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.

The sculptor Belloni was born in 1882 in Montevideo in Uruguay, from a Spanish mother and a father born in Lugano, who had emigrated to Montevideo in search of work. In 1890 his parents separated, his mother remained in Montevideo while his father returned with his son to Lugano, who attended the Cantonal School of Art here.
He then returned to Uruguay where in 1899 he obtained a scholarship for sculpture, but later left for Europe where he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, making himself known for his works in much of Europe; he also taught professional design in Ticino, Switzerland.

When the scholarship expired, he returned to Montevideo where he taught at the Circulo de Fomento de Bellas Artes and then became its director in 1914.

Unfortunately, the archive of the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry was lost in the Florence flood of 1966. No documents remain, except for a few photographs.
That of the “Carreta” is the only pre-1966 work carried out by the Ferdinando Marinelli Foundry of which the original documents (contracts, letters, etc.) of the time still exist, thanks to the Josè Belloni Archive in Montevideo, from which the documents and some photos have been taken for this article.

It seems that the sculptor Belloni, in the countryside around Montevideo in Uruguay, saw a traditional “carreta” pass at sunset, fell in love with it, and therefore did research on this old type of means of transport in use since the nineteenth century in the eastern part of Uruguay.
The “carrete” were wagons built entirely of wood, without metal nails, covered at the top by a roof of coarse canvas and horse skin. They were painted in bright colors. On their way they created caravans of many wagons pulled by pairs of oxen that managed to make them pass, very slowly, in extremely inaccessible terrain. They transported, as well as people, skins and other goods to Montevideo, where they were loaded on ships leaving for Europe.

At their side rode the “gauchos” inciting and guiding the oxen.
When the caravan stopped for the night, the wagons became the shelter where travelers slept: in the warm season under them stretched out on skins inside their ponchos, in winter inside the wagon.

Belloni began to perform, as a rule, a series of sketches to realize and study the dimensions and proportions of the monument, following which he modeled a provisional sketch which he then modified by perfecting it and obtaining for first a three-dimensional plaster sketch complete with the details.

After making the necessary changes to this too, he created the definitive plaster sketch.

It was at this point that he made contact with whoever would enlarge his sketch and with who, once enlarged, would have cast it in bronze in its original size.
Thanks to the interest of the Consul of Uruguay in Italy, Gilberto Fraschetti, Belloni came to Italy in August 1938 to talk about the project to Ferdinando Marinelli Sr., owner of the homonymous foundry.
After being convinced of the working capacity and quality of the castings of the Marinelli Foundry in Florence, it was established that the enlargement would be carried out in the foundry under the control of the sculptor Sirio Tofanari, well known by Marinelli.

The enlargement rules were written in the subsequent contract for the entire process at the Ferdinando Marinelli Foundry, signed in January 1930, as can be read in the enlarged detail of the second page of this contract: to obtain the clay model of the “Carreta” to the original size, Belloni requested enlargement “ai punti” by means of a pantograph to be done inside the Foundry; from what is written, the model he sent to the foundry also appears to be half the size of the original, that is, it had to be doubled.

From the 11-page contract between Belloni and the Ferdinando Marinelli Foundry dated January 2, 1930 (of which the first and last page are shown) some interesting information can be obtained:

the bronze alloy had to be composed of 90% copper and 10% tin; even today the Ferdinando Marinelli Foundry uses this alloy, but in the pre-war bronze statuary was also composed of other metals, such as lead and a small part also zinc, so Belloni’s request was ahead of its time, although this alloy was more expensive than the normal one;
and also required the chemical analysis of the bronze after the castings to ensure the required alloy composition;

both the ox and the horse had to be cast in one piece, which is very difficult given the size; still today there is a tendency to cast pieces of medium size to have a better yield. Incredible that the result was perfect for all the oxen and the horse, as I was told years ago by “Brunino”, the oldest worker who had participated in these castings;

But the even more incredible thing is that the bronze monument, enlargement and transport to Montevideo included, had to be finished and assembled in Montevideo no later than 7 months from the date of signing the contract, with a penalty of 100 Lire for each day of delay.

The fee for all the operations, including the execution of the enlarged model and the shipment to Montevideo was established at 320,000 Lire.
On January 4, 1930, Marinelli sent a letter of thanks to Belloni.

The chemical analyzes of the bronze alloy were carried out by the Fonderia del Pignone, resulting in the alloy being perfectly in tune with the requirements of Belloni and written on the contract.

