Institutional portal - Municipality of Milan

From 22 October to 8 January 2023, Michelangelo's Pietàs, in the form of their historical casts, exceptionally brought together in a spectacular installation - Photo gallery

Milan, October 21 2022 – The exhibition "Michelangelo's Pietàs. Three historical casts for the Hall of Caryatids" opens in Milan on October 22nd in the magnificent Sala della Cariatidi at Palazzo Reale. The exhibition – promoted and produced by the Municipality of Milan – Culture and organized by Palazzo Reale with the collaboration of Castello Sforzesco – is curated by Giovanna Mori, Domenico Piraina and Claudio Salsi. Entrance is free.

Born from the synergy between the Municipality of Milan, the Municipality of Florence and the Vatican Museums, the exhibition allows the visitor to appreciate the evolution of Michelangelo's art through the comparison of three nineteenth-twentieth century casts, in ideal continuity with the exhibition just concluded with great happened at the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Florence.

Michelangelo's three Pietàs, in the form of their plaster casts, now arrive in Milan, where they are exceptionally brought together in a spectacular and exciting installation designed by Massimo Chimenti, from 22 October to 8 January 2023, in the Sala delle Cariatidi of Palazzo Reale , which will act as the stage: three long sheets, spread across the entire height of the Hall and with a great visual impact, form the backdrop to the Pietà, amplifying their strong aesthetic value and the religious sense evoked by the sculptor in the different phases of his life.

On the occasion of the exhibition, careful documentary and iconographic research on the three Pietàs was promoted, aimed at creating a visual story capable of presenting episodes of recent history which had Michelangelo's sculptures as protagonists: restorations, installations and transfers immortalized by testimonies, such as vintage shots and films, coming from important Italian archives and photo libraries that collaborated on the project.

"Thanks to the three precious casts, this spectacular exhibition, set up in one of the most beautiful rooms in the city, will be able to tell visitors about the evolution of Michelangelo's sensitivity throughout his life – declared Tommaso Sacchi, Councilor for Culture of Municipality of Milan – It will be a great emotion to be able to embrace the three Pietàs with a single glance, and the comparison, in Milan, can be integrated by a visit to the Rondanini Pietà Museum at the Sforzesco Castle, where the original of the last Pietà is located. , the one on which the Master worked until the last days of his life".

As a young man, Michelangelo created the Vatican Pietà, sculpting in his late maturity the so-called Bandini Pietà of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence and the Rondanini Pietà of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan. These examples tell of the sensitivity achieved by the Tuscan genius over the course of his long life: from the grandiose youthful work of classicist imprint, up to the unfinished sculpture of his last days. Over sixty years separate the first Pietà, the Vatican one, from the last one, the Rondanini.

Michelangelo took up the Vatican one in 1498, when he was just twenty years old. The contract explicitly called for "a clothed Virgin Mary with a dead, naked Christ in her arms." The sculpture releases a magniloquent, perfect beauty, in line with the first production of the Tuscan master. Compared to the face of the Madonna considered by some to be too young, the artist defended himself at the time, stating that it is precisely purity and sanctity that preserve youth and beauty.

The production of his youth is accompanied by that of his mature age, which sees Michelangelo greatly changed as a man and as an artist, in crisis to the point of wanting to abandon sculpture, his reason for living until then. The feeling that dominates these works is totally different, the style becomes less redundant in consideration of the human destiny of suffering, death and resurrection.

When he sculpted the Bandini Pietà, between 1547 and 1555, Michelangelo Buonarroti was already an elderly man who often meditated on faith, the passion of Christ and his imminent death. The history of this Pietà is long and tormented. The marble, full of impurities and too hard, did not allow Michelangelo to complete the work, and led the artist to break a limb of Christ and, subsequently, to hammer the statue, breaking it in several places.

The last Pietà, the Rondanini, is now exhibited at the Castello Sforzesco. Michelangelo worked on this marble until shortly before his death. In the "unfinished sublime" of the Tuscan artist, completed parts alternate with unfinished or unworked parts, in a statuary composition which - in the words of Luigi Serenthà - is capable of involving us "in the unstoppable movement of the body of the dead Christ inside the body of the Mother".

The exhibition itinerary aims to focus precisely this in the eyes of visitors, that is, the maturation of the feelings of one of the greatest geniuses in the history of art, showing how the same drama can achieve such different outcomes, in the hands of an artist immersed in time and become inspiration.

The three casts
The cast of the Pietà of Saint Peter in the Vatican City was created in 1975 in the Cast and Plaster Laboratory of the Vatican Museums by Ulderico Grispigni; the occasion for its creation came at a dramatic moment for the Pietà, i.e. the 1972 act of vandalism against the sculpture, which made it necessary to prepare a new cast. The cast of the Pietà of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, known as Pietà Bandini, preserved in the collection of the Florentine plaster cast gallery of the Porta Romana Art Institute, dates back to around 1882 and was created by the Florentine educator Oronzo Lelli.

The cast of the Pietà Rondanini was commissioned in 1953 to the Milanese trainer Cesare Gariboldi, with the aim of determining in the best possible way and in total safety, during the tests of setting up the marble statue, the ideal location for the sculpture, preserved since 1952 in the Sforzesco Castle . Today exhibited in the exhibition after careful cleaning, it is preserved in the deposits of the Museum of Ancient Art.

The catalogue, published by Silvana editorial, makes use of the texts of the Scientific Committee and the curators and presents important essays and notes relating to Michelangelo's three Pietàs starting from the youthful Vatican Pietà, to the mature Pietà created for the Cathedral of Florence and finally to the Rondanini Pietà, sculpted late in life and left unfinished.

Free entry
For further information and to find out the opening hours of the exhibition, consult the website Royal Palace.