09x01 - Michelangelo Revealed

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MUSIC

February 18th 1564.

Michelangelo Buonarroti,
the great sculptor,

painter and architect,
dies at his home

in one of Rome’s
poorest neighborhoods.

At dawn the following day,
agents of the Pope arrive

at his workshop to search
for anything of value

he may have left behind.

But they find almost nothing.

Before he died,
Michelangelo set fire

to all the drawings and private
papers in his possession.

Soon after, his
corpse disappears,

carried off in
secret to Florence.

The powerful
Church Michelangelo

had served for half a century,
is denied the opportunity

to honor him with
a state funeral.

For four and a half
centuries, the mysterious end

to Michelangelo’s life has
inspired speculation and rumor.

But now, art historian
Antonio Forcellino has made

a startling discovery
that reveals a dark truth

about Michelangelo’s
final years.

Strange inconsistencies
from one famous sculpture

have led Forcellino
on an investigation

that has turned up evidence
of intentional deception,

and close contact with members
of a clandestine fellowship

so threatening,
its radical ideas

were punishable by death
under the Inquisition.

It seems that even as
Michelangelo was glorifying

the Catholic Church with his
sculptures and artwork,

his heart and mind
were leading him down

a dangerous road of
heresy and dissent.

MUSIC

It is here in the heart of
Rome, that Italy's most famous

artist created some of his
best known masterpieces.

The frescoes that
decorate the ceiling

of the Sistine Chapel
and his Last Judgement.

BELL RINGING

Michelangelo’s home and
workshop are long gone,

but the neighbourhood is
still dotted with churches.

Art historian Antonio Forcellino
knows these churches well.

As a restoration expert, he
has worked in many of them.

But his efforts in this
one, San Pietro in Vincoli,

turned up some
unexpected results.

Forcellino is a distinguished
and well known

researcher of
Michelangelo’s technique.

In 1999, he was
appointed to restore

one of the artist’s most
famous works: The Moses.

I came here one evening
before we got started,

and I waited till all the
tourists who come here

every day had gone and I
felt totally intimidated.

I was afraid to touch an
icon that was in the hearts,

in the photographs of people
across the entire planet.

MUSIC

Michelangelo created
the Moses in 1513.

He was 37, and had
already made his mark

with two other masterpieces:

The Pietà for St.
Peter’s Basilica,

and The David for the
city of Florence.

He was a rising star,
on his way to becoming

the Catholic Church's
favourite artist.

His Moses was considered
a museum piece in Italy

before it was even
out of his workshop.

As Forcellino set to
work on the statue,

he could see Michelangelo's
artistic genius up close.

The finely rendered veins
of Moses' powerful arms.

The intricate beard.

The strong, charismatic face.

And the horns, which
are meant to signify

rays of divine light.

It’s extraordinary, it
really looks like flesh.

The sculpture was exceptional,
but during the months

of restoration, Forcellino
and his colleagues began

to notice some serious

imperfections in
the masterpiece.

The left leg was
strangely angled,

and much smaller
than the right.

There was a difference
of almost three inches

in the diameter of one knee
compared to the other.

Also, Forcellino noticed
that on the left side,

the neck was oddly distorted,

though the right
side looked fine.

And the beard was
surprisingly asymmetrical.

On the left Michelangelo
created such an intricate web

of locks that it was difficult
for us to get in there

with the cotton swabs to
clean, while on the right

the beard is totally flat.

As Forcellino worked on the
statue, he began to suspect

that Michelangelo had
radically altered it

just before it was finished.

And this wasn’t the only
sculpture with inconsistencies.

The Moses is the centrepiece
of a funeral monument.

The tomb of Julius the 2nd,

one of the greatest Popes
of the Renaissance.

A patron of the arts, Julius
understood how paintings,

sculpture and
architecture could convey

the Church’s message
to the masses.

He laid the foundation stone for
St. Peter’s Basilica in 1506.

