> 00:57:11,033
in which - by a quirk of fate -
the one thing he failed to complete

467
00:57:11,117 --> 00:57:15,242
was the sarcophagus of his patron,
Lorenzo the Magnificent.

468
00:57:21,492 --> 00:57:26,617
Sculptures representing the four phases
of the day recline on the sarcophagi,

469
00:57:27,158 --> 00:57:29,867
transformed into beds, crowned by statues

470
00:57:30,242 --> 00:57:34,617
of Dukes Giuliano di Nemours
and Lorenzo di Urbino.

471
00:57:38,242 --> 00:57:42,658
They allude to the passage of time
on this Earthly coil.

472
00:57:43,283 --> 00:57:47,867
They also refer to an age of eternity
and salvation.

473
00:57:51,617 --> 00:57:56,783
Night sleeps deeply,
beyond consciousness or memory;

474
00:57:58,283 --> 00:58:05,575
Day shows off his powerful anatomy
in a twisting motion.

475
00:58:15,992 --> 00:58:19,700
Dusk appears resigned to eternal torpor.

476
00:58:21,158 --> 00:58:25,450
Dawn raises herself on a bed of feathers,

477
00:58:25,533 --> 00:58:30,367
twisting in grief at the death
of the young Medicis.

478
00:58:53,158 --> 00:58:59,075
"Midway along this path of our life
I found myself in a dark forest

479
00:59:00,200 --> 00:59:03,533
The pathway now astray"�.

480
00:59:37,742 --> 00:59:41,075
Florence was being ripped apart
by in-fighting.

481
00:59:41,867 --> 00:59:44,742
Faced with the choice of siding
with the Medici or the Repubblica,

482
00:59:44,825 --> 00:59:46,742
Michelangelo chose the Republic.

483
00:59:52,450 --> 00:59:58,117
In the summer of 1530, to avoid arrest
and the risk of being put to death,

484
00:59:58,867 --> 01:00:02,492
Michelangelo was forced into hiding,
in fact, beneath the tomb

485
01:00:02,575 --> 01:00:06,408
commissioned by the very man who now
wanted to punish him

486
01:00:06,492 --> 01:00:07,867
for his political leanings,

487
01:00:10,158 --> 01:00:14,492
in a secret chamber beneath
the Basilica of San Lorenzo.

488
01:00:25,117 --> 01:00:29,450
In that dramatic moment, Michelangelo
sketched away neurotically

489
01:00:29,533 --> 01:00:33,242
with a stick of charcoal:
figures floating in mid-air,

490
01:00:33,992 --> 01:00:36,867
including the head of the legendary
Laocoon,

491
01:00:37,492 --> 01:00:40,200
something that had inspired him greatly
in the past.

492
01:00:58,908 --> 01:01:02,742
These quick sketches, hastily made,

493
01:01:05,742 --> 01:01:09,575
indicate that perhaps he only spent
a short time in this refuge.

494
01:01:18,033 --> 01:01:23,117
The graffiti was discovered in 1975,

495
01:01:23,200 --> 01:01:27,492
in a room that had been used
to store firewood.

496
01:01:28,283 --> 01:01:33,117
Laid centuries earlier, the plaster
preserved these precious drawings,

497
01:01:33,825 --> 01:01:37,617
which rank among the most fascinating
modern-day discoveries

498
01:01:37,700 --> 01:01:39,325
of this master's works.

499
01:02:15,992 --> 01:02:20,075
"And so once more to see
the light of the stars."

500
01:02:38,617 --> 01:02:42,783
Aged early by all the hard toil
in my life.

501
01:02:44,617 --> 01:02:46,158
Unhappy always,

502
01:02:46,908 --> 01:02:51,075
for all the things I was unable to finish
the way I saw them in my mind.

503
01:02:52,158 --> 01:02:53,408
Suffering...

504
01:02:54,658 --> 01:02:58,950
for the money I didn't spend and that
never seemed to be enough.

505
01:03:00,742 --> 01:03:04,492
I became sure the moment had come
to meet with my Maker...

506
01:03:05,533 --> 01:03:06,575
then he...

507
01:03:09,950 --> 01:03:11,408
blessed me with love.

508
01:03:15,825 --> 01:03:19,242
"How can it be that me is
no longer my own?

