mental_floss magazine
SUBSCRIBE >
GIFT SUBSCRIPTIONS >
DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS >
subscriber services >
On a previous ‘Feel Art Again’ post, reader Jane requested a post on Michelangelo’s “Pietà.” After our round-up and quiz last week, this week is a good time to branch out and explore sculpture. So, without further ado, I’m proud to present Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni’s famous 1499 sculpture, the “Pietà.”
1. The gifted Michelangelo got an early start on his career, receiving a painting apprenticeship with Domenico Ghirlandaio at age 13. Apparently, Michelangelo’s father persuaded Ghirlandaio to pay his apprentice, a highly unusual practice at the time. Just ten years later, Michelangelo completed the “Pietà.”
2. On the sash across Mary’s breast is an inscription, “MICHAELA[N]GELUS BONAROTUS FLORENTIN[US] FACIEBA[T]” (”Michelangelo Buonarroti, Florentine, made it”). Evidently, shortly after the sculpture was installed, Michelangelo overheard a comment attributing the sculpture to Cristoforo Solari, and carved the inscription so all would know he was the sculptor. Later, he regretted his decision and swore to never sign another work.
3. Michelangelo was quite fond of Dante Alighieri’s Divina Commedia. During a trip to Bologna, he recited verses from the work in lieu of payment for his housing.
4. While most people today known Michelangelo as a painter and sculptor, he was also a poet. He dedicated over 300 of his sonnets and madrigals to Tommaso dei Cavalieri, who was 34 years younger than Michelangelo. Since Michelangelo’s sonnets predate William Shakespeare’s famous sonnets by at least 50 years, Michelangelo’s sonnets to Cavalieri are the first large sequence of poems in any modern tongue addressed by one man to another.
5. As an artist, Michelangelo was lucky to receive recognition and appreciation during his lifetime. Two biographies of him were published before his death; in one, he is said to be the pinnacle of all artistic achievement since the beginning of the Renaissance. He was often referred to as Il Divino, or “the divine one.”
6. In 1972, the “Pietà” was attacked by a hammer-wielding, Hungarian-born geologist. The 33-year-old Laszlo Toth yelled, “I am Jesus Christ!” as he attacked the famous sculpture. As a result, the sculpture is now protected by bullet-proof glass, after undergoing repairs. However, the attack may actually have been beneficial in a way, as the restorers discovered what appears to be a secret monogram: an “M” in the skin lines on the palm of Mary’s left hand.
A larger photograph of the sculpture is available here.
‘Feel Art Again’ appears every Tuesday and Thursday.
Comments (17)
Comment
I saw the Pieta when I was in the Vatican two years ago, and it’s incredibly beautiful in real life. Photos don’t do it justice.
I had no idea Michelangelo was a poet.
posted by Erin on 3-11-2008 at 10:04 pm
It is incredibly unlikely that the Pieta was signed after someone misattributed it.
Just look at the piece critically: What are the chances that Michelangelo sculpted a convenient signature-sized sash onto the Madonna and then didn’t initially sign it?
Many historians suggest that Michelangelo signed this piece (his first and last to sign) because it was the first piece he _could_ sign.
Prior to the Pieta, Michelangelo’s sculpture was copies and forgeries. The Pieta marked the beginning of his own creation.
posted by Nathan Miller on 3-12-2008 at 12:21 am
Great post. I look forward to seeing this piece of art in person someday. It’s on my “Bucket List” which is a good idea for a post….as I drift off distracted by something shiny. Thanks!
posted by c.a. Marks on 3-12-2008 at 5:14 am
Er, I highly doubt her palm-M’s are a signature. The lines in lots of people’s hands form M’s. Well, at least mine do, and they’re not too unusual.
posted by Aemi on 3-12-2008 at 6:53 am
Nathan Miller -
I don’t know if you’ve been to Italy, but the Pieta signing story is huge.
Italian history is filled with all sorts of dramatic scenes that most likely never actually happened or have been highly exaggerated.
Compare it to our story of Thanksgiving. No one really thinks the Puritans peacefully enjoyed an Indian buffet, but it is something from our past that we enjoy imagining. Italian history is chock-full of these Thanksgiving-esque myths.
My point is that whatever really happened isn’t always what’s important. Fables like these serve an important role in how a society identifies itself , which is especially true in Italian culture.
Who knows what the hell Mike really did? Italians don’t need cold hard facts to conceptualize their history and neither do we.
posted by seany g on 3-12-2008 at 7:36 am
I saw the Pieta in the Vatican four years ago. Its beautiful!
posted by Diane on 3-12-2008 at 8:53 am
Great choice - thanks for picking it! This is such a beautiful piece of sculpture, and so moving. I’d love to see it in person.
posted by kate on 3-12-2008 at 9:48 am
I haven’t seen the Pieta in person, but it is one of my favorite pieces of art. The amazing thing about it is this- if Jesus is pretty much life-size (and he is) look how huge Mary is! She’s a giant!
posted by efactorial on 3-12-2008 at 9:53 am
efactorial,
Mary is larger than Christ, because it represents the idea that a mother will always see her child as just that, a child. After Christ was removed from the cross, Mary held as she would have 30 years prior. She still views him as her baby boy.
At least, that’s my art professor told me in college.
posted by Codius on 3-12-2008 at 10:23 am
Figures, a Hungarian attacked it.
I hang my head in shame.
posted by Magyarlany on 3-12-2008 at 10:37 am
I, too, was lucky enough to see this in person last year, and it is indeed even more beautiful in person. (Good choice for your bucket list, c.a. Marks.) My traveling companions and I were all amateur art admirers at best, but they determined that I was a “sculpture person.” It amazes me, in this as well as many other works, how “soft” stone can (appear to) be.
Suggestion for a future “Feel Art Again” sculpture - Winged Victory of Samothrace at the Louvre - stunning.
posted by Betsy on 3-12-2008 at 10:45 am
I’ve seen it in person, and what’s most remarkable is how Mike captured a mother’s pure sorrow on Mary’s face.
posted by Patrick on 3-12-2008 at 11:31 am
I can’t believe he created that when he was only 23. I’m 23.
Also, when I was in elementary school (how well this reveals why I am the way I am), parents would come and read stories to our class sometimes. My mom would read sections out of _The Agony and the Ecstasy_.
posted by Katie on 3-12-2008 at 12:39 pm
I think another reason Mary was so large was because her lap had to be impossibly huge to hold the figure of Jesus. It may have been partly from necessity, although the metaphor fits in nicely as well.
posted by jenni on 3-12-2008 at 12:52 pm
It would be nice if the bulletproof glass the Pieta lies behind wasn’t so dingy.
The way he shows the weight of the dead body is just amazing.
posted by Hannah on 3-12-2008 at 2:29 pm
This is my favorite sculpture. A few Christmases ago, my parents gave me a minature of this sculpture, sculpted from Carrara marble. It’s one of my favorite Christmas gifts. :)
posted by Melodye on 3-12-2008 at 2:44 pm
winged victory is a great idea. I’ve never seen it, but it is such an amazing piece.
posted by Eric on 3-20-2008 at 1:38 pm