But it is for his achievements
on the b*ttlefield

and his fiery temperament
that he is best remembered:

more of a volcanic warrior
king than a holy father.

And yet, this is how
Michelangelo portrayed him:

lying down in an upper
niche, small and submissive.

I was immediately struck by

Michelangelo’s
portrayal of the Pope.

Traditionally the Pope is
shown either lying in state,

dead but sacred, or as
a triumphant General.

This Pope seemed to
speak another language.

He seemed fragile,
vanquished.

MUSIC

No one had paid much attention
to the Pope before,

because the statue had
been dismissed as the work

of a second-rate sculptor,
who Michelangelo

had sub-contracted to
finish the statues

on the upper tier of the tomb.

But on closer examination, it
became clear to Forcellino

that the Pope could only have
been created by Michelangelo.

In the statue of the Pope
we don’t find the rigid

mannequin-like faces
of the other statues,

but a very convincing
human expression.

These hands are also
typical of Michelangelo.

These pronounced knuckles and
the wide and deep-set nails.

MUSIC

Other experts agreed, and it
is now generally accepted

that the Pope is
Michelangelo’s.

But we still had to
understand why Michelangelo

had chosen to represent the
papacy in such an unusual way.

MUSIC

Michelangelo first met Pope
Julius the 2nd in 1505.

The Pope was impressed by
the young man’s talent,

and appreciated his
independent spirit.

The two would come to
admire each other greatly.

Julius’s tomb would be the
artist’s first papal commission,

the beginning of a
relationship with the Holy See

that would define the
rest of his life.

But their affection
for each other makes

Michelangelo’s unusual
portrayal of the Pope

all the more strange.

Other statues prove
equally perplexing.

Michelangelo called these
statues The Active Life…

…and The Contemplative Life.

The figures, which had been
represented in Church art

since medieval times,
normally symbolize

the two Catholic
paths to salvation:

Faith by The
Contemplative Life,

and Good Works or charity
by The Active Life.

The art history books
Forcellino consulted,

said The Active Life holds

a garland of flowers
in her left hand,

and a mirror in her right.

But close up, Forcellino
could see that the objects

were not as described.

The garland appeared to be
a crown of laurel leaves.

And the mirror was
some kind of torch.

We realized it couldn’t under
any circumstances be a mirror.

It looked more like a torch
or a small lantern.

Forcellino was shocked
that no other art historians

had noticed the incongruities.

He researched other
descriptions of the tomb,

and eventually realised
that he needed

to go directly to the
source for his information.

He turned to Michelangelo’s
official biography,

which the artist had personally
dictated to a young scribe,

Ascanio Condivi, near the
end of his life in 1551.

Michelangelo paid
very close attention

to the symbols in his works;
every tiny iconographic detail

is precisely thought out,
very carefully elaborated.

In the pages dedicated
to the Pope’s tomb,

Forcellino made a
surprising discovery.

Michelangelo himself
was to blame

for the misleading
descriptions.

The biography describes
the Active Life,

and it’s Michelangelo who
dictated the description

as a female figure who looks
at herself in a mirror.

But it’s clearly visible
that what she’s holding

is not a mirror but an object
which I interpret to be a torch,

an oil lamp.

It seems like a minor
discrepancy, but during

Michelangelo’s time, it was
immensely significant.

Since none but the
Clergy had access

to the written words
of the Bible,

most people were heavily
influenced by religious imagery.

So what motive could
Michelangelo have had

for incorrectly
describing the statue?

To find that answer,
Forcellino would need

to dig into the
historical records.

And so began an
obsessive search

for the true meaning behind
Michelangelo’s work.

BELL RINGING

Setting aside second-hand
accounts of Michelangelo’s life,

and even the artist’s
own biography,

Forcellino turned to the
actual contracts written up

between Michelangelo and
Pope Julius the 2nd.

Under the terms of the first
document, dated 1505,

the tomb was to be a
grandiose tribute

to Julius' imperial Papacy, a
huge, three-tiered monument

featuring no fewer than 40
biblical and mythical figures.

