CHAPTER II: A ROM CAPUT MUNDI 1592 - 1598
The lessons of the Knight and Monsignor
First lesson: this is not what I asked you to do .... When I arrived in Rome in May of 1492 I had nothing with me. possessed only the little art that the teacher had taught me Pederzano in Milan and the willingness to learn more. The first months were very difficult and I got sick in January of '93 a strange form of fever cold. The legs and my hands were shaking, foaming at the mouth while a saliva thick and salty. Even the bleeding gums of my teeth with ease and I could not swallow normally. All 'Hospital dela Consolacion did not know what it was and in fact the symptoms faded until it disappeared completely after three months. Luck would have it, the Franciscan friar of the hospital took me in sympathy with my good education, recommending me to go in the shop of Cavalier D'Arpino, at that time considered a skilled craftsman of the art. After several months spent in painting flowers and fruit, the Cavalier took me aside and advised to give up everything I had imaparato in Milan.
"Michelangelo, observe your work and I recognize that you're good, you have a talent in imitating nature, but not what I told you to do. Do you see this fruit, and these flowers? ", - He asked, pointing to some paintings resting on the ground .- Well, I must say, paint what you see, but that's not what I asked you to do. You have to remove the dust from the surface of things that obscures the intrinsic beauty, you understand? You must also do good that is not perfect and make bright even what does not reflect light. Light is everything, as is the light that reaches the eye and the eye does not like those dull, lifeless or inanimate. And if the surface of things you appear to be sufficiently polished to reflect the natural light, I authorize you to make up the fruit and flowers with your imagination. You have to be closer to the surface of objects, and if the surface is not suitable to receive the light of your imagination, you have to remove the dust, remove the peel and let the beauty of your art to clothe every detail. "Knight said the gesture with his hand to remove dust from the glass. "Besides, do not complain that it's too dark in here. Redecorate the walls in white, surrounded by sheets, in short, use your brain a little. The white reflects the light. You know very well that I can not get work in the great hall. You're the last of my acquaintance, but I'm sorry having to dismiss your stubbornness to be faithful to your way of seeing things. We are not in Milan. In this city requires a different kind of art. The truth nobody cares. People who buy from me just want to beautify the home and make it look luxurious even what is not. Remember to clean the tables better and be more punctual deliveries. Above all, remember it to do what I ask you to do ... nothing more, nothing less. "Second lesson: the trinity of artists ...
By day he worked for the rider, while at sunset, in the scented nights of the Roman, I began to paint for myself with the intention of fixing the canvas which is in memory the words of those who had more experience than me. I concentrated on painting again, I placed the basket of fruit back to the center of the canvas. The candlelight was just enough to outline the contours of the volumes, while the background was dark as pitch. Months in the recommendations of the knight and I tried to create a soft sunlight like candles, but at the same time intense, white and so radiant shine not only the natural colors of fruits and leaves, but also the network the basket. I was not painting from life, but projected onto the canvas an image that was just inside my head. I was in search of natural beauty, but beauty that I would not even be reconstructed in nature, while patiently waiting for the right angle of sunlight a day in late summer. The light was reflected on the surface of apples and the grapes, leaves the minds mitigate its spread. I realized that I could paint like that any person, and so, after a couple of attempts rather uncertain, I decided to represent myself in a gesture to support the basket. The design, color and light as a third element I recalled to mind the words of the knight who liked to combine the sacred and the profane:
"Drawing is the Father of the whole work: it is accompanied by the intellect capable of building forms, shapes and harmonious relations between the parties. Color the task of giving his soul to the painting, a bit like the child of God who descended into matter to fill it with feelings, ideals and spiritual effects. The light is finally as the Holy Spirit. It follows on forms created by the Son from the Father and given life to establish the rightful place in the cosmic order. This is the trinity that artists have to worship, so that might arise under the Animus divine inspiration. Remember to turn its gaze on the thumb to reaching out on the object - the gentleman taught me the gesture of extending his right arm and to stick out your thumb as if the sight of an archer, - and observing the subjects with the eye Main, who once opened not his aim differs from that of the thumb. You understand. "
Knight asked me all the time if avvessi understood his words. He knew he was impatient to describe things, and so he helped with sweeping gestures demonstration. Well. My right eye had led me and so I did get a perpendicular line from the pupil to the center of a ripe fig. Then I built the delta since the top of the hair even if it seems a little risky to draw so large a clump. I finally decided to paint the white sheet on the side of the right arm, as it was for the Son, or the soul, absorb the light of the spirit and enliven the scene. ". After a few day, the knight became aware of the painting and seizure. Not heard from again. But it was just the beginning ...
