Family affairs recalled Michael Angelo to Florence in the spring of 1501. He returned full of honours gained in Rome, and took up his position as the first sculptor of the day. His next commission came from Cardinal Francesco Piccolomini, afterwards Pope Pius III. A contract was signed on June 5, 1501, by which Michael Angelo agreed to complete some fifteen statues of male saints within the time of three years, for the Piccolomini Chapel, in the Duomo of Siena. A Saint Francis was begun by Piero Torrigiano, and may have been finished by Michael Angelo. The rest of the four works that were the outcome of this commission can have had nothing to do with the chisel of the sculptor of the Madonna della Febbre and the David. Michael Angelo must have merely contracted to supply them, as the master sculptor of a sculptor's yard, possibly furnishing the designs himself. There is a drawing at the British Museum of a bearded saint, cowled and holding a book in his left hand, which may be a design for one of these inferior works.

In August of the same year, 1501, Michael Angelo began the colossal statue of David, that used to stand in the Piazza and is now in the Academy at Florence. The first contract for this work, signed between Michael [pg 115]Angelo, the Arte della Lana, and the Opera del Duomo, is dated August 16, 1501. It states "That the worthy master, Michael Angelo, son of Lodovico Bonarroti, citizen of Florence, has been chosen to fashion, complete, and perfectly finish the male statue, already rough hewn and called the giant, of nine cubits in height,77 now existing in the workshop of the Cathedral, badly blocked out afore-time by Master Agostino,78 of Florence. The work shall be completed within the term of the next ensuing two years, dating from September, at a salary of six golden florins79 per month; and whatever is needful for the accomplishment of this task, as workmen, wood, &c., which he may require, shall be supplied him by the said Operai; and when the said statue is finished, the Consuls and Operai, who shall be in office, shall estimate whether he deserve a larger recompense, and this shall be left to their consciences." Michael Angelo began to work in a wooden shed, erected for that purpose near the Cathedral, on Monday morning, September 13, 1501, and the "David" is said to be almost entirely finished in a note, dated January 25, 1503,80 when a solemn council of the most important artists, then resident in Florence, met at the Opera del Duomo to consider where the statue should be placed. What an original way of deciding Æsthetic questions! They came to the admirable conclusion that the choice of the site should be left to Michael Angelo. Amongst those who spoke at the meeting were Francesco Monciatto, a wood carver, who suggested that the statue [pg 116]should be erected in front of the Duomo, where the block was originally meant to be set up; he was supported by the painters Cosimo Rosselli and Sandro Botticelli. Giuliano da San Gallo proposed to place it under the Loggia dei Lanzi, because "the imperfection of the marble, which is softened by exposure to the air, renders the durability of the statue doubtful." Messer Angelo de Lorenzo Manfidi (second herald) objected because it would break the order of certain ceremonies held in the Loggia. Leonardo da Vinci followed San Gallo; he did not think it would injure the ceremonies. Salvestro, a jeweller, and Filippino Lippi supported Piero di Cosimo, who proposed that the precise spot should be left to the sculptor who made it, "as he will know better how it should be." Michael Angelo elected to have his David set up on the steps of the Palazzo Vecchio, on the right side of the entrance. Its effect in that position may be well seen, appropriately enough, in a picture by the same Piero di Cosimo (No. 895), in the National Gallery, where the Piazza della Signoria forms the background to a portrait of a man in armour. Il Cronaca, Antonio da San Gallo, Baccio d'Agnolo, Bernardo della Cecca, and Michael Angelo were associated in the task of transporting the giant from the workshop near the Duomo to the Piazza della Signoria. It was encased in planks and suspended upright from great beams. "On May 14, 1504, the marble giant was dragged from the Opera. It came out at twenty-four o'clock, and they broke the wall above the door enough to let it pass. That night some stones were thrown at the Colossus with intent to injure it; a watch had to be set over it at night, and it made way very slowly, bound as it was upright, suspended so that the feet were off the ground by enormous [pg 117]beams with much ingenuity. It took four days to reach the Piazza, arriving on the 18th at the hour of twelve. More than forty men were employed to make it go, and there were fourteen logs to go beneath it, which were changed from hand to hand. Afterwards they worked until June 8, 1504, to place it on a pedestal where the Judith used to stand. The Judith was removed and set upon the ground within the palace. The said giant was the work of Michael Angelo Buonarroti."81 The great marble David stood in the Piazza three hundred and sixty-nine years; it was removed to the hall of the Accademia delle Belle Arti in 1873 for its better preservation. It has suffered very little from its exposure in the fine air of Florence, but the left arm was broken by a huge stone thrown during the tumults of 1527. Giorgio Vasari and his friend Cecchino Salviati collected the broken pieces and brought them to the house of Michael Angelo Salviati, father of Cecchino. They were carefully put together and restored to the statue in 1543. The David was the first work by Michael Angelo that displayed the awe-inspiring quality known as his TerribilitÀ; from the fierce frown of the brow to the sharp, strained forms of the feet and toes there is an expression of strenuous force struggling against an almost overwhelming power. The force of the David may succeed against Goliath; but in Michael Angelo's later works the struggle always appears to be a hopeless one, nobly as his Titans fight against fate and omnipotence. The face of the David is a development of the Saint George of Or San Michele, by Donatello, and the figure is of the same type, only this triumphant boy of Michael Angelo's shows a more exact study of the antique than the naturalistic [pg 118]work of his master. In Donatello the planes are given as flat, and their junctions are sharp and hard; in Michael Angelo they are carefully rounded and finished with the grace of the antique and of life. The details of the head, although so high up, are so absolutely perfect that the separate features have been, and are still, the models set before all students of art when they first begin to study the human figure, and they are known as the nose, the eye, the ear, and the mouth. We have noticed that the young student is more interested in his work when he is told that they are the features of the David. Michael Angelo carved his giant without modelling a full-size clay figure first, but with the guidance of drawings and small wax models about eighteen inches high only, carving the figure out of the block in the way that is so well seen in the unfinished Saint Matthew in the court of the Accademia delle Belle Arti, in Florence. There are two small wax models of the David in the Casa Buonarroti at Florence, said to be Michael Angelo's designs for this figure, but they are of very doubtful authority. Later in his life he is said to have worked from full-sized models, as Benvenuto Cellini tells us in his Trattati dell' Oreficeria, &c.82 Vasari tells the story of how Michael Angelo contented the Gonfaloniere and silenced his criticism of the David: "While still surrounded by the scaffolding Pier Soderini inspected the statue, which pleased him immensely, and when Michael Angelo was re-touching it in parts, Soderini said to him that the nose appeared to him too big. Michael Angelo, knowing that the Gonfaloniere was close under the statue and that from this point of view the truth was not to be discerned, mounted the scaffolding, [pg 119]which was as high as the shoulder of the giant, and quickly took a chisel in his left hand with a little of the marble dust from the platform and began to let fall a little of it at each touch of the tool, but he did not alter the nose from what it was before; then he looked down to the Gonfaloniere, who stood watching below: 'Look at it now,' said Michael Angelo. 'I like it better. You have given it life,' said the Gonfaloniere," rubbing the dust out of his eyes.