Michelangelo was to
be paid generously,

but it would be a long time
before he finished the project.

Almost from day one,
Julius distracted

him with other projects.

In 1508, he asked Michelangelo
to decorate the ceiling

of the Sistine Chapel,
an enormous undertaking

that occupied him full
time for five years,

and earned him
universal recognition

as the world’s greatest
living painter.

The Pope’s tomb was still
just a project on paper

when Julius died in 1513.

In the years that followed,
Michelangelo was routinely

pressured by successive
Popes to ignore

his obligations to Julius,
and work for them.

Julius’ heirs, meanwhile,
accused Michelangelo

of embezzlement for
accepting their money

but not completing the tomb.

In the end, it would
be forty years before

the artist finished
the project.

And the tomb’s final
appearance was

a mere shadow of its
original grandiose design.

It went down in history as a
pastiche of odds and ends

with no particular meaning
that an ageing Michelangelo

had cobbled together,
simply to end

the 40-year wrangle
with the Pope's family.

And yet, something
told Forcellino

there was more to
it than that.

He went back to
Michelangelo’s biography

for an account of the
final negotiations

over the tomb’s completion.

Forcellino noticed that
Michelangelo had highlighted

the role of an obscure
Cardinal, Ercole Gonzaga,

in establishing the final
design of the monument in 1542.

Condivi’s biography mentioned
in passing, a person

who had never been studied in
relation to Michelangelo before,

the Cardinal Ercole Gonzaga.

Condivi says Gonzaga
had seen the Moses

in Michelangelo’s workshop
and said that that sculpture

alone would be enough
to honour Julius II.

Michelangelo had originally
created the Moses

for the Pope’s
tomb back in 1513.

But as the project
was scaled down,

the sculpture had been
set aside as too large.

It reappeared in the plans in
1542, at Gonzaga’s suggestion.

MUSIC

Gonzaga was a distinguished
political and religious figure

during the mid 16th Century,

and a close relative of
Pope Julius the 2nd.

The Cardinal had been a
mediator in the tense

negotiations with
Michelangelo for years.

He came from a wealthy
family that governed

the city-state of
Mantua, one of the most

refined and forward-thinking
courts in Italy.

His papers are preserved
in the city’s archives.

MUSIC

Gonzaga corresponded with
the Pope, with the Emperor,

Charles V, and with
the ambassadors

of the great European powers.

He was a major player.

Among his papers I found
a number of letters

about Michelangelo, and
they’d never been published.

The letters featuring
Michelangelo were to two

leading European
personalities of the time:

A powerful English Cardinal
named Reginald Pole,

and the Roman noblewoman and
poet, Vittoria Colonna.

Gonzaga, Pole and Colonna
were evidently close friends,

they corresponded
and met frequently.

Michelangelo was clearly
well-known to them,

his name is mentioned often.

Gonzaga’s private
letters ushered me into

this obscure and insidious
realm, this web of relations

among a group of
people who were close

to Michelangelo around 1545.

Gonzaga and the others
admired Michelangelo,

but they were also involved
in much bigger matters

than sculpture and art.

They were part of a
religious renaissance

that was threatening
the very foundations

of the Catholic Church.

The conflict centred
around the ever-widening

religious battle
between the Church,

and reform-minded Protestants.

Martin Luther and his
Protestant supporters

railed against the moral
decadence of the Church:

the sale of forgiveness
or Indulgences,

the ostentatious
wealth of the Papacy,

and the corruption that was
rife among the clergy.

For the first time
in 1500 years,

the Catholic Church
was in deep crisis.

Colonna, Pole and Gonzaga
were on the front lines

of this religious debate.

They were among an increasing
number of loyal Catholics

throughout Italy who
embraced the idea

of a profound renewal
of the Catholic faith.

They wanted reform, but
believed it could be achieved

from within the
Church, thus preventing

a split with the Protestants.