509
01:03:20,783 --> 01:03:23,992
O God, God, God,

510
01:03:25,325 --> 01:03:29,075
what is this Love that goes
from eye to heart,

511
01:03:30,075 --> 01:03:35,408
filling the tightest space until it grows
and floods out?"

512
01:03:38,075 --> 01:03:41,950
God gave me love in the form
of a gentleman and a Madonna.

513
01:03:42,533 --> 01:03:47,325
He, as handsome as David; the other,
as noble and pure as the Virgin.

514
01:03:49,242 --> 01:03:51,158
Tommaso filled my eyes;

515
01:03:53,075 --> 01:03:54,700
Vittoria, my very soul.

516
01:04:05,450 --> 01:04:09,950
Infinitely more than all, he loved
Messer Tommaso de' Cavalieri,

517
01:04:10,450 --> 01:04:13,742
a gentleman of Rome, who though young
loved the arts.

518
01:04:14,575 --> 01:04:18,158
And Michelangelo gave him
beauteous drawings

519
01:04:18,242 --> 01:04:21,992
of divine heads in black and red pencil...

520
01:04:22,075 --> 01:04:25,492
He drew him a Ganymede carried off
to the heavens,

521
01:04:25,575 --> 01:04:29,283
Tityus whose heart is being eaten
by a vulture,

522
01:04:29,533 --> 01:04:33,950
the chariot of the sun plummeting
with Phaeton into the Po...

523
01:04:34,492 --> 01:04:39,700
He portrayed Messer Tommaso
in a life-sized cartoon,

524
01:04:39,783 --> 01:04:42,325
his sole portrait from life,

525
01:04:42,825 --> 01:04:47,950
because he loathed everything that was
alive unless it was of infinite beauty.

526
01:04:54,492 --> 01:04:56,367
A man and a woman,

527
01:04:57,700 --> 01:04:58,742
pardon,

528
01:05:00,158 --> 01:05:03,825
a god through her mouth speaks,

529
01:05:04,700 --> 01:05:08,158
oh god, to listen to her I made myself
such that...

530
01:05:09,742 --> 01:05:12,117
never more mine she'll be.

531
01:05:32,242 --> 01:05:38,200
From my love of Vittoria came drawings
of a Crucifixion and a Pieta.

532
01:05:41,117 --> 01:05:46,117
Our friendship so tender changed me
profoundly.

533
01:05:49,450 --> 01:05:53,950
I learned that he who has known no evil

534
01:05:55,200 --> 01:05:57,158
cannot know goodness.

535
01:05:59,283 --> 01:06:02,700
I found comfort in her circle
of spiritualists.

536
01:06:03,367 --> 01:06:07,242
I was dazzled by their promise
of redemption.

537
01:06:07,492 --> 01:06:10,992
They had this idea of a church renewed,

538
01:06:12,617 --> 01:06:16,283
in which the spirit becomes illuminated
by divine grace

539
01:06:18,617 --> 01:06:20,867
only if one strives to listen.

540
01:06:22,075 --> 01:06:25,033
If I succeeded in that effort,

541
01:06:26,408 --> 01:06:29,992
God alone could have judged me...

542
01:06:31,950 --> 01:06:33,325
could have found me...

543
01:06:35,325 --> 01:06:36,450
guilty...

544
01:06:38,408 --> 01:06:39,492
or innocent.

545
01:06:46,492 --> 01:06:50,700
Around that time, the Pope decided
to invite him to paint

546
01:06:50,783 --> 01:06:53,450
the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel.

547
01:06:54,492 --> 01:06:58,658
He wanted Michelangelo to portray
the Last Judgement,

548
01:06:59,367 --> 01:07:03,533
to imbue that story of everything
with all that

549
01:07:03,617 --> 01:07:06,783
the art of drawing could bring to it.

550
01:07:21,908 --> 01:07:27,742
And so it was that Pietro Perugino's
Assumption of the Madonna for Pope Sixtus

551
01:07:27,825 --> 01:07:33,283
was sacrificed to make way for art
by the divine Michelangelo.

552
01:07:39,242 --> 01:07:43,242
No sooner did I start in on the cartoons,
Clement VII died.

553
01:07:45,908 --> 01:07:47,575
As did my father.

554
01:07:54,408 --> 01:07:59,617
The new Pope, Paul III, elevated me
to supreme architect,

555
01:07:59,700 --> 01:08:03,450
painter and sculptor
to the apostolic palaces.