Third lesson: Avoid the shots, giving up al'orgoglio: more lazy that naive.
After a few months since that first timid attempt at introspection, Cavalier D'Arpino took me aside. He was excited in a sense, but also worried about the future of the shop. He had received an invitation to participate in the competition to design a painting to be done in the chapel of the friars of St. geniveffa, m anon was certainly want to do.
"Now is the time you need to do something for me. I mentioned your name to the College of the friars. You know how the church: always cry that they have no money and at the same time because they flatter you suggest to have a strong influence on the cardinals and popes. At this moment I am full of backlog to be delivered and I will not get involved with a client so touchy and hard to please. Then I said you could be the artist you can meet all their needs. In fact, apart from the temper that you find yourself, you're the right person to lick my ass enough for you to not lose the esteem of the pope. However, I must warn you that it will not be easy for you to understand their point of view. We still lack the right experience to handle money and certainly will force you to execute the thread and sign it they have in mind to do. This does not mean that you bow your head and passively each of their proposal. I suggest instead to adopt a behavior that you will be very useful, both in a personal relationship with the client, and then to manage the contractual relationship. "The knight moves from the chair where he spoke to me to make a big pencil.
"Come, I'll explain with a drawing. This way, nelal left, there are rich clients. From perte opposite on the right are those who work to earn bread, offering the fruits of their labor. Usually the farmer to the market offering fruit, spreading his arms to the purchaser, in a gesture to show the merchandise and begin so the deal price. In our contracts instead the opposite happens and you have to be very careful with your actions and your words. The contract specifies in advance the price you will pay for the work. This means that it will be good for your work, the client will never be satisfied with what's being offered as consideration of his money that he will always be top of the commodity which is offered on a plate. The scale weighs the fruit of your work, but there is a flat sulll'altro any lead, but a weight such that it could sink even Michelangelo, who, as you well know, was clever and cunning in contracts to sigh with impatience . The game thus requires wisdom, timing and a certain amount of victimization essential to make reservations of any kind and get immediately and without delay the necessary advances to move forward. Do you understand me, right? How many times do you hear me tell clients not to proceed in the work because I had the boy sick or in mourning with her mother in the hospital? "The knight laughed alone. Luckily I managed to avoid the slap on my right shoulder, ritaendomi as a fencer. Fourth lesson: to perceive is an art, put it aside, and make your art
After two years in the Bottega del Cavaliere, until the pastor of St. Saviour parroccchia pportunità gave me the comfort of having a room where sleep. Monsignor Fantin, who was also a guest of the parish, I was given the task of creating a painting on the theme of the Holy Family at the suggestion of the Cavaliere had found that so polite way to dislodge me from the back of the shop, because it had forecast a enlargement.
One day I visited the room and saw of the self in which I dressed with the role of Bacchus, pale, thin and a little sickly.