But the Church orthodoxy
was threatened

by the idea of reform,
and the conservatives

were willing to go to extreme
measures to prevent it.

MUSIC

At this point, the story of
the group around Michelangelo

when he made the tomb
became more important

for me than the story
of the tomb itself.

Historical sources confirm
that Gonzaga, Pole and Colonna

were prominent
Italian reformists,

and their letters
demonstrate that

they held Michelangelo
in high regard.

But were they simply
art enthusiasts,

or was there more to
their admiration?

To try and find out, Forcellino
sought out Alexander Nagel,

an art historian who has
studied how Michelangelo

was influenced by the
religious debate of his day.

Nagel believes that Michelangelo
and Vittoria Colonna

had a friendship that
transcended art.

It’s not known exactly
when Michelangelo

met Vittoria Colonna but it
probably occurred in the 1530s.

Every account that we have
of their relationship

suggests that it was
a very powerful one.

Michelangelo...

A celebrated poet in her
lifetime, Colonna came

from one of Rome’s most
established noble families.

We have several letters between
them and they are rich

with information about how
they felt about each other

and how they felt about art
and poetry and religion.

From their writings, it
emerges that Michelangelo

and Colonna, though
both devout Catholics,

yearned for religious reform.

In one letter, the
artist supports an idea

central to Luther’s
attack on the Church.

He says “La grazia divina
non Si può comprare”,

that means divine grace
cannot be bought;

which is to say it
cannot be earned,

you can’t do good things
or pay money to have

a chapel founded in church
or pay money to have

masses said for your
soul and expect that

that’s just going to save you.

Michelangelo's letters, reveal
that he was increasingly

concerned about what
would happen to his soul

after he died. The
Catholic Church told him

he could earn his place
in heaven by having faith

and doing Good Works,
like going to mass,

giving to charity and supporting
the Church financially.

But the Protestants said
he could do nothing

to earn his salvation,
because salvation came

from faith, and faith alone.

It is clear from
their exchanges,

that at least in private,
both Michelangelo and Colonna

took the Protestant view on this
extremely delicate question.

But if Michelangelo was
questioning the theology

of the Church, he must
also have struggled

with his own role
in furthering it.

Artists were very much
part of the problem,

most artists in this
period made religious art,

you would have fresco
paintings made for the chapel

you might put your
tomb in the chapel,

have it nicely decorated. This
is the work that artists did.

For Michelangelo, the
problem was uniquely acute.

His main client was not just any
church but the Holy See itself,

which saw in his art a
powerful instrument

of mass communication.

Michelangelo created
masterpieces

glorifying the Church, but
Forcellino also found

references to very
different drawings

the artist made for
Vittoria Colonna.

Their message was more personal

than his paintings for
the Vatican Palazzos.

They don’t cost a lot of
money in any material sense

but they’re filled
with meaning.

And it is in discussing those
drawings that Michelangelo

makes his most trenchant
comments about the system

of religious art, of
church art, which is also

the business of
indulgences, of endowments,

of good works essentially.

We needed to return to
Christ and these drawings

do that in a very powerful way.

The drawings leave the Church
completely out of the picture,

bringing Christ
directly to the people.

They circulated among
Gonzaga’s friends,

and Michelangelo appears
to have dedicated one

to Reginald Pole, the
English Cardinal destined

to have a central role
in the religious clashes

that were about to occur.

Pole was among the most powerful

and respected
cardinals of his day.

For help understanding
his reformist ideas,

Forcellino turned to
Professor Thomas Mayer.

It's important to think
that he is a scion

of the very highest
English nobility.

Pole is, although not first
in line for the throne

when he was born, close; and he
is sent to Italy by Henry VIII,

to Padua, he gets the best
imaginable education,

he meets everybody, he
goes back to England,

expected to become arch
Bishop of Canterbury,

that's the spiritual head
of the English church.

So, he is right in
the middle of that.

And then he leaves
England in 1532.

