Free Web Submission http://addurl.nu FreeWebSubmission.com Software Directory www britain directory com education Visit Timeshares Earn free bitcoin http://www.visitorsdetails.com CAPTAIN TAREK DREAM: Renaissance artists (part 2) فناني عصر النهضه الجزء الثانى

Monday, January 14, 2019

Renaissance artists (part 2) فناني عصر النهضه الجزء الثانى

بورتريه الدوق أندريـا غـريتـي للفنان الايطـالي تيتـيـان، 1548

Titian, Portrait of Doge Andrea Gritti, 1548


يعتبر اندريا غريتي أشهر وأهمّ دوق حَكَمَ فينيسيا خلال القرن السادس عشر.

وقد انتخب لهذا المنصب بعد أن تدرّج في عدة وظائف قيادية في المجالين السياسي والعسكري.

واشتهر غريتي بشخصيّته الصارمة، كما ُعرف عنه احتفاؤه بالفنون طوال السنوات الخمس عشرة التي شغل فيها المنصب إلى أن توفي في العام 1538م.

المعروف أن منصب الدوق كان محطّة أو مرحلة من مراحل التطوّر السياسي الذي شهدته أوربّا وامتدّ لحوالي ألف عام. وقد جرت العادة أن يُنتخب شاغل المنصب من إحدى العائلات الارستقراطية. وكان الدوق يتولى مهامّ قائد الجيش وكبير القضاة. ومن الأمور المألوفة أن يمتدّ حكم الدوق مدى الحياة، وكثيرا ما كان يعهد لابنه أو أحد أقاربه بخلافته. لكنْ تمّ إلغاء هذا التقليد بتأسيس مجلس استشاري أعلى مرتبط بالإمبراطور وموكّل بمهمّة اختيار الشخص الأصلح لشغل المنصب بعيدا عن نفوذ العائلات التقليدية.

رسم تيشيان هذا البورتريه بعد مرور عشر سنوات على وفاة الدوق غريتي. ويظهر أن ذلك كان بطلب من عائلته التي أرادت من وراء ذلك تكريمه وتخليد ذكراه.

في البورتريه يبدو الدوق مرتديا ثوبا مطرّزا وقبّعة مخروطية الشكل وقد وقف بطريقة تشي بالعظمة والقوّة والثقة الكبيرة بالنفس.

فالنظرات تبدو صارمة بينما تطبق يده اليمنى على طرف عباءته وهو يخطو إلى الأمام كما لو انه في موكب جماهيري أو احتفالي مهيب.

ومن الواضح أن كلّ ما في هذه اللوحة يوحي بالعظمة والفخامة والحضور القويّ لصاحبها. وما يميّزها بشكل خاصّ الطريقة البارعة التي استخدمها تيتيان في إبراز جمال وأناقة الملابس، من العباءة الحمراء إلى الأزرار الضخمة المذهّبة والخاتم الأرجواني الذي يزيّن اليد اليمنى إلى الفراء الأبيض على الأطراف والحواشي.

هناك أيضا إبراز الرسّام الملامح القاسية للرجل، فالفم مطبق بصرامة والملامح متجهّمة والأنف مدبّب والنظرات مترصّدة.

في تلك الفترة ازداد اهتمام الدوقات برسم أنفسهم. وكانت غايتهم من ذلك تمجيد سلالاتهم وعائلاتهم والتأكيد على شرعيّتهم ومكانتهم في أعين الرعيّة بالإضافة إلى الرغبة في إبراز طبيعة ثقافة البلاط. وأحيانا كانوا يفعلون ذلك بدافع الدعاية السياسية البحتة وللتباهي على أقرانهم من الأمراء والنبلاء الأوربيين.

ويقال إن تيشيان اعتمد في رسم هذا البورتريه على كاتب سيرة حياة اندريا غريتي الذي يذكر أن الرجل كان متعطّشا للسلطة بطبيعته وقد مارس سلطاته الوظيفية بشكل مطلق حتى آخر يوم في حياته. ولم يكن يتسامح مع من يحاول التعدّي على سلطاته واختصاصاته. كما ُُعرف عنه أيضا صرامته مع كلّ من يسيء استخدام سلطاته من نوّابه ومستشاريه.

وفي أوقات تبسّطه كان الدوق يتّصف بشي من الودّ والألفة، لكنه لم يكن يتردّد في إثارة الخوف في نفوس من حوله متى حاول أحد استفزازه أو إغضابه. كما اشتهر أيضا بشغفه بالأشياء القديمة واحتفائه بالفنون ورعايته للآداب وفنّ العمارة. وكثيرا ما كان يضمّن ُخطبَه وقراراته أقوالا لأرسطو وغيره من الفلاسفة.

من جهة أخرى، كان غريتي يؤمن بأن تحقيق السلام يقتضي البعد عن الصراعات. لكنّ هذا لا يتأتّى إلا بجيش قويّ وديبلوماسية واعية تحافظ على بقاء الجمهورية بعيدا عن صراعات وحروب القوى الكبرى.

في ذلك الوقت كان من الأمور المتعارف عليها أن تخضع ثروة الدوق بعد وفاته للتدقيق والتمحيص للتأكّد من انه لم يستغلّ منصبه للإثراء غير المشروع.

وبنهاية القرن الثامن عشر، تمّ إلغاء منصب الدوق رسميّا في فينيسيا بعد أن احتلّ نابليون المدينة وضمّها إلى امبراطوريّته. وكان ذلك الحدث مؤذنا بطيّ صفحة مهمّة من تاريخ نظم الحكم الأوربّية اتّسمت بسيطرة الإقطاع والأسر البورجوازية على مقاليد الحياة العامّة.

أما تيشيان (أو تيزيان أو تيتيان كما ينطق اسمه أحيانا) فيعتبر أحد أعظم رسّامي عصر النهضة الايطالي، كما أن أثره كان كبيرا في زمانه وفي الأجيال العديدة من الرسّامين الذين جاءوا بعده.

وقد أتمّ هذا البورتريه وهو في أوج شعبيّته ونضجه الفنّي. وربّما لا يداني بورتريه الدوق غريتي من حيث الشهرة والقيمة الفنية من آثار تلك الحقبة سوى بورتريه الدوق ليوناردو لوردان لزميله ومواطنه جيوفاني بيلليني.

توفي تيشيان بالطاعون في فينيسيا عام 1576 عن عمر يناهز التسعين. وفي بداية هذا الشهر، أي فبراير 2009، بيعت لوحته دايانا و آكتيون في مزاد بلندن بأكثر من سبعين مليون دولار أمريكي.


Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (pronounced [titˈtsjaːno veˈtʃɛlljo]; c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576), known in English as Titian /ˈtɪʃən/, was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near Belluno, then in the Republic of Venice). During his lifetime he was often called da Cadore, taken from the place of his birth.