On August 12, 1502, Michael Angelo undertook another commission for the Republic—another giant David. This time it was to be in bronze, two cubits and a quarter in height; in the casting he was to be assisted by Benedetto da Rovezzano. It has been suggested that the pen and ink drawing in the Louvre is a design for this second David, but the drawing of an arm on the same sheet is so like the right arm of the first David that it is more probably an early idea for the first David, in which we see that Michael Angelo's design needed more room than the cramped block of marble allowed; it makes us wonder the more at the marvellous freedom of action that he managed to get out of the cramped stone. The bronze David was intended for the French statesman, Pierre de Rohan, MarÉchal de GiÉ, as a present from the Florentine Republic, but before it was finished the MarÉchal fell into disgrace and could be of no further use to the Florentines. The Signory therefore determined to send the bronze to Florimond Robertet, Secretary of Finance to the French King. A minute of the Signory dated November 6, 1508, informs us that the bronze David, weighing about 800 pounds, had been "packed in the name of God," and sent [pg 120]to Signa on its way to Leghorn. Florimond Robertet placed it in the courtyard of his chÂteau of Bury, near Blois. It remained there for more than a hundred years, then it was removed to the chÂteau of Villeroy, and disappeared no one knows whither.

On April 24, 1503, the Consuls of the Arte della Lana and the Operai of the Duomo ordered Michael Angelo to carve out of Carrara marble twelve Apostles, each four and a quarter cubits high, to be placed inside the church. One was to be finished each year, the Operai paying all expenses, including the cost of living for the sculptor and his assistants, and paying him two golden florins a month. They built a house and workshops for him in the Borgo Pinti; it was designed by Il Cronaca. Michael Angelo lived there rent free until it was evident that the contract could not be carried out. He then hired it on a lease, but on June 15, 1508, the lease of the house was transferred to Sigismondo Martelli. The St. Matthew, now in the courtyard of the Accademia delle Belle Arti, in Florence, is the only work we know of resulting from this commission. The apostle is just emerging from the marble, and shows us Michael Angelo's method of work. Vasari says: "At this time he also began a statue in marble of San Matteo in the works of Santa Maria del Fiore, which, though but roughly hewn, shows his perfections, and teaches sculptors how to carve figures from the stone without maiming them, always gaining ground by cutting away the waste stone, and being able to draw back or alter in case of need." The deep chisel marks in the stone are sometimes as much as four inches long, and their directions indicate that Michael Angelo worked equally well [pg 121]with either hand, a fact confirmed by Raffaello de Montelupo in his "Autobiographie."83 "Here I may mention that I am in the habit of drawing with my left hand, and that once, at Rome, while I was sketching the arch of Trajan from the Colosseum, Michael Angelo and Sebastiano del Piombo, both of whom were naturally left-handed (although they did not work with the left hand excepting when they wished to use great strength), stopped to see me, and expressed great wonder."