556
01:08:04,908 --> 01:08:06,075
I returned to Rome,

557
01:08:06,617 --> 01:08:08,783
to stay for the rest of my days.

558
01:08:10,867 --> 01:08:16,367
Five years alone again,
aloft, near the gods.

559
01:08:20,450 --> 01:08:24,450
I got rid of all of the paintings
on the wall, including my own,

560
01:08:24,533 --> 01:08:28,825
I walled in two windows and added
a slope to the wall

561
01:08:29,367 --> 01:08:34,033
to make it look like the Judgement
was truly pending

562
01:08:34,117 --> 01:08:37,367
on any who dared to look up to the skies.

563
01:08:40,742 --> 01:08:44,367
The whole thing was to revolve around
a Jesus of great beauty,

564
01:08:44,992 --> 01:08:49,367
immersed in the lapis lazuli blue
Giotto loved so well.

565
01:08:53,075 --> 01:08:55,742
"Through me is the way to the city of woe;

566
01:08:56,658 --> 01:08:59,117
Through me is the way to eternal pain;

567
01:09:00,075 --> 01:09:02,617
Through me is the way among people lost.

568
01:09:03,492 --> 01:09:06,117
Before me there were no created things,

569
01:09:06,200 --> 01:09:10,117
Only eternal, and I eternal last.

570
01:09:14,658 --> 01:09:18,325
All hope abandon, ye who enter in!"

571
01:09:48,283 --> 01:09:52,742
The Last Judgement is a warning
to the world,

572
01:09:54,325 --> 01:09:57,950
at a time of tragedy when no certainties
seemed to survive:

573
01:09:59,033 --> 01:10:02,700
the Church, having just recovered
after the Sack of Rome,

574
01:10:03,367 --> 01:10:06,492
trembles under the blows
of the Protestant Reformation.

575
01:10:12,242 --> 01:10:15,825
Against this backdrop,
now in his sixties, Michelangelo

576
01:10:16,492 --> 01:10:21,908
created an immense, mind-blowing
and revolutionary work.

577
01:10:24,117 --> 01:10:28,950
The scene has no boundaries,
bathed in lapis lazuli blue light,

578
01:10:29,033 --> 01:10:31,867
suspended in time and space.

579
01:10:33,117 --> 01:10:38,408
It is dominated by the imperious figure
of Christ the Judge: a beautiful wrestler

580
01:10:38,492 --> 01:10:42,158
who has been given the task of judging
the living and the dead

581
01:10:42,242 --> 01:10:44,950
with steadfastness and justice.

582
01:10:47,742 --> 01:10:50,492
Once he lowers that muscle-bound arm,

583
01:10:51,158 --> 01:10:55,158
the fate that his father bestowed on him
shall be complete.

584
01:11:14,617 --> 01:11:19,783
By his side, the Madonna turns away,
not wanting to witness

585
01:11:19,867 --> 01:11:23,658
the frightful spectacle of the punishment
of the reprobates.

586
01:11:26,742 --> 01:11:30,283
The whole monumental composition revolves
around the figure of Christ.

587
01:11:30,908 --> 01:11:36,617
It is populated by hundreds of figures,
who defy the laws of gravity.

588
01:11:38,408 --> 01:11:43,117
Michelangelo's depiction of the male body
is a declaration of love to God.

589
01:11:44,408 --> 01:11:48,075
Human beauty is, here, a reflection
of heavenly beauty.

590
01:11:54,575 --> 01:12:01,617
The Elect awaken from the sleep of death,
some still in skeletal form.

591
01:12:01,700 --> 01:12:06,617
Scooped up by wingless angels, they make
their ascent to Heaven.

592
01:12:22,783 --> 01:12:27,908
Sinners' bodies tumble down towards Hell,

593
01:12:29,617 --> 01:12:31,992
as described by the beloved Dante:

594
01:12:36,325 --> 01:12:42,533
a cave reddened by flame, in which devils
wait their chance to grab the damned.

595
01:12:49,242 --> 01:12:54,992
Charon, his eyes a-fire,
ferries lost souls like animals

596
01:12:55,075 --> 01:12:59,450
to the slaughter across a river reduced
to a marshy stream.

597
01:13:07,700 --> 01:13:12,075
Minos judges souls, girdled by a snake:

598
01:13:14,325 --> 01:13:19,033
his face is a grotesque portrait
of Biagio da Cesena,

599
01:13:19,117 --> 01:13:21,158
the Pope's Master of Ceremonies.

