When Michelangelo signed the contract with the Opera del Duomo in Florence in August 1501 for the execution of the marble statue of a David, he was 26 years old, and had already executed a series of works, which later became “classics”; including in Rome, in the very last years of the 15th century, the Bacchus (now in the Bargello) and the Pietà in St. Peter’s in the Vatican, the only work he signed on the oblique waist on the chest of the Madonna “Michelangelus Bonarotus Florentinus Faciebat”.

The contract for the David read …ad faciendum et perficiendum et perfece finendumquendam hominem, vocatur gigantem, abozatum, rachiorum novem ex marmore, existtentem in dicta opera, olim abozatum per magistrum Agostinum… de florentia et male abozatum…
That is, Michelangelo should have perfectly sculpted and completed a man defined as giant with a sketched marble existing in the Opera del Duomo, poorly sketched in the past by the Florentine master Agostino.
He began the work as required by a note in the contract:

Incepit dictus Michelangelus laborare et sculpire dicrum gigantem die 13 settembris 1501 ed die lunede mane, quamquam prius videlicet die 9 eiusden uno vel duobus ictibus scarpelli substulisset quoddam nisum quem habebat in pectore: seu dicta die incepit firmiter et fortier laborare, dicta die 13 et die lune summo mane…
That is, the aforementioned Michelangelo had begun to sculpt the said giant on the morning of September 13, 1501 although on the 9th he had removed a “knot” of marble from his chest with one or two strokes of the chisel: but he began to work on it steadily and more strongly on the said day Monday 13 in the morning.

With a few strokes of the chisel, Michelangelo had wanted to ascertain the quality and condition of the rough-hewn block of marble, which had remained outdoors for a long time having been entrusted to Agostino di Duccio years earlier, in 1463.
From a document of the Opera del Duomo dated 18 August 1464 (Poggi, Il Duomo di Firenze 1909)
it appears that it was the draft of a gigantic Prophet to be placed on one of the spurs of the Cathedral.
Agostino di Duccio left the sculpture sketchy, and therefore on 6 May 1476 the marble was given by the Opera del Duomo to Antonio Rossellino to be finished, but he too left it in a sketchy state.

Vasari, however, gives us other news:
“This was marble, nine arm lengths, in which by bad luck Simone da Fiesole had begun a giant, and the work was so badly tanned that it had pierced him between his legs and made everything badly managed and crippled; so that the workmen of Santa Maria del Fiore, who were working on this thing, without bothering to finish it, had abandoned it, and it had been like this for many years and was nevertheless about to wait.”

So Simone Ferrucci da Fiesole was the sculptor who left the badly rough-hewn block of marble

And it was not the Opera del Duomo that commissioned Michelangelo to sculpt and finish the block of marble, but it was Michelangelo himself who asked to be able to work it to try to get something out of it. He was thinking of the greatest sculpture performed in the Renaissance.

In any case, Michelangelo’s sculpture was constrained by the previous “sbozzo” and he was probably not yet sure how to reuse the block, what shape and movement it could give to his work. Which, moreover, had not yet been fully defined, in fact the contract mentions a hominem, vocatur gigantem, originally a Prophet to be placed outdoors on the spurs of the Cathedral.
The marble was in the courtyard of the Opera del Duomo, and there Michelangelo was to sculpt it. He had a turata built between walls and planks (Vasari, Vite) so that no one would see him at work, or see what and how he was creating.

It took Buonarroti three years and three months to complete the work. Probably, as he often did, he divided the time between the colossal giant and other sculptures that he had agreed to execute.
At the end of January 1504 the statue, the majestic David, was finished. Giorgio Vasari wrote that “he has taken the cry out of all the modern and ancient or Greek or Latin statues that they were… and certainly whoever sees this one should not bother to see other sculptures made in our times or in others by any creator.”

There was no more talk of hoisting it on a spur of the cathedral. However, it was necessary to decide where to place it. On 25 January 1504 a special commission was appointed, which was attended by the most famous and important artists of the city: Andrea della Robbia, Cosimo Rosselli, Francesco Granacci, Piero di Cosimo, Davide Ghirlandaio, Simione del Pollaiolo, Filippino Lippi, Sandro Botticelli, Antonio and Giuliano da Sangallo, Andrea Sansovino, Pietro Perugino, Lorenzo di Credi, Leonardo da Vinci.

Leonardo da Vinci and Giuliano da Sangallo proposed placing the monument in Piazza Signoria under the Loggia dei Lanzi, in order to protect it from bad weather, leaning against the wall “with a black niche behind it like a cappelluzza”. In fact, they had noticed that there were “imperfections in the marble” which could have created problems with the duration and static nature of the outdoor sculpture.
The Herald of the Signoria of the Republic and Michelangelo instead proposed to place it either in the courtyard of the Palazzo della Signoria, or outside to the side of the Palazzo door, in any case outdoors.
Frictions arose so much that, Luca Landucci tells us in his Diary, it was necessary to mount guard at night at the David because it was stoned by those who did not agree on its positioning.
But only the rough draft wall of the Palace could be the background of the great marble, and it was decided to place it where it is still located in copy, but to do this they were forced on June 8, 1504 to move the bronze sculpture of Donatello, cast with lost wax method, Judith killing Holofernes, which was housed in the Loggia dei Lanzi, and on 11 June the red and white marble base was commissioned from Simone del Pollaiolo and Antonio da Sangallo.
Unfortunately, in 1842, in order to be able to move the David from the Arengario on the facade of Palazzo Vecchio, it was only possible to destroy the original base, on which the inscription EXEMPLUM SALUTIS PUBLICAE CIVES POSVERE was engraved, then reconstructing the base equal to the original.

In July and August Michelangelo continued with the sculptural retouching of his masterpiece.
Vasari tells us the witty anecdote that took place in these two months:

“At this moment he was born when, seeing him on Pier Soderini, who pleased him very much, and while he was retouching him in certain places, he said to Michelagnolo that he thought that the nose of that figure was large. Michelagnolo realizing that the gonfalonieri was under the giant, and that his eyesight did not allow him to see the truth, to satisfy him, he climbed onto the bridge which was beside him behind him; and Michelagnolo quickly took a chisel in his left hand with a little marble dust that was on the planks of the bridge, and began to throw lightly with the chisels, he let the dust fall little by little, nor did he touch his nose which was. Then looking down at the gonfalonieri, whom he was watching, he said: Look at him now. I like it better (said the Gonfalonieri): you gave it life. Thus descended Michelagnolo, who laughed at himself, having pity on those who, for the sake of understanding each other, do not know what they are saying.”

The transport of the giant from the Opera del Duomo to the facade of Palazzo Vecchio was another “feat” of no small importance, Vasari also summarizes this for us:

“…Because Giuliano da Sangallo and his brother made a very strong wooden castle, and they suspended that figure with the ropes from it, so that when it shook it would not break off, on the contrary it would always collapse; and with the beams on the flat ground with winches they pulled it, and put it to work. He made a noose to the rope, which held the figure suspended, very easily to slide, and tightened when the weight aggravated it: which is a beautiful and ingenious thing, which I have drawn by his hand in our book, which is admirable, sure, and strong to bind weights”

We had to wait until 8 September to have the David on its base permanently placed next to the door of the Palazzo Vecchio.