Recognized by his contemporaries as "The Sun Amidst Small Stars" (recalling the famous final line of Dante's Paradiso), Titian was one of the most versatile of Italian painters, equally adept with portraits, landscape backgrounds, and mythological and religious subjects. His painting methods, particularly in the application and use of colour, would exercise a profound influence not only on painters of the late Italian Renaissance, but on future generations of Western art.

His career was successful from the start, and he became sought after by patrons, initially from Venice and its possessions, then joined by the north Italian princes, and finally the Habsburgs and papacy. Along with Giorgione, he is considered a founder of the Venetian School of Italian Renaissance painting.

During the course of his long life, Titian's artistic manner changed drastically, but he retained a lifelong interest in colour. Although his mature works may not contain the vivid, luminous tints of his early pieces, their loose brushwork and subtlety of tone were without precedent in the history of Western painting.

The exact date of Titian's birth is uncertain. When he was an old man he claimed in a letter to Philip II, King of Spain, to have been born in 1474, but this seems most unlikely. Other writers contemporary to his old age give figures that would equate to birthdates between 1473 and after 1482. Most modern scholars believe a date between 1488 and 1490 is more likely, though his age at death being 99 had been accepted into the 20th century.

He was the son of Gregorio Vecelli and his wife Lucia, of whom little is known. Gregorio was superintendent of the castle of Pieve di Cadore and managed local mines for their owners. Gregorio was also a distinguished councilor and soldier. Many relatives, including Titian's grandfather, were notaries, and the family were well-established in the area, which was ruled by Venice.

At the age of about ten to twelve he and his brother Francesco (who perhaps followed later) were sent to an uncle in Venice to find an apprenticeship with a painter. The minor painter Sebastian Zuccato, whose sons became well-known mosaicists, and who may have been a family friend, arranged for the brothers to enter the studio of the elderly Gentile Bellini, from which they later transferred to that of his brother Giovanni Bellini. At that time the Bellinis, especially Giovanni, were the leading artists in the city. There Titian found a group of young men about his own age, among them Giovanni Palma da Serinalta, Lorenzo Lotto, Sebastiano Luciani, and Giorgio da Castelfranco, nicknamed Giorgione. Francesco Vecellio, Titian's older brother, later became a painter of some note in Venice.

A fresco of Hercules on the Morosini Palace is said to have been one of Titian's earliest works. Others were the Bellini-esque so-called Gypsy Madonna in Vienna, and the Visitation of Mary and Elizabeth (from the convent of S. Andrea), now in the Accademia, Venice.

A Man with a Quilted Sleeve is an early portrait, painted around 1509 and described by Giorgio Vasari in 1568. Scholars long believed it depicted Ludovico Ariosto, but now think it is of Gerolamo Barbarigo. Rembrandt borrowed the composition for his self-portraits.

Titian joined Giorgione as an assistant, but many contemporary critics already found his work more impressive—for example in exterior frescoes (now almost totally destroyed) that they did for the Fondaco dei Tedeschi (state-warehouse for the German merchants). Their relationship evidently contained a significant element of rivalry. Distinguishing between their work at this period remains a subject of scholarly controversy. A substantial number of attributions have moved from Giorgione to Titian in the 20th century, with little traffic the other way. One of the earliest known Titian works, Christ Carrying the Cross in the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, depicting the Ecce Homo scene, was long regarded as by Giorgione.

The two young masters were likewise recognized as the leaders of their new school of arte moderna, which is characterized by paintings made more flexible, freed from symmetry and the remnants of hieratic conventions still found in the works of Giovanni Bellini.

In 1507–1508 Giorgione was commissioned by the state to create frescoes on the re-erected Fondaco dei Tedeschi. Titian and Morto da Feltre worked along with him, and some fragments of paintings remain, probably by Giorgione. Some of their work is known, in part, through the engravings of Fontana. After Giorgione's early death in 1510, Titian continued to paint Giorgionesque subjects for some time, though his style developed its own features, including bold and expressive brushwork.

Salome with the Head of John the Baptist c. 1515, (Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome), or Judith; this religious work also functions as an idealized portrait of a beauty, a genre developed by Titian, supposedly often using Venetian courtesans as models.

Titian's talent in fresco is shown in those he painted in 1511 at Padua in the Carmelite church and in the Scuola del Santo, some of which have been preserved, among them the Meeting at the Golden Gate, and three scenes (Miracoli di sant'Antonio) from the life of St. Anthony of Padua, The Miracle of the Jealous Husband, which depicts the Murder of a Young Woman by Her Husband, A Child Testifying to Its Mother's Innocence, and The Saint Healing the Young Man with a Broken Limb.

In 1512 Titian returned to Venice from Padua; in 1513 he obtained a broker's patent, termed La Sanseria or Senseria (a privilege much coveted by rising or risen artists), in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi. He became superintendent of the government works, especially charged with completing the paintings left unfinished by Giovanni Bellini in the hall of the great council in the ducal palace. He set up an atelier on the Grand Canal at S. Samuele, the precise site being now unknown. It was not until 1516, after the death of Giovanni Bellini, that he came into actual enjoyment of his patent. At the same time he entered an exclusive arrangement for painting. The patent yielded him a good annuity of 20 crowns and exempted him from certain taxes. In return he was bound to paint likenesses of the successive Doges of his time at the fixed price of eight crowns each. The actual number he painted was five.

Andrea Gritti (1455 – December 1538) was the Doge of Venetian Republic from 1523 to 1538, following a distinguished diplomatic and military career.

His tomb in Venice.

Gritti was born in Bardolino, near Verona. He spent much of his early life in Constantinople (Istanbul) as a grain merchant, looking after Venetian interests. In the late 1490s he was using his commercial correspondence for sending encoded information to Venice regarding the movements of the Turkish navy. In 1499, he was imprisoned on charges of espionage, but escaped execution due to his friendship with the vizier, and was released several years later.

In the early sixteenth century, Venice lost nearly all its territory on the Italian mainland, and Gritti played an important part in the events connected with this loss and the eventual return to the status quo ante. In 1509, after the Venetian defeat at the Battle of Agnadello, Gritti was appointed as proveditor to the Venetian army in Treviso; ordered by the Council of Ten to support revolts against the invaders, he successfully engineered the return of Padua to Venetian hands, and its subsequent defence against the Emperor. In 1510, following the death of Niccolò di Pitigliano, Gritti took command of Venice's army, but was forced to withdraw to Venice by French advances. He continued as proveditor through end of the League of Cambrai and the subsequent war of the Holy League. In 1512, he led the negotiations with Francis I that resulted in Venice leaving the League and allying with France.

