Michelangelo Buonarroti
Il grande artista del rinascimento, secondo alcuni nato a Chiusi della Verna
The great Renaissance artist, believed by some to have been born in Chiusi della Verna
The name Michelangelo immediately brings to mind his world-renowned masterpieces: the David in Florence, the fresco in the Sistine Chapel in Rome depicting the great Last Judgement, the Pietà, the Moses, and the monumental complex of the Medici Tombs in the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo. A sculptor, painter, architect and poet, he was one of the leading artists of the Renaissance, with works of immense grandeur that still fascinate and move us today. Caprese Michelangelo and Chiusi della Verna represent two important places in his life, as it was in this area that Michelangelo was born and maintained deep ties.
From 1385, the mountain town of Chiusi della Verna was no longer an ancient fiefdom but became the capital of a civil jurisdiction, incorporated into the Florentine state. The territories of Chiusi and Caprese were merged into a single jurisdiction, and in 1474 the Florentine Republic appointed Ludovico Leonardo Buonarroti to serve as podestà of these two territories, with the obligation to reside alternately in the Rocca di Chiusi and the Palazzo Pretorio in Caprese. It was during this period, on 6 March 1475, that Michelangelo was born.
As reported by Vasari himself:
“Thus a son was born under a fateful and happy star in Casentino, to an honourable and noble woman, in the year 1474, to Lodovico di Lionardo Buonarroti Simoni… To that Lodovico, who was podestà that year of the Castle of Chiusi and Caprese, near the Sasso della Verna, where St Francis received the stigmata, in the diocese of Arezzo, a son was born, I say, on the sixth day of March, on a Sunday around 8 o’clock at night, whom he named Michel Angiolo.”
The attribution of Michelangelo’s birthplace gave rise to various disputes between the territories of Chiusi and Caprese. Whilst the most widely accepted hypothesis today attributes to Caprese the undisputed honour of having produced the great genius of Renaissance art, in-depth studies conducted at the State Archives of Florence, the Buonarroti Family Archives and the Kunsthistorisches Institut, also in Florence, support the theory held by all biographers up until the 17th century, namely that Michelangelo Buonarroti was born in the Casentino region, in the castle of Chiusi Nuovo, near Sasso della Verna.
MICHELANGELO ITINERARY
Michelangelo was born in the Arezzo area, a region that inspired his art.
The great artist probably spent periods of his life in Chiusi della Verna, so much so that the outlines of the Verna mountains and the landscapes of the small village are etched into the background of some of his most important works: The Creation of Adam, the Tondo Doni, The Crucifixion of Saint Peter and The Conversion of Saint Paul, bearing witness to the deep love the artist felt for these places.
THE BIRTH HOME – MICHELANGELO MUSEUM
The birthplace was the seat of the Podesteria, where his father resided, and it is from this building that the tour to discover Michelangelo’s haunts begins. The house is situated within the fortress of Caprese Michelangelo and comprises three main buildings: the Palazzo del Podestà, the Palazzo Clusini and the Corte Alta, as well as a garden with an open-air exhibition enclosed within the fortress walls. It was within the Podestà’s house that the Michelangelo Museum was founded in 1875 to mark the centenary of the artist’s birth, though it was not officially opened until 1964 on the centenary of his death. The museum aims to document Michelangelo’s work and celebrate him through sculptures by 19th- and 20th-century artists. The historic building currently houses 19th-century reproductions of the original works Michelangelo created during his lifetime; these are plaster casts, donated by the Gallerie Fiorentine in 1873, which now hold great historical and educational value, being rare and, in some cases, unique faithful copies of Michelangelo’s works. Among the most important works on display are the Tondo Pitti, the San Giovannino, the head of David and the plaster cast of Cupid.
The interior also houses numerous sculptures by contemporary artists and part of the ‘Guidoni Collection’ of 19th- and 20th-century sculpture, thus transforming the birthplace into a museum of sculpture from the Renaissance to the present day.
ADAM’S ROCK
The tour exploring Michelangelo’s legacy continues in Chiusi della Verna, where visitors can discover the landscapes that inspired the artist for some of his most important works, such as *The Creation of Adam*, a fresco painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, and the *Tondo Doni*. Indeed, both works feature the unmistakable silhouette of Mount Penna as seen from Chiusi.
The landscape that forms the backdrop to The Creation of Adam can be admired near the Podesteria in Chiusi della Verna, the very place where the artist’s father stayed during his term of office. The resemblance between the real landscape and that reproduced by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel is so striking that it suggests the artist created the fresco based on a drawing or preparatory sketch made directly on site. Indeed, not only can the outline of Mount Penna be recognised in the work, but the rocks upon which Adam lies half-reclining also match the real ones with photographic precision, so much so that the outline of the body coincides exactly with the boulders still present on the site today. It is precisely for this reason that the area has been named Adam’s Rock. There is no record of Michelangelo’s presence in these parts beyond his birth, but the precision of the landscapes he depicted suggests that he may well have passed through here, perhaps in search of his origins.
THE TONDO DONI
In Chiusi della Verna, you can discover the landscapes that inspired Michelangelo for some of his masterpieces: *The Creation of Adam*, the *Tondo Doni*, *The Crucifixion of Saint Peter* and *The Conversion of Saint Paul*; indeed, the unmistakable silhouette of Mount Penna, as seen from Chiusi, is captured in all these famous works. As Simmaco Percario, a scholar of Michelangelo, notes in one of his essays: “Looking directly at the Tondo Doni, one can easily make out, in the upper right-hand corner, a mountainous landscape that bears a striking resemblance to the unmistakable profile of the cliff at La Verna”.
The inclusion of this landscape in the painting was no accident, but can be explained by the ties that the artist and his family had with the Franciscans and La Verna. In fact, before Ludovico Buonarroti, Michelangelo’s father, the artist’s great-great-grandfather Buonarrota di Simone di Buonarrota (in 1404) and his grandfather Leonardo di Simone (in 1424) had also served as Podestà in Chiusi. The Florentine Republic therefore consistently assigned political offices to the Buonarroti family in the countryside around Chiusi and Caprese, where the most important Franciscan sanctuary in Tuscany was located.
Furthermore, the inclusion of La Verna in the Tondo Doni may have been requested by the patron himself, the merchant Agnolo Doni, a member of the Florentine Wool Guild; this guild, in fact, had been the patron of the Sanctuary of La Verna since 1432 and had come to the aid of the Franciscan community on several occasions.
