[Fic Fill] High Renaissance
TITLE: High Renaissance
AUTHOR/ARTIST: Haylerzz
RECIPIENT: mase992
CHARACTERS/PAIRINGS: North Italy, South Italy, Vatican (OC), Michelangelo, Pope Julius II
RATING: G
NOTES (optional): I’m an artist, not a writter but I fell in love with this prompt! Art history nerd that I am, I had to do it!
SUMMARY: North Italy tells the Vatican the story of how he got Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel… and of how he got to help.
Historical Notes:
I did quite a bit of research for this, but I still don’t claim it’s entirely historically accurate! The first part takes place between the two World Wars shortly after Vatican City became an independent nation (despite being in the middle of the capital city of another nation…) The flashback takes place in the time between the fall of the Roman Empire and when North Italy was claimed by Austria. So the brothers are still chibis. At this point the two Italies were separated by the Papal States, which were kind of their own thing despite not actually being a country.
Sorry that I went off a bit from the prompt…
Vatican City 1934
Feliciano smiled as he touched a brush to fresh canvas. It had been too long since he had had the time or initiative to paint, but it always came back to him so naturally. The sun was shining beautifully over the gardens, making for a perfect setting. Better yet, he had someone to paint with this time. His brother had never had any patience for art, always getting frustrated at his mistakes and giving up. Ludwig had thought it was a waste of time. Well, he had been in the midst of a war at the time. When his new little sister had shyly asked him to teach her to paint it had been a dream come true.
It had only been five short years since the Vatican City had broken off to be its own tiny nation, but there she was now, overlarge smock covering her white clerical robes, staring intently at the canvas before her. She stepped back, shaking her head. “I’m not any good at this…”
“Vati,” Feliciano said, leaning over his own canvas to peak at hers. “You’re just learning. I’m sure you’ll be really good if you try.”
“…but, but” she stammered “I want to paint pretty pictures like on the ceiling of my church.”
He leaned down to ruffle her sandy brown hair. “Michelangelo had to practice a whole lot before doing anything like that.”
The tiny girl looked up at him inquisitively. “What was he like?”
“He was amazing, an artistic genius!” he exclaimed, gesturing wildly with his brush. “You should have seen him when he worked. He…”
“Oh,” Vatican calmly interrupted, “Lovino said he was a jerk.”
Feliciano laughed. “You know I was just about your size when he painted that ceiling, a lot older though…” He reached to hold her hand with the brush and guide it in a smooth arch across the canvas. “Can you believe he didn’t even want to do it?”
Vatican City 1508
Pope Julius II sat at his desk looking down at the two small boys that represented Italy. “I don’t think you understand…” he explained. “This chapel is to be the grandest of the churches, the center of the Catholic faith. I can not have that ceiling remain blank.”
The eldest of the two glared up at him, crossing his arms. “What do you want me to do? He said no. He’s still working on that stupid tomb.”
“He is such an amazing sculptor,” the Pope said, pointedly ignoring the glair. “I can only imagine what he could do with a brush…”
“He doesn’t WANT to paint though!” Lovino argued. “Why don’t you try to find someone else?”
“I would…” Feliciano spoke out, but his tiny voice was lost in the argument.
“I want him though,” the Pope insisted. “I want Michelangelo.”
“Whatever,” Lovino muttered, turning away. “I’m not going back there to put up with him.”
“Your Holiness! Your Holiness!” the younger brother called out, vying for attention.
Julius put his hand to his head, exasperated. “Feliciano, I already told you…”
“Can I go talk to Michelangelo?”
“Well,” the Pope considered, “I suppose he needs all the convincing he can get…” Lovino looked to his brother and then to the Pope.
“Why do you think he has any better of a chance then me?” he questioned, his voice quickly sliding from anger to sadness. “It’s my part of the country.”
“It’s my part of the country.” The Pope corrected. “…and I will give your brother a chance as well.”
Feliciano skipped happily as they left the walls of the Vatican. “I get to meet Michelangelo!” He exclaimed the sunny smile never leaving his face.
His brother gave him a nearly sympathetic look. “Just don’t make that guy angry, okay?”
“Why would I make him angry?” he questioned.
“Just… just don’t do anything stupid, okay?” Lovino warned.
“Okay!” Feliciano answered in a sing song voice, bounding off towards Michelangelo’s studio.