Elected Doge in 1523, Gritti concluded a treaty with Charles V, ending Venice's active involvement in the Italian Wars. He attempted to maintain the neutrality of the Republic in the face of the continued struggle between Charles and Francis, urging both to turn their attention to the advances of the Ottoman Empire in Hungary. However, he could not prevent Suleiman I from attacking Corfu in 1537, drawing Venice into a new war with the Ottomans. His dogaressa was Benedetta Vendramin.

Gritti died in December 1538.

The patrician Andrea Gritti (1455-1538) was elected doge, or duke, of Venice in 1523, after having served the city as a military commander and diplomat. Renowned for his forceful personality and his promotion of the arts, Gritti remained an active civic leader until his death in 1538. Titian painted Gritti twice during his reign. He completed this posthumous portrait, which might have been commissioned as a memorial by the doge's family, around 1546-1548. 

Dressed in the brocade robes and conical hat of his office, Gritti makes a grand impression. Glancing sternly to the viewer's left, he gathers up his cloak with his right hand and appears to stride forward, as if in a ceremonial procession. Titian further enhanced the monumental presence of the sitter by extending his image fully to the edges of the canvas. 

With its free, expressive brushwork, this portrait well exemplifies Titian's mature painting style. Because the canvas has never been flattened by the process of lining, the varying surface textures, such as the transparent red of the robe and the heavy impasto of the white fur and gold buttons, reveal the ways Titian applied his paints.

تـمثـال مـوســى للفنان الايطالي مايكل انجـلو، 1516

Michelangelo Buonarroti, Moses, 1516


يجمع المؤرّخون على اعتبار ميكيل انجلو الوريث الشرعي للفن الكلاسيكي الروماني والإغريقي.

كان ميكيل انجلو متفوّقا خصوصا في أعمال النحت، وهناك من يعتبره اعظم نحّات ومصوّر عرفه العالم في جميع العصور.

يشهد على ذلك منظومته النحتية الفريدة التي توّجها بإنجاز تمثال موسى.

استعار ميكيل انجلو نظريات أفلاطون في الهندسة وطبقها على تكويناته التي تغطي كنيسة سيستين في تناسق وتناغم رائع قل أن نجد له مثيلا.


كان الإنسان محور إبداعات ميكيل انجلو ونقطة الارتكاز التي اعتمدت عليها كافة أعماله النحتية والتصويرية. ويروى عنه انه عندما اكمل نحت هذا التمثال في كنيسة القديس بطرس وقف أمامه وقال له بلهجة واثقة: هيا . انهض الآن يا موسى!

ولد ميكيل انجلو بوناروتي في العام 1475 في توسكاني وتعلم في فلورنسا، ويعتبر تمثال موسى اعظم واشهر أعماله النحتية، وقد قام بإنجاز التمثال في العام 1516 نزولا عند رغبة البابا يوليوس الثاني، الذي كان، رغم طبيعته المقاتلة، يحب الفنون ويرعاها.

وبالإضافة إلى التمثال، أمر يوليوس ميكيل انجلو برسم سقف كنيسة سيستين ونحت قبره.

موسى كما هو معروف كان النبي الذي خرج بقومه اليهود من مصر وتلقى الوصايا العشر عند سفح جبل سيناء.


في التمثال تبدو يد موسى اليمنى وهي تحمي الألواح الحجرية التي كتبت عليها الوصايا، فيما تبدو يده اليسرى بعضلاتها المشدودة وعروقها النافرة كما لو أنها ارتدّت إلى وضعها الأول بعد حركة عنيفة.

عندما نزل موسى من جبل سيناء وجد قومه يعبدون العجل الذهبي الذي صنعوه بأنفسهم.

ويبدو في التمثال غاضبا مهتاجا كأنه يتحدّى سجن الحجر وضيق الحيّز. ولا بد وان السيّاح الذين يأتون لزيارة التمثال يشعرون بنظرات صاحبه الغاضبة والمتحدّية، وهي نفس النظرات التي واجهها عالم النفس سيغموند فرويد الذي قضى في المكان ثلاثة أسابيع في العام 1913 محاولا دراسة التأثير الانفعالي للتمثال.

من مظاهر قوّة هذا التمثال الأخرى اللحية الطويلة التي يصعب عادة تمثيلها في عمل نحتي. لكن عبقرية ميكيل انجيلو تجاوزت هذه الإشكالية إلى عنصر الفكر نفسه، عندما يدفع الناظر إلى التساؤل عن السبب الذي يجعل موسى يطيل لحيته..

ميكيل انجلو رسم في الواقع نهرا من الشعر المتدلي كالحبال العريضة والمتشابكة بالإضافة إلى القرنين البارزين من الرأس، وهي سمة تقليدية أراد بها إعطاء موسى لمحة شيطانية، ومن ثم فوق-إنسانية.


فرويد كان يرى في موسى صورة بطولية من صور الجسارة وضبط النفس، وهي سمة لم يكن يتمتع بها النحات ولا البابا نفسه الذي رعى هذا العمل الملحمي الكبير.

إذ كانت تنشب بين الاثنين الخلافات والمنازعات المستمرة أثناء إنجاز التمثال ورسومات الكنيسة.

ويقال إن ميكيل انجلو تعمّد إضفاء ملامح غاضبة ومتوترة على وجه التمثال كتجسيد لصورة يوليوس الثاني نفسه الذي كان يتصف بالتقى الممزوج بالثورة والفظاظة.

ويبدو أن ميكيل انجلو كان يفهم البابا جيدا، إذ كان هذا الأخير، مثل موسى، ينظر إلى الناس نظرة تعال وازدراء، كما تذكر بعض المصادر التاريخية.

The Moses (Italian: Mosè [moˈzɛ]; c. 1513–1515) is a sculpture by the Italian High Renaissance artist Michelangelo Buonarroti, housed in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome. Commissioned in 1505 by Pope Julius II for his tomb, it depicts the biblical figure Moses with horns on his head, based on a description in chapter 34 of Exodus in the Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Bible used at that time.

Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to build his tomb in 1505 and it was finally completed in 1545; Julius II died in 1513 The initial design by Michelangelo was massive and called for over 40 statues. The statue of Moses would have been placed on a tier about 3.74 meters high (12 ft 3 in), opposite a figure of St. Paul.:566 In the final design, the statue of Moses sits in the center of the bottom tier.


