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Pope Paul III's Latest Blog Entry
Pope Paul III
This medal of Pope Paul III may have multiple meanings. Most prominent is that through Jesus Christ good and eternal life triumph over evil and death. Jesus as guardian, protector and defender of His Church and Christianity is symbolized by the griffon and the devil by the snake. Michelangelo's depiction of a serpent can be referenced in the Temptation (Sistine Ceiling) and the damned in the fresco of the Last Judgement (Sistine Chapel).
Compositionally encircling and framing the battling griffon and snake is a gilded garland or wreath of laurel leaves that recall Michelangelo's victorious David sculpted nearly four decades earlier. The following is an excerpt from the Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence website:
On September 8, 1504 the statue was revealed to the city, arousing everyone's admiration, also by virtue of the fact that Michelangelo had worked on a block of marble previously rough-hewn by two other artists, Agostino di Duccio and Antonio Rossellino, who had then abandoned the enterprise. Originally, some parts were gilded: a garland on the head, the trunk (or broncone) behind the right leg and the sling.
It is notable that Michelangelo again uses a garland as a symbol of victory.
The griffon is composed of a series of triangles which was a compositional device employed by visual artists particularly during the Italian High Renaissance and is evident in Michelangelo's Doni Tondo.
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About Pope Paul III
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Pape Paul III (named Alessandro Farnese before becoming pope from 1534-1549).
The artist who created this portrait medal of Pope Paul III that is catalogued as unidentified Roman medalist appears to be Michelangelo Buonarroti. Michelangelo, a Florentine was working in Rome painting the Last Judgement (1534-1541) in the Sistine Chapel in 1540, the approximate date of this medallic work of art. It probably dates between 1540 and 1542 when Michelangelo began the frescoes of The Conversion of St Paul and the Crucifixion of St Peter (Pauline Chapel 1542-1550).
Pope Paul III was enamored with Michelangelo's art and sought Michelangelo's exclusive attention during his papacy. The pope used his power and influence to have the della Rovere family tomb project that had dragged on for over 40 years, completed by other artists so as to free Michelangelo for his work on the Pauline Chapel. The della Rovere tomb was commissioned by Pope Julius II (named Giuliano della Rovere before becoming pope from 1503-1513) and the tombs centerpiece is Michelangelo's sculpture of Moses. With the Moses masterpiece and two other sculptures that Michelangelo had carved for the tomb, the della Rovere's would have to be satisfied. Michelangelo greatly appreciated having the burden of the della Rovere tomb lifted from him as Pope Paul was resolute in having Michelangelo work only for him and established him as the lead architect, sculptor and painter of the Vatican.
Given Pope Paul's admiration and friendship with Michelangelo it is quite reasonable that Michelangelo would reciprocate and create a portrait medal for the pope who requested it. There is no other artist Pope Paul III would value so greatly to create a medal of him. The two men could have kept it between themselves as Michelangelo often worked on pieces of art that others had no awareness of. Michelangelo was generous in giving his drawings and other works of art as gifts to friends and assistants so it is not out of character that he would create a portrait medal for the pope. While Michelangelo did not care to make portraits he is known to have done so, namely a drawing of Andrea Quaratesi (British Museum) and a life-size portrait of Tomasso de'Cavalieri as having been reported by Vasari. The Cavalieri drawings and highly finished drawings for Vittoria Colonna and other dear friends are beautiful, small and intricate, much the same as qualities of this medal.
The physicality of working with bronze in a delicate format is something Michelangelo would be comfortable with and given the exquisite detail, chasing and finishing of the medal it is likely unique in being sculpted by Michelangelo's hand. It is the original, a prototype. There were few contemporaries of Michelangelo capable of creating a medal of this high quality. Artistic masters such as Leonardo died in 1519 and Raphael in 1520. Titian was a painter and the medal is incongruous with his art as well as other gifted High Renaissance artists. The most talented Mannerists are too idiosyncratic and lesser artists were incapable. Any medals that are identical designs are later castings and crude by comparison. The medal in the National Gallery of Art, Washington appears to have been pressed or flattened, which would increase its diameter and there is no detail so that nothing can be determined from it. Generally, the draughtsmanship on many medals of this era is stiff and cannot approach the proportion, anatomy, composition, fluidity, detail and dynamism of this medal of Pope Paul III, from the pontiff's features (the sculpting of his ear, neck, cheekbone and flesh beneath his eye are magnificent) to the contrapposto stance of the saints on his vestments to the battling griffin and snake. Being in constant contact with the pope, Michelangelo could easily have made drawings of him and as with many works, have been lost or destroyed. The circular format was utilized previously in the Doni Tondo (The Uffizi) and also the relief in marble Taddei (Royal Academy, London) and Pitti (Bargello National Museum) tondos. Michelangelo had a tremendous amount of work he was involved with so that this medal was probably worked on in between projects or while he was convalescing from an accident. It is unlikely Michelangelo had the time or inclination to work on additional medals.
The massiveness of the pope's vestments relative to the size of his head in profile recalls Michelangelo's early drawings of draped figures in the Albertina, Vienna and frescoes of prophets on the Sistine Ceiling. Pope Paul had a special devotion to St Peter and St Paul as chosen by Jesus Christ to be the foundation of His Catholic Church and Pope Paul had Michelangelo include these apostles on his vestments. St Paul has his hand holding a text just as is Michelangelo's sculpture St Petronius holding a model of Bologna. The saints are thick-waisted and their expansive robes are consistent with many of Michelangelo's figures. The importance of these two saints to Pope Paul III is reinforced by his commissioning Michelangelo to paint frescoes of the two men. On the front of the pope's vestments is a bearded mask-like face whose beard is split as is the beard of St Paul in the Pauline Chapel. Note the drawing of a Grotesque Head (Royal Collection). Michelangelo was known to utilize masks in drawings and sculpture such as the mask with the sculpture of Night and the masks on the breast and back-plate armor of Giuliano de'Medici that was carved for the de'Medici tomb (ca 1521-1534).
An ink drawing of a Dragon (Ashmolean Museum) is particularly telling as it includes elements found on the reverse of the medal: similarly shaped heads (dragon/snake), an entwined neck and tail (dragon) that echoes the snake constricting the griffin and claws (dragon/griffin) that are nearly identical. The musculature of the hindquarters of the griffin has Michelangelo written all over it (compare it to studies of a horse in the Ashmolean Museum). The battle takes place on a craggy ledge that is similar to the rock formations in Children's Bacchanal and The Punishment of Tityus (Royal Collection). Within this ledge of the medal are the same type of "unfinished" areas and parallel lines that we find chiseled in Michelangelo's marble sculpture to create texture and pattern. Also of note are his drawings The Punishment of Tityus (tree with beak), Three Labors of Hercules (Hydra, Royal Collection) and Helmet-beak (Hamburger Kunsthalle) reflecting his penchant for the fantastic.
Pope Paul probably left this medal with his Farnese family or a friend before his death in 1549 and how it has floated around unrecognized for five centuries is a mystery, just as Michelangelo's Presentation drawings were not documented for many years before entering the Royal Collection.
The medal is gilt and has scratches from people testing it for gold. Having examined the medal under magnification Michelangelo made marks with various tools that exhibit the hatching, cross-hatching, triple-hatching and stippling that appear in his drawings to achieve a shimmering dimensional subtlety on the surface of the medal. With his numerous artistic traits that appear throughout this sculptural masterpiece in relief and his proximity and relationship with Pope Paul, it all points to Michelangelo creating this art.
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