Miserly Michelangelo

As was widely reported some time back, Rab Hatfield's research in Italian archives has demonstrated that Michelangelo was both far richer and far stingier than had been appreciated. His book, The Wealth of Michelangelo, is now out (though may be difficult to get for the moment outside of Italy), and the New York Times reports:

Although Michelangelo bellyached aplenty about deprivation and has often been cast as somewhat poor, he died in 1564 with the modern equivalent of tens of millions of dollars, according to . . . professor Rab Hatfield, an American who teaches at the Syracuse University program in Florence.

That money was not some late-in-life windfall. Professor Hatfield's research shows that for most of Michelangelo's nearly 89 years, he was marginally, moderately or massively rich. But he often refused to show it, and often declined to share it.

"He was the richest artist of all time," at least until that time, Professor Hatfield said in an interview here today. . .

On the road with a pair of assistants, Michelangelo would get just one bed for all of them, and the reason, Professor Hatfield said, was not erotic but economic. The artist was hoarding his lucre. . .

By the time he was 30, he already had the David and Pietà under his belt, and his fee, like his reputation, was gigantic. . .

When Michelangelo worked on the Laurentian Library here in Florence, he was on a monthly salary from Pope Clement VII that equaled about $600,000 a year, Professor Hatfield said.

For a tomb for Pope Julius II, according to the professor, Michelangelo got the rough equivalent, by one calculation, of more than $10 million over time, even though he did not come close to completing the project.

"He accepted about four times as much work as he could ever possibly do, but he got big fat advance payments," Professor Hatfield said.

While he owned land, paid his assistants well and, in fact, helped his family immensely, he held tight to much or even most of his money.

The professor said that the house in Rome in which Michelangelo died had little furniture, no books and no jewels, but it did have a chest with almost enough gold currency to buy the Pitti Palace.

Posted by David on January 21, 2003 10:14 AM