Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Sorta Sophisticated with Pete and Amanda. So a buddy of mine goes to Rome last month while I was on my cruise. You remember my excellent Norway trip?
[00:00:09] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Anyway, he got back.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Please keep floating about it.
[00:00:11] Speaker A: I know when you do something that's once in a lifetime, it's kind of a big deal.
[00:00:14] Speaker B: Fair for fair.
[00:00:15] Speaker A: So he gets back and we are at lunch.
[00:00:18] Speaker B: I also love how you make me feel like the bad person.
[00:00:22] Speaker A: By the way, you do your fair of trips. Okay, we do. We do our fair share of travel between the two of us.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: All right.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: Anyway, so he is. He was in Rome and he's telling. Sharing pictures. Picture share. Da da, da. You know, by the way, first of all, people don't share pictures good at all. Do you notice that, like most people, when they're showing pictures on their phone, it's so goddamn slow. Like, slow.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: I've never showed pictures of.
[00:00:43] Speaker A: Oh, if I show them, I'll be like this.
Like, so they just get a gist. I'm like 100 miles an hour. And then if they want me to stop on one, they'll be, oh, hold on, I want to see that. Other people. It's like, here's a picture. Like, huh? Like, here's another picture. You're like, kill me. Anyway, my point of this whole thing was he saw Sistine Chapel. You've seen Sistine Chapel?
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: When'd you go?
[00:01:02] Speaker B: So I graduated in 2008. Walked across the stage, walked straight off the stage, through the doors, exited straight onto a plane, and we went to Italy.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: Wow. You cool.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: And I was not ready. It was my first time ever being out of the country. And there was something very special about the Sistine Chapel.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: It was incredible.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: I was probably your age when that same age when I did it, too. I don't remember exactly. So it was somewhere in my teens. It was incredible. It was. It was. It was remarkable. Anyway, Peter, why are we doing this?
They just renovated the Sistine Chapel. Well, not the Sistine Chapel. They renovate. They just finished a whole renovation on the Last Judgment. The one, like, fresco, I think we call it a fresco. Yeah. So when he was telling me all about that, I was like, well, okay, we haven't done anything on. On Vatican since chapel. I'm like, well, is that enough? Da da. I'm like, you know what?
Why don't we do an episode on Michelangelo? Because he's a pretty misunderstood guy. So naturally, I have to start learning everything there is to know about Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel and the whole thing. And did you know that he wasn't a painter?
[00:02:05] Speaker B: He wasn't?
[00:02:05] Speaker A: No, he wasn't.
He hated painting. He was a sculptor.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: Well, that would make sense because he did, like.
[00:02:13] Speaker A: Okay, but like, hated painting. Not like, do both. Right. Not like Ben Franklin with the. I'm a printer, I'm an inventor. I do some shit with electricity.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Polymeth.
[00:02:22] Speaker A: Polymath.
[00:02:23] Speaker B: Right.
[00:02:23] Speaker A: No, this guy was like, I'm a sculptor and nothing else. I don't know if you talk like that.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: But you said, how did he get into painting?
[00:02:29] Speaker A: Right. He was forced into painting. Thus the reason for this. This is. This is the title of my episode. Are you ready? We just walked right into it. Okay. Title of my episode. The Pope forced him to paint.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: The Pope.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: And he never forgave him. Yes. It's all about the Pope. Totally. Okay, so here's what we're gonna learn.
[00:02:45] Speaker B: Do not see that coming.
[00:02:46] Speaker A: Here's our hooks today. You ready? Three hooks. First, how Michelangelo single handedly invented the whole idea of tortured genius. Did you know that he was the first tortured genius? Yes. Everyone who came after him is just a copycat. Totally. Okay. Second, the cheat code. We always have to have cheat codes. So you can talk about him at a dinner party, Amanda. And impress all your friends. So he can look good. Duh. Sort of through line there. And finally, we'll tell you why his own family edited more than 300 of his love poems after he died. And. And swapped out some pronouns.
Cause they may have been hiding some shit. Did you know he was a poet, too?
[00:03:20] Speaker B: Oh, no.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: Some shit going on. All right. That's what we got.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Oh, this is fascinating.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: This is it.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: I'm already hooked.
[00:03:25] Speaker A: Welcome back to Sword of Sophisticated, the podcast where culture, curiosity, chaos, and Michelangelo collide. I'm Pete. That's Amanda. We're back at it again. Episode 118.
[00:03:35] Speaker B: Dang, we made it. Hi, everybody.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: We did. After 118 episodes, you would think that we would get the temperature right in this studio, wouldn't you? Wouldn't you?
[00:03:46] Speaker B: Sorry, but my fault, everybody. It's my fault.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: Right? So if I start sweating through my shirt, I apologize. We might have to do a shirt change mid shift just to get through.
I probably. I probably could. I don't know. I don't know what that would do.
[00:03:59] Speaker B: Is the world ready for that?
[00:04:00] Speaker A: I don't think so.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: It would be. Have you seen that comedian?
[00:04:02] Speaker A: What? Yes.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: Something.
[00:04:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't.
[00:04:05] Speaker B: I don't love him.
[00:04:05] Speaker A: Yeah, he's not my guy. But like, I. I get that he's Funny or whatever. Okay, can we do word of the week? Can I move on?
[00:04:09] Speaker B: Thank you very much.
[00:04:10] Speaker A: Okay, Word of the week is mordant. M O R D A N T. Mordent. Do you know what it means?
[00:04:15] Speaker B: I don't know. Something about death.