Pole returned to Italy
at a critical moment.

Pope Paul the 3rd, elected
in 1534, inspired great hope

among Italian reformers.

He made Pole and other
progressive men Cardinals,

but ultimately, his commitment
to change would prove limited.

By 1541, Pole had become
Papal Governor of Viterbo,

a town near Rome.

His personal charisma
made him the focal point

for a network of
reform-minded Bishops,

theologians and humanists, as
well as poets and artists.

Among them were Vittoria
Colonna and Ercole Gonzaga.

Forcellino’s references call
the group The Spirituali.

They were for the most part
extremely privileged people,

extremely well educated people,
who had a very spiritual

conception of religion,
which now we recognize

as sympathetic to
Protestantism.

But in the moment their
positions were not

protestant positions, they were
positions that were possible

within traditions of thinking
about man’s relationship to god.

Loyal Catholics, they saw in
Pole a leader who could define

a middle ground, heal the
divide with the Protestants,

and lead the Church into
a more spiritual era.

Michelangelo is very close to
this group in these years.

He is clearly a
member of the group,

and produces images
that mirror its ideas.

MUSIC

In the early 1540s, the
Spirituali were at the height

of their power and popularity,

in Italy and within
the Church itself.

A profound renewal of the
Catholic faith seemed at hand.

But deeply worried by the
Spirituali’s growing influence,

Conservatives within the Church

joined forces to defend
their authority.

Their leader was Cardinal
Gian Pietro Carafa.

In a 17th Century biography,
Forcellino comes across

an astonishing description.

Carafa is described as the
greatest, most glorious

and pitiless persecutor
of heresy in Italy

and the greatest, most glorious
and pitiless persecutor

of the most important group
of Italian heretics,

that of Reginald Pole
and Vittoria Colonna.

Carafa came from an illustrious
and noble Neapolitan family.

He had personal designs on
the Papacy and saw in Pole

his main competitor.

Their destinies would
become closely intertwined.

They become Cardinals at
exactly the same time.

They both aspire at some
point in their career

to very high status. Carafa
I think much more actively

than Pole did. But other
than that they are from

very similar backgrounds, I
think that’s very important.

They are a generation
apart in age, and I think

that’s very important, cause
Carafa assumed on some level

a degree of deference from
Pole, that Pole was not

prepared to give him just
because he was older.

So Carafa is a personality,
I think it matters,

that his personality is not
shall we say flexible.

Unlike Pole, who was
open to Lutheran ideas,

Carafa considered Lutheran
synonymous with Heretical.

Austere and rigid, he became the
Spirituali’s fiercest enemy.

MUSIC

Carafa makes common cause with

the most conservative
faction in Rome.

The ones who want to keep
business absolutely as usual.

They have tremendous power.
That’s a brilliant move.

Pole has poets and
artists and people

who are not used to discipline.

So Carafa has an
advantage there.

With Carafa out to destroy the
Protestants and the Spirituali,

Michelangelo was caught
in the crossfire.

Since 1536, the artist
had been on salary

as the Vatican’s supreme
architect, sculptor and painter.

In 1541, he finished
the Last Judgement,

a fresco representing
Christ’s Second Coming

for the altar wall of
the Sistine Chapel.

But Carafa led an
as*ault on the work,

declaring the masterpiece’s
naked bodies

obscene and immoral,
totally inappropriate

for a Christian chapel.

MUSIC

Michelangelo was devastated.

He wrote in anguish:
“What judgement shall be

so barbarous as to deny
that man’s foot is nobler

than his boot? And that
his skin is nobler than

that of the sheep with
which he covers himself?”

His sensibility was the
essence of the Renaissance.

The focus was on man,
not on the Church.

Fortunately for Michelangelo,
Pope Paul the 3rd

immediately came
to his defence.

He showed his support
by offering the artist

another high-profile,
Papal commission.