In August 1504, Michael Angelo was commissioned to prepare cartoons for the decoration of a wall in the Sala del Gran Consiglio in the Palazzo Vecchio, opposite the wall for which Leonardo da Vinci was already preparing designs. Michael Angelo had a workshop given him in the Hospital of the Dyers at San Onofrio, under the date October 31, 1504; a minute of expenditure shows that paper for the cartoon was provided. Leonardo's design was the famous "Fight for the Standard." Michael Angelo chose an episode from the war with Pisa, when, on July 28, 1364, a band of four hundred Florentines were surprised bathing in the Arno by Sir John Hawkwood (Giovanni Acuto) and his cavalry, then in the service of the Pisans, a subject that enabled Michael Angelo to express his delight in the beauty of the human form, and his power of drawing and foreshortening the naked limbs of the bathers as they hurry out of the river and don their armour at the sound of the alarm. This great central work of Michael Angelo's prime has disappeared, and we must be very careful in studying it to allow for the weakness of the work of the copyists and engravers who preserved what little record of it is left for us, especially in the drawing of the nude. If we compare the vault of the Sistine Chapel with the contemporary [pg 125]engravings we shall be able to estimate the enormous difference between the cartoon, which may have been the greatest work of art produced in Italy, and the copies of it that exist. The most complete copy of the cartoon is the monochrome painting belonging to the Earl of Leicester, at Holkham Hall. There is a sketch of the whole composition in the Albertina Gallery at Vienna, and the line engraving by Marc Antonio Raimondi of three principal figures with a foolish Italian rendering of a German engraved landscape in the background, utterly destroying what little Michael Angelesque dignity the engraver was able to get into the figures, with his poor knowledge of the nude. The best remnants we have are some few of Michael Angelo's own studies from the nude, done especially for this composition; they are full of the power, vigour, and naturalism peculiar to this period, rude forms hacked out of the paper with a broad pen, altered with charcoal, chalk, white paint, or anything handy and effective; from them we must try and imagine the power, breadth and dignity of the great composition. The work was done upon ordinary paper, stretched over canvas or linen fixed on a wooden frame, like the few cartoons by the great masters that have come down to us. The outlines were usually pricked, and when finished the cartoon was cut into convenient sizes for pouncing on the wall or other foundation upon which the picture was to be painted, unless the artist took the precaution of putting a plain piece of paper under the original drawing and pricking both together and transferring the outlines by the aid of the second sheet. These cut-up cartoons became the property of the whole workshop, and were used by the pupils when they wished. No doubt the roughness of [pg 126]this treatment soon destroyed many of them. Vasari, who cannot have seen the Cartoon of Pisa, gives us a long, enthusiastic description of it, ending with some helpful notes as to the materials with which it was drawn, and an account of its effect upon contemporary artists. He continues: "In addition, you discovered groups of figures sketched in various methods, some outlined with charcoal, some shaded with lines, some rubbed in, some heightened with white-lead, the master having sought to prove his empire over all materials of draughtsmanship.84 The craftsmen of design remained therewith astonished and dumbfounded, recognising the fullest reaches of their art revealed to them by this unrivalled masterpiece. Those who examined the forms I have described, painters who inspected and compared them with works hardly less divine, affirm that never in the history of human achievement was any product of man's brain seen like to them in mere supremacy. And certainly we have the right to believe this; for when the cartoon was finished and carried to the hall of the Pope, amid the acclamation of all artists and to the exceeding fame of Michael Angelo, the students who made drawings from it, as happened with foreigners and natives through many years in Florence, became men of mark in several branches. This is obvious, for Aristotele da San Gallo worked there, as did Ridolfo Grillandaio, Rafael Santio da Urbino, Francesco Granaccio, Baccio Bandinelli, and Alonso [pg 127]Berugetta, the Spaniard; they were followed by Andrea del Sarto, il Franciabigio, Jacomo Sansovino, il Rosso, Maturino, Lorenzetto, Tribolo (then a boy), Jacomo da Puntormo, and Pierin del Vaga, all of them first-rate masters of the Florentine school."

Benvenuto Cellini's account is important, for he himself copied the cartoon in 1513 just before it disappeared. He says: "Michael Angelo portrayed a number of foot soldiers, who, the season being summer, had gone to bathe in the Arno. He drew them at the moment the alarm is sounded, and the men, all naked, rush to arms. So splendid is their action, that nothing survives of ancient or of modern art which touches the same lofty point of excellence; and, as I have already said, the design of the great Leonardo was itself most admirably beautiful. These two cartoons stood, one in the Palace of the Medici, the other in the hall of the Pope. So long as they remained intact they were the school of the world. Though the divine Michael Angelo in later life finished that great chapel of Pope Julius, he never rose half-way to the same pitch of power; his genius never afterwards attained to the force of those first studies."

These years spent under the shadow of the Duomo, away from which no Florentine is happy, working at his sculptures and drawings, were probably some of the happiest years of Michael Angelo's whole life.