"Interesting this way of moving your customers. Do not think these tricks worthy of pity with Knight. Ah, I like this way of painting the white clothes, I want you to do well in the painting in which there has to be Joseph and Mary during the flight into Egypt. Interesting, yes ..... "The monsignor was aware of the subtle lines that formed the two opposing triangles. I had not yet cleared and ilsegno was visible to those who watched closely. "UMH, number two! multiplied by three! There are two needs that arise in us when we consider the phenomena of nature through the perception thorough knowledge of the phenomena themselves with a critical and assimilate within ourselves with the reflection. Your Bacco their backs to the sun and this is an act of reflection, typical of those who are sick because they do not want to face up to reality, or who becomes a melancholy, reflective and philosopher. The two opposing triangles express a need for completeness which leads us to the order and the order requires a method. Even food taste the grapes or any work of nature requires method, intelligence, skill, because the method facilitates the sensory experience, the refined taste and makes the representations. Eating is an art that is practiced in Rome, right from 'Empire. If we consider an object in all its parts and grabbed him, first with the feeling and then with due consideration to what a pleasure it is able to offer us, then we can reproduce it faithfully in the spirit, and spirit to understand the power of visualization, ' creative imagination and meditation are able to reproduce the same pleasure in mind, especially when we are hungry or desire to enjoy. We therefore need to split the object within a horizontal line anda vertical line. The first allows us to appropriate physical and sensory object, through action and perception at each end of the line, while the vertical line helps us to make the process of assimilation, understanding and reproduction made from the soul, from the mind and intellect. Even as eil food moves from top to bottom, so the knowledge of the food up from the bottom up. This dual method of reflection was defined by St. Francis in one word: contemplation. Who provides this through the cross of lines appropriates the divine nectar, taste the food of God and feels that everything belongs to him, as the grapes are from a single fruit cluster.
Fifth lesson: who rises to the top .... The Monsignor
visited me a second time, a few months later. I had just started to paint the Flight from Egypt, but did not want to discuss my work. I asked him to tell me about San Francisco and the meaning of his contemplation.
"On what do you contemplate the holy? Certainly not on the images, but on the words that the soul told him to write and that he himself, as intellect, was not able to fully understand. "Monsignor Feltrin realized that his words had aroused my curiosity.
"The soul evolves through the powers of autonomous women's shapes up to take a angelic dimension that transcends the individual conscience. Meditation leads the poor man on his own experiences to give way to the ascent of his spiritual soul, able to climb from the bottom to the top of his head, the kingdom of heaven. Monsignor Feltrin drew a cross in canvas, with three cardinal numbers definenso the three points of intersection of the vertical line symbol cammmino dall'animus vertical path (1) to evolve in mens (II), and in intellect (III). "I'm trying to simplify some concepts that are the foundation of the Franciscan spirituality daughter of the insights of Augustine. What is extraordinary element of Francis? Preaching el'intellezione are not two separate things for him because through the words, the meanings attached to the construction of his personal experience, is in fact the spiritual testament of his soul on earth. Every man who has cared for his soul, fulfills his destiny. Any man who develops the animal soul in soul-psirituale and say these words Monsignor clasped thumb with the index-comes in contact with the bottom (I) which can show the truth of God from the bottom of this unfathomable darkness that previously reached by a difficult work of renunciation of material goods, honor the name and glory allla mundane, the novice can follow the path of self-knowledge as "protatore angel of light." Lucifer, the angel of revelation in the scriptures speak, lights the way cognitive assimilation of the divine light that rises up from the bottom of the top intellectual input (III), mystical place where being announced with the source of truth. The illusion of Lucifer intellectus to acquire the power of consciousness and the sight of God is deeply rooted in humans. The two wires of the cross can not be separated. Who rises to the top must also take a vow of renunciation of the libido to rule the world with the angelic powers, and this can be done through the education of mind (II). "I did not understand the words to the end of the cleric, but when it came out of my room, I drew the cross with more strength and the points of intersection and plugged it into the four corners together to form an enclosed space. It seemed a good scheme to paint the inside San Francisco and Lucifer, both transformed by the power of the cross to redeem the original sin by Augustine called libido, the desire to possess, the desire to dominate, madness rationalized. Fifth lesson: the man is psychic gfuarda the mirror ...
ILIL following day Bishop Feltrin burst into the studio in a visible state of excitement.
