Vatican Museums

“L’amor di Michelagnolo e la fatica insieme”
The casts of the three Pietà

Vatican City, 6 April 2023 – On the occasion of Easter, the Vatican Museums will open to the public the exhibition “L’amor di Michelagnolo e la fatica insieme. I calchi delle tre Pietà”, dedicated to the Florentine master’s three Pietà.

The exhibition is set up at the entrance of the Vatican Pinacoteca and will allow visitors, the curious and enthusiasts to admire Buonarroti's extraordinary sculptural art through the three plaster casts produced between the 19th and 20th centuries of his famous Pietà: the Vatican, Bandini and Rondanini.

“The exhibition was created”, comments Barbara Jatta, Director of the Vatican Museums, “with the intention of offering museum audiences food for thought through the three touching Pietà by the great Florentine master created in the service of the Faith”.

Thanks to the loan from the collection of plaster casts of the Porta Romana Art Institute in Florence, and the two artefacts from the Vatican collections, the three Michelangelo casts are thus brought together in this third and final edition of the exhibition that, during 2022, was presented first at the in Florence and then at the Palazzo Reale in Milan.

Visible until 6 January 2024 and positioned one next to the other, the three precious plaster works will offer the opportunity to study the evolution of Michelangelo's art as well as his spiritual maturation, from his early youth, when in Rome he sculpted the work now in the north aisle of the Basilica of Saint Peter, to his full maturity expressed in the Pietà Bandini in Florence, up to his final season, when, in old age, he turned his hand to the Pietà Rondanini in the Castello Sforzesco in Milan.

These specimens tell the story of the sensitivity Buonarroti achieved during his long life: from the grandiose youthful work of classicist imprint to the unfinished sculpture of his last days. More than sixty years separate the first Pietà, the Vatican, from the last, the Rondanini.

The cast of the Pietà of St. Peter's in the Vatican City was made in 1975 in the Casts and Plaster Casts Laboratory of the Vatican Museums by Ulderico Grispigni; the occasion for its creation came at a dramatic moment for the Pietà, namely the 1972 act of vandalism to the sculpture, which made it necessary to prepare a new cast. The cast of the Pietà of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, the Bandini Pietà, kept in the collection of the Florentine plaster cast collection Porta Romana Art Institute, dates back to around 1882 and is the work of the Florentine moulder Oronzo Lelli. Finally, the cast of the Rondanini Pietà was commissioned in 1953 to the Milanese moulder Cesare Gariboldi, with the aim of determining the ideal location for the sculpture, which has been kept in the Castello Sforzesco since 1952, in total safety during the marble statue's installation tests.

The exhibition is part of the Vatican Museums' exhibition itinerary. Admission is free and the opening hours are those of the Museums.

Matteo Alessandrini

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  www.museivaticani.va

Head of Press Office

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 stampa.musei@scv.va