Discarded deity: the rejection of Michelangelo's Bacchus and the artist's response

Cardinal Raffaele Riario (1460–1521) hired Michelangelo in 1496 to carve a life-size Bacchus for display in his new palace. Bank records and the artist's letters prove that Michelangelo spent a year carving the sculpture, for which he was paid in full. Although scholars agree that the patron ne...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Renaissance studies 2014-06, Vol.28 (3), p.443-458
Main Author: Minter, Erin Sutherland
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Art commissions
Art history
Arts patronage
Bacchanalia
Bacchus
Cardinals
Michelangelo
Patronage
Payments
Popes
Renaissance art
Renaissance period
Sculptors
Sculpture
Theater
Visual artists
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Summary:Cardinal Raffaele Riario (1460–1521) hired Michelangelo in 1496 to carve a life-size Bacchus for display in his new palace. Bank records and the artist's letters prove that Michelangelo spent a year carving the sculpture, for which he was paid in full. Although scholars agree that the patron never possessed the work, determining why Riario rejected the sculpture has proven more difficult. This paper considers how the Bacchus would have contributed to the cardinal's thoughtfully constructed identity – and why the meaning would have been desirable in 1496, but unacceptable a year later. In June 1497, Riario was occupied with an intense political situation that made installing the nude pagan figure imprudent. The patron chose to leave the sculpture where it was carved, on a property owned by Jacopo Galli (†1505). Deeply insulted, Michelangelo became painfully aware of the imbalance of power in artist-patron relationships. This essay also addresses how Michelangelo intervened in his biographies written by Giorgio Vasari (1511–74) and Ascanio Condivi (c. 1525–74) to ensure the identification of Jacopo Galli as patron of the Bacchus and deride the cardinal.
ISSN:0269-1213
1477-4658
DOI:10.1111/j.1477-4658.2012.00849.x