In 1512, the base of the David was struck by lightning, but there was no obvious damage to the place. Instead, the statue suffered major damage on 26 April 1527 during the revolt for the expulsion of the Medici from Florence: republicans barricaded themselves in Palazzo Vecchio by throwing stones, furniture and tiles from the windows which, striking the left arm of the sculpture, broke it into three pieces and the sling splintered at shoulder height. Fortunately, Vasari and Francesco Salviati secretly collected all the pieces and went to hide them in Salviati’s house.
The restoration was carried out later, under the Duke of Florence Cosimo I dei Medici.
In 1813 the middle finger of the right hand was damaged and was rebuilt in 1843 by Aristodemo Costoli who, in an attempt to clean the hand of concretions both mechanically with steel brushes and chemically with hydrochloric acid, damaged the surface. The damage was already done, but to try to protect it from the rain, the statue was temporarily covered.

The last damage was inflicted in 1991 on the left foot by a self-styled protester: a hammer blow chipped the first three toes, then restored with the recovered fragments.

The exposure of the David to the elements for about three centuries had caused its surface to float, especially where the rain was pouring (shoulders and upper part of the hair) and opened a series of small holes in the marble, the so-called “taroli”; so it was decided to protect the work by bringing it inside the Academy gallery.
For this purpose, the architect Emilio de Fabris built a new grandstand illuminated by a skylight,

and in August 1873 the David was transported to the Accademia Gallery on a special carriage on which it was harnessed, a carriage that was made to slide on wooden rails.
It took five days to transport the nearly seven-ton statue; the torrid climate in fact allowed to work only in the coolest hours from four to eleven in the morning.

The Chimera, this lion-dog with a snake’s tail and a goat’s head on its back, was formed from the transformation of fantastic animals from Syrian, Persian and Babylonian Assyrian art.

It appeared in the Western world through Greek, Etruscan and Italic art through commercial exchange in the 8th – 7th century BC. The variant in which the goat’s head emerges from a wing is one of the oldest representations.

But it is at the end of the 5th and beginning of the 4th century BC. that the Chimera with the Etruscan civilization reaches the apex of its artistic representation with the bronze of Arezzo.

There are various Greek myths relating to his birth: according to Homer it was a divine animal fed by Amisodaros king of Caria; for Hesiod it was the daughter of the Hydra of Lerna and the Nemean lion, granddaughter of Typhon and Echidna, sister of the sphinx. It symbolized chthonic power and of the underworld’s forces.

It was killed by the Corinthian hero Bellerophon of the lineage of Sisyphus, son of Eurynome and Glaucus and Poseidon: the myth tells that Bellerophon fled from his homeland for having involuntarily caused the death of his brother and went to Prince Preto in Argos, where, however, he refused the advances of his wife Sthenebea who took revenge by sending him to his father-in-law Lobate king of Lycia, who to expiate him invited him to perform a series of “labours” including that of killing the Chimera, helped by the winged horse Pegasus.

In Etruscan times the Chimera with Bellerophon was positioned to protect the city gates with an apotropaic function, and the Chimera of Arezzo was found near the ancient Etruscan gate corresponding to the current Porta San Laurentino;

It is probable that some representations of angels or saints with the same function of guardians of the doors derive from the memory of the ancient mythical episode, such as San Michele or San Giorgio often depicted with wings like Pegasus, the winged horse of Bellerophon, which they are about to kill the dragon, a distant relative of the Chimera.

At the beginning of the seventh century BC. C. the Chimera was still implemented in a purely decorative way, and at the end of the sixth century BC. its image began to appear on coins, gems, beetles, antefixes,

on ceramics,

In the 5th century BC. there was the return and diffusion of the myth of it with Bellerophon on Pegasus who kills it which continued even in Roman times appearing on ceramics, mosaics, frescoes, gems and coins.

The Chimera of Arezzo is male (although in ancient times the Chimera also appeared in female forms) and is represented wounded by enemy blows on the left thigh and on the neck of the goat’s head hanging on the left side now dying .

The animal’s body has been modeled with plastic naturalism, while the head still has a strong archaic flavor as a sculptural work of transition between two artistic styles.

Particularly convincing on the archaic nature of the head is the comparison with the clay drip from Metapontum dating back to the mid-5th century BC. and the red-figured Attic Rhyton of Ruvo from the end of the 5th century. B.C.

Other stylistic affinities can be found in the comparison with the funerary statue from Marciano in the Antikensamlung in Berlin and with the support paw in the Archaeological Museum in Florence.

The study of the Etruscan writing on the left leg tinscvil, engraved on the wax before casting, confirms the dating of the Chimera of Arezzo at the end of the 5th – beginning of the 4th century. B.C.

The myth of its killing foresees that the Chimera and the other two figures of Bellerophon and Pegasus are united in a single sculptural group, as often happens. But the Chimera, like other monstrous figures, is also represented by itself, i.e. she takes on an autonomous life as precisely in coins, ceramics, etc.
The Chimera of Arezzo may have been removed from a bronze group with Bellerophon riding Pegasus. However, the Etruscan dedication written on the left leg of the animal engraved on the wax before casting could also suggest a single casting. The bronze would then be buried together with other small bronzes in a votive deposit.

The sculpture is about 80 cm high and about 130 long including the tail, which however is not in its original position due to the eighteenth-century restoration.

Cosimo I dei Medici Duke of Tuscany ordered that both the Chimera and the other finds excavated in Arezzo be brought to him, and exhibited the large bronze in the rooms of Pope Medici Leo X in Palazzo Vecchio, as a symbol of all the fairs he won in the creation of the Kingdom of Etruria. Subsequently it was taken to the “midday corridor” of the Uffizi. Today it is in the Archaeological Museum of Florence.
The restoration was done by Cellini; the legs on the left side, found detached from the body just above the joint, were roughly reattached with lead casting.

In 1785 the sculptor Carradori recreated the tail of the animal (still not remade in the drawing of Verkruys Drawing of 1724 reproduced by Th. Dempster in 1720-1726)

not respecting the original trend, only the part closest to the body of the Chimera is a fragment of the original tail and the position of the snake biting the horn of the goat’s head was created to give it a foothold thanks to which to support its weight .

In 1933, in front of the Arezzo railway station, two fountains were placed with a replica of the Etruscan Chimera cast by the Aglietti foundry in the center of each one. During the Second World War they were removed and the metal melted down for military purposes.

After the war, the Municipality of Arezzo asked the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry of Florence to cast two replicas which were repositioned in place of the lost ones.