[00:04:17] Speaker A: No, that's like morbid mordant. It means sharply critical, or sarcastic in a biting, incisive way. Incisive way? It comes from the Latin mordere, meaning to bite. Duh. Okay. And originally showed up in English as a term for a chemical when it bites into fabric so a color would hold.
[00:04:36] Speaker B: Oh, I feel like this is up your alley of your whole, like, career and in fashion. Well, chemicals.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: The hell are you talking about? Okay, whatever. Mor. Yeah, they would call mordant chemicals. I don't know. Anyway, so from there, they just switched it to mean more about, like, your wit, like, sharp, sarcastic bite. So it kept the bite, but now it's.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: Who knew that you were mordant?
[00:04:54] Speaker A: Well, that was easy enough. Okay, we're done with that.
Okay, Use it again, please.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:04:59] Speaker A: Find a way. You still got it, but use it again. Okay.
[00:05:01] Speaker B: You should be so proud. Last week, I actually.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: You nailed it right away. You did this twice in a row now. Boom.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: Well, like, I actually used it on my own. You should be also proud of me.
[00:05:09] Speaker A: Wait a second. Outside of the podcast, you did.
[00:05:11] Speaker B: Oh, no.
[00:05:12] Speaker A: Oh, no. You got me excited.
[00:05:14] Speaker B: All right, so you're gonna give us a low down.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: I'm ready. Yes. You ready?
[00:05:17] Speaker B: Oh, I'm ready.
[00:05:18] Speaker A: Let's go, Michelangelo. But first, if you like what you're listening to, hit subscribe, follow us so you can learn everything there is to know about Michelangelo. Well, so you could just, like, you
[00:05:28] Speaker B: could learn a little bit about everything.
[00:05:29] Speaker A: About everything. And just be sort of sophisticated in smartaf. Okay, let's start at the beginning, because that's how we do it. Full name. You ready for it?
[00:05:36] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: Michelangelo di Lodovico Bonarote Simone. Say that 10 times fast.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. I realized he had a lot of names.
[00:05:44] Speaker A: Yeah, well, that's why I shortened it to Michelangelo. Right, so kind of like share or Prince. It was, like, really easy. Okay. Born in 1475. So a long fucking time ago in a tiny town outside of Florence, Italy, called Caprice, where his dad was working as a local administrator guy, like, in the city. I don't know, like an official official in the city.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: They were considered minor nobility. Not rich, not poor. Sort of right there in the middle. And like most parents sort of freak out when Michelangelo starts showing interest in art. Because back then, if you had money even a little bit, you were supposed to like, be in the math and science and stuff. Kind of like, you know your family and you know what they make you do.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: Tell your mom, let's go.
[00:06:19] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. That's what was going on.
[00:06:21] Speaker B: But art was a profession back then, too.
[00:06:23] Speaker A: Yeah, but not like. Not.
[00:06:24] Speaker B: You were always a hungry artist. I guess it's still.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: Maybe the Renaissance. This was pre Renaissance bullshit. Like, this is medieval times. Kind of still like, we're not messing around. Actually, back then they were considered tradesmen. They weren't artists. So think of like. Yeah, manual labor. Right. Because they worked with their hands. So they. It didn't. Like, that wasn't the thing. Not a good look.
Then when he was only six years old, his mother, his mama, Francesca. Francesca. She up and dies, keels over. That's it. Talk about mordant. What does Morton mean? Sarcastic and biting. No, it wasn't. It wasn't at all. Okay. She up and dies, left dad Lodovico. That's where he got his name from. Lodovico alone. To raise five sons. Five.
I'm not going to tell you the names because I don't even know what they are. But there are a lot of Italian names. Vinnie, Michelangelo, Luca. I don't know. I'm making these up. I am. Totally. Okay. All right. Anyway, so he gets shipped off to live with his wet nurse. You know what a wet nurse is? I didn't know what a wet nurse was.
[00:07:18] Speaker B: Don't kill me.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So I guess.
[00:07:19] Speaker B: Do you know they still exist? No. People still use them.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:07:22] Speaker B: Very common in Newport.
[00:07:23] Speaker A: I did not know that. Fascinating. Anyway, right, like pretty normal back then if you had a little bit of money to go live with the lady that, you know, nursed you. Yeah. I mean, dad was running a city and trying to take care of five kids. So anyway, the nurse's family were stone cutters. So he grew up around like, hammers and chisels and all the stone things. I don't even know what they do. And actually he joked that his passion for sculpting came from, quote, the milk of my wet nurse. That's a quote that he had said at one point of his life. That's what got him into sculpting. Right? The milk of his wet nurse. Go figure. So fast forward, I don't know, to about 13 or so. Mom's dead, Dad's embarrassed cause he doesn't want to have anything to do with him because of the whole art thing. And what does little Michelangelo go do?
[00:08:01] Speaker B: Starts to carve in a rock.
[00:08:03] Speaker A: Pretty close.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:08:04] Speaker A: Okay. He talks his way into an apprenticeship with one of the top painters in Florence.
[00:08:09] Speaker B: Oh, interesting.
[00:08:10] Speaker A: Yes. Domenico Ghirlandaio. I don't know if I said that right. Okay. But that's him.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: Is this when he got his hate for painting?
[00:08:17] Speaker A: We're going to get there.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: Like, did he hate the guy?
[00:08:19] Speaker A: No, he didn't hate the guy.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: Oh, he did.
[00:08:20] Speaker A: No. Got to build this shit up. Hang tight. Hold on, hold on. It's all part of the story. So about a year goes by, he outgrows Ghirlandaio, so he moves into the household of Lorenzo de Medici.
[00:08:30] Speaker B: Why does that name sound familiar?