Feliciano knocked on the huge wooden door before entering, but the artist didn’t seem to hear. Peeking in, he saw that the man was hard at work chipping away at a huge block of marble. The small boy entered unnoticed and watched the artist at work. With a large chisel and even larger hammer he beat out gouges in the stone. The gouges soon took on the form of bone and muscles as larger then life sized marble man seemed to rise from the stone. For the crudeness of the tools, the detail was astounding and held so much emotion.
He watched, entranced for a good fifteen minutes before asking, “Why is he so scared?”
Michelangelo started at the sound of an intruder, leveling the chisel at him as if it were a weapon. “You!” he exclaimed. “You’re that brat the Pope sent yesterday!”
“No! No, that was my brother!” The boy cowered and stepped away. “Please don’t hurt me!”
The sculptor sighed heavily and turned back to his work. “Sending children to do all his errands… You tell him that no amount of begging, pleading, or threats will change my mind. I’m busy.”
“…but wouldn’t it be fun?”
The artist turned around and blinked at him. “Fun?”
“Yeah!” The child’s face brightened even more. “Painting is so much fun and it’s a whole ceiling! It’s the biggest canvas ever!” he exclaimed, gesturing wildly with his short little arms.
“I’m not a painter. I’m a sculptor!” Michelangelo declared.
“…and all the people will look up at it while they’re at mass like they’re gazing into the heavens!”
“Well, if you’re so darn excited about it, why don’t you paint it?” Michelangelo huffed.
Feliciano looked sadly at the floor. “I want to. The Pope won’t let me. He says I’ll fall from the scaffolding and get hurt… I have lots of ideas though!” he exclaimed, brightening instantly. He turned toward an easel and some rolled canvases in the corner. “May I paint?”
For a moment he just stared at this strangely cheerful and bold child who had dared to enter his workplace. Then he relented. “Fine, fine, just don’t make a mess.” The boy nodded enthusiastically, his hair curl bouncing. At the moment he thought that it would be worth cleaning up any mess he would make just to have some peace and quiet.
Michelangelo went back to his sculpting, but couldn’t help glancing back at the Pope’s little errand boy, singing to himself and painting enthusiastically. He was so different from the other one. A temper tantrum he could ignore, but this… After the period of an hour his curiosity got the better of him and he went to check out what he was up to.
When he saw the canvas, his jaw dropped. The boy was good, too good. No one of that age could paint like that. The composition, the shading, the colors… Suddenly his fingers were itching to paint.
The young boy jumped when he caught the man looking over his shoulder. “Do…Do you like it?” he stammered out.
“It’s okay,” he answered dismissively. “… but I was thinking of something more like this.” He pulled out a canvas of his own and began to paint feverously. Feliciano stopped and stared at the man working for a while before returning to his own piece. Then they were painting together in a contagious rush of inspiration. Michelangelo offered the boy tips which he took graciously. Feliciano’s own tips were taken a little less graciously, but the artist admitted that the boy did know art.
“Who taught you to paint like this?” he eventually asked. The child beamed with pride.
“My Grandpa! He was a really good artist. You would have like him!”
They painted all afternoon and well into the night until they both stopped, too exhausted to lift a brush. Feliciano spread out the still wet paintings across the floor. “So many!” he said, gazing back to his new mentor. The collection was quite impressive, biblical scenes ranging from the Creation, to Original Sin, to Noah. Small and rough as the works were now, both artists could see the idea had possibilities. “May I take them to show the Pope?” the boy questioned earnestly.
“No,” Michelangelo said flatly. The child’s face fell into near despair. “I will take them myself. I need to speak with him anyways.” Feliciano’s smile returned and he left the studio feeling tired but accomplished.
Within a few weeks high scaffolding had been erected in the chapel reaching high into the air and stopping mere feet from the domed ceiling. Feliciano waited there every day, eager for the artist to arrive. When Michelangelo showed up to see him standing there, already in a smock with brushes at the ready, he nearly dropped all his supplies.
“No.” he said. “Just no. I don’t use assistants and I definitely don’t take on apprentices.” The boy looked near tears. “I do appreciate all of your ideas and your inspiration, but you have to know I work alone.” Now the tears started; tears and long wailing cries.