Several times this magnificent bronze conserved in the Archaeological Museum of Florence has been requested to be exhibited both in exhibitions and museums in various parts of the world have set up. And a serious problem arose: if the original is lost during transport by ship or by plane, how can it be done? Losing such a masterpiece would be a tragedy and a crime. The project of the “identicals” was therefore born by the Archaeological Superintendence, that is, the creation of absolutely identical replicas of these bronzes, to be sent to the various exhibitions and keep the original in the Museum.
The management of the Archaeological Museum of Florence therefore contacted the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry through the Bazzanti Gallery, to begin studying the possibility of performing a negative cast not only on the Etruscan Chimera, but also on two other Etruscan bronzes in the Museum: the Etruscan Minerva , and the Idolino, to then cast the identical ones in lost-wax bronze. Having ascertained the capacity and working quality of the foundry, he proceeded to give it the assignment.
Our technicians have reached the laboratories of the Archaeological Superintendency and have begun to execute, with extreme care, the mold of the Chimera in silicone rubber and mother mold in plaster.

From the mould, carefully transported to the foundry, the waxes to which the castings were applied were made and retouched, the casting performed and processed, the parts assembled and welded.

The “identical” of the Chimera was exhibited at the Florentine Archaeological Museum, and was then sent to various exhibitions such as the 2014 “Etruscan Seduction. From the secrets of Holkham Hall to the wonders of the British Museum” at Palazzo Casali in Cortona.
It is currently located at the entrance to the Archaeological Museum of Florence.

Donatello used friezes with cherubs in many of his works, such as for example in the two bronze pulpits in San Lorenzo in Florence, in the choir loft of the Florence Cathedral, in the pulpit of the Prato Cathedral. And he influenced various other sculptors in this sense. But in some artists such as Filippino Lippi, Ghirlandaio, Raffaello, Guadenzio Ferrari and others we can also perceive the influence that the discovery of the classic Roman frieze had in 1480 in Nero’s Domus Aurea in Rome.
Andrea di Lazzaro Cavalcanti known as il Buggiano, adopted by Brunelleschi when he was five years old, frequently puts putti in his works. But these look different from Donatello’s, they are swollen and with square faces, small noses with small nostrils, and with mysterious and slightly evil smiles showing their teeth, probably derived from those in Donatello’s choir loft. His washbasin in the Sacresty of the Masses of the Florence Cathedral is a classic-style aedicule with two large seated cherubs inside with enormous wings that seem to hold the spouts from which the water comes out.

The tomb of Giovanni de’ Medici and Piccarda Bueri from 1433 in the old sacristy of San Lorenzo consists of a sarcophagus with seated winged cherubs holding scrolls and flying winged cherubs holding crowns and the Medici coat of arms, more similar to those of Donatello.

Maso di Bartolomeo decorates the bronze gate cast in 1447 with lost wax of the Cappella della Cintola of the Cathedral of Prato with putti. One of these is blindfolded and has a bow and quiver like Eros but also has winged shoes like Donatello’s Attis. His anatomy is of Donatellian derivation, even if the muscular masses make him more like a little David than a putto. Thus he also brought the putti who are outside in the pulpit inside the cathedral.
In 1446 he also made the famous bronze casket of the Sacred Girdle of Prato, in which he repeats in ivory some Donatellian cherubs of the type and in dancing poses of those in the Pulpit, and the casket in pastiglia with the Orsini coat of arms with little cherubs playing musicians.

Filippo Lippi was obviously influenced by Donatello in the use of putti in his painting, since they both lived and worked in Florence. In the Madonna and Child in the Fitzwilliam Museum painted after 1430, the angels become very young winged cherubs,

equally in the Barbadori Altarpiece of 1438 and in the Madonna with Child, Saints and Angels of the Cini Collection of 1431 the typology of Lippi’s putti is confirmed and strengthened which, especially in the faces, will be one of his characteristics,

a feature that also denotes the typology of his Infant Jesuses, as in the Tarquinia Madonna of 1437 (Palazzo Barberini in Rome).

Andrea del Castagno paints in the frescoes of Villa Carducci of 1451,  above, some dancing putti similar in poses and style to those of the Pulpit in Prato.

Domenico Ghirlandaio is also influenced by Donatello in the theory of putti placed in the frieze of the fresco of the Birth of the Virgin in Santa Maria Novella in Florence of 1490, which overlap in the dance like those of Donatelli in the Cantoria.

Theories of dancing cherubs were sculpted as decorations by Bartolomeo Bellano in the Monument to Roccabonella in S. Francesco in Padua, from 1494, based on the throne of the Bellano Virgin directly inspired by Donatello’s Cantoria of the Florence Cathedral;
Niccolò Pizzolo, also from Padua, in the altarpiece of the Ovetari Chapel in the church of the Eremitani in Padua, has executed a frieze of putti running and playing with circles and crowns at the top, which derive from those of Donatello’s Cantoria;
Giovanni Antonio Amadeo, of Padua, worked in Bergamo at the Colleoni Chapel until 1476, where he executed the bas-relief sculptures on Istrian stone of rough putti crushing grapes, some copied even in pose from those of Donatello’s Pulpit of Prato, and other very chubby and fat cherubs in the lower frieze of the Colleoni Funeral Monument.
Throughout the cloister of the Certosa di Pavia, decorations with putti of the Donatellian type abound, most of which were sculpted by Amadeo around 1470.
In 1433 Donatello went to Padua to work on the altar of the Basilica of S. Antonio, whose sculptures, including those of his putti, influenced the painters of the north, especially Mantegna. Many of Mantegna’s paintings, including the frescoes for the ceiling and walls of the Camera degli Sposi in Mantua, derive from those by Donatello.

Donatello, in the bronze bas-relief of the Pietà in Padua for the first time, has putti support the body of Christ; the first to emulate him is Giovanni Bellini who copies this style in the Pietà at the Museo Correre in Venice (1460).

And he repeats this theme several times: in Christ in the Rimini Museum, from 1470, where the four putti-angels have butterfly wings and wear short tunics, as well as those in Mantegna’s Camera degli Sposi in Mantua,

in the Pietà of the Staatliche Museen in Berlin, where the angel-putti begin to grow in age,

Antonello da Messina, who went to Venice in 1475, was inspired by Bellini to paint the dead Christ supported by three putti-angels (Museo Correre Venezia), and two years later another in which Christ seated is supported by a single putto-angel . (Prado Museum, Madrid)

The sculptor Giulio Monteverde creates a small great masterpiece with this model:
Jenner’s celebratory statue is very complex and represents the character who is inoculating the child with the vaccine. The light glides over the child’s naked body without creating intense chiaroscuro. Instead the doctor’s clothes and the drapery at the bottom of the sheet that falls to the ground are more evident and graphic. Furthermore, his hands are clearly highlighted by the contrast between light and shadow.
In the statue of Jenner who inoculates the child with the smallpox vaccine, Monteverde manages to make the emotions at stake appear immediately clear and transmits them to the viewer:
the child is naked, his skin is smooth, without wrinkles, and allows the light to slip through without creating strong chiaroscuro, which, together with his being at the center of the sculpture, is the focal point of the work.
Jenner, on the other hand, with the dress and with the fabric that descends from the cushion to the ground, has strong chiaroscuro, which highlights its tension, and which, although it is the largest figure, places the figure in the background.
The doctor’s attitude is concentrated and decisive, he is certain of his new theory, but he must overcome the fear of the doctors and the population; the child perceives his fear and is fearful in turn, even if he cannot fight back.
Monteverde wanted to express the courage, determination, and heroic nature of the gesture, if the child is actually his son as legend has it, and the certainty of his science, which in an instant surpasses the clichés of the people and other doctors.