"I did not sleep all night. It 's amazing. The cross was telling you about yesterday, I suddenly became clear, sharp as ever. "Monsignor was no longer in the skin and took my hand the pencil to draw on a white canvas is still the lower triangle symbol of meditation and the upper symbol of contemplation. But he added VERTICAL and horizontal lines that intersect at various points of the two lines. "Yesterday I spoke at length of the vertical line can describe the process of transformation of the animal, called by St. Paul sarx soul into intelligible features of 'self-awareness of mental matter and finally in' spiritual soul in which the predominant element of pneuma is made intuitive intellect. This line, symbol dell'experienta evolution of the soul, intersects the horizontal line in four points that describe the process of enlightenment of the Ratio. The soul knows the real world walking sulal land horizontally. Begins in childhood and adolescence and to develop the qualities that felt instinctively the presence of the demons of fear of death and abandonment anxiety. Then, after a fruitful period of reflection on the reality of their real feelings, the soul comes in "patella," which is the nodal point in the passage of matter to man 's flesh becomes the man described by the psychic. The man is psychic as Narcissus ... "Monseigneur looked at me quizzically, but he did sign to continue. Cardinal Borromeo, he taught me about Greek myths. "The psychic man looks in the mirror and is reflected not only in itself, but research in the words, actions and thoughts of others is a reflection of their condition. Introspection, the main practice of each novice, is an act of mirroring their sentimeneti from the outside world, to which man understands the other and the world around him in proportion to how much experience and knowledge has of himself, as a soul evolving through the flesh, psyche and pneuma. Now look at the drawing. Through the self-psychological man is confronted with the real world and can begin a true and genuine process of transformation of consciousness. Listening to himself and his words Narciso learned the art from attitudes to evolve an end in itself and begins to project the desire for knowledge in the world of feelings, emotions and sensations that is below the water surface. The mirror of Narcissus is the tool to define the cross of the material transformation of libido and narcissistic love, desire for truth and knowledge "
" The Cross of St. Francis? "Monsignor did not answer. The bell of the oratory was calling from elsewhere. I looked at the strange outline sketched on the canvas and the small cross that appeared at the center of the triangle delal Narciso imagined in the act of contemplation and reflection and think about the world as a reflection of himself. Then the image faded away in a corner of memory
"Interesting this way of moving your customers. Do not think these tricks worthy of pity with Knight. Ah, I like this way of painting the white clothes, I want you to do well in the painting in which there has to be Joseph and Mary during the flight into Egypt. Interesting, yes ..... "The monsignor was aware of the subtle lines that formed the two opposing triangles. I had not yet cleared and ilsegno was visible to those who watched closely. "UMH, number two! multiplied by three! There are two needs that arise in us when we consider the phenomena of nature through the perception thorough knowledge of the phenomena themselves with a critical and assimilate within ourselves with the reflection. Your Bacco their backs to the sun and this is an act of reflection, typical of those who are sick because they do not want to face up to reality, or who becomes a melancholy, reflective and philosopher. The two opposing triangles express a need for completeness which leads us to the order and the order requires a method. Even food taste the grapes or any work of nature requires method, intelligence, skill, because the method facilitates the sensory experience, the refined taste and makes the representations. Eating is an art that is practiced in Rome, right from 'Empire. If we consider an object in all its parts and grabbed him, first with the feeling and then with due consideration to what a pleasure it is able to offer us, then we can reproduce it faithfully in the spirit, and spirit to understand the power of visualization, ' creative imagination and meditation are able to reproduce the same pleasure in mind, especially when we are hungry or desire to enjoy. We therefore need to split the object within a horizontal line anda vertical line. The first allows us to appropriate physical and sensory object, through action and perception at each end of the line, while the vertical line helps us to make the process of assimilation, understanding and reproduction made from the soul, from the mind and intellect. Even as eil food moves from top to bottom, so the knowledge of the food up from the bottom up. This dual method of reflection was defined by St. Francis in one word: contemplation. Who provides this through the cross of lines appropriates the divine nectar, taste the food of God and feels that everything belongs to him, as the grapes are from a single fruit cluster. 