600
01:13:21,700 --> 01:13:25,492
The Maestro got his revenge on him
for considering the nudity

601
01:13:25,575 --> 01:13:28,158
of the suffering bodies
to be inappropriate.

602
01:13:47,075 --> 01:13:51,408
The blessed hear the clarion call
of the seven trumpets

603
01:13:51,492 --> 01:13:54,033
of judgement as sweet music;

604
01:13:58,325 --> 01:14:02,408
the poor souls being pushed forcedly
by the devils towards the Underworld

605
01:14:04,200 --> 01:14:08,450
plug their ears to avoid going deaf.

606
01:14:43,575 --> 01:14:49,825
One and all, reprobates and blessed,
struggle desperately

607
01:14:50,825 --> 01:14:52,867
either to escape the underworld

608
01:14:54,658 --> 01:14:56,700
or to grab their spot in heaven.

609
01:15:17,533 --> 01:15:20,075
Saint Peter hands back the keys,

610
01:15:20,908 --> 01:15:23,492
now just a pointless burden.

611
01:15:31,408 --> 01:15:34,658
Saint Bartholomew displays
his flayed skin,

612
01:15:34,742 --> 01:15:37,117
sporting the lifeless face
of Michelangelo.

613
01:15:37,783 --> 01:15:43,992
Who hopes to atone for his own sins by
presenting himself to God annihilated,

614
01:15:44,450 --> 01:15:46,533
in lifeless form.

615
01:16:08,408 --> 01:16:10,533
"A flash of vermilion light

616
01:16:11,825 --> 01:16:15,075
Overcomes all feeling in me;

617
01:16:17,533 --> 01:16:20,033
And I dropped like a man falling into
deep sleep.�

618
01:16:23,658 --> 01:16:26,783
"Men do not care what blood
it costs to sow.�

619
01:16:45,783 --> 01:16:49,242
When it was publicly unveiled,
the Last Judgement

620
01:16:49,325 --> 01:16:52,575
aroused both admiration and shock.

621
01:16:54,242 --> 01:16:56,992
It came close to being destroyed
immediately,

622
01:16:57,075 --> 01:16:59,825
for being indecorous and unseemly.

623
01:17:03,325 --> 01:17:05,658
A few years after Michelangelo died,

624
01:17:06,492 --> 01:17:09,742
the decision was taken to alter just
the most scandalous figures.

625
01:17:10,658 --> 01:17:13,867
Daniele da Volterra, who was given
this thankless task,

626
01:17:13,950 --> 01:17:16,533
was from then on nicknamed "Braghettone�.

627
01:17:19,117 --> 01:17:22,742
Fortunately, Marcello Venusti had made
a copy of the Last Judgement

628
01:17:22,825 --> 01:17:26,700
soon after it was painted,
before the enforced trousering:

629
01:17:28,325 --> 01:17:31,242
a small painting, today in Naples,

630
01:17:32,033 --> 01:17:35,575
preserves the Maestro's original creation.

631
01:17:38,950 --> 01:17:40,742
Revealed or covered up,

632
01:17:42,492 --> 01:17:46,117
those bodies revolutionized and stunned
his contemporaries,

633
01:17:46,200 --> 01:17:49,033
thanks to the incredible freedom
of Michelangelo's approach

634
01:17:49,117 --> 01:17:51,033
to an ancient and sacred theme...

635
01:17:52,783 --> 01:17:56,617
One that, in his hands, becomes modern,

636
01:17:57,950 --> 01:17:58,992
angst-ridden

637
01:18:00,492 --> 01:18:01,533
and eternal.

638
01:18:09,367 --> 01:18:13,575
Blessed and mightily fortunate
was Paul I,

639
01:18:14,283 --> 01:18:19,325
because God conceded to his protection
true judgement,

640
01:18:20,033 --> 01:18:22,242
true damnation and resurrection.

641
01:18:23,783 --> 01:18:28,325
Michelangelo infused such power in
his painting that "the dead were dead,

642
01:18:28,575 --> 01:18:30,658
and the living seemed living".

643
01:18:32,158 --> 01:18:35,283
It took him almost eight years
to complete his Judgement,

644
01:18:35,700 --> 01:18:39,200
finally unveiled on Christmas Day 1541,

645
01:18:39,283 --> 01:18:42,325
to wonder and amazement among
all beholders.