[00:08:32] Speaker A: That is because the Medici family had Pope Leo the 10th. Oh, the famous Medici. Yes. The richest family in Europe. Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah. It was when we did our. When we did our famous Pope episode or whatever, or how they pick a Pope.
[00:08:44] Speaker B: I know. Like, he was like an apprentice of sorts, too.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. It was absolutely fascinating. Yeah, yeah. So now he's in the family. Right. He's a made guy. You're in Italy and you're working for the. The Medicis.
[00:08:55] Speaker B: So by default, when does he start to hate painting? Because it doesn't.
[00:08:58] Speaker A: When does he. What?
[00:08:59] Speaker B: When does he start to hate painting?
[00:09:00] Speaker A: Yeah, like, around. Right then. It's when he started hating painting. Because when he started going, like, to work for the Medicis or was a apprentice, that's kind of when it all happened. Because he was still, like, into frescoes because of Ghirlandaio. But after the Medicis got a hold of him, they shoved him into something called the Medici Sculpture Garden, which was basically this informal academy that Lorenzo de Medici literally funded himself, and it had all this marble in it. And so Michelangelo got to work for this pretty popular sculpture at the time named Bertoldo di Giovanni, and from there, he was totally hooked.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: Okay, okay. So it's like he didn't really hate painting. He just found another medium he loved more.
[00:09:35] Speaker A: Yes, totally. Because he was getting funded to do whatever he wanted to, and that was what was in front of him.
[00:09:40] Speaker B: Right.
[00:09:40] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:09:40] Speaker B: So he just found a different medium so that he started sculpting in Medici's garden.
[00:09:45] Speaker A: Yeah, whatever that academy was. The sculpture garden. Yes. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you would argue that he didn't hate painting because he did paint the Sistine Chapel, like, not when he was 13 years old. It was, like, 20 years later. So, like.
[00:09:55] Speaker B: Right. So he's talented at all.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: He's still around It. But, yeah, I guess the idea is,
[00:09:58] Speaker B: like, he was a painter for his, like, profession. He was a sculptor.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: He was. And that's what he wanted to be identified. Those were his pronouns. Is there a sculptor pronoun? That's what he wanted. He was. He was a sc. He was a he.
Sculptor. I don't even know what to say there. Okay, fine.
[00:10:11] Speaker B: So hold on. So he's a sculptor. That's what he identifies as is his most famous sculpture. David.
[00:10:17] Speaker A: Ooh. One would say probably. Yeah, I would think so. But he started with the Pieta first.
[00:10:25] Speaker B: What's Pieta?
[00:10:26] Speaker A: When he was 23, actually.
[00:10:27] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:10:27] Speaker A: Yeah. So what was he, 13 when he went over there? So 10 years later. Right. That's the Mary holding Jesus.
That's in St. Peter Basilica in Rome. You probably saw it, like, when you went in. Yeah, yeah. Okay. So that's sort of. I don't know which I'm gonna say. David's more famous. But anyway, then when he's 26 or 27, so not even that long later, he's commissioned to do David.
[00:10:47] Speaker B: So first big sculpture was the Pieta.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: Yes. Okay. And then David. Fun fact, two other guys had already been commissioned before him, failed to do it. Like, gave up on the project.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: Really?
[00:10:59] Speaker A: Yes. And he took that, like, undone marble.
[00:11:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:04] Speaker A: And he was the one who figured out how to get David out of that. They didn't even get, like, square one. These guys were, like, staring at this thing, like chisel screwing everything up. But, yeah, he nailed that whole thing and just masterfully made the best sculpture on the planet.
[00:11:19] Speaker B: I mean, in art school, it's definitely the one that you stare at because
[00:11:23] Speaker A: of his little wiener. Yeah. Well, no, but that's where you were going with it. No, I was not. You were.
[00:11:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:27] Speaker A: That's the first thing you noticed, isn't it?
[00:11:28] Speaker B: No, it is, because it is the first piece that is. So.
[00:11:33] Speaker A: I'm sorry, are you talking about all of David, or are you talking about just his little piece? I'm confused right now. You're throwing me off.
[00:11:37] Speaker B: I'm not talking about anything about his little piece.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: It's just about.
[00:11:41] Speaker A: I have a fun fact. I have a fun fact about his
[00:11:43] Speaker B: little piece, but it's, like, the proportions of, like, muscles and face and, you know, it's.
[00:11:48] Speaker A: It's remarkable.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Do you want to know why his wiener looks so small?
[00:11:53] Speaker B: Was not a question on my mind, but I'm sure you're going to tell me.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. Fun fact. So I had to look that up because I cared because it represents self control and restraint. That's the whole idea. Like, they didn't want. Like, in sculpting, if you made it big, it was associated with foolishness or lack of discipline, and it would have drawn more attention. So that's the whole idea behind it. That wasn't the point of the sculpture. So very interesting. Also, another fun fact about this. You're talking about proportions. His head and his hands are bigger than the rest of his body.
[00:12:16] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:12:16] Speaker A: It's the first thing you notice. It was supposed to be placed up on a roof line when I looked this whole thing up. So you were gonna view it from way down below and looking up. Also, probably why they made the wiener smaller, because otherwise you would see his wiener first and couldn't see his face. You get what I'm saying? Like, if his wiener was big, that. Okay, I. I got. I'm way off track here. But anyway, they decided to put on ground level, and then now it sort of looks sort of disproportionate. But that was all done on purpose. The hands, the head, and his wiener, all done on purpose. All thoughtful. Who would have known?
[00:12:47] Speaker B: For visual effect.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: Yes. And you know why they put it in Florence?