Despite the scandal over
Michelangelo’s nudes,

Pope Paul III
practically forced him

to decorate his private chapel,

the Pauline Chapel, where
Michelangelo would paint

nude angels that are
even more beautiful,

more sensual, than those
in the Last Judgement.

Carafa denounced Michelangelo’s
frescos as indecent,

but in truth, the nudity was
only a secondary offence.

What Carafa and his fellow
Conservatives really opposed

was the lack of concessions
to the Church hierarchy.

There are no depictions
of Popes or Bishops

in their ritual vestments.

Christ speaks directly to
St. Paul.

Forcellino believes Michelangelo
drew his inspiration

for the piece, from a
passage that formed

the foundation of
Protestant belief.

Christ says to Paul “whoever
believeth in me shall be saved."

It’s not a stretch to assume
Michelangelo knew the verse.

We know from his
contemporaries that the artist

owned a bible, and since
he didn’t read Latin,

his copy was likely the
ill*gal Italian version.

The first translations were
into German by Martin Luther,

but other editions, including
the Italian, soon followed.

Possession of any
bible by non-Clergy

was considered a crime
against the Church.

In March of 1542, 40
years after he began,

Michelangelo finally dedicated
himself to finishing

the tomb of Julius the 2nd.

MUSIC

But once again, he was caught
up in the religious conflict.

That summer, Carafa
went on the offensive,

convincing Paul the 3rd to
reinstate the Inquisition

as a means of attacking
Protestants,

and their sympathizers
within the Church.

The Pope appointed Carafa
Inquisitor General,

but initially gave
him no funds,

a balancing act typical
of his Papacy.

Carafa could attack the
Protestants openly,

but he had to be more careful
with the Spirituali,

since the Pope still held
Cardinal Pole in high regard.

So Carafa bided his time,
slowly gathering evidence

against Pole while using
his prosecutorial powers

to go after less
well protected reformers.

His first victim was
Bernardino Ochino,

an itinerant
preacher from Siena,

famous for the beauty and
power of his sermons.

Ochino was a close friend
of Vittoria Colonna,

and had a strong following
throughout Italy.

Carafa summoned Ochino to Rome,

to justify some questionable
themes in his sermons.

Fearing arrest, Ochino instead
decided to head north,

towards safety in
Protestant Switzerland.

Gonzaga saw him off
at the frontier.

On the run, a scared
but liberated

Ochino wrote to Colonna,

“I’ve decided to flee, as
it is clear that in Rome

they want to reform the Church,
starting with my death.

Now I can finally take off
the mask and say the truth.”

Concerned about Colonna’s
safety, Pole persuaded her

to hand the letter over
to the Inquisition,

and dissociate herself from
her friend in trouble.

MUSIC

She did so, but Ochino’s
letter and flight

gave Carafa just the
ammunition he needed

to build internal support
for his crackdown

against Pole and
the Spirituali.

The threat continued to build.

The Spirituali were
forced underground,

where they continued to work on
their reformist manifesto:

The Benefit of Christ’s Death.

The group met in
Viterbo to prepare

the book for publication.

They printed 40,000 copies,
although the manuscript

was already circulating widely
among Italian reformers.

It’s written in
pretty direct prose.

And it’s stuffed
with quotations from

the fathers of the Church
with a just slightly

off twist in the emphasis.

The crucial point
about the emphasis

is that the institutional
Church is not there at all.

The text embraced
the Protestant view

that Faith in Christ’s sacrifice
was the key to salvation.

Although Pole made
sure that Good Works

were given some weight,
the implication was that

the Church and its
sacraments played no role

in the salvation of mankind.

It’s published
anonymously of course

and it’s immediately
targeted by the Inquisition,

which begins to hunt
down the authors

and takes the book
out of circulation.

Carafa declared it
heretical and censored it.

Reginald Pole and Vittoria
Colonna, suspected of being

among the publishers,
were brought before

the Inquisition for
interrogation.

BELL RINGING

MUSIC

Four hundred and fifty years
later, Forcellino believes

there may still be records of
the Inquisition proceedings

against the members
of the Spirituali.