The sculpture was commissioned, after the sculptor had sent it to the Universal Exhibition in Vienna in 1873, where it won the gold medal, by the Duchess of Galliera Maria Brignole Sale de Ferrari, a great philanthropist for the city of Genoa .

Upon her death, the Duchess bequeathed the work by testamentary bequest and since 1884 it has been in the collections of the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Genoa.
As has been described, the Monteverde sculpture is three-dimensionally complex, with many undercuts that would have made the bronze casting extremely challenging. It was therefore necessary to dissect the model into many parts, studied in such a way as to guarantee the perfect result of these in the lost wax casting in bronze.

We continued with the execution of the negative casts in silicone resin and plaster mother mold of each sectioned part of the model, using a special type of liquid silicone that guaranteed the “reading” of every detail of the sculpture and its surface.
From these we obtained the hollow waxes of the thickness that would have been necessary to have in bronze.

Once the waxes have been extracted from the negative forms,

have moved on to the delicate stage of retouching.

It was necessary to reassemble all the wax parts to find the whole model, checking that they all matched perfectly, and the wax parts retouched,

After other passages and firings they were cast in bronze, obtaining the raw castings identical to the waxes themselves

One of the two bronze sculptures is patinated.

The finished sculpture, waiting to be shipped to the customer.

The sculpture is then installed on the marble base, created by Studio Bazzanti, at the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute in Los Angeles.

The client asked us to create a small model of the sculpture. Our sculptor Eleonora Villani get down to work and after a long time she obtained a perfect reduction of Monteverdi’s “Jenner”.
This model has also been dissected into several parts,

From which the negative silicone and plaster mother molds were made,

From which all the small parts in hollow wax were obtained.

The tiny wax parts were reassembled to obtain a complete wax replica, on which a negative mould of the complete model was made, from which the bronze casting was obtained, which, cleaned and chiseled with particular care, became the model for the subsequent 100 replicas.

The number of replicas is limited, and each specimen is numbered in cents, and is stamped with the logo of the Ferdinando Marinelli Foundry and of the company that ordered the replicas (EITM).

The marble bases are made, then the sculptures are patinated and the Carrara marble base is applied.

Another important bronze casting by Donatello is that of Judith and Holofernes in natural size (236 cm with a bronze base) today in front of the Palazzo della Signoria in Florence, but probably commissioned by the Medici for the courtyard of their building. The heroic Jewish Judith is about to cut off the head of Holofernes, general of Nebucodonosor, completely drunk, thus saving his people.

On the pillow in which Oloferne is seated there is the signature of Donatello OPVS – DONATELLI – FLO, and also the writing EXEMPLUM – SAL – PVB – CIVES – POS- MCCCCXCV, a writing that was added when the statue was placed outside the Palazzo della Signoria in 1495.
But by August 1464, when it was still in the Medici palace, there were two other writings on the basement that had been lost: “Regna cadunt luxu surgent virtutibus urbes caesa vides humili with superb manu”, that is: “The kingdoms fall by lust, rise again thanks to the virtues: here is the neck of pride cut from the hand of humility “. And between the years 1464 and 1469 Piero de ’Medici added a second inscription: Regna Cadunt / Salus Publica / Petrus Medices Cos. Fi. Libertati simul et fortitudini hanc mulieris statuam quo cives invicto constantique animo ad rem pub. redderunt dedicavit, that is “Piero son of Cosimo dedicated the statue of this woman to that freedom and fortitude conferred on the republic by the unconstrained and constant spirit of the citizens.” Everything suggests that for Donatello and his peers Giuditta, heavily clothed and covered, represented continence that overcomes pride and lust symbolized by Holofernes limply seated on a pillow. And, by definition, the republic, like Florence and Venice, was compared to ancient Greece and Rome and opposed to tyrannical states like Milan, the enemy of Florence. Holofernes was the general of a totalitarian monarch. Giuditta, savior of the freedom of Israel, was related to the resistance of the Florentine Republic against the tyranny of the Visconti of Milan.
On the triangular base of the statue there are three bas-reliefs based on the cherubs. On the first one winged, naked or semi-naked putti of different ages, they harvest and carry the grapes in the baskets; below is a lying drunk figure, wearing a mask and holding a jug. It is a Bacchic scene, as in the feast in honor of Dionysus in ancient Greece, where they acted masked actors.

On the second bas-relief two putti crush the grapes inside a crater, also decorated on the edge with putti and garlands. A putto drinks directly from the crater, another pulls up his robe, two are lying down drunk.

On the third bas-relief a putto sitting on Dionysus’s lap kisses him, others play horns and dance.

The three scenes represent a bacchanal and its deleterious effects, and have nothing to do with the Christian scenes of harvest and wine production used in a Eucharistic sense. They refer to the drunkenness of Holofernes. In the “Republica” Plato writes that drunkenness transforms man in a tyrant, like the tyrannical Eros, a neo-Platonic interpretation followed by Donatello.
Also on Judith’s dress, putti appear: on the front of the bodice two naked winged cherubs support the circle, on the other side two more putti with desperate faces are at the side of a vase, others behind, others on the right cuff.

Unlike those of the bas-reliefs, the cherubs on Judith’s dress symbolize her victory.

Donatello’s last masterpieces are the two lost wax bronze pulpits for the church of San Lorenzo in Florence, executed after 1460. It is likely that at the time of his death in 1466 they were completed by his helpers Bartolomeo Bellano and Bertoldo of Giovanni, the latter also a friend of Lorenzo the Magnificent. They have suffered various vicissitudes including the arrangement on the columns at the beginning of the ‘500 and a subsequent reassembly in the middle of the’ 500. In both of them Donatello created a narrow trabeation band in which the small putti appear, and it is the first time that this type of decoration reappears after the classical era, in fact Donatello was inspired by the Roman sarcophagi. In these two pulpits the putti return to be secondary elements that comment on the scenes below, with Bacchic dances and references to the grape harvest and wine.

The Pulpit of the Passion

It consists of seven scenes: Prayer in the Garden of Olives, Jesus by Pilate and Caiaphas, Crucifixion, Compianto, Burial (the two bas-reliefs of the Flagellation and of St. John the Evangelist are made of wood and date back to the ‘600). In the trabeation of this pulpit the putti are Bacchic because they refer to the work of the vineyard and the wine but are not drunk, and symbolize, in the context of the Passion of Christ, the Eucharist. In ancient times the cult of Dionysus promised a life after death, and its rites included drinking wine. For the Neo Platonists of the Renaissance, Dionysus prefigures Christ with his promise of salvation, given to the initiated through participation in the Christian Mass with the offering of bread and wine. There are also some parallels in the life of Dionysus-Bacchus and that of Christ: they both had a miraculous birth, both performed miracles with wine, both have grapes as attributes, in both religions there are aspects of suffering, death and life in the afterlife.
We see another connection to the scene of Jesus in the Olive grove in two cherubs to the right of the trabeation kissing foreshadowing the traitor kiss of Judas.