Some pictures of the “Carreta”

Commemorative medal coined for the inauguration of the Monument

Images of the “Carreta” nowadays

The Postal Service of the Italian State considered the Pietro Bazzanti and Son Art Gallery of Florence an institution of great worldwide importance.
In March 2022 they came to visit us in the Gallery some technicians of Poligrafico dello Stato, Post Office and Telegraph section, for an interview with the owner Ferdinando Marinelli and to visit the Gallery. They returned to ask for permission for the project they described to us: the creation of an official postmark to be affixed to the stamps of two illustrated postcards on which to print details of sculptures in the Gallery, highlighting the 200th anniversary.

The Bazzanti Gallery was opened in 1822, and therefore in this year 2022 falls the 200th anniversary of its foundation.
Two details of important works present in the Gallery were chosen as images: the head of the Dancer with her hands on her hips by Canova, the original of which is in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, and a detail of the bronze Triton by the sculptor Sergio Benvenuti.

The Second World War began a period of great difficulty which did not spare even the Pietro Bazzanti Gallery.
No brightening appeared on the horizon when in 1960 the Gallery passed to the Marinelli family, owners since 1905 of the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry in Florence. The new management was able to exploit the years of economic recovery by also reopening its own sculpture studio, and giving greater vigor to its very popular Foundry.
For the historic Gallery, all this meant a new course, marked by a more managerial direction able to control the artistic quality of the works more rigorously and to organize more extensive assistance in exporting.
In addition to the nineteenth-century plaster models inherited from the old property, those from the gipsoteca of the Foundry were added, all casts made on the originals by Ferdinando Marinelli Sr., creator of the homonymous Foundry, made in the 1930s.
The already attractive catalog of the Bazzanti gallery has grown with a vast and highly qualified collection of bronzes, known throughout the world since the early 1900s.
In 1976 the reins of the Gallery and the Foundry passed into the hands of Ferdinando Marinelli Jr., who still today feeds the two souls of Bazzanti: that of the marble sculpted in his studio, and that of the bronzes cast in the Foundry with the ancient Renaissance techniques of lost wax casting learned from grandfather Ferdinando Marinelli Sr.

Lady Mary Wortley Pierrepont, wife of the English ambassador to Istanbul Lord Montague, fell ill with smallpox in 1714 and managed to recover.

She had followed her husband to Turkey, where she had seen some women infect themselves and her children with smallpox pustule serum. These became very slightly ill, and yet became immune to smallpox.
The Lady, of modernist ideas, did not hesitate to inoculate the disease to her children, with excellent results, and she tried to publicize the method in England, but she found strong resistance among doctors and ecclesiastics. But in many parts of Europe this technique was accepted and the kings of Denmark and Sweden, the dukes of Parma and Tuscany and the Tsarina Catherine II were vaccinated.
But she found that a small percentage of the vaccinated took smallpox severely, and died from it.

Edward Jenner (1749 – 1823) in his youth was infected with smallpox, which he overcame, but which marked him deeply. Due to this disease, he was not accepted at the University of Oxford, where he would have liked to attend medicine courses.

He managed to become a pupil and assistant of a country doctor, Dr. Ludlow, who taught him the profession. He then went to London where he attended the hospital under the guidance of Dr. Hunter.
Jenner saw that farmers who milked cows that had caught cowpox, other than human pox, got sick, but not fatally. And he did this experiment: he took serum from a cowpox patient and inoculated it into a child who became slightly ill; shortly thereafter he inoculated human smallpox serum to him, and the child did not get sick. He discovered that cowpox immunized against human smallpox without causing serious or fatal symptoms.
Jenner published these findings and despite strong medical and religious opposition, this practice was followed across much of Europe. In 1803 the Jenner Institute was opened in London.

The Piedmontese sculptor Giulio Monteverde

in 1873 modeled the sculpture “Jenner inoculating the smallpox vaccine to the son”; he cast a bronze original and carved also a marble original, who won the gold medal at the Universal Exhibition in Vienna. It is an important and beautiful work that shows Jenner while, focusing on the responsibility he takes, inoculates the smallpox vaccine on a child.

Dr. David B. Agus M.D. of the “Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of USC” in Los Angeles, asked the Ferdinando Marinelli Foundry in Florence to cast two bronze copies of the sculpture taken from the original, and therefore to find out where to find the original in plaster of the author from whom these copies could be made.

It turned out that the original plaster model is kept at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Genoa together with the marble original.

The Foundry obtained from Dr. Francesca Serrati, director of the Museum, to allow those in charge of the Lawrence J. Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine of USC to make a mould and create a life-size model.

The very faithful model has been delivered to the Ferdinando Marinelli Foundry in Florence, which has begun to create by lost wax casting two bronze replicas of the sculpture.