[00:12:50] Speaker B: Nope. Again, questions that don't cross my mind.
[00:12:52] Speaker A: Okay, so Florence was a republic surrounded by much bigger and scarier powers. Right. The Medicis, the Pope, Milan. And you remember David.
[00:13:00] Speaker B: Yeah, David and Gloria.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: From the Bible. Yes. Okay. Absolutely. So he was the underdog. And so the idea was put it in Florence because Florence was the proverbial underdog compared to all these other powers in Italy.
[00:13:13] Speaker B: Interesting.
[00:13:13] Speaker A: So it was purposely placed there.
[00:13:15] Speaker B: Do you know who commissioned him? Like, was it intentional that it was kind of like this?
[00:13:20] Speaker A: Michelangelo commissioned it himself. He didn't. I don't know. It was the famous thing in Florence. The Duomo, the.
I don't know, the cathedral. I don't know what it is exactly. It's whatever that group was that was managing that super famous building in Florence that you could still literally see today. They commissioned the whole thing.
[00:13:39] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:13:40] Speaker B: So then after he did David. Is this when he got famous and then somehow got like.
[00:13:44] Speaker A: Dude, he was famous.
[00:13:45] Speaker B: Corralled into painting the Sistine Chapel.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: This is it. Here we go. Okay. Right, so it's like 1508.
[00:13:50] Speaker B: Wait, how old is he?
[00:13:51] Speaker A: He's like 33. He's Jesus.
[00:13:52] Speaker B: He's Jesus's age when he died five years later.
[00:13:54] Speaker A: Yeah. No, no, he finished David when he was like, 27 or 28.
[00:13:57] Speaker B: He started at 23.
[00:13:58] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay. So Pope Julius II, who apparently was known as being a pretty terrifying dude. We did not talk about Pope Julius in our Pope podcast. I don't know why. But anyway, he decides Michelangelo is going to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
[00:14:13] Speaker B: Yes, but why him? He's a sculptor now, right?
[00:14:16] Speaker A: So apparently Michelangelo thought the same thing, and I guess he told the Pope, like, more than a few times. Yeah, I'm not a painter. This is going to be a total shit show. I haven't done frescoes in a really long time, so why are you asking me? And fun fact, There's a theory out there that rival painters had actually pushed the Pope to pick Michelangelo specifically because they wanted him to fail miserably. Don't know if that's true, but absolutely, you could find that there.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: We all know I like a good conspiracy, so here we go.
[00:14:44] Speaker A: You could find that there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I guess at the time, you weren't allowed to say, like, no to Pope Julius. Like, you get killed, or maybe you don't get killed, maybe get thrown in jail. I don't know. But, like, I mean, it's some serious shit. So he finally caves and takes a job, and. And they immediately, immediately start butting heads over this whole thing. I mean, and this is gonna go on and on.
[00:15:00] Speaker B: Michael had a vision, and the budget, right?
[00:15:03] Speaker A: The design, the whole, like, everything about it, right? They can't agree on anything. So it takes them a minute. They figure this all out. Michelangelo finally starts painting. Let's cut shit right now. All the talk that, like, your teachers tell you about him, like, lying flat on his back with paint dripping into his eyes and all that bullshit, it's totally made up. He was not lying flat on his back at all. He actually had a custom scaffolding made that designed, like, it was designed to let him stand while he painted. Now, don't get me wrong, he had to, like, tilt his head backwards and, like, paint the whole time. So he had neck problems and shit, but he wasn't, like, laying down in this miserable. I don't know if this is just as miserable standing and painting, but it's a. I think it would be a lot better than just laying flat on your back. So anyway, sort of a weird fun fact. He finishes it in 1512, so it took him four years to complete. And another fun fact. Jesus, I have, like, a million fun facts today. Apparently, he wrote a poem about it called I've already grown a goiter from this torture. I'm not making it up. That's a real poem. You can go find it. Absolutely. I've already grown a goiter from this torture while he was painting the Sistine Chapel.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: Okay, we'll have a recall to that at the end of this episode, because that sounds kind of fascinating to read.
So did he win when it came to, like, what the picture depicted, or did the Pope win?
[00:16:12] Speaker A: Ooh, yeah. Good one. No. So they both kind of did. Interesting. Yeah. So the Pope had originally proposed, like, a way, way simpler design that was only supposed to have, like, 12 apostles, but Michelangelo wanted something way bigger and way more ambitious because that's what he was. That's how he did everything. That's how he did the Pieta, that's how he did David, the whole thing. So the Pope decided, like, where he was going to paint. Right. But then Michelangelo decided what it was going to look like for the most part. And by the time he was done, he painted more than. Not just 12 apostles, painted 300 different figures on the ceiling with the nine scenes from Genesis. And most famous, of course, is the creation of Adam, where God is touching the finger of Adam right there in the middle.
[00:16:50] Speaker B: So within the four years of him finishing this, did the Pope and him, like, calm down after they, like, decided what was going on?
[00:16:56] Speaker A: They never calmed down. No, no, no, no. It was a shit show the entire time. Fought the whole time. He left the job a few times. He, like, up and left for, like, months and then came back and didn't, like.
[00:17:05] Speaker B: So really wasn't.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: He was painting for photos, said he wouldn't finish. No, this didn't.
[00:17:07] Speaker B: There was other stuff.