Giorgio Vasari in the Life of Michelangelo wrote: "Michelangelo finished the Moses in marble, a statue of five braccia, unequaled by any modern or ancient work. Seated in a serious attitude, he rests with one arm on the tables, and with the other holds his long glossy beard, the hairs, so difficult to render in sculpture, being so soft and downy that it seems as if the iron chisel must have become a brush. The beautiful face, like that of a saint and mighty prince, seems as one regards it to need the veil to cover it, so splendid and shining does it appear, and so well has the artist presented in the marble the divinity with which God had endowed that holy countenance. The draperies fall in graceful folds, the muscles of the arms and bones of the hands are of such beauty and perfection, as are the legs and knees, the feet were adorned with excellent shoes, that Moses may now be called the friend of God more than ever, since God has permitted his body to be prepared for the resurrection before the others by the hand of Michelangelo. The Jews still go every Saturday in troops to visit and adore it as a divine, not a human thing."


The English translation of Freud's "The Moses of Michelangelo" also provides a basic description of the sculpture: "The Moses of Michelangelo is represented as seated; his body faces forward, his head with its mighty beard looks to the left, his right foot rests on the ground, and his left leg is raised so that only the toes touch the ground. His right arm links the Tables of the Law with a portion of his beard; his left arm lies in his lap."

Jonathan Jones of the English newspaper, The Guardian, provides another description: "Moses's right hand protects the stone tablets bearing the Commandments; his left hand, veins throbbing, muscles tense, appears to be holding back from the violent action. When he came down from Mount Sinai, Moses found his people worshipping the Golden Calf - the false idol they had made. His anger defies the prison of stone, the limits of the sculptor's art. Few can resist the impression of a real mind, real emotions, in the figure that glares from his marble seat. Today, he glares at the tourists who mob the church of San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome. He outfaces them, just as he outfaced Sigmund Freud, who spent three weeks in 1913 trying to figure out the sculpture's emotional effect. Moses's vitality has made this work popular since the 16th century; according to Vasari, Rome's Jewish population adopted the statue as their own. Its power must have something to do with the rendition of things that should be impossible to depict in stone; most quirkily, the beard - so ropy and smoky, its coils gave fantastic, snaking life. But where others might astonish us with technique, Michelangelo goes beyond this, leading us from formal to intellectual surprise, making us wonder why Moses fondles his beard, why Michelangelo has used this river of hair - in combination with the horns that were a conventional attribute of Moses - to give him an inhuman, demonic aspect."


The depiction of a horned Moses stems from the description of Moses' face as "cornuta" ("horned") in the Latin Vulgate translation of the passage found at Exodus chapter 34, specifically verses 29, 30 and 35, in which Moses returns to the people after receiving the commandments for the second time. The Douay-Rheims Bible translates the Vulgate as, "And when Moses came down from the Mount Sinai, he held the two tablets of the testimony, and he knew not that his face was horned from the conversation of the Lord." This was Jerome's effort to faithfully translate the difficult, original Hebrew Masoretic text, which uses the term קָרַ֛ן‬, qāran (based on the root, קָ֫רֶן‬ qeren, which often means "horn"); the term is now interpreted to mean "shining" or "emitting rays" (somewhat like a horn). Although some historians believe that Jerome made an outright error, Jerome himself appears to have seen qeren as a metaphor for "glorified", based on other commentaries he wrote, including one on Ezekiel, where he wrote that Moses' face had "become 'glorified', or as it says in the Hebrew, 'horned'." :77 :98–105 The Greek Septuagint, which Jerome also had available, translated the verse as "Moses knew not that the appearance of the skin of his face was glorified." In general medieval theologians and scholars understood that Jerome had intended to express a glorification of Moses' face, by his use of the Latin word for "horned." :74–90 The understanding that the original Hebrew was difficult and was not likely to mean "horns" persisted into and through the Renaissance.


Although Jerome completed the Vulgate in the late 4th century, the first known applications of the literal language of the Vulgate in art are found in an English illustrated book written in the vernacular, that was created around 1050: the Aelfric Paraphrase of the Pentateuch and Joshua. :13–15 For the next 150 years or so, evidence for further images of a horned Moses is sparse. :61–65 Afterward, such images proliferated and can be found, for example, in the stained glass windows at the Chartres Cathedral, Sainte-Chapelle, and Notre Dame, even as Moses continued to be depicted many times without horns. :65–74 In the 16th century, the prevalence of depictions of a horned Moses steeply diminished.


In Christian art of the Middle Ages, Moses is depicted wearing horns and without them; sometimes in glory, as a prophet and precursor of Jesus, but also in negative contexts, especially about Pauline contrasts between faith and law - the iconography was not black and white. :125–133 :9–10 The depiction with horns is first found in 11th-century England. Melinkoff (1970) speculated that while the horns of Moses in origin were in no way associated with those of the Devil, the horns may nevertheless have developed a negative connotation with the development of anti-Jewish sentiment in the early modern period. :135–137


A book published in 2008 advanced a theory that the "horns" on Michelangelo's statue were never meant to be seen and that it is wrong to interpret them as horns: "[The statue] never had horns. The artist had planned Moses as a masterpiece not only of sculpture but also of special optical effects worthy of any Hollywood movie. For this reason, the piece had to be elevated and facing straight forward, looking in the direction of the front door of the basilica. The two protrusions on the head would have been invisible to the viewer looking up from the floor below — the only thing that would have been seen was the light reflected off of them." This interpretation has been contested.

In his essay entitled "The Moses of Michelangelo", Sigmund Freud associates the moment in the biblical narrative when Moses descends from the mountain the first time, carrying the tablets, and finds the Hebrew people worshipping the Golden Calf, as described in Exodus 32. Freud describes Moses in a complex psychological state:


We may now, I believe, permit ourselves to reap the fruits of our endeavors. We have seen how many of those who have felt the influence of this statue has been compelled to interpret it as representing Moses agitated by the spectacle of his people fallen from grace and dancing round an idol. But this interpretation had to be given up, for it made us expect to see him spring up in the next moment, break the Tables and accomplish the work of vengeance. Such a conception, however, would fail to harmonize with the design of making this figure, together with three (or five) more seated figures, a part of the tomb of Julius II. We may now take up again the abandoned interpretation, for the Moses we have reconstructed will neither leap up nor cast the Tables from him. What we see before us is not the inception of violent action but the remains of a movement that has already taken place. In his first transport of fury, Moses desired to act, to spring up and take vengeance and forget the Tables; but he has overcome the temptation, and he will now remain seated and still, in his frozen wrath and his pain mingled with contempt. Nor will he throw away the Tables so that they will break on the stones, for it is on their particular account that he has controlled his anger; it was to preserve them that he kept his passion in check. In giving way to his rage and indignation, he had to neglect the Tables, and the hand which upheld them was withdrawn. They began to slide down and were in danger of being broken. This brought him to himself. He remembered his mission and for its sake renounced an indulgence of his feelings. His hand returned and saved the unsupported Tables before they had fallen to the ground. In this attitude, he remained immobilized, and in this attitude, Michelangelo has portrayed him as the guardian of the tomb. As our eyes travel down it, the figure exhibits three distinct emotional strata. The lines of the face reflect the feelings which have won the ascendancy; the middle of the figure shows the traces of suppressed movement, and the foot still retains the attitude of the projected action. It is as though the controlling influence had proceeded downwards from above. No mention has been made so far of the left arm, and it seems to claim a share in our interpretation. The hand is laid in the lap in a mild gesture and holds as though in a caress the end of the flowing beard. It seems as if it is meant to counteract the violence with which the other hand had misused the beard a few moments ago.