Many of the transcripts and
files have been destroyed,

but in the Vatican Archives,
he digs up a number

of letters from Pole and
Colonna that had been

intercepted by Carafa’s spies.

MUSIC

One of these letters contains

an unexpected reference
to Michelangelo.

Written by Vittoria Colonna,
it mentions the 1543 meeting

at which the
Spirituali prepared

their manifesto
for publication.

The document clearly states that
Michelangelo was in attendance.

The artist apparently
brought one

of his drawings for Colonna.

His presence at such
an important meeting

proves that Michelangelo not
only shared his friends’ ideals,

he had direct access to the
ill*gal Spirituali manifesto

at the very time
he was completing

the tomb of Julius the 2nd.

To Forcellino, the historical
evidence is adding up.

He believes he can
see the influence

of the Spirituali
religious ideas

in Michelangelo’s
tribute to the Pope.

It’s this torch, this source
of light in the hands

of the Active Life that
goes right to the heart

of the devotion expressed in
the Benefit of Christ’s Death.

In the group’s manifesto,
the Spirituali reaffirmed

the Protestant belief that only
Faith in Christ’s sacrifice

could open the
doors to paradise.

But to try and placate the
Church, they were careful

to say that Good Works such as
charity were also important.

Good Works were the
burning flames

that illuminated the true
faith of the good Christian.

This figure representing
good works,

which we see here
holding a torch,

she doesn’t have the power
to save but is able

to enlighten, to bring to
light the power of faith.

Forcellino believes the
Spirituali also inspired

Michelangelo’s unusual
representation of the Pope.

The statue of the Pope,
which seemed to me

inexplicable at the beginning,
in the end it’s perfectly clear

in light of the ideas
that this group

was cultivating and
that they expressed

in the Benefit of
Christ’s Death.

For Michelangelo
this was the best

possible expression
of the Papacy.

A Papacy that would distance
itself from imperial grandeur

and finally dedicate
all its energy

to the private and urgent
meditation of faith.

Forcellino thinks the
flaws in the Moses

can also be explained by
the Spirituali influence.

Supporting his
earlier deductions,

he finds a record from
an anonymous source

close to Michelangelo, that
the artist had re-carved

the statue at the last minute

to turn its head to the left.

This could explain the strange
shoulder, beard, and leg.

We know Michelangelo was
capable of doing this

because we can see it clearly
in the Pietà Rondanini,

where Michelangelo
repositioned the face

of the Madonna by 90 degrees.

MUSIC

But we didn’t know he’d
done it on the Moses.

MUSIC

When Michelangelo first
created the Moses in 1513,

the statue looked
straight ahead,

towards the altar, where the
parish Priest holds mass.

But decades later
says Forcellino,

the artist no longer
wanted Moses gazing

at the instruments of
the Catholic Church

Christopher Frommel,
acclaimed art historian

and Forcellino’s
mentor, agrees.

He could have finished it like
it was and be done with it.

In the original grand
project it was supposed

to be one of several statues
on the highest tier.

It now becomes the
protagonist at a time

when Michelangelo has
great doubts about

the official Church, and
so he doesn’t have him

look towards the altar
as we would expect;

he has him search for the
light, he hasn’t found it yet

but he’s searching
for the light,

for a direct contact with God.

By shifting the statue’s
gaze away from the altar,

Michelangelo
reinforced his belief

that man’s direct
relationship with God

is what mattered, not the
role of the Priests.

Forcellino is convinced
that the artist transformed

a monument intended
to celebrate a Pope,

into the political and religious
manifesto of the Spirituali.

MUSIC

Pope Paul the 3rd, who
had long protected

the Spirituali and
Michelangelo,

even while giving Carafa power
to pursue them, died in 1549.

Before he passed away,
the Pope indicated

that Pole was his choice for
succession to the Papacy.

But the Englishman was one
vote short of a majority.

