Michelangelo e la sua Scuola. I Disegni di Casa Buonarroti e degli Uffizi

Since Charles de Tolnay first published them in 1940, Michelangelo's drawings for the fortifications of Florence have stimulated considerable scholarly interest. Tolnay likened the zoomorphic shapes of Michelangelo's sketches to crustaceous creatures. The analogy has become a commonplace, and while helping to describe the formal appearance of these unexpected designs, it has led most scholars to question their purpose and practicality. Furthermore, every scholar has followed Tolnay's general view that the series proceeds from the simple to the complex, with the drawings becoming increasingly abstract and fantastic. This paper proposes that Michelangelo's process of design was exactly the opposite. Beginning with abstract and complex ideas, Michelangelo proceeded to develop and refine his conceptions in a series of drawings that reflect a rational process of design. This hypothesis is more in accord with the historical facts and the documentary evidence and is based on a close analysis of the drawings themselves. The 20 sheets preserved in the Casa Buonarroti are evidence of Michelangelo's practical concern with particular problems of Florence's defense in 1528-1529 and represent the first stage of his successful activity as a military engineer for the Republic.

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The Site of Michelangelo's Laurentian Library

Salmon¹

1990

Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians

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In his monographic article on Michelangelo's Laurentian Library in Florence, first published in 1934, Rudolf Wittkower relegated the history of its siting within the canonica (claustral buildings) of San Lorenzo to a third appendix. Since then a number of scholars have given detailed consideration to the site history, realizing it to be a significant aspect of Michelangelo's early career as an architect. The present paper maintains that some study of the canonica as Michelangelo probably encountered it should be prerequisite to any account of the site and presents new observations, measurements, and previously unnoticed 18th-century plans preserved in Prague to make such a study. The comprehensive publication of Michelangelo's correspondence, records, and drawings during the past 20 years facilitates reconstruction of the sequence of events in his development of the site, and this further illuminates the artist's working methods and relations with both his patron and his assistant. Consideration is also given to an abandoned idea for a library beyond the confines of the canonica, bordering on piazza San Lorenzo and perpendicular to the church façade. Documents from the Florence State Archive confirm the identity and location of properties as shown on Michelangelo's own plan of the vicinity, which is newly oriented, and the rejected scheme is briefly examined in relation to contemporary urban redevelopment in Florence.

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Michelangelo e la sua Scuola. I Disegni di Casa Buonarroti e degli Uffizi

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Andrea Felici, Michelangelo a San Lorenzo (1515–1534). Il linguaggio architettonico del Cinquecento fiorentino, con glossario interattivo in CD-ROM, con premessa di Giovanna Frosini (Biblioteca dell’«Archivum romanicum», serie I., 430), Firenze, Olschki, 2015, IX + 376 p.

Andrea Felici, Michelangelo a San Lorenzo (1515–1534). Il linguaggio architettonico del Cinquecento fiorentino, con glossario interattivo in CD-ROM, con premessa di Giovanna Frosini (Biblioteca dell’«Archivum romanicum», serie I., 430), Firenze, Olschki, 2015, IX + 376 p.

"Dal disegno allo spazio": Michelangelo's Drawings for the Fortifications of Florence

The Site of Michelangelo's Laurentian Library

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