Another view, put forward by Malcolm MacMillan and Peter Swales in their essay entitled Observations from the Refuse-Heap: Freud, Michelangelo's Moses, and Psychoanalysis, relates the sculpture to the second set of Tables and the events mentioned in Exodus 33 and 34. They note that Moses is holding blank tablets, which God had commanded Moses to make in preparation for the second giving of the Law; they also note that Moses is depicted with "horns," which the biblical texts describe Moses as having only after he returned to the Hebrew people after the second giving of the Law. They argue that the statue depicts the moment when Moses sees God, as described in Exodus 33: "The incident in question is the most significant part of the Old Testament story of the exodus. Moses, full of doubt about his own standing and that of his people, takes the considerable risk of requesting—even demanding—that they are forgiven, that he be granted the Lord's grace, and that the Lord resume his place and lead them to the Promised Land. Emboldened by his success, he then risks all by asking that the Lord reveal his glory. Little imagination is required to sense the intense emotion with which such a Moses would have awaited the Lord: Will he come? Will he renew the Covenant? Will he reveal his glory?" :78–79 They further argue that both Paul and Moses experienced God directly, an idea and pairing that were important to the Florentine Neo-Platonists, a group that the authors view both Michelangelo and Pope Julius II as being akin to. Finally, the authors state the key emotion on Moses' face is "awe at being face to face with the creator."

تمثــال ديـفيـــد للفنان الايطالي مايكل انجـلو، 1504

Michelangelo Buonarroti, David, 1504


عمل آخر يجمع النقاد والمؤرّخون على اعتباره واحدا من اعظم الأعمال النحتية على مرّ العصور.

في العام 1501 تم تكليف ميكيل انجلو بنحت تمثال ديفيد (داود) لتُزَيّن به كاثدرائية فلورنسا. ومن اجل هذا الغرض، ُأعطي الفنان كتلة ضخمة من الرخام للعمل عليها وتشكيلها لانجاز المهمة.

وعندما شرع ميكيل انجلو في العمل، أزاح جانبا كافة الأساليب التقليدية التي كانت متبعة من قبل في تنفيذ الأعمال النحتية.

وعندما أنجز الفنان التمثال، قرّرت لجنة من الأعيان وكبار الفنانين وضعه في الميدان الرئيسي للمدينة. وكانت تلك هي المرة الأولى التي ُيعرض فيها تمثال لرجل عارٍ في مكان عام.


وقد تعمّد ميكيل انجلو ألا يصوّر ديفيد بهيئة الرجل المنتصر الممسك برأس العملاق غالاياث Goliath (أو جالوت في الأدبيات الإسلامية) بيده والسيف باليد الأخرى، بل اختار تصوير ديفيد في اللحظة التي سمع فيها أن قومه وقعوا فريسة للخوف والتردّد في مواجهة صلف غالاياث الجبّار وإمعانه في احتقارهم والاستهزاء بهم.

ميكيل انجلو صوّر ديفيد في افضل وضع ممكن، محاكيا أساليب نحاتي الإغريق في تصوير أبطالهم ورموزهم الملحمية.

فـ "ديفيد" ينظر من فوق كتفه الأيسر نظرة تحدّ وجسارة إلى الجهة الأخرى حيث يقف غالاياث. وقد ُترك الجانب الأيمن من التمثال ناعما ومصقولا، بينما اختار الفنان أن يضفي قدرا من النشاط والديناميكية على الجانب الأيسر، ابتداءً من القدم صعودا حتى الشعر الاجعد. أما العضلات والأربطة فلا تبدو نافرة أو بارزة سوى بالقدر الذي يعطي الناظر انطباعا عن قوّة إرادة البطل ورباطة جأشه.


فور عرض التمثال، بادر مواطنون غاضبون برشقه بالحجارة، لا لأنه كان عاريا، بل لأنهم رأوا فيه رمزا لجمهورية فلورنسا التي كانت خارجة على حكم آل ميديتشي. ومع ذلك صمد التمثال في مكانه واعتُبر على الدوام رمزا ايقونيا لفلورنسا الصغيرة ولأفكارها الجمهورية، في مواجهة خصمها الأكبر عائلة ميديتشي ومناصري الملكية.

في العام 1873 ُنقل التمثال من مكانه إلى غاليري الأكاديمية لحمايته، وفي العصور اللاحقة خضع للعديد من عمليات الترميم التي أثار بعضها نقاشات حادّة ما بين مؤيّد ومعترض.

ومؤخرا احتفل الإيطاليون بمرور 500 عام على إنجاز تمثال ديفيد، وأحيوا المناسبة بالألعاب النارية والحفلات الموسيقية والمعارض الفنية والندوات التي تناولت كل جانب من جوانب هذه التحفة الفنية الخالدة بالشرح والنقاش والتحليل.

وما يزال ميكيل انجلو نفسه يتمتّع بنفس الشهرة التي كان يتمتّع بها في العام 1501 ، إذ يتقاطر على فلورنسا سنويا اكثر من مليوني شخص لالقاء نظرة على تمثال الرجل العاري ذي الملامح الجميلة والتفاصيل الدقيقة والقوام الضخم (اكثر من ستة أطنان).

إن أهمية تمثال ديفيد بالنسبة لعصر النهضة هي انه كان يشكّل قطيعة مع التراث اللاهوتي المسيحي الذي كان يصوّر الإنسان باعتباره كائنا مسيّرا وفاسدا وضعيفا لا يملك من أمر نفسه شيئا، وأن على الإنسان أن يتطلع بكليّته إلى الحياة الأخروية التي تمثّل السعادة والحقيقة والكمال. ولم يكن مصادفة أن الإنسان كان ُيصوّر في القرون الوسطى كوحش مشوّه يتطلع إلى تحرير روحه من اسر الخطيئة الأصلية من خلال الموت الطقوسي والعنيف.