In the bas-relief of the Crucifixion one of the putti on the left is navigating holding a sail.

Sailing putti are present in the ancient frescoes and mosaics as a symbol of the passage of life to the afterlife, and in the Crucifixion the passage from life to the death of Christ. In that of the Burial, in addition to playing with grapes, the Eucharistic symbol, two cherubs play musical instruments and two embrace to console themselves.

and also on the capitals of the pillars, putti holding garlands appear, just as putti appear on the capitals of the Crucifixion and of the Lamentation.

Others are placed above the capitals of the columns of Christ before Caiaphas and Pilate.

The pulpit of the Resurrection

it is composed of eight scenes: The Pious Women at the Sepulcher, Descent to Limbo, Resurrection, Ascension, Pentecost, Martyrdom of San Lorenzo, Christ derided, St. Luke the Evangelist, and also this the entablature with cherubs.
In the Pious Women at the Sepulcher a putto is sleeping, in harmony with the two soldiers on the far right of the bas-relief.

Within the scene of the Ascension winged putti fly attached to the Christ’s mantle

and in the trabeation of the putti they are raising a fallen herm, and on the left others raise the statue of a putto with the cornucopia. They could both be symbols of Christ’s resurrection.

During the Jubilee, the Pope’s opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican is the universal invitation to enter the house of God. The Holy Door opens at the first vespers of Christmas Eve, the day Jesus was born, who came to open the door of heaven which leads to salvation.

Before the actual Jubilee there were similar forms of plenary indulgence: the oldest known was the Jacobean Holy Year instituted by Pope Callixtus II in 1122 and 1126, so to obtain the forgiveness of all sins, pilgrims had to go to Santiago de Compostela.
In 1294 Pope Celestine V issued the Bull of Forgiveness for which by visiting the church of Santa Maria di Collemaggio in the city of Aquila between 28 and 29 August, he obtained the “Perdonanza”, that is, the plenary indulgence.

Pope Boniface VIII, in the wake of the legend of the “Indulgence of the Hundred Years” known since the time of Pope Innocent III,

on 22 February 1300 with the bull “Antiquorum habet fida relatio” he announced the Jubilee with retroactive effect to 24 December 1299, also establishing that it would have to be repeated every 100 years. The bull was engraved on a marble slab and affixed to the portico of the Vatican Basilica. And the three Leonine verses were added to his copies sent throughout the Catholic world:
Annus centenus Romae semper est iubileus
Crimina laxantur cui poenitet ista donantur
Hoc declaravit Bonifacius et roboravit
(The hundredth year in Rome is always a jubilee year / Sins are absolved and penalties condoned / This declared Boniface and confirmed.

In fact, there was a tradition according to which, since ancient times, a pilgrimage to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome performed on January 1 of the first year of each new century would have resulted in a plenary indulgence. The only news that this rite was in use since 1200 is reported in the work “De centesimo sive Jubileo anno liber” report of the first Jubilee of 1300, by Jacopo Caetani degli Stefaneschi, canon of San Pietro: he writes that an old man of 108 years that, when questioned by Boniface, he asserted that 100 years earlier, on 1 January 1200, at the age of only 7, together with his father he would have gone before Innocent III to receive the Indulgence of the Hundred Years.

While the leaden seals of the bulls of Boniface VIII are known, the first medal of this pope dates back to the 1400s and bears the Holy Door on the back.

It is believed that among the anonymous coins issued by the Roman Senate during the thirteenth century, the so-called silver “sampietrini” were minted around 1297 precisely in anticipation of the Jubilee of 1300.

throughout Christianity there was an enormous influx of believers who went to St. Peter’s Basilica, as Dante recalls in verses 28-33 of the eighteenth canto of the Inferno:

Come i Roman per l’esercito molto
l’anno del Giubbileo, su per lo ponte
hanno a passar la gente modo tolto
che dall’un lato tutti hanno la fronte
verso il Castello e vanno Santo Pietro
dall’altra sponda vanno verso il monte…

so it was necessary to create a two-way traffic on the Sant’Angelo bridge so as not to hinder coming and going. The chronicles tell us that also in Florence, due to the great multitude of pilgrims who came and went from Rome, a metal railing was applied in the center of the Ponte Vecchio to regulate the flow of wayfarers.

Instead of every hundred years, the Jubilee was proclaimed after 50 years: Pope Clement VI on 18 August 1349 published, from Avignon, the bull “Unigenitus Dei Filius” which fixed the beginning of the Jubilee on 25 December 1350, despite the famous plague epidemic of 1348, the one described by Boccaccio in the Decameron. And he arranged that it should be repeated every 50 years, instead of the 100 established by Boniface VIII.

Matteo Villani who continued his brother Giovanni’s “Chronicle” tells us that between Lent and Easter one million two hundred thousand faithful visited Rome, and at Pentecost eight hundred thousand. Figures that seem very unlikely.

Pope Urban VI, with the bull “Salvator Noster Unigenitus Jesus Christus” of 8 April 1389, established that the Jubilees were to be called every 33 years instead of every 50. He exceptionally arranged to carry it out in 1390, but died in 1389; the successor Pope Boniface IX proclaimed it in that year despite the schism and the condemnation of the antipope Clement VII.

Between popes and antipopes Martin V established a Jubilee for Christmas 1423, and an anonymous chronicler from Viterbo writes that “he opened the holy door of S. Giovanni in Laterano”, that is, he created a new door in the basilica called for the first time “Porta Santa” which opened for the first time in that year.
Niccolò V wanted to return to the Jubilees 50 years apart from each other, indicating that of 1450 which had an enormous echo with an equally enormous presence of faithful from all over Europe, so much so that food and lodgings were not enough. And also for this Jubilee the Holy Door was opened in the Basilica of the Lateran, as the Florentine merchant Giovanni Rucellai writes in his Zibaldone, confirming what had already been declared by the anonymous Viterbese for 1423.

Pope Paul II brought the interval between the Jubilees to 25 years, indicating it for 1475, calling it the “Holy Year”, a term which has since joined that of “jubilee year” or Jubilee.

The possible presence of a Holy Door both in San Pietro and in San Paolo Fuori le Mura and in Santa Maria Maggiore is not clear until the pontificate of Alexander VI. Authors argue that they were even present before the 1300s, others that the opening and closing of the Holy Door in the Vatican basilicas would have begun precisely with Alexander VI.