[00:17:08] Speaker A: It was on and off, the whole thing. This entire. The poem, the goiter and the torture. Right. Apparently he wrote a lot of letters to his family during this time saying he wanted to kill himself. Like, the Pope was making him do this project. He was too good for it. He's not a painter. He's a sculptor. The whole thing, right? Which is fascinating because when you think about it, because he was a sculptor and he had studied all that shit, his paintings of the human form were ridiculous, like. Like you were saying, like, unbelievable the way that you can see all of the. The veins and the muscles and so much. It was absolutely incredible because nobody painted a human body like that before because they weren't sculptors.
So, like, it worked at such this new, unbelievable level of art, and it sort of changed the way Western artists started painting from there on out. Because of his background in being a sculptor, which I thought was super fascinating.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: I may be off, but, like, something from art school. But I thought, like, a certain style. There's, like, a name that came out of his style of painting, correct?
[00:18:10] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. There's a name for it. Yes, yes. It's called.
I'm Butcher this. Terra bellita. Terra bellita. It's, like, terrible. I don't know. Well, it's Italian. Whatever. Okay? It's the word that historians use to describe the quality of that work. Like, the huge bodies under enormous strain and stress. Like the Adam twisting or God reaching, or they're struggling, like, again, the muscles, the whole thing, Right? So once you notice that terra bellita, you notice it everywhere. In all of Michelangelo's works, It doesn't matter sculptors painting, anything like that. That's the. If you remember anything, remember that little nugget because you'll totally impress your friends, for sure. And that. Let's be honest, that's all this is about.
[00:18:50] Speaker B: One uppers.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: We're totally one uppers.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: So now that we're all able to flex on our friends by knowing his style of painting, is that kind of where his, like, artistic journey ends? Does he die tragically? I know he doesn't cut off his ear, but, like, what happens?
[00:19:03] Speaker A: He does. He commits suicide. He overdoses on sleeping pills.
[00:19:06] Speaker B: No.
[00:19:06] Speaker A: He's like, what is he, 37 years old?
[00:19:08] Speaker B: Right. But, like, those artists are
[00:19:11] Speaker A: like, we're going, not this guy. This guy. Super famous in his lifetime. This is bonkers. He lives till he's like, 87 years old or something like that. Okay? So he wraps the ceiling in 1512. Okay? The same pope that made him do the ceiling then commissions him to do his future tomb. Pope Julius II's future tomb. Okay? Except since it was sculpting, Michelangelo's like, all right, thank you for letting me do this. Right? They still got in fights and everything, but he got it done. I mean, literally, again, took him decades to finish his tomb, but pulled it off. Glorious fashion. It was unreal. Pope Julius II's tomb. Go look at it. Actually, now that I think about it, there's another Michelangelo term worth knowing. It's like terra bellita, but it's just a little different. It's called non finito. So you have to remember both of those terms. You have to remember terra bellita, and you have to remember non finito, which literally means unfinished. So when you think of Michelangelo, he left a ton of his sculptures unfinished. The tomb of Julius is unfinished. The most famous one of his works, the prisoners, like these hu. If you look it up, the prisoners are like, Trying to still break out of the actual marble.
[00:20:10] Speaker B: Right. But that was, like, an artistic choice.
[00:20:12] Speaker A: Yes, it is, absolutely.
[00:20:12] Speaker B: Because he, like, stopped.
[00:20:14] Speaker A: Some people say they don't know, but I would say I'm arguing in other historians and, you know, scholars argue that was his style of sculpting. So, anyway, two things you want to remember about his sculpting style. That's all I'm. Basically.
[00:20:27] Speaker B: Did his style change, like, as he got older, like in his 50s?
[00:20:30] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, it did. It did. Because then ultimately, he wasn't a sculptor anymore or a painter. The older he got, he started buildings. So now he was commissioned to do buildings. Right. And so later in his life, became an architect. So he goes back to Florence. He's in his 50s now. He's working for Medici again. Right, okay. And he designs the Medici Chapel and does all the sculptures and everything inside of all of that as well.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I didn't know that.
[00:20:52] Speaker A: And then does the Laurentian Library look that up? I looked at it. Didn't know anything about this. I didn't see it when I was there or anything like that. Staircases almost look like they're sculptures themselves. The actual staircases that you walk on. I was like, holy shit Burger. You can look it up if you want to right now. Okay. And then, fun fact. Here's the part people entirely forget. So he goes back to the Sistine Chapel, because he had only done the ceiling, so he has to do the altar wall next. So this is the Last Judgment. So he's in it 20 years later, after the ceiling's complete. And this time, Pope Paul III has him paint the Last Judgment. That's the massive, dark painting, like, where all the souls are being.
[00:21:27] Speaker B: But he was a foreshoot this time, huh? He wasn't forced to.
[00:21:30] Speaker A: No, he was. He was Pope Paul iii.
[00:21:32] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: He was forced to. Yeah, yeah. But it was way more personal this time because. Because he was Catholic. Michelangelo's Catholic. He came from a Catholic family. Right. So this was. Yes, of course, he couldn't refuse a pope, but this was like, he was already rich. He didn't need to prove anything to anybody. This was more about how Catholicism spoke to him personally and his story and legacy. He wanted to tell about how he thought about it. So it was his view of, like, the Last Judgment was all his. Not just anger, all his. The way he's conflicted with how God sees humanity, which is sort of like his magnum opus. Right. Like the. I don't want to say the last thing he did, but, like, it was amazing.
[00:22:10] Speaker B: Was it the last thing he did? Because he's, like, 60 now.