وتمثال ديفيد، بما ينطوي عليه من رموز ودلالات وعبَر، هو نقيض للأفكار القدرية، وهو افضل تعبير عن رؤية عصر النهضة للإنسان. فالراعي الشاب "ديفيد" قرّر باختياره الواعي أن يقاتل عدوّا أقوى منه لكي ينقذ قومه من الهلاك وسلاحه في ذلك مقلاع وعصا وبضعة أحجار، واستطاع في النهاية قهر خصمه والحاق الهزيمة به من خلال سلطة العقل وقوة الإرادة والتصميم.

David is a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture created in marble between 1501 and 1504 by the Italian artist Michelangelo. David is a 5.17-metre (17.0 ft) marble statue of a standing male nude. The statue represents the Biblical hero David, a favoured subject in the art of Florence.

David was originally commissioned as one of a series of statues of prophets to be positioned along the roofline of the east end of Florence Cathedral, but was instead placed in a public square, outside the Palazzo Vecchio, the seat of civic government in Florence, in the Piazza della Signoria where it was unveiled on 8 September 1504. The statue was moved to the Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence, in 1873, and later replaced at the original location by a replica.


3D model

Because of the nature of the hero it represented, the statue soon came to symbolize the defence of civil liberties embodied in the Republic of Florence, an independent city-state threatened on all sides by more powerful rival states and by the hegemony of the Medici family. The eyes of David, with a warning glare, were turned towards Rome.

The history of the statue begins before Michelangelo's work on it from 1501 to 1504. Prior to Michelangelo's involvement, the Overseers of the Office of Works of Florence Cathedral, consisting mostly of members of the influential woolen cloth guild, the Arte della Lana, had plans to commission a series of twelve large Old Testament sculptures for the buttresses of the cathedral. In 1410 Donatello made the first of the statues, a figure of Joshua in terracotta. A figure of Hercules, also in terracotta, was commissioned from the Florentine sculptor Agostino di Duccio in 1463 and was made perhaps under Donatello's direction. Eager to continue their project, in 1464, the Operai contracted Agostino to create a sculpture of David. A block of marble was provided from a quarry in Carrara, a town in the Apuan Alps in northern Tuscany. Agostino only got as far as beginning to shape the legs, feet and the torso, roughing out some drapery and probably gouging a hole between the legs. His association with the project ceased, for reasons unknown, with the death of Donatello in 1466, and ten years later Antonio Rossellino was commissioned to take up where Agostino had left off.


Rossellino's contract was terminated soon thereafter, and the block of marble remained neglected for 26 years, all the while exposed to the elements in the yard of the cathedral workshop. This was of great concern to the Opera authorities, as such a large piece of marble not only was costly but represented a large amount of labour and difficulty in its transportation to Florence. In 1500, an inventory of the cathedral workshops described the piece as "a certain figure of marble called David, badly blocked out and supine." A year later, documents showed that the Operai were determined to find an artist who could take this large piece of marble and turn it into a finished work of art. They ordered the block of stone, which they called The Giant, "raised on its feet" so that a master experienced in this kind of work might examine it and express an opinion. Though Leonardo da Vinci and others were consulted, it was Michelangelo, only 26 years old, who convinced the Operai that he deserved the commission. On 16 August 1501, Michelangelo was given the official contract to undertake this challenging new task. He began carving the statue early in the morning on 13 September, a month after he was awarded the contract. He would work on the massive statue for more than two years.


On 25 January 1504, when the sculpture was 
nearing completion, Florentine authorities had to acknowledge there would be little possibility of raising the more than six-ton statue to the roof 
of the cathedral. They convened a committee of 30 Florentine citizens that comprised many artists, including Leonardo da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli, to decide on an appropriate site for David. While nine different locations for the statue were discussed, the majority of members seem to have been closely split between two sites. One group, 
led by Giuliano da Sangallo and supported by Leonardo and Piero di Cosimo, among others, believed that, due to the imperfections in the marble, the sculpture should be placed under the roof of the Loggia dei Lanzi on Piazza della 
Signoria; the other group thought it should 
stand at the entrance to the Palazzo della 
Signoria, the city's town hall (now known as 
Palazzo Vecchio). Another opinion, supported 
by Botticelli, was that the sculpture should be situated on or near the cathedral. In June 1504, David was installed next to the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio, replacing Donatello's bronze sculpture of Judith and Holofernes, which 
embodied a comparable theme of heroic 
resistance. It took four days to move the statue 
the half mile from Michelangelo's workshop 
into the Piazza della Signoria. Later that 
summer the sling and tree-stump support 
were gilded, and the figure was given a gilded 
loin-garland.

In 1873, the statue of David was removed from 
the piazza, to protect it from damage, and 
displayed in the Accademia Gallery, Florence, 
where it attracted many visitors. A replica was placed in the Piazza della Signoria in 1910.

In 1991, a mentally disturbed artist named 
Piero Cannata attacked the statue with a 
hammer he had concealed beneath his jacket; 
in the process of damaging the toes of the left 
foot, he was restrained.


On 12 November 2010, a fiberglass replica of the David was installed on the roofline of Florence Cathedral, for one day only. Photographs of the installation reveal the statue the way the 
Operai who commissioned the work 
originally expected it to be seen.

In 2010, a dispute over the ownership of 
David arose when, based on a legal review of historical documents, the municipality of 
Florence claimed ownership of the statue in opposition to the Italian Culture Ministry, which disputes the municipality claim.

In the mid 1800s, small cracks were noticed on 
the left leg on David which can possibly be 
attributed to an uneven sinking of the ground 
under the massive statue.


The pose of Michelangelo's David is unlike that of earlier Renaissance depictions of David. The 
bronze statues by Donatello and Verrocchio represented the hero standing victorious 
over the head of Goliath, and the painter 
Andrea del Castagno had shown the boy 
in mid-swing, even as Goliath's head rested 
between his feet, but no earlier Florentine 
artist had omitted the giant altogether. 
According to Helen Gardner and other 
scholars, David is depicted before his 
battle with Goliath. Instead of being shown victorious over a foe much larger than he, 
David looks tense and ready for combat.

The statue appears to show David after he 
has made the decision to fight Goliath but 
before the battle has actually taken place, 
a moment between conscious choice and 
action. His brow is drawn, his neck tense 
and the veins bulge out of his lowered 
right hand. His left hand holds a sling that 
is draped over his shoulder and down to 
his right hand, which holds a rock. The twist 
of his body effectively conveys to the viewer the feeling that he is in motion, an impression heightened with contrapposto. The statue is a Renaissance interpretation of a common 
ancient Greek theme of the standing heroic male nude. In the High Renaissance, contrapposto 
poses were thought of as a distinctive feature 
of antique sculpture. This is typified in David, 
as the figure stands with one leg holding its full weight and the other leg forward. This 
classic pose causes the figure's hips and 
shoulders to rest at opposing angles, giving 
a slight s-curve to the entire torso. The 
contrapposto is emphasised by the turn of 
the head to the left, and by the contrasting 
positions of the arms.


