Following The Passions of Michelangelo

“How To Follow The Passions Of Michelangelo To Economic And Personal Freedom”

I know the title seems a bit strange, especially in the context of The Ten Steps To Wealth. But stick with me for a bit and I hope you’ll see the connection.

When most of the European airspace was closed due to volcanic activity a few years ago, I was heading back from Sicily and had the absolute good fortune of being stranded in Rome for four days. (Yeah I know, it’s a hard life but someone had to volunteer!)

So I decided to concentrate on experiencing as much of Rome’s cultural heritage and art as I could fit in. Of particular interest to me was the work of Michelangelo (1475-1564) which included a feast of cathedrals, paintings and sculpture.

But more than the artworks themselves, I was drawn to understanding more about Michelangelo the man. I saw the apartment where he lived and read description after description on how he lived his life.

Like many who overcome numerous hurdles in order to fulfil their life’s dreams, the Renaissance artist Michelangelo was no different as he ventured forward in pursuit of his dreams and passions.

From the time of his birth, Michelangelo had many things working against him. His mother abandoned him at a very young age and he was given over to be raised by Florentine stone cutter’s wife. It’s here that Michelangelo began to develop his passion for an artistic life however, his father, a Florentine official, had other ideas.

The intellect of Michelangelo was apparent to many from an early age and his father became singularly interested in pressing that intellect into the service of preserving the ‘family’s’ image along with its small holdings of money and property.

To this end Michelangelo’s father encouraged him to pursue an intellectual rather than an artistic career. At the age of thirteen, as a shy and somewhat ill tempered young boy, Michelangelo was enrolled into a school run by master linguist Francesco Galeota who was charged to prepare the young boy for a career in business, finance and languages.

As fate would have it, while attending this school, Michelangelo met a student of a well known painter. As their friendship grew, Michelangelo’s desire to become an artist welled deep within him so, as a young boy, he made a life altering decision. He decided to go against his father’s wishes and live an authentic life. He decided to follow his artistic passions.

To this end, he agreed to become an apprentice in the painter’s workshop. This infuriated his father who was hanging onto the idea that Michelangelo should uphold the family image and become a successful merchant and thus ensure the family’s societal ‘position’ and small fortune!

To indulge in the arts was double troubling for Michelangelo’s father because not only would it destabilise the family’s ‘position’ in society, but because art involved manual labour, in Renaissance Italy, there was a demeaning stigma attached to its practice.

At 158 centimetres and weighing approximately 50 kilograms, Michelangelo was diminutive in stature; yet he stands as a giant among the world’s greatest artists. Often working and sleeping in the same clothes for weeks and months at a time, his fashion sense was described as disastrous and his lack of personal hygiene as legendary.

Even though Michelangelo became one of the world’s great artists, because he decided to follow his own dreams and passions, rather than his father’s wishes, the rift between father and son never healed and remained a lifelong source of conflict.

Throughout his life, Michelangelo had a strong dislike for painting and is best described as a reluctant painter. Although his passions were located in architecture, sculpture and the beauty of the human form, Michelangelo painted many of the world’s most recognised paintings.

Not only is Michelangelo’s life a study in the drive and passion necessary to overcome artistic heartbreak, tragic relationships and the commercial/political demands of powerful and influential patrons, it’s characterised by seventy years of artistic genius.

Michelangelo was a person who really followed his own mind and never got caught up in the theatre of society and the Renaissance.

The lessons that can be learned from the life of Michelangelo are exactly the same lessons you need to apply to mastering The Ten Steps To Wealth. Without passion, your results won’t change. But with passion, drive, determination and commitment to the outcomes that are important to you, you’ll soon join the ranks of economic and personal freedom.

Paul Counsel