[00:22:12] Speaker A: No, because he did do. So he turned. He went full architect. Okay, so because he worked into his 80s. So it started with the Medici Chapel. We talked about the library real quick. But then in 1546, at the ripe old age of 71. 71. He's given the job as the chief architect of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, the literal center of the entire Catholic Church. So I learned from all the research I was doing that apparently the basilica was already under construction for like, umpteen years already. Right, right. Multiple architects, like, died or been replaced or whatever. It was a total mess. So again, Michelangelo's rich af takes over the whole thing, refuses payment, does not get paid to do this at all. Finishes the entire thing just because he can, and said, quote, I'm doing it for the love of God, not for money.
This is his legacy. This is what he does.
[00:22:56] Speaker B: I mean, at 71, he just.
[00:22:58] Speaker A: So he came up with that famous. The dome, right?
[00:23:01] Speaker B: Oh, he did.
[00:23:01] Speaker A: Yes. That's it. That was absolutely his idea. Now, don't get me wrong, it wasn't completed in his lifetime. He had already died because he died in 1564. But absolutely, the dome was his. And fun fact, it is the most copied, most influential piece of architecture in all of Western history.
And we actually built our U.S. capitol, like, based on the same design.
[00:23:22] Speaker B: Huh?
[00:23:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:23:22] Speaker B: The more you know.
[00:23:23] Speaker A: I know, right? Talk about that.
[00:23:25] Speaker B: Fun fact.
[00:23:25] Speaker A: Anyway, out of nowhere, then up one day, he just working on a job, dies. No fanfare, no anything. Yeah. Just wasn't even retired. Just a badass with a hammer and a chisel just goes right down.
[00:23:34] Speaker B: I mean, to say that he just continued into what he loved until he
[00:23:37] Speaker A: died, until he was 80 years old. Right. Literally died doing what he loved. I think it's amazing. That Amanda is the story of Michelangelo. That's the shit nobody teaches. That's. That's the sort of sophisticated version.
[00:23:47] Speaker B: It's true.
[00:23:48] Speaker A: I was fascinated by it because in
[00:23:50] Speaker B: high school, like, I think you just kind of.
[00:23:52] Speaker A: You breeze over.
[00:23:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:53] Speaker A: You're like, here's a statue of David. Let's not talk about his penis. And he was a painter and. Oh, my God, Sistine Chapel. Go look at it. Done and done. No, there's a lot of stuff here.
[00:24:00] Speaker B: Right.
[00:24:00] Speaker A: It was kind of cool, but, like,
[00:24:02] Speaker B: you didn't even cover the poetry.
[00:24:04] Speaker A: Oh, the poetry. Yes. The best poetry.
[00:24:06] Speaker B: Well, he didn't publish it. His family did.
[00:24:08] Speaker A: No, no, no. So, like. So he Wrote a lot of poems. He was a poet. Okay. It's sort of a big deal, Right? So in his lifetime, he absolutely wrote poems. They all came out, they were all published. But then sort of history took over and it got a little gray. Okay, so what do you mean? Okay, bear with me. Quite a few of his poems, let's say his more passionate ones, okay. If you like. A lot of references to physical desires, if you will.
[00:24:33] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:24:34] Speaker A: Okay. Because he was a lover, not a fighter, were written to this Roman nobleman named Tomaso DEI Cavalleri. Not subtle poems, like explicit poems.
[00:24:44] Speaker B: Was this a secret lover?
[00:24:46] Speaker A: So, yes, we're just gonna say, absolutely, yeah.
[00:24:49] Speaker B: And back then, it's like, not a conspiracy. Like, actually, no.
[00:24:51] Speaker A: Yeah, no. Like, no conspiracy.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:24:53] Speaker A: But back then, homosexuals were criminalized.
[00:24:56] Speaker B: This was also the Catholic Church.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: This was formed. Right. So this was not saved. Not like today. But you could get away with putting all of this back in his poetry because people didn't read poetry the same way we read poetry today. Like, today it's more scandalous. Back then, it was just. He was just writing a story to write a story. Like, they didn't take it as his personal story.
[00:25:19] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:25:19] Speaker A: They thought he was just expressing poetry so he could sort of hide in plain sight, I guess is the base way to say it. Okay, yeah.
[00:25:26] Speaker B: So then this nobleman is the one who, like, published all these letters?
[00:25:29] Speaker A: No, no, no, no, no. Like I said, they were available to everybody. Everybody knew he was a poet. So back in the 1560s or whatever, everybody knew and didn't think he was gay. They just assumed he was a literary genius as well. Okay, so far, so good. So I couldn't find anything directly on the Internet about all this, but what I did find was after he died, his grand nephew, also named Michelangelo. So confusing, but has a grand nephew. He decided to publish them so people could read them, but before he does, he goes through them all and edits all the pronouns from he to she.
[00:26:05] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:26:06] Speaker A: And this guy Cavallari conveniently disappears from every poem that he was ever attributed to.
[00:26:12] Speaker B: I'm still so confused, though. Like, he wrote poems to a specific person.
[00:26:17] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: Why are there copies?
[00:26:19] Speaker A: What do you mean, why are there copies?
[00:26:20] Speaker B: How are there copies? Michelangelo writes these poems to this nobleman, right?
[00:26:26] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:26:26] Speaker B: The nobleman has them.
[00:26:27] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:26:28] Speaker B: But how do they get released to the world? Like, how do they emerge? How do they.
[00:26:32] Speaker A: Again, back then, like, nobody cared. I'm sure that Michelangelo wanted them released, so they probably went not just to his lover. They were poems Michelangelo shared. It's the same way he shared his artwork. So maybe he'd make duplicate copies. Maybe like he printed them in whatever.
[00:26:47] Speaker B: They weren't just private poems.
[00:26:48] Speaker A: No, not at all.
[00:26:50] Speaker B: No, he.