The forty’s of the ‘400 are the years in which Donatello created his most important and greatest bronze works, in each of which he continues to make his delicious putti appear in one way or another. In the famous bronze David (Bargello Museum, Florence) he sculpts a decorative bas-relief on the helmet of the head of Goliath at his feet in which a scene with a series of putti appears.

The meaning of this scene has been much discussed, since the sword of David wants to indicate precisely the small bas-relief that therefore probably symbolizes the “moral” of the entire sculpture. There is represented a chariot drawn by two winged and naked putti; on the cart a figure without wings is enthroned and receives gifts from two other winged putti; behind the throne appears a naked and fat character with no wings behind, with at his feet, an amphora. The scene seems to be taken from an ancient Roman gem, probably from the Medici collection; it is very probable that the seated figure is Bacchus accompanied by Silenus, and that the winged putto is offering him a cup of wine. Being on the Goliath helmet, it could be the representation of incontinence, pride and arrogance, vices associated with Goliath (and with the tyrannical enemies of Florence) won by the virtue of David (the Republic of Florence).

Attis
It is a bronze statue in all-round, about 104 centimetres high. Although with various attributes, it is a putto standing up, and it is the first time that in the Renaissance a putto is sculpted in all-round in this size, without being an accessory or secondary character. It is absolutely in classic pagan style, so much so that in the 17th century it was taken for an ancient Roman work. Besides being beautiful, it is also enigmatic, there is no sculpture in antiquity with all its features and attributes: it seems that Donatello has invented a new type of creature. He is standing, in a relaxed chiasmus, with both arms raised. He joyfully looks at his left hand where the thumb and middle finger are closed, probably holding something that was lost; he has tangled hair tied by a string that holds a flower in his forehead, he wears a belt around his waist with sculpted poppy caps that supports a sort of stocking-pants that leave his buttocks and genitals exposed; at his feet he has two squat and undefined pairs of wings, he wears sandals with which he tramples a snake. On his shoulders he has two beautiful wings, and at the beginning of his buttocks a small tail.

In ancient times there were putti standing with similar hair and with a similar pose. But they do not have wings on their feet, nor belts with stockings, nor tails, nor snakes to step on. Donatello wanted to transform the classic putto prototype into something with a precise meaning. Several scholars have clashed with this meaning: for Edgard Wind (Misteri pagani del Rinascimento, Adelphi, Milan 1985) is a polymorphous neo-Platonic creation, with the face and wings of Eros, which has Pan’s tail, Attis’s trousers,

the belt of Hypnos, the wings at the feet of Mercury.
For Erwin Panofsky (Renaissance and Renaissance in Western art) it is the allegory of Time that rolls the dice; and in fact Pan’s tail is the symbol of the association of Pan with the universe of which Time holds the fate. The wings on the shoulders and feet, and the snake, are symbols of Time. The barbaric pants are those of Aion, the demon of time of Iranian origin. The poppies of the belt, emblems of sleep and death, represent its dual nature as creator and destroyer. And the missing object that probably had between his fingers was just a dice. Time is a destroyer who plays dice with humanity, our destiny is in his hands.
In a fragment of Heraclius found in the “Refutatio omnium haeresium” (book IX, chapters 3 and 4) of Hippolytus of Rome the Demon of Time is defined as a frivolous child who plays with dice with humanity and our destiny is in his hands. There is this phrase also in Carmina LXXXXV of the Byzantine Gergorio Nazanzieno. When Lorenzo the Magnificent succeeded in 1349 to bring the Council between the Roman and Oriental church in Florence, the emperor of Byzantium John VIII Palaeologus and his numerous court

could have brought to the attention of the Florentine humanists, in a continuous search for classical Greek texts, the fragment of Heraclius and then transferred to Donatello’s work; this collaboration often happened in the workshops of Renaissance artists.
We do not know of this Donatellian masterpiece the date of execution which is in any case hypothesized in the middle of the fifteenth century, nor the client, with any probability the Medici family, or perhaps the Bartolini Salimbeni.
Another putto from Donatello’s workshop is the bronze one of the Metropolitan Museum of New York.

It has stylistic elements that are very similar of those of Donatello, for example the rounded protruding belly like in the Attis, the movement equal to that of the putti on the baptistery of Siena, the movement of the hair, and has some attributes of the Attis: the same type of attack of the wings and the feathers between them on the back, a strange hairy tail, the wings on the feet.
It is born as a putto for a fountain but we do not know when it has been sculpted, we can hypothesize around the middle of the ‘400, and we don’t know for whom it has been executed. Like the Attis, it is one of the first two all-round standing putto
Two other magnificent bronze putti, attributed in the past to Luca della Robbia, are those of the Jacquemart Andre Museum in Paris, but have long since been attributed to Donatello and are dated around 1440.

