The Sistine Secrets by Benjamin Blech, Roy Doliner Page A

beautiful.
    When Lorenzo got home, following Ficino’s suggestions, he founded an artists’ bottega (workshop and studio) in the Garden of San Marco, right under the noses of the indignant Dominicans in the church and monastery next door. At its helm he placed an elderly sculptor-painter named Bertoldo di Giovanni, one of the last students of the great Donatello, from the time of Lorenzo’s grandfather. In this garden, along with his own growing collection of ancient pieces, Lorenzo placed the two Roman statues given to him by Pope Sixtus. A few years later, these statues would help inspire an adolescent apprentice named Michelagnolo Buonarroti.
    This sculpture bottega, otherwise known as the Garden of San Marco, soon became part of the popular image of Lorenzo, whom the Florentines called Il Magnifico, the Magnificent. This honorific had nothing to do with divinity or political power, but rather was a Tuscan variant on “munificent,” denoting one who knew how to spend his money well, a great philanthropist or great patron of the arts. Soon, the bottega became a vital destination for artists, philosophers, poets, and scientists—in short, a hotbed of liberal, intellectual activity. The greatest minds were known to frequent the garden, often giving lectures there—and almost none of it having to do with sculpture. Today, there is a heated debate among many Renaissance historians about the nature of the sculpture Garden of San Marco: was it just a workshop for teaching stone carving—or was it a secret, subversive school for studying works that were being devalued or suppressed by Rome, such as Plato (as opposed to the Church-approved Aristotle) and Judaic wisdom and mysticism? In a recent book, Ross King refers to Lorenzo de’ Medici’s garden bottega as one in which he trained his handpicked artists in “both sculpture and the liberal arts.” 3 The fact that they were learning anything liberal under the nose of the Inquisition is proof enough that the true nature of the school had to remain a secret. As the French minister of culture Jack Lang has written, the de’ Medici influence on Florence was indeed a “cultural revolution.” 4
    Camelots never last long, however, and Lorenzo’s bright dream of an Athens-on-the-Arno took a dark turn in 1476 when Pope Sixtus, seeking to destroy the de’ Medici family, took away its contract with the Vatican for alum (a huge income, since in that era alum was a key ingredient in paper production, leather tanning, and fabric dyeing). The pope then gave the lucrative contract to the de’ Medicis’ deadly rivals, the Pazzi clan. In 1478 the aforementioned assassination plot by Sixtus (commonly and misleadingly called the Pazzi Conspiracy) resulted in Lorenzo’s beloved younger brother, Giuliano, being slain before his eyes. Ten years after that, Lorenzo’s wife, Clarice, died, leaving him to care for their adolescent and teenaged children. Lorenzo threw himself into repairing the family’s finances, international network, and morale. He invested more than ever in great art, both collecting ancient masterpieces and providing for the creation of new ones.
    In 1489 he discovered a young apprentice who was working under Ghirlandaio. It seemed that this mere boy from the mountains could carve stone better than any adult. Realizing that there was a potential prodigy to be molded and instructed, Lorenzo took the rebellious lad off of Ghirlandaio’s hands. There is a story that the first piece that Michelangelo sculpted for Lorenzo was the head of an aged, grinning faun, a mythological forest spirit. Lorenzo was astonished at the mature mastery of the work but happened to mention in passing that the faun, being so old, would probably not have all his teeth. As soon as Lorenzo had left, Michelangelo immediately chiseled out a tooth and even drilled a hole in the marble gum of the faun, making the bust seem even more perfectly real. When Lorenzo saw what he had done, Il Magnifico