646
01:18:43,575 --> 01:18:49,408
But even though fresco painting
is no job for the old,

647
01:18:50,200 --> 01:18:55,533
his toils in the Vatican palazzos
showed no sign of ending.

648
01:19:10,242 --> 01:19:15,242
Pope Paul III could not imagine
dispensing with Michelangelo's services.

649
01:19:17,992 --> 01:19:22,492
He commissioned the ageing maestro,
now in his seventies, to paint

650
01:19:22,575 --> 01:19:28,533
new cycle of frescoes for his private
chapel in the Apostolic Palace.

651
01:19:36,367 --> 01:19:41,367
Michelangelo painted for almost
ten years, taking long breaks

652
01:19:41,450 --> 01:19:46,367
because of poor health
and failing eyesight.

653
01:19:47,908 --> 01:19:50,533
Once again, he wins the challenge
against himself;

654
01:19:51,908 --> 01:19:55,200
this would be his final pictorial work.

655
01:20:01,242 --> 01:20:06,825
Like Saul, Michelangelo would obey
the law of the Lord.

656
01:20:10,950 --> 01:20:15,950
And, like Saint Peter,
before God and man he was ready

657
01:20:16,533 --> 01:20:18,867
to accept what was to come.

658
01:20:21,700 --> 01:20:26,283
And after having served the popes,
the time came to serve just God.

659
01:20:27,533 --> 01:20:29,283
And so I became God's hand.

660
01:20:35,158 --> 01:20:38,742
After being named architect of
Saint Peter's Basilica, Michelangelo

661
01:20:38,825 --> 01:20:41,825
dedicated himself to this job
until the end of his days.

662
01:20:42,200 --> 01:20:48,617
In a stroke of genius, he designed
the final form of the dome,

663
01:20:50,075 --> 01:20:52,867
filling it with all available light.

664
01:20:57,200 --> 01:21:04,367
Work on Michelangelo's design, one of
the most revolutionary ever conceived

665
01:21:04,450 --> 01:21:10,117
was only completed posthumously,
at the end of the sixteenth century.

666
01:21:21,617 --> 01:21:24,783
I was striving so hard to complete
the job at Saint Peter's,

667
01:21:25,742 --> 01:21:28,700
for the Church as a whole
and for our Lord...

668
01:21:32,867 --> 01:21:36,533
making sure there was no trickery
or pilfering.

669
01:21:40,575 --> 01:21:43,700
My one comfort came from sculpting,

670
01:21:45,783 --> 01:21:46,825
in my home,

671
01:21:48,408 --> 01:21:50,658
without any projects in particular.

672
01:21:51,825 --> 01:21:54,867
They were Pietas,

673
01:21:55,783 --> 01:21:57,992
like the first I ever sculpted.

674
01:21:58,658 --> 01:22:02,742
Sometimes by night I would take
just a peek, astounded

675
01:22:03,700 --> 01:22:07,492
that they were so... light-filled,
finished and...

676
01:22:15,908 --> 01:22:19,367
And yet I was just hacking,

677
01:22:21,742 --> 01:22:23,783
breaking things, mutilating...

678
01:22:24,325 --> 01:22:27,283
I sheared away marble,
despairing that the stone...

679
01:22:28,992 --> 01:22:33,200
was somehow becoming suddenly mute.

680
01:22:38,783 --> 01:22:41,242
I no longer succeeded in stripping away,

681
01:22:42,700 --> 01:22:44,242
I couldn't add,

682
01:22:45,783 --> 01:22:47,700
I was unable to finish things.

683
01:22:51,200 --> 01:22:53,450
With this sulphurous heart,

684
01:22:55,492 --> 01:22:57,575
with this flesh of tow,

685
01:22:59,200 --> 01:23:01,033
no peace could there be for me.

686
01:23:06,075 --> 01:23:08,033
How can a miserable man...

687
01:23:09,533 --> 01:23:12,867
ever succeed in equalling the perfection
of divine design?

688
01:23:50,658 --> 01:23:55,575
The Rondanini Pieta, today housed
at the Castello Sforzesco,

689
01:23:55,658 --> 01:23:59,450
was Michelangelo's last poignant work
of sculpture.