[00:26:50] Speaker A: So the only thing that changed was after his death, his grand nephew changed all the language and tried to forcefully push the new ones out into publication. It worked, but sort of worked. So for a few hundred years it worked because the old ones sort of died away or, you know, as people died and you know, they had them available, the new ones with the she instead of he took over. And it worked that way for like 300 years. But of course, historians find everything, so it didn't take super long. So it was like the 1800s maybe. And all of a sudden we were like, oh, oops, we found this one in a cave. Oh, we found this one here. Here we go. And we put it all back together and we're like, okay. We figured out this grand nephew was a total farce. Changed everything. Here are the real documents. And so history sort of re. Revealed itself.
[00:27:36] Speaker B: Weird.
[00:27:36] Speaker A: Does that make sense?
[00:27:37] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:27:37] Speaker A: Okay. That's what happened. Sorry. Still weird. I know.
[00:27:40] Speaker B: I feel like that's also just a fun fact. I think it's fascinating being a poet.
[00:27:43] Speaker A: He was a poet. He was a sculptor, he was a painter.
[00:27:45] Speaker B: He was an architect.
[00:27:47] Speaker A: Architect. Probably an inventor somewhere. I don't even know. Okay, that was.
[00:27:50] Speaker B: I mean, just all of it within itself, I feel like is one big fun fact. But do we have fun facts?
[00:27:54] Speaker A: It was a lot of fun facts.
[00:27:55] Speaker B: Anything else?
[00:27:56] Speaker A: I do, I got. I got a few of them. Hopefully we didn't already go over them. I don't know. Let's see here. Okay.
Yeah. No, I don't think we went over these. I think we're safe. Okay. Number one, when Michelangelo was young, I guess he used to get in a lot of fistfights. He was an angry, angry youth. Michelangelo was specifically with a fellow artist named Pietro Torriggiano. Torrigiano. Pietro Torrigiano. And one story goes that Torgiano punched him square in the nose and broke Michelangelo's nose so badly that it remained flattened and crooked for the rest of his life. Which, I mean, is why if you look at portraits of Michelangelo, it's like he's got a weird ass nose.
[00:28:30] Speaker B: Oh, really?
[00:28:30] Speaker A: There, you know? Yeah.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: I don't know if I've ever, like, looked close enough.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: It's because of Torrigiano.
[00:28:34] Speaker B: Okay. All right.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: Okay. Number two, to be about.
[00:28:36] Speaker B: He burst his mark.
[00:28:37] Speaker A: He did, Right, Sorry. He totally did. Totally did Stolen Michelangelo I planted right in there. Okay. Number two, to be a better sculptor, Michelangelo actually dissected human corpses. How do you like that? Yes. So I guess when he was young, he was allowed to dissect bodies at a church hospital in Florence so he can learn how muscles and tendons and all the bones worked. I guess that's what you get when you get to work for the Medicis. And that is the main reason why he was able to outperform everybody with his artistic endeavor. Yeah, I know. Amazing. Okay, number three. He only ever signed one sculpture. One. Ever One.
[00:29:12] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:29:12] Speaker A: The Pieta.
[00:29:13] Speaker B: It's believed to be.
[00:29:14] Speaker A: Yes, that's it. So the story goes, supposedly he overheard people who were admiring it and attributing it to another sculptor. And at the time, remember, he was only 23 or 24 years old. So he got pissed off, right? Came back that night, carved his name right across Mary Sash. Yes, it's right there. After that, he never signed another one, for whatever reason. I would argue because he didn't need to anymore.
[00:29:32] Speaker B: He didn't sign that one originally, right?
[00:29:35] Speaker A: He didn't.
[00:29:35] Speaker B: He just got a little angsty.
[00:29:36] Speaker A: And did he sign it or did
[00:29:37] Speaker B: he, like, chiseled it?
[00:29:38] Speaker A: Yeah, he chiseled that shit in. Okay, finally, do you know his body was basically stolen after he died?
[00:29:44] Speaker B: What?
[00:29:44] Speaker A: Yes. Michelangelo's body was stolen and done.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: What with.
[00:29:47] Speaker A: Talk about conspiracy theories. Here we go. Okay, so he died in Rome in 1564. He was 88 years old. Jesus. He was old. Okay? And Rome basically assumes they're keeping him because, you know, he had lived there for, like, the last 30 years, and St. Peter Basilica is where they wanted to bury him, and so on and so forth, but Florence was like, no, absolutely not. Bullshit. He's our guy. Like, that's where he was born, and we want him. So his nephew Leonardo goes to Rome and secretly gets Michelangelo's body out of the city disguised as merchandise and smuggled out with other cargo, like in Samsonite luggage or whatever they used back then. I have no idea, but you get the point. So he sneaks the body all the way back to Florence, where Michelangelo gets this enormous public funeral and is eventually buried in Santa Croce.
[00:30:28] Speaker B: Huh?
[00:30:29] Speaker A: In Florence. Who would have known? Could you imagine what the fuck just happened?
[00:30:33] Speaker B: Right? Like, after that long. Ugh.
[00:30:35] Speaker A: Little.
[00:30:35] Speaker B: Little.
[00:30:36] Speaker A: Little Trojan worry here, right? Like, little. Like stealing shit. I don't even know what's happening. Okay. Picked up Helen, took her back out. Like, that's what happens.
[00:30:42] Speaker B: I love it. That's a good One that's a good one to end on. We're gonna end there.
[00:30:45] Speaker A: You know what we didn't talk about? We didn't talk. Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles. Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raffaello. Like, how did that not come up, right?
