Note 73 — HENRY FUSELI, Esq. M.A. R.A. (continued 3)

There went a tale that Michael Angelo proposed to demolish the palace of the Medicis, like that of the Bentivogli at Bologna, and to call the site "Piazza de' Muli," the place of Bastards, in allusion to the illegitimacy of Clemente VII. Alessandro, and others of that family. "A feature," says Fiorillo, "if true, as characteristic of his natural ferocity as disgraceful to his heart, after the benefits heaped on him from his infancy by that family. Varchi, however, defends him against this charge."[74] Whether this tale confutes itself or not, may be left to the reader; but on an estimate of his private and public conduct, as man and artist during the long course of his life, it must be owned, that this is the period which offers the most specious opportunity to a sceptic in morals, of fixing some doubts on the integrity of his principles. His earliest actions prove that he drew a severe line between the duty which he owed to his country, and gratitude imposed by private obligations. He left the family of Pier de' Medici on finding his principles incompatible with the laws of a free state; and on the expulsion of the petty tyrants, without lending a hand to the devastation of their property, felt it his duty to act as a free man on the re-establishment of liberty, and to obey the laws of a state whose right to legislate for itself had been acknowledged by all Italy. It will not be said, that it is palliating duplicity to assert, that as a private individual he had a right to accept the behests of Leo X. and Clemente VII. for decorating a sacred edifice; but when he became a leader of the revolution, the trustee of his country's safety, the main defender of the city, did he not more than degrade himself, by forgetting the patriot in the artist, and "secretly" sacrificing time to raise monuments to men whose titles he opposed and whose principles he detested? Thus, whilst his conduct may prove the absurdity of the tale, that he publicly, and with illiberal sarcasms, advised the demolition of palaces belonging to a family whose memory he secretly laboured to perpetuate in monuments inspired by the most amorous phantasy; it certainly does not screen his character from the imputation of a duplicity to which no other period of his life offers a parallel.