L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2021 www.italoamericano.org 12 L'Italo-Americano W e a r e b e t w e e n 1547 and 1 5 5 5 . Michela ngelo sculpts the Pietà in a single large block of white marble. It depicts the Virgin and Mary Magdalene receiv- i n g t h e b o d y o f C h r i s t , deposed from the cross by t h e e l d e r l y N i c o d e m u s . Buonarroti, in his seventies, thought that the sculpture could be placed on the altar w h e r e h e w a n t e d t o b e buried. But then, unsatis- fied, he abandons the Pietà, still unfinished, and gives it to his servant Antonio da Casteldurante. He has it r e s t o r e d b y T i b e r i o Calcagni, Florentine sculp- tor student of the master, and sells it for 200 scudi to t h e b a n k e r F r a n c e s c o Bandini, who will place it in the garden of his resi- dence, the villa di Monte- cavallo in Rome. After sev- eral ownership changes, it was purchased in 1671 by C o s i m o I I I d e ' M e d i c i . Transporting it to Florence wasn't simple, reason for which it reached the Tuscan city only three years later, by sea and then along the Arno. Today the sculptural group known as the Pietà Bandi- n i i s i n t h e n e w M u s e o dell' Opera del Duomo in Florence on a pedestal t h a t r e c a l l s t h e a l t a r t o which it was probably des- tined. Its restoration -- which began in November 2019, but was interrupted several times due to Covid-19-- has just been completed, return- i n g t o t h e p u b l i c o n e o f Michelangelo's most intense and troubled masterpieces in all its beauty, freed from t h e s u r f a c e d e p o s i t s t h a t masked its superb sculptural qualities and color. But the restoration, com- missioned and directed by t h e O p e r a d i S a n t a Maria del Fiore, under the high supervision of the S o p r i n t e n d e n z a Archeologia Belle Arti e Paesaggio of Florence and the provinces of Pistoia and Prato, has revealed many details, such as the presence o f m i c r o - f r a c t u r e s i n t h e stone. Michelangelo, who por- trayed himself in the fea- tures of Nicodemus, perhaps interrupted the work pre- cisely because of the imper- fect quality of the marble. This is a more likely hypoth- esis than that of an aging artist who, unhappy with his work, tries to destroy the sculpture by taking a ham- mer to it, in a moment of frustration. The restorers found no sign of hammer b l o w s u n l e s s , o f c o u r s e , Tiberio Calcagni, who inter- vened on the work some- times around 1565, erased them all. What is certain, however, is that the enor- m o u s , 2 . 2 5 m e t e r s h i g h block, weighing about 2700 kg and corresponding to a c u b i c m e t e r o f m a r b l e , comes from the Medicean quarries of Seravezza and n o t C a r r a r a , a s b e l i e v e d until today. This discovery is signifi- cant because the quarries in Seravezza were owned by the Medici, and Giovanni de' Medici, soon to be Pope Leo X, had asked Michelangelo t o u s e m a r b l e f r o m t h e quarry for the façade of the church of San Lorenzo in F l o r e n c e . H o w t h i s h u g e block of marble happened to b e i n R o m e s o t h a t Michelangelo could carve his Pietà from it, however, is s t i l l a m y s t e r y . W e k n o w t h a t M i c h e l a n g e l o w a s unhappy with the quality of the marble from these quar- ries because it often present- ed veining and microscopic cracks that were difficult to detect with the naked eye. Thanks to the restoration, it was possible to confirm, for the very first time, that the block used for the Pietà w a s i n d e e d f l a w e d , a s Vasari tells us in his Lives o f t h e A r t i s t s w h e n h e describes it as hard and full of impurities, adding that "sparks would flow" from it with every blow of the chis- el. Indeed, numerous small i n c l u s i o n s o f p y r i t e w e r e discovered and they most certainly would have caused sparks to fly when hit with a c h i s e l . M o r e i m p o r t a n t , however, is the presence of numerous minute cracks, particularly of one on the back and front of the base, which means that, likely, M i c h e l a n g e l o m a y h a v e f o u n d c r a c k s a l s o w h i l e working on Christ's and the Virgin's left arms. Likely, he was forced to abandon the work at that stage. B u t p r a c t i c a l a s p e c t s could be only a part of the e x p l a n a t i o n . T i m o t h y V e r d o n , D i r e c t o r o f t h e M u s e o d e l l ' O p e r a d e l Duomo in Florence, says: "It should be remembered that i n t h e y e a r s 1 5 4 7 - 1 5 5 5 Michelangelo was occupied above all with the dome of t h e V a t i c a n B a s i l i c a , a n d could therefore devote little time to his Pietà, working on it even at night." Vasari himself remem- bers that the elderly artist " o f t e n g o t u p a t n i g h t , unable to sleep, to work with the chisel, having made a cardboard helmet, and on top of it he kept a burning candle, in this way casting a light where he was working, leaving his hands free." This means that in the dark, the old master saw only a few centimeters of the surface in f r o n t o f h i m a n d w o r k e d b a s e d o n h i s o w n i n n e r vision. Maybe, at a certain point, he understood he had made a mistake, and could n o t a d d C h r i s t ' s l e f t l e g without destroying the com- positional harmony of the group. According to Jack W a s s e r m a n , P r o f e s s o r Emeritus of Renaissance Art H i s t o r y a t T e m p l e University in Philadelphia, Buonarroti did not destroy but, rather, "disassembled" parts of the sculpture, to change radically the posture of each figure. The intervention aimed to a c h i e v e a n e v e n a n d b a l - anced legibility of the Pietà, restoring it to the state in which Michelangelo proba- bly intended it to be seen. The sculpture itself provides a map of its own troubled a n d c o m p l e x h i s t o r y , t h e BARBARA MINAFRA The Pietà dell'Opera del Duomo, known as Pietà Bandini (Image courtesy of Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore/Photo: Claudio Giovannini) Restoration reveals the secrets of Michelangelo's Pietà Bandini NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS Continued to page 14

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