Alexander VI Borgia proclaimed the Jubilee of 1500.
The master of the papal chapel since 1484 Giovanni Burcardo (Johannes Burckardus) who wrote
the “Libri Caeremoniales”, a chronicle of the Vatican ceremonies, tells us that the Holy Door was created for the first time in St. Peter’s Basilica by Pope Alexander VI Borgia on the occasion of the Jubilee of 1500, which he proclaimed in March 1499 with the Inter Multiples bubble; for the occasion he also had a new road opened, the Via Alessandrina (destroyed in the 1930s).
And in fact with the bull “Inter curas multiplices” Alexander VI announced the Jubilee for Christmas and ordered the simultaneous opening of the Holy Door of St. Peter’s and of the other three patriarchal basilicas: San Paolo, Lateranense, Santa Maria Maggiore. And he added “… with our hands we will open the Door of the Basilica of Blessed Peter…”.
A new masonry door was built in St. Peter’s Basilica, but prepared so that during the Jubilee ceremony it would be easy for the pope to break a small central part with three hammer blows. The rest of the gate was demolished by the masons. The first to enter the church was to be the pope. Although Alexander VI perhaps did not create the ceremony of opening and closing the Holy Door from scratch, he gave it first order and uniformity by establishing a solemn and rigid ritual in the rules to be observed. It was Alexander VI who also called the Jubilee the Holy Year.
In this way he placed the Holy Door at the center of the jubilee rites, making this purely architectural element a profound spiritual value full of symbolic meanings.
And the hammer with which the pope struck the door took on a symbolic-religious meaning, finding an ideal affinity with the rod with which Moses struck a rock in the desert from which water flowed for his people. Clement VII, in the following Jubilee of 1525, had the mason’s hammer used by Alexander VI replaced with one of solid gold or gilded silver, as Giorgio Vasari also confirms in his sixteenth-century “Ragionamenti”.

We know that before the Holy Year of 1625 Pope Urban VIII proposed to replace the walled up door in the opening and closing ceremony of the Holy Door with a wooden door fitted with hinges and the hammer with two keys, one gold and one silver.

The first image relating to the opening of the Holy Door is the one minted on the reverse of the 5 ducats coin of 1525 of Clement VII.

From 1742 to 1752, a metal door with a wooden core was built, at the behest of Mons. Francesco Giovanni Olivieri, Secretary of the Reverenda Fabbrica, which replaced the wooden shutters of the Holy Door, where the two metal doors were inserted and placed which closed the niche of the Holy Face of the tabernacle in the ancient St. Peter’s. The two new doors had no artistic value, but were used to close the Holy Door during the various subsequent jubilees.

Michelangelo Buonarroti was born on March 6, 1475 in Caprese near Arezzo,

from a Florentine family, who brought the child back to Florence after a few days.
In 1487, at the age of 12, Michelangelo entered the workshop of the famous painter Domenico Ghirlandaio as an apprentice.

In 1488 he was invited to enter as a disciple in the Garden of San Marco in Florence, where Lorenzo dei Medici the Magnificent kept his collection of ancient sculptures. Lorenzo the Magnificent immediately perceived his talent, and in 1490 he took him to live in his nearby Palazzo dei Medici,

where he lived and ate at the table with him and with the most important humanistic philosophers of the Renaissance. He then met the most important protagonists of the Medici family, such as Giovanni, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent who became Pope Leo X, and the son of Giuliano dei Medici (brother of Lorenzo the Magnificent) Giulio who became Pope Clement VII.

It was in this period that due to the quarrel with another disciple of the Garden of San Marco, Pietro Torrigiano, he had a broken nose. Michelangelo was so loved by Lorenzo the Magnificent that he had Torrigiano exiled from Florence.

His first works, executed between 1491 and 1492, when Michelangelo was 15 and still a student in the Garden of San Marco, are the Madonna della Scala

bas-relief in which Donatello takes up the sculptural technique of the “stiacciato” thanks to which he is able to masterfully render the depth of the planes of the staircase in a few millimeters of space; in this work he sculpts the Child with a strong and perfect anatomy, in a twisted pose and seen from behind; and the Battle of the Centaurs

in high relief, inspired by the Roman sarcophagi of which he emphasizes the inextricable tangle of bodies.
Both works are kept in the Casa Buonarroti in Florence.

Due to the political upheavals that took place in the city of Florence after the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent, in 1494 Michelangelo was expelled from the city and took refuge in Bologna, where he sculpted for the Ark of San Domenico preserved in the church of San Domenico in Bologna: San Procolo

Roman Christian soldier martyred, with tunic, high shoes and cloak of ancient soldiers, with a proud and frowning expression; Angel holding a kneeling candlestick,

kneeling, compact figure, with strong masses, far from the slender angels typical of the early Renaissance; San Petronio (previously begun by Niccolò dell ‘Arca), to which Michelangelo brought strength and elegance typical of his sculptural style.

In 1496 Michelangelo, when he was 21, was invited to Rome by Cardinal Raffaele Riario, nephew of Pope Sixtus IV, where he remained until 1501.
As soon as he arrived he began to sculpt Bacchus,

young pagan god staggering drunk with the cup of wine in his hand while behind him, in secret, a little satyr eats his grapes. The work is exhibited at the Bargello National Museum in Florence.

In 1497 the Pietà began,

the only work in which, still twenty-two, he placed his signature on the sash of the Madonna. It is considered one of his greatest masterpieces, and one of the greatest masterpieces of sculpture of all time. It is located in St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.

In Rome he met an important cardinal of the important Piccolomini family of the city of Siena in Tuscany, who later became Pope Pius III, and in 1501 Michelangelo returned to Florence bringing with him the commission he had from the Cardinal to decorate the altar of the Piccolomini Chapel which his family had in the Cathedral of Siena; he thus began the sculpting of San Paolo, San Pietro, San Pio and San Gregorio which he finished in 1504, all works still placed in the Piccolomini altar in the Cathedral of Siena.

In Florence he also received in 1501 the commission from the Opera del Duomo of the city to perform the colossal David

to be placed on one of the external buttresses of the apsidal area of the Cathedral. For Michelangelo it was a difficult challenge; in fact, he was entrusted with a standard block of marble already roughly hewn by other sculptors. But Michelangelo succeeded perfectly in the work, finishing it 3 years later. His David was so admired that it was placed in the square in front of the Palazzo della Signoria.
Michelangelo sculpted a naked young man with a calm attitude despite the challenge to which he had been called, but ready to react, a symbol of the Democracy that kills the Tyrant Goliath.

In the same three years from 1501 to 1504 Michelangelo also sculpted the Madonna with Child or the so-called Madonna of Bruges

for the Flemish merchant Mouscron,
the Tondo Pitti where S. Giovannino is barely hinted at in the background in contrast to the Madonna who protrudes so much that her head goes beyond the frame.

Between 1504 and 1506 Michelangelo executed the Tondo Taddei where the figures emerge from the background with S. Giovannino showing a goldfinch, symbol of the passion, and frightening the Child Jesus who foresees his tragic destiny.