[00:30:53] Speaker B: Rafaello, Isn't that one of them? Raphael.
[00:30:55] Speaker A: Raphael, Whatever.
[00:30:56] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:30:56] Speaker A: And then there's another one. I don't know. There's a fourth one. I don't know what his name is. Anyway, I never watched the Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles. Whatever.
[00:31:01] Speaker B: I mean, clearly.
[00:31:02] Speaker A: Yeah, duh.
[00:31:03] Speaker B: But I bet you did figure out some other cool things that we could watch that has Michelangelo in it.
[00:31:09] Speaker A: I got a.
[00:31:11] Speaker B: Or like a documentary or a book.
[00:31:12] Speaker A: I have something. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You want to follow up? We'll follow up. Let's do that real quick. If you want the fun facts, if you want the episode summary, if you want anything from us, if you just want to talk to us, if you just want to tell us that, you know what, we don't know what we're talking about. We're only sort of sophisticated. You could do that, too. Really don't care.
[00:31:27] Speaker B: People already do that. It's fine.
[00:31:28] Speaker A: On Instagram. Please, anything. Get involved with us. I'd love to chat. Let's see. One. I would say go to Italy, if you have the money. Duh. Let's go to the Sistine Chapel again. I mean, let's go to, literally, St. Peter's Basilica.
[00:31:39] Speaker B: Amazing, right?
[00:31:40] Speaker A: Or you can just go online, pull up David. Or the Pieta Sistine Chapel. Zoom in. You could do a ton online now. Like, I mean, I don't know if you do it with your girls when you're homeschooling. Like, you can literally go to any of these websites. It is fascinating. Back in my day, you couldn't do. I mean, we had encyclopedias. What the fuck do we know, right? But, like, Even the Internet, 20 years ago, it sucked.
[00:31:57] Speaker B: Now, like, was all, like, lifelike and video.
[00:31:59] Speaker A: It's, like, virtual. It's unbelievable. Anyway, yes. I would highly suggest you just look at it a little bit again. The whole point of being so sophisticated, right? You want to. You want to know a little bit more about it. Understand a little bit about why he painted the way he did or how the bodies look the way they did. It's amazing. Okay. But if you want something easier. Documentary. Totally. Michelangelo. Love and Death, it's called. It's on Canopy. You need a library card for it.
[00:32:21] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:32:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Or Vimeo on Demand. You could watch it there, too. Anyway, it's like it just does a whole look of his whole life and legacy. Like it explains everything. Job well done. Or if you want, just watch Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles, but only watch Michelangelo. Forget the other ones. Okay? That's all I got.
[00:32:35] Speaker B: And if you don't want to do any of that, just remember these details. It seems sort of sophisticated. So first, Michelangelo was a sculptor, not a painter. He considers sculpture his real calling. And when Pope Julius II ordered him to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling, he basically spent four years pissed off that he was doing it. And somehow he still ended up up creating one of the most beautiful and most famous works of art in human history. Second, the statue of David was carved from a giant block of marble that other sculptors had already worked on and abandoned. Michelangelo took the project over. At 26 years old, he spent nearly three years on it and turned an unwanted chunk of marble into probably the most famous sculpture on Earth. Third, the Sistine Chapel ceiling has more than 300 figures and nine scenes from Genesis, including the creation of Adam, which is probably the most famous that everyone knows and remembers. Michelangelo painted it standing on scaffolding, not lying flat on his back like everyone thinks, and hated the physical experience so much that he wrote a poem called I've already grown a goiter from this torture. If anything, go read that.
Fourth, Michelangelo wasn't just a sculptor and reluctant painter. He was also an architect and a poet. In his 70s, he became chief architect of St. Peter's Basilica and designed the enormous dome that became one of the most influential pieces of architecture in the Western world.
And finally, Michelangelo died in Rome in 1564 at 88. But Florence wanted its hometown genius back. So his nephew secretly got his body out of Rome, disguised it as cargo and brought it home, where he received a massive public funeral. Apparently, even death couldn't end the drama surrounding the sky.
[00:34:04] Speaker A: And there you have it, dear listeners. We started today with a 13 year old kid whose dad was embarrassed that he wanted to be an artist. And we ended with a guy designing the dome of St. Peter's Basilica.
So here's what I keep coming back to, Amanda. Michelangelo spends his entire life insisting he was one thing, right, like a sculptor. But then life had a way of asking him to be something else. Paint the ceiling, design this building, write this poem, finish this impossible project.
Half of the time he was pissed off about it, but he kept doing it anyway. And some of the things he resisted the most became the things we remember him for. I think that's something we're sitting with because we spend a lot of time deciding what we're good at and subsequently then what we're not good at. Like, I'm thinking about this whole caregiving thing. He keeps getting shoved in my face. We keep talking about that over and over. So, like, it's God calling me, right? Like, how much of this is God calling Michelangelo?
That's sort of the thing that I'm having a moment with. And maybe that distraction that I'm talking about is, like, what you're supposed to be doing. I'm just saying. So sometimes, like, where is the masterpiece in all this? I don't know yet. Jerry's still out. But I think Michelangelo is a good example for all of us to go down that road and spend some time thinking about if we did our job. Today, you're walking away knowing that Michelangelo wasn't just the naked David guy or the dude who painted the ceiling. He was difficult, obsessive, pissed off, brilliant, and apparently incapable of doing anything halfway. As always, if you liked what you just heard, hit, subscribe, leave us a review and share it with someone who has definitely stared at David and wondered why his hands are so freaking big. Now you know? Until next time, stay curious. Stay non finito. Non finito. Because sometimes the unfinished parts are the most interesting.