“But we had so much fun when we painted together! You helped me with anatomy and we had so many good ideas and we worked so well together and I thought we’d do this together too and…”
“Hush, hush” the man said, doing his best to sound comforting. “Did the Pope say you could help?” The boy nodded, mopping up his tears with his sleeve. “Well maybe I can let you help a little…” The kid ran at him, tackling his legs in a clingy hug. “Let’s get this over with.”
And so the painting began. They spent tireless hours lying side by side on the boards of the scaffold transferring their ideas to the infinitely larger canvas of the curved ceiling. Michelangelo painting beautifully flawless human forms while Feliciano mixed him paints in vibrant colors. Michelangelo always quiet, intense, and focused. Feliciano forever singing to himself and babbling endlessly about whatever came to mind. Often the small boy would fall asleep under his work, brush still in hand. The artist would sigh, wipe the paint off the child’s face, hold him so he wouldn’t fall, and just be thankful for the brief silence.
On one occasion, Feliciano woke to find his brother sitting beside him on the scaffold, feet dangling over the edge. “Lovino! How did you get up here?” He asked in surprise.
“Same way you did, idiot.”
Michelangelo stopped his work just long enough to lecture them not to fall, drop anything, or make a mess. “How do you work with this bastard?” Lovino whispered just loud enough that the artist could still hear.
Michelangelo gave him a threatening look. “I could very easily push you off and make it look like an accident…”
“You wouldn’t dare, and if you did you’d pay!” Lovino shot back, as he moved quickly away from the edge, shaking a bit.
“Don’t argue you two!” Feliciano commanded. Then he added in a whisper, “God is listening!”
While Michelangelo went back to ignoring the world beyond his work, Feliciano filled his brother in on their progress. “…and the creation of Adam will go there. He has a really great idea for that and then the prophets will go all along the sides around the vaulting. Isn’t he amazing?” Lovino just pouted and looked away. “What’s wrong, brother? Why are you so sad?”
“Nothing.” He answered tersely, but he knew his brother wasn’t going to let him leave it at that. “It’s just that, well Rome is supposed to be my city, but you’re the one that got him to come and now you’re the one helping him!”
Feliciano’s eyes lit up. “Do you want to paint, brother?”
“No.” Lovino said forcefully, crossing his arms.
“Here.” Feliciano pointed a finger at the smaller study. “There is part of a tree right there.” He pointed to the corresponding spot on the ceiling.
“So?” Lovino pouted as his brother dabbed a brush in paint and held it out to him. At first he ignored it, but then grabbed it away and began to paint. Thankfully, Michelangelo was too involved to notice his temporary change in assistants.
Vatican City 1934
Vatican stopped mid paint stroke. “Lovino painted the ceiling too? He never told me that!”
“He didn’t help for long.” Feliciano explained, watching her work. “He and Michelangelo… well they didn’t hit it off too well.”
“I would have loved to have met him.” Vatican said wistfully.
“He finished it in only four years, four years the entire ceiling!” he exclaimed. “He really was amazing… moody though. He came back thirty years later to paint The Last Judgment, but he was so much older and crankier then… He didn’t even want my help!”
“Vati, look!” He pulled her back from her easel to get a better view of her own work. The strokes were shaky and the placement of some of the trees was a bit off, but the color and attention to detail showed through. She looked at it, then to her brother for approval. “You’re going to be a great artist some day!” She smiled as he picked her up in an embrace and used his sleeve to wipe a smear of paint from her nose.
More Notes!
Vatican-
I snuck in my original character! I’ve drawn her, but this is the first time I’ve written anything with her. At first thought, it makes more sense for the Vatican to be male (because the Catholic Church is entirely led by guys), but I thought the country itself had a more feminine feel (little, peaceful, and full of pretty things ^_^ ).
Michelangelo-
By all accounts, really was a jerk! He didn’t get along well with other artists of the time or his patrons. He rarely kept assistants, but I thought maybe Feli could win him over.
Pictures- I think way too visually. I need to look at stuff while I write!
Vatican Gardens (Where Feliciano and Vatican were painting): http://photos.igougo.com/images/p306688-Vatican_City-Vatican_Gardens.jpg
‘The Rebellious Slave’ (the sculpture Michelangelo was working on): http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/90/Michelangelo-The_Rebellious_Slave.jpg
Sistine Chapel Ceiling:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Lightmatter_Sistine_Chapel_ceiling.jpg