Nel 1503 venne eletto papa Giuliano della Rovere col nome di Giulio II, che iniziò un programma di rivalutazione e abbellimento della città di Roma e si circondò dei più grandi artisti del Rinascimento come Bramante, Raffaello, etc. Fu Bramante che parlò al Papa delle grandi doti e della genialità del fiorentino Michelangelo Buonarroti.
Nel 1505 Giulio II lo chiamò a Roma per progettare e realizzare una sua gigantesca tomba da sistemare all’ interno della Basilica di S. Pietro in Vaticano in fase di costruzione. Dopo due mesi Michelangelo gli presentò il disegno entusiasmando il Papa che gli dette un acconto e lo mandò a alle cave di Carrara per scegliere e acquistare l’ enorme quantità di marmi necessari. La tomba, alta 8 metri, doveva avere circa 40 grandi statue.

Ma nel 1506, dopo che Michelangelo aveva fatto trasportare i blocchi di marmo a Roma, Giulio II perse interesse al progetto e face pagare a Michelangelo il costo dei marmi. Offeso mortalmente, Michelangelo tornò di nascosto a Firenze, dove iniziò a scolpire altri lavori, come il S. Matteo commissionatogli dall’ Opera del Duomo di Firenze, che però non terminò.

Si tratta della figura di Gesù in piedi, risorto, con un corpo potente ma in una posa di morbida torsione che regge la croce e tiene con la sinistra il suo sudario. Si trova a Roma nella basilica di Santa Maria sopra Minerva.

Alla morte di Giulio II nel 1513 gli eredi chiesero a Michelangelo un nuovo più piccolo progetto per la tomba del papa; Michelangelo accettò, ma il progetto subì continui ridimensionamenti nel 1513, nel 1516, nel 1526, nel 1532 e nel 1542.
Quando era in vita Giulio II, nel primo grandioso progetto erano stati previsti, alla base della tomba, venti “Prigioni” (chiamati poi Schiavi) via via ridotti nei progetti successivi a dodici, poi a otto, poi a quattro, e poi eliminati del tutto. Prima dell’ eliminazione dal progetto di queste statue, Michelangelo ne aveva scolpite sei, di cui due a Roma e quattro a Firenze:

nel 1513 lo Schiavo Morente,

per cui si era ispirato alla statuaria ellenistica del Niobe Morente presente alla Galleria degli Uffizi di Firenze; anche in un soggetto drammatico e potente come questo il corpo e il volto risultano eleganti, come se si trattasse di un possente ballerino;

nello stesso anno eseguì lo Schiavo Ribelle,

ispirandosi anche per questo all’arte ellenistica del gruppo del Laocoonte presente al Museo Vaticano di Roma; il personaggio è reso con una forte e tesa torsione che anima il massiccio corpo.
Entrambi i prigioni sono esposti al Museo del Louvre a Parigi.

Gli altri quattro Prigioni, detti “Fiorentini” furono scolpiti da Michelangelo negli anni ’20 del ‘500, durante la sua permanenza a Firenze per il progetto e la realizzazione, mai avvenuta, della nuova facciata della chiesa di San Lorenzo. Alla morte del maestro nel 1564 erano ancora nella sua bottega in via Mozza a Firenze quando il nipote Leonardo Buonarroti li donò al Granduca Cosimo I dei Medici che li incastonò nella grotta del Buontalenti nel cortile di Palazzo Pitti. Sono conservati alla Galleria dell’ Accademia di Firenze:

lo Schiavo che si desta

è una massiccia figura maschile che contorcendosi sembra fuoriuscire dal marmo da cui cerca di liberare gamba e braccio destro, dando all’ opera una speciale e primordiale forza e dinamicità;

lo Schiavo Atlante

che sostiene il blocco di marmo non ancora scolpito della testa. Nelle possenti braccia e nelle grosse gambe divaricate cui tutti i muscoli sono tesi nel sostenere il gravoso peso;

lo Schiavo Barbuto

è il più completo dei quattro, la particolare posizione del braccio destro che sorregge la testa e la gamba destra piegata creano anche in questo Prigione una dinamicità meno disperata di quella degli altri Prigioni;

lo Schiavo Giovane

ha le gambe piegate nello sforzo di liberarsi dal marmo, e in questo tentativo titanico si protegge la testa e la faccia col braccio sinistro.

Sempre per la tomba di Giulio II Michelangelo nel 1513-1515 aveva scolpito lo straordinario Mosè seduto.

Nel 1542, 25 anni dopo l’esecuzione dell’opera, Michelangelo decise di girare la testa del profeta, dovendo così creare una torsione dinamica di tutta l’opera cambiando anche la posizioni di un ginocchio, e dando una strana forma alla barba che Mosè sorregge tirandola a destra. Le tavole della legge si sono rovesciate scivolando dalle sue braccia.

Nel 1532 Michelangelo scolpiva il Genio della Vittoria;

sembrerebbe anche questo essere stato scolpito per la tomba di Giulio II. Rimasto nella bottega di via Mozza alla sua partenza per Roma nel 1534 fu donato dal nipote Leonardo Buonarroti al granduca Cosimo I che lo pose nel Salone dei Cinquecento in Palazzo Vecchio a Firenze. Come i Prigioni il gruppo presenta la torsione del corpo e l’anatomia vigorosa. E corona di foglie di quercia allude ai Della Rovere famiglia di Papa Giulio II. La scultura rappresenta lo stato del vincitore che domina lo sconfitto tenendolo sottomesso con agilità, con una gamba che gli blocca il corpo ripiegato e incatenato. Il giovane che rappresenta il genio è bello ed elegante, mentre il dominato è vecchio e barbuto, con un fisico flaccido e un’espressione rassegnata. Anche le superfici sono trattate in maniera diversa per esaltare espressivamente il contrasto tra le due figure: il giovane levigato alla perfezione (forse avrebbe le fattezze di Tommaso de’ Cavalieri suo intimo amico di Roma), il vecchio ruvido e incompleto, per lasciare il ricordo della pesante pietra di cui è fatto.

Finalmente l’ultimo progetto della tomba di Giulio II concordato con gli eredi fu eretto, ma non nella basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano ma nella chiesa di San Pietro in Vincoli a Roma. Si tratta di una facciata a due piani con solo tre statue di mano del Maestro: il Mosè e le figure bibliche di Rachele e Lia:
Rachele è completamente coperta da un lungo e aderente abito che le copre anche la testa, prega con gli occhi rivolti al cielo con una leggera torsione del corpo che accompagna lievemente la torsione del vicino Mosè. Rappresenta la Vita Contemplativa.

Lia è in veste di matrona romana che ha in mano uno specchio o un diadema sotto il quale c’ è la lunga coda di capelli. Rappresenta la Vita Attiva.