690
01:24:00,367 --> 01:24:03,325
This marble piece looks like it has been
wounded and mutilated

691
01:24:03,408 --> 01:24:05,825
through repeated blows by the Maestro,

692
01:24:05,908 --> 01:24:11,908
who in a veritable destructive rage
profoundly transformed his initial idea

693
01:24:11,992 --> 01:24:15,367
to produce a totally different
composition:

694
01:24:16,700 --> 01:24:19,700
unfinished, modern in the extreme,

695
01:24:20,492 --> 01:24:25,367
bearing witness to a creative raptus
that has enthralled critics

696
01:24:25,450 --> 01:24:27,283
and contemporary artists alike.

697
01:24:29,617 --> 01:24:34,242
Whereas from the rear the form
of the original block of stone

698
01:24:34,325 --> 01:24:36,742
is evident in all of its raw materiality,

699
01:24:38,783 --> 01:24:42,700
from the front we make out the figures
of Christ and Mary.

700
01:24:43,283 --> 01:24:46,867
However, the demarcation between
the person doing the holding

701
01:24:46,950 --> 01:24:49,950
and the person being held is completely
wiped out.

702
01:24:53,533 --> 01:24:56,575
The group is supple and spiritual,

703
01:24:57,533 --> 01:25:02,658
the two bodies tending to melt
and flow into one another,

704
01:25:03,158 --> 01:25:07,075
as if the mother wanted to call her
son back into the womb,

705
01:25:07,533 --> 01:25:10,700
to find peace and solace there.

706
01:25:13,075 --> 01:25:17,658
Before dying, Michelangelo pared things
back to the essential,

707
01:25:18,158 --> 01:25:22,075
sculpting an intimate, tormented prayer

708
01:25:22,992 --> 01:25:27,200
in the final piece of marble
he was to challenge.

709
01:25:32,283 --> 01:25:36,117
Ah, happy, truly happy is our age,

710
01:25:36,783 --> 01:25:41,492
we have been able to cast so much light
to brighten up the shadows.

711
01:25:42,742 --> 01:25:47,200
Michelangelo pulled the blindfold
from the eyes of our minds,

712
01:25:47,283 --> 01:25:53,908
he cast aside the veil of falsity that
darkened the halls of the intellect.

713
01:25:56,033 --> 01:25:58,450
Praise be to the Heavens,

714
01:25:59,450 --> 01:26:03,825
and let us strive to imitate
Michelangelo in all things.

715
01:26:11,617 --> 01:26:14,908
But why do I jump from place to place,
a-leaping?

716
01:26:15,742 --> 01:26:17,450
All I have to say is:

717
01:26:17,908 --> 01:26:23,033
wherever he laid his divine hand,
he resurrected things,

718
01:26:23,700 --> 01:26:26,492
infusing them with life eternal.

719
01:27:02,033 --> 01:27:03,908
Confound these hands,

720
01:27:11,617 --> 01:27:13,575
confound the passage of time.

721
01:27:17,200 --> 01:27:18,908
Confound my loneliness,

722
01:27:24,867 --> 01:27:28,200
and confound you, marble.

723
01:27:30,450 --> 01:27:33,450
May nothing remain of the things
I have made, because...

724
01:27:35,575 --> 01:27:38,075
what I have made has not been enough.

725
01:27:41,408 --> 01:27:45,908
Confound me, because I wanted
to be like God,

726
01:27:48,825 --> 01:27:52,242
to try and make life

727
01:27:57,450 --> 01:28:00,117
rather than fully living my own.

728
01:28:05,908 --> 01:28:07,450
Confound this...

729
01:28:11,950 --> 01:28:12,992
It's over...

730
01:28:17,742 --> 01:28:18,992
It's over!

731
01:28:23,158 --> 01:28:24,283
So what's left?

732
01:28:26,992 --> 01:28:28,408
Come on, tell me!

733
01:28:32,033 --> 01:28:35,867
Can you tell me what it was for,
this immense hard labour?

734
01:28:43,867 --> 01:28:44,908
But why?

735
01:28:48,117 --> 01:28:49,617
Why won't you speak?

736
01:30:04,575 --> 01:30:09,700
All his statues are so constrained
by agony

737
01:30:09,783 --> 01:30:13,992
that they seem to wish
to break themselves.

738
01:30:16,867 --> 01:30:21,033
When Michelangelo was old
he actually broke them.

739
01:30:21,117 --> 01:30:26,117
Art did not content him.
He wanted infinity.

740
01:30:30,367 --> 01:30:37,450
MICHELANGELO
ENDLESS