Michelangelo's David has become one of the most recognized works of Renaissance sculpture, a symbol of strength and youthful beauty.

Just the colossal size of the statue impressed Michelangelo's contemporaries. Vasari 
described it as "certainly a miracle that of Michelangelo, to restore to life one who 
was dead," and then listed all of the largest 
and most grand of the ancient statues that 
he had ever seen, concluding that Michelangelo's work surpassed "all ancient and modern 
statues, whether Greek or Latin, that have ever existed."

The proportions of the David are atypical of Michelangelo's work; the figure has an 
unusually large head and hands (particularly apparent in the right hand). The small size 
of the genitals, though, is in line with his other works and with Renaissance conventions in 
general, perhaps referencing the ancient 
Greek ideal of pre-pubescent male nudity. 
These enlargements may be due to the fact 
that the statue was originally intended to be 
placed on the cathedral roofline, where the important parts of the sculpture may have been accentuated in order to be visible from below. The statue is unusually slender (front to back) in comparison to its height, which may be a 
result of the work done on the block before Michelangelo began carving it.

It is possible that the David was conceived 
as a political statue before Michelangelo began 
to work on it. Certainly David the giant-killer 
had long been seen as a political figure 
in Florence, and images of the Biblical hero 
already carried political implications there. Donatello's bronze David, made for the 
Medici family, perhaps c. 1440, had been appropriated by the Signoria in 1494, 
when the Medici were exiled from Florence, 
and the statue was installed in the courtyard 
of the Palazzo della Signoria, where it stood for the Republican government of the city. By placing Michelangelo's statue in the same general 
location, the Florentine authorities ensured 
that David would be seen as a political parallel 
as well as an artistic response to that earlier 
work. These political overtones led to the statue being attacked twice in its early days. 
Protesters pelted it with stones the year it 
debuted, and, in 1527, an anti-Medici riot 
resulted in its left arm being broken into three pieces.

Commentators have noted the presence of 
foreskin on David's penis, which is at odds 
with the Judaic practice of circumcision, but is consistent with the conventions of Renaissance art.

During World War II, David was entombed in 
brick to protect it from damage from airborne bombs.


Detail of David's damaged left foot, caused by exposure to the elements and in 1991 when a deranged man hit it with a concealed hammer.

In 1991, the foot of the statue was damaged by 
a man with a hammer. The samples obtained 
from that incident allowed scientists to 
determine that the marble used was obtained 
from the Fantiscritti quarries in Miseglia, 
the central of three small valleys in Carrara. 
The marble in question contains many 
microscopic holes that cause it to 
deteriorate faster than other marbles. 
Because of the marble's degradation, from 
2003 to 2004 the statue was given its first major cleaning since 1843. Some experts opposed 
the use of water to clean the statue, 
fearing further deterioration. Under the 
direction of Franca Falleti, senior restorers 
Monica Eichmann and Cinzia Parnigoni 
undertook the job of restoring the statue.

In 2008, plans were proposed to insulate the 
statue from the vibration of tourists' footsteps 
at Florence's Galleria dell'Accademia, to prevent damage to the marble.

David has stood on display at Florence's Galleria dell'Accademia since 1873. In addition to the full-sized replica occupying the spot of the original in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, a bronze version overlooks Florence from the Piazzale 
Michelangelo. The plaster cast of David at the Victoria and Albert Museum has a detachable 
plaster fig leaf which is displayed nearby. Legend claims that the fig leaf was created in response to Queen Victoria's shock upon first viewing the statue's nudity, and was hung on the figure prior to royal visits, using two strategically placed hooks.

David has often been reproduced, in plaster and imitation marble fibreglass, signifying an attempt 
to lend an atmosphere of culture even in some 
unlikely settings such as beach resorts, gambling casinos and model railroads.

تمثـال بـيـيـتــا للفنان الايطالي مايكل انجـلو، 1498

Michelangelo Buonarroti, Pietą, 1498


عمل فنّي آخر يعدّه النقاد أحد أفضل الأعمال النحتية وأكثرها احتفاءً منذ إنجازه قبل أكثر من خمسة قرون.

في هذا التمثال يحاول ميكيل انجلو تصوير العذراء وهي تحمل جثمان ابنها في اللحظات التي أعقبت صلبه.

وقد أنجز الفنان التمثال من كتلة واحدة من الرخام واستغرق العمل فيه حوالي سنتين.

فكرة هذا العمل ارتبطت بالكاردينال جان دي بيليريس مندوب فرنسا في روما الذي كلّف ميكيل انجلو بنحت التمثال كي ُيعرض في جنازته.

لكن في مرحلة تالية، أي حوالي منتصف القرن الثامن عشر، تم نقل التمثال إلى حيث هو اليوم، أي إلى مدخل كاثدرائية سانت بطرس.

قبل هذا العمل، لم يكن ميكيل انجيلو معروفا كثيرا، وعندما كلّف بتشييد التمثال
كان عمره لا يتجاوز العشرين عاما. ومع ذلك اعتبر التمثال بعد إنجازه تحفة
فنية نادرة تنمّ عن عبقرية واقتدار كبيرين. ومن بين كافة أعماله النحتية،
اختار ميكيل انجلو أن يحفر اسمه على التمثال.

وخلافا للمنحوتات الأخرى التي تناولت نفس الموضوع وكانت تنطلق من 
فكرة تصوير الألم وربطه بفكرة الخلاص، عمد ميكيل انجيلو إلى تصوير 
العذراء في هيئة سيّدة شابّة وعلى محيّاها علامات الخشوع والسكينة بينما 
تحتضن في وقار جثة ابنها الميّت.

مما يجذب الانتباه في هذا التمثال وجه العذراء ذو الملامح الملائكية، 
والرداء الطويل الذي ترتديه ويكاد يغطّي كامل بناء اللوحة. أيضا يلاحظ هنا 
أن الفنان قام باختزال جسد المسيح وتصغيره مقارنةً بجسد أمه، نظرا 
لصعوبة تمثيل جسد رجل بالكامل خاصةً عندما يكون محمولا بين 
ذراعي امرأة.

من الملاحظات الأخرى أيضا أن ميكيل انجيلو لم يركّز كثيرا على إظهار آثار 
الصلب، باستثناء بعض العلامات البسيطة الظاهرة على اليد اليمنى والقدمين. 
ويلاحظ أيضا وعلى وجه الخصوص براعة ميكيل انجيلو في تصوير 
الأوردة والعضلات والأربطة التي تتخلّل الجسد العاري.