La Sacrestia Nuova

Giovanni, figlio di Lorenzo dei Medici il Magnifico, alla morte di Papa Giulio II nel 1513, venne eletto col nome di Papa Leone X.
Nel 1516 morì Giuliano, l’altro figlio di Lorenzo dei Medici il Magnifico, che era stato eletto Duca di Nemours, e nel 1519 morì anche Lorenzo, suo nipote, eletto Duca di Urbino. Il Papa Leone X chiese a Michelangelo la creazione di una grande cappella funebre nel complesso della chiesa di San Lorenzo a Firenze, chiamata poi Sacrestia Nuova, dove porre anche le future sepolture del padre Lorenzo dei Medici il Magnifico e dello zio Giovanni dei Medici.
Michelangelo iniziò il lavoro che alla morte di Leone X nel 1521 fu confermata dal nuovo Papa Clemente VII cugino del defunto Leone X eletto nel 1513.
Nel 1524 Michelangelo stava finendo la creazione dei modelli in creta, e all’arrivo dei marmi dalle cave di Carrara scolpì 4 figure tra cui la Notte e l’Aurora. Nel 1527 per motivi politici Michelangelo fermò il lavoro e nel 1530 fu costretto a fuggire da Firenze dove ritornò nel 1531 continuando la grande opera.

Il progetto di Michelangelo che venne scelto fu quello con tombe singole per i Duchi nelle pareti laterali e doppie per i Magnifici sulla parete opposta all’altare

Per la tomba di Giuliano dei Medici duca di Nemours ha scolpito il Giorno e la Notte e il ritratto a figura intera:

il Giorno

posto a destra sulla tomba di Giuliano, iniziato nel 1526 e consegnato nel 1534 non finito, è rappresentato come un possente uomo semidisteso sula base curva in simmetria con la vicina Notte. Michelangelo si ispirò ad alcune sculture romane classiche, al Torso del Belvedere che conosceva bene, e si ricordò anche della posizione del Bambino Gesù nella suo bassorilievo della Madonna della Scala. Il gomito sinistro è piegato in appoggio mentre il braccio dietro è piegato all’ indietro come se cercasse qualcosa. Il corpo è ruotato verso la parete mentre la testa e le gambe ruotano in senso opposto verso lo spettatore, creando una speciale tensione emotiva e misteriosa confermata dal volto barbuto appena abbozzato.

La Notte

posta a sinistra sulla tomba di Giuliano è rappresentata da una forte donna anche questa semidistesa sula base curva, così come anche l’ Aurora e il Crepuscolo, con la gamba sinistra piegata; la testa reclinata nel sonno retta dal braccio destro appoggiato alla coscia sinistra e il braccio sinistro piegato dietro la schiena costringono il busto ad una torsione verso chi guarda.
Suoi attributi sono la notturna civetta, i frutti del papavero il cui estratto provoca il sonno, la maschera simbolo del sogno.

Il Ritratto di Giuliano

fu iniziato nel 1526 e finito nel 1534 da Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli. E’ il ritratto del giovane Duca con capo riccioluto e col lunghissimo collo, vestito da generale romano in atteggiamento fiero (opposto all’ atteggiamento penoso di Lorenzo Duca d’ Urbino), con l’ armatura aderente come una seconda pelle), con in mano il bastone del comando.
Per la tomba di Lorenzo Duca d’ Urbino ha scolpito l’ Aurora e il Crepuscolo e il ritratto a figura intera:

l’ Aurora

posta destra sulla tomba di Lorenzo, iniziata nel 1524 e finita nel 1527, è anch’ essa rappresentata da una figura femminile semidistesa di ispirazione romana classica, con un velo sulla testa che cerca col braccio, sinistro mentre si sta svegliando girandosi verso chi guarda.

Il Crepuscolo

posta a sinistra sulla tomba di Lorenzo, iniziata nel 1524 ma nel 1534 ancora non finita è rappresentato come un possente uomo semidisteso sula base curva, appoggiato sul braccio sinistro e con le gambe accavallate, col braccio destro adagiato sulla coscia regge il velo e la testa che guarda indietro e in basso. La posa della figura è rilassata.

Il Ritratto di Lorenzo (Il Pensatore)

fu scolpito da Michelangelo ma terminato nel 1534 da Giovanni Angelo Montorsoli. E’ il ritratto del giovane Duca morto a 37 anni seduto, rappresentato come un generale romano, nella celebre posa pensosa e malinconica; la corazza aderisce al corpo come una seconda pelle; le decorazioni dell’ elmo sono opera del Montorsoli. La mano destra appoggiata sul dorso all’ infuori sulla gamba alluse all’ abbandono nel sonno o nella morte; il dito indice sulla bocca rimanda al silenzio.

Sulla tomba di Lorenzo dei Medici il Magnifico e di Giuliano dei Medici suo fratello solamente la Madonna Medici è di mano di Michelangelo:

la Madonna Medici

fu la prima scultura che Michelangelo iniziò nel 1521 per la Sacrestia Nuova ma ancora in lavorazione nel 1534 quando Michelangelo lasciò Firenze.
Ci sono alcune somiglianze compositive tra questa scultura e il bassorilievo della Madonna della Scala eseguita da Michelangelo nel 1492 a 15 anni d’ età, come la Madonna seduta su un blocco di marmo, la posa del Bambino Gesù che con una forte torsione si presenta di spalle nascondendo il volto; la torsione del bambino e le gambe intrecciate della Madonna creano un forte dinamismo bilanciato dalla testa della Vergine, come nel Genio della Vittoria.

Alla fine degli anni ’40 del ‘500 Michelangelo iniziò a scolpire un’ altra Pietà, la Pietà Bandini

avrebbe voluto destinarla alla sua tomba nella basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore a Roma, tant’ è vero che nel volto di Nicodemo ha modellato il suo autoritratto. Uso per questa opera uno dei blocchi di marmo acquistati per la tomba di Giulio II. Volle provare in seguito a cambiare la posizione delle gambe di Cristo, ma una vena del marmo ne causò la rottura. In preda ad una furiosa crisi depressiva Michelangelo la prese a martellate sul gomito, sul petto, sulla spalla di Gesù, sulla mano della Madonna, dove si vedono ancora oggi le rotture; staccò del tutto la gamba sinistra di Gesù che doveva accavallarsi su quella di Maria e che andò persa.
Nonostante il cattivo stato dell’ opera, questa fu acquistata nel 1561 da Francesco Bandini che tentò di terminarla. Nel 1674 venne venduta al Granduca Cosimo III dei Medici che la collocò nel Duomo di Firenze e dal 1981 è conservata al Museo dell’ Opera del Duomo di Firenze.
L’ opera ha un andamento piramidale dove il corpo di Cristo che scivola verso il basso, con le sue linee oblique ne è il fuoco.

L’ ultima opera a cui lavorò Michelangelo è la Pietà Rondanini

iniziata nel 1552-53 e rilavorata dal Maestro più volte dal 1555 al 1564, anno della sua morte. Probabilmente avrebbe dovuto sostituire sulla sua tomba la precedente Pietà Bandini. L’ opera, benché non finita, ha una grandissima forza e modernità, e precorre di quattrocento anni una parte della scultura moderna del ‘900. Venne acquistata nel ‘700 dal marchese Rondanini, e nel 1952 dal Comune di Milano dove è esposta al Castello Sforzesco.