They are two candle holders, most likely executed by Donatello for the Cantoria del Duomo, where they sat on two corners. Like the Attis, they have wavy hair tied with a thread decorated with leaves that holds the same flower as the Attis on the forehead. Even the expression of the face is very similar to that of the Attis; also the wings are similar to those of the Attis, with the central part of the back covered with feathers.

The expression on the face is also very similar to that of Attis.

After the inauguration of the Fountain of the Two Oceans in Saint Diego, the contacts between Dudi and Pat Bowlen with me and Benvenuti softened, each one taken from their work; they confined themselves to greetings for the year-end holidays.
Much later, one afternoon Franco Barducci, director of the Galleria Bazzanti, received a phone call: it was Dudi Berretti who was looking for Ferdinando Marinelli. As if by magic the past years disappeared, the voices on the phone consolidated the old friendship in an instant. Once again Dudi Berretti, commissioned by Pat Bowlen to take an interest in the creation of a great monument for the construction of a new football stadium in Denver for the Broncos team, of which Bowlen was president,

he turned to the binomial Ferdinando Marinelli-Sergio Benvenuti. The calls between the three of us followed each other along with the faxes, exchanges of drawings, sketches, notes. The new stadium projects included around it an embankment that Dudi wanted covered with grass, shrubs, trees, with various grazing bronze horses. It was then that Pat Bowlen decided to give the citizens of Denver a monument with a strong symbolic content: a group of seven horses that climbed the embankment near the entrance stairway of the new stadium. The horses had to be seven because this was the number of the champion of the Broncos team, John Elway, (and also the lucky number in the life of Dudi Berretti).
At the invitation of the “Stadium Management Co. Denver Broncos” I flew with Sergio Benvenuti to Denver to present the project to Stadium Management and the various artistic commissions in the District. The monument received the full approval and applause of all. Upon returning to Florence Benvenuti immediately set to work performing the models ad 1/5 of the size of the final sculpture. Shortly afterwards Dudi Beretti together with the landscape architect Lanson Nichols came to Florence to see the models and to discuss with us the best setting for the fund on which the seven horses would be run.

At the table, as we know, we discussed better.

At the Marinelli Foundry, Benvenuti began enlarging the first horse, then continuing with the other six.

As soon as a horse was brought to the required size, the negative mold was made in the foundry and then the wax that was immediately retouched and then taken to the subsequent phases necessary for the bronze casting.

A few months later Dudi Berretti accompanied appointees from the Studium Management Co. Denver Broncos, who at the Foundry checked with satisfaction the progress of the work.

They were also introduced to the specialties of Tuscan cuisine.

Castings proceeded,

and while the first four bronze horses were on the ship bound for the port of Huston and from there to Denver, Pat Bowlen himself came to Florence to meet Sergio Benvenuti and to view the last three horses, which impressed him very much. After drinking special wine we had his approval.

The seven horses were already in Denver when together with Benvenuti we also arrived in Denver to direct the assembly of the great fountain.

Placing and assembly work lasted a few days,

until the official inauguration.
It has been a wonderful experience.

The negative moulds made on the sculptures to be cast in bronze are used to obtain a positive wax of the sculpture itself, of the same thickness that the bronze should have.

The wax thus obtained is retouched, i.e. any imperfections are removed,

until it is perfect and ready to be incorporated into a three-dimensional network of castings,

and then covered with a refractory material called “loto”.

The “loto” mould containing the wax is cooked in the furnace for several days

Cooking melts and burns the wax contained in the “loto” moulds, leaving the empty cavity with the shape of the burnt wax inside.
After cooking, the “loto” moulds are placed in a hole in the ground.

We now proceed to the melting of bronze alloy,

And to the casting of the molten bronze into the “loto” moulds;

Bronze thus takes the place of wax; the moulds are broken to extract the bronze castings

The castings are freed from the castings and sandblasted to clean them from the “loto” leftovers.

The castings are now cleaned and chiseled,

e successivamente rimontate a freddo e poi saldate.

The last phase is the patination of the sculpture: it involves oxidizing the surface of the bronze in the same way that the atmosphere would, over the years, but much more quickly

The lost wax casting technique has remained the same for centuries. Today, of course, methane is used instead of coal for the melting furnaces and for the furnaces for cooking “loto” moulds, electric tools such as hoists, cranes, forklifts, etc. that allow the handling of heavy parts, once done completely by hand.
The only changes related to the materials were the replacement of organic gelatin to make the negative moulds with silicone rubber, and the replacement of beeswax, now very expensive, with paraffin.
Even bronze welding is no longer oxyacetylene flame but takes place with electric welders in an argon atmosphere.