We are still in time to
avoid a traumatic solution

to Europe’s religious crisis,
but that hope is dashed

by Cardinal Carafa,
who intervenes during

the Conclave saying he has
proof of Pole’s heresy.

LOUD BANG

The proof is Pole’s involvement
in the publication

of The Benefit of
Christ’s Death.

MUSIC

Pole was defeated.

The Spirituali’s dream of
reforming the Church was dashed.

MUSIC

Then, in 1555, Carafa
himself became Pope,

and the Inquisition became
a priority for the Church.

One of Carafa’s first decisions

was to suspend
Michelangelo’s pension.

The artist was now
isolated and alone.

Vittoria Colonna had died

under mysterious circumstances
a few years earlier.

Reginald Pole had
fled to England.

His allies secured him a
position as Papal Ambassador,

but Carafa repeatedly
tried to extradite him

and put him on trial.

Like Michelangelo,
Ercole Gonzaga

was intimidated into silence.

The names of practically
all the Spirituali

made their way into the
Inquisition registry,

and some of Michelangelo’s
closest friends were imprisoned.

MUSIC

Forcellino believes
the artist realized

that the reformist
symbolism he had carved

into the Pope’s tomb, done
at a time when

the Spirituali
movement was strong,

could now cost him his life.
He needed a way to mask

the true meaning of his work.

At this point anything
that openly expressed

the ideas of the Spirituali
becomes dangerous.

The tomb, which set
them in stone,

born of the enthusiasm that
these ideas would win the day,

becomes deeply compromising.

And this explains
why a year later,

dictating his
biography to Condivi,

Michelangelo gives that absurd
and misleading description.

Michelangelo’s words
carefully concealed

the true meaning
of the sculptures.

The torch and the laurel crown,
which Forcellino believes

originally symbolized
the Spirituali notion

that Charity was important
but could not save,

became a flower garland and a
mirror, representing prudence.

The references to prudence
were undoubtedly double-edged.

Prudent religious thought for
all, and prudent actions

for himself given his
dangerous circumstances.

Incredibly, the
artist's cover-up

held for four and
a half centuries.

MUSIC

Michelangelo lived
the rest of his life

in a climate of
fear and intimidation.

As Pope, Carafa threatened to
destroy the Last Judgement.

And the Church later
veiled his nudes

in both the Sistine
and Pauline Chapels.

MUSIC

But perhaps fittingly,
even as Carafa tried

to tear Michelangelo
down, others within

the Church were still
asking him to help

protect the Papacy’s image.

He was called upon to salvage
the Basilica of St. Peter,

which had been under
construction since 1506.

The enormous Basilica was
to be a living symbol

of the unassailable
power of the Popes.

But the construction
had gotten mired

in corruption and scandal,

and the Church believed
Michelangelo was the only

one who could restore order
and get the project finished.

So under Carafa’s
oppressive rule,

the artist struggled with this
last, overwhelming obligation.

In his final days,
Michelangelo also worked

on a sculpture for
his own tomb.

He portrayed himself
as Nicodemus:

The man who visited Christ
on the cross at night,

because he didn’t
have the courage

to worship him openly by day.

In this very personal
sculpture, the artist clearly

lamented his own torment
at being unable

to express his true
faith in public.

MUSIC

As Michelangelo felt
death approaching,

he burned almost
all the drawings

and letters he had left.

He wanted no one to know his
most intimate thoughts.

Comforted by his bible,
he died in bed

on February 18th 1564.

His body was shepherded out
of town under bails of hay.

MUSIC

In Florence, Michelangelo’s
native city,

hundreds of his fellow
citizens gathered in tears

to pay homage to the man they
called the Divine Artist.

Only in death did
Michelangelo finally escape

the city at the heart
of his inner turmoil.

He spent a lifetime
serving and memorialising

the Church as a loyal
and devout Catholic.

But all the while, the
remarkable artist,

sculpture and architect was
struggling for the courage

to openly represent

what he believed the
Church should become.