ميكيل انجيلو لم يصوّر العذراء هنا بهيئة امرأة عجوز كسيرة الخاطر 
تندب حظها وتبكي فلذة كبدها، وإنما صوّرها بملامح شابة. وهذه النقطة 
كانت مثارا للكثير من التكهّنات. فمن قائل إن شباب العذراء يمكن أن يكون 
رمزا لطهرها وعفّتها، وهناك من يقول إن ذلك عائد إلى تأثّر ميكيل انجيلو 
بمضمون كتاب "الكوميديا الإلهية" لدانتي والذي يشير فيه إلى أن العذراء 
هي ابنة المسيح مثل سائر البشر، بمثل ما أنها أمّه أيضا".

أثناء نقل التمثال في إحدى السنوات لغرض ترميمه، تعرّضت أربع من أصابع 
العذراء للكسر وقد أمكن إصلاحها بعد ذلك.

لكن أخطر حادث تعرّض له التمثال كان في العام 1972 عندما دخل رجل 
مختلّ عقليا إلى كنيسة سانت بطرس وهاجم العذراء بمطرقة كان يحملها 
وهو يصيح: أنا المسيح، أنا المسيح"‍‍!

وقد خضع التمثال بعد ذلك الهجوم لسلسلة من عمليات الترميم المكثفة أعيد 
بعدها إلى وضعه السابق كما أحيط من وقتها بلوح سميك من الزجاج المضادّ للرصاص.

وأخيرا، أطلق ميكيل انجيلو على التمثال اسم "بييتا"، وهي كلمة لاتينية 
تدلّ على التقوى الممزوجة بالشعور بالحزن والشفقة. وأصبحت المفردة بعد 
ذلك تشير إلى كلّ عمل فنّي يعالج حادثة الصلب وحزن العذراء على ابنها.


The Pietà (Italian: [pjeˈta]; English: "The Pity"; 1498–1499) is a work of Renaissance sculpture by Michelangelo Buonarroti, housed in St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican City. It is the first of a number of works of the same theme by the artist. The statue was commissioned for the French Cardinal Jean de Bilhères, who was a representative in Rome. The sculpture, in Carrara marble, was made for the cardinal's funeral monument, but was moved to its current location, the first chapel on the right as one enters the basilica, in the 18th century. It is the only piece Michelangelo ever signed.

This famous work of art depicts the body of Jesus on the lap of his mother Mary after the Crucifixion. The theme is of Northern origin. Michelangelo's interpretation of the Pietà is unprecedented in Italian sculpture. It is an important work as it balances the Renaissance ideals of classical beauty with naturalism.

The structure is pyramidal, and the vertex coincides with Mary's head. The statue widens progressively down the drapery of Mary's dress, to the base, the rock of Golgotha. The figures are quite out of proportion, owing to the difficulty of depicting a fully-grown man cradled full-length in a woman's lap. Much of Mary's body is concealed by her monumental drapery, and the relationship of the figures appears quite natural. Michelangelo's interpretation of the Pietà was far different from those previously created by other artists, as he sculpted a young and beautiful Mary rather 
than an older woman around 50 years of age.

The marks of the Crucifixion are limited to 
very small nail marks and an indication of the wound in Jesus' side.

Christ's face does not reveal signs of the Passion. Michelangelo did not want his version of the Pietà to represent death, but rather to show the "religious vision of abandonment and a serene face of the Son", thus the representation of the communion between man and God by the sanctification through Christ.


The Madonna is represented as being very 
young for the mother of an approximately 33-year-old son, which is not uncommon in depictions 
of her at the time of the Passion of Christ. Various explanations have been suggested for this. One is that her youth symbolizes her incorruptible purity, as Michelangelo himself said to his biographer and fellow sculptor Ascanio Condivi.

Do you not know that chaste women stay fresh 
much more than those who are not chaste? How much more in the case of the Virgin, who had 
never experienced the least lascivious desire 
that might change her body?


Another explanation suggests that Michelangelo's treatment of the subject was influenced by his passion for Dante's Divina Commedia: so well-acquainted was he with the work that when 
he went to Bologna he paid for hospitality by 
reciting verses from it. In Paradiso (cantica 33 
of the poem), Saint Bernard, in a prayer for the Virgin Mary, says "Vergine madre, figlia del tuo figlio" (Virgin mother, daughter of your son). 

This is said because, since Christ is one of the three figures of Trinity, Mary would be his daughter, but it is also she who bore him.

Sculpting of the work took less than two years. Following completion, the Pietà's first home 
was the Chapel of Santa Petronilla, a Roman mausoleum near the south transept of St. 
Peter's, which the Cardinal chose as his funerary chapel. The chapel was later demolished by Bramante during his rebuilding of the basilica. According to Giorgio Vasari, shortly after the installation of his Pietà, Michelangelo overheard 
(or asked visitors about the sculptor) someone remark that it was the work of another sculptor, Cristoforo Solari, whereupon Michelangelo 
signed the sculpture. Michelangelo carved MICHAELA - GELUS BONAROTUS FLORENTIN - FACIEBA (Michelangelo Buonarroti, Florentine, made this) on the sash running across Mary's 
chest. The signature echoes one used by the 
ancient Greek artists, Apelles and Polykleitos. 
It was the only work he ever signed. Vasari also 
reports the anecdote that Michelangelo later regretted his outburst of pride and swore 
never to sign another work of his hands.

In 1964, the Pietà was lent by the Vatican to the 1964–65 New York World's Fair to be installed 
in the Vatican pavilion. Francis Cardinal Spellman, who had requested the statue from Pope John XXIII, appointed Edward M. Kinney, Director of Purchasing and Shipping of Catholic Relief Services - USCC, to head up the Vatican Transport Teams. People stood in line for hours to catch a glimpse from a conveyor belt moving past the sculpture. It was returned to the Vatican after the fair.


Subsequent to its carving the Pietà sustained much damage. Four fingers on Mary's left hand, broken during a move, were restored in 1736 by Giuseppe Lirioni, and scholars are divided as to whether the restorer took liberties to make the gesture more 'rhetorical'. The most substantial damage occurred on May 21, 1972, (Pentecost Sunday) when a mentally disturbed geologist, the Hungarian-born Australian Laszlo Toth walked into the chapel and attacked the sculpture with a geologist's hammer while shouting "I am Jesus Christ; I have risen from the dead!" With fifteen blows he removed Mary's arm at the elbow, knocked off a chunk of her nose, and chipped one of her eyelids. Onlookers took many of the pieces of marble that flew off. Later, some pieces were returned, but many were not, including Mary's nose, which had to be reconstructed from a block cut out of her back.

After the attack, the work was painstakingly restored and returned to its place in St. Peter's, just to the right of the entrance, between the Holy door and the altar of Saint Sebastian, and is now protected by a bulletproof acrylic glass panel.

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