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228 WHOLLY OR PARTIALLY AUTOGRAPH SHEETS CATALOGUE 46knowledge that black chalk studies forCascinahad been
owned by Daniele da Volterra.Verso
46 a. The leg study is probably for the left leg of Christ
in the four-figure Florence Pieta`, which is now lost
but whose disposition is known from early copies of
Michelangelo’s design. If this is so, then the drawing may
be a little earlier than those on the recto, of the early
to mid-155 0s. It is not entirely clear when Michelan-
gelo abandoned work on this group, which was certainly
underway in the15 4 0s, but because Michelangelo him-
self claimed that he had damaged it accidentally while
being pressured to complete it by his friend and servant
Urbino, this must have happened before the latter’s death.
It was presumably handed over to Calcagni in the later
155 0sorearly15 6 0s, and since Calcagni died within a year
of Michelangelo himself, his work on the group was no
doubt undertaken within Michelangelo’s lifetime.Recto
46 b. The inset fragment is clearly a sketch for theCleans-
ing of the Temple,executed as a painting by Marcello
Ve n usti (London National Gallery, NG119 4; oil on panel,
610 × 400 mm). It is unknown whether the composition
was designed expressly for Venusti or whether he exe-
cuted a design prepared by Michelangelo for some other
purpose; in favour of the second view is the fact that the
figures occupy only the lower quarter of his painting, and
had Michelangelo begun with a vertically oriented field
in mind, it is likely that his drawings would respond to
this. It was suggested by Frommel ( 1964 ) that this com-
position was prepared for a fresco to be executed in the
lunette above the entrance of the Pauline Chapel. The
subject and the grandeur of arrangement are appropriate
for such a role, but the final composition does not read-
ily conform to a lunette, and some of the other designs
considered by Michelangelo en route would be positively
out of place there. Nor is there compelling evidence that
Michelangelo was further concerned with the pictorial
decoration of the Pauline Chapel after he completed his
second fresco in155 0, although Frommel has shown that
Marcello Venusti was commissioned to work there.
The date of theCleansing of the Templeis unknown, but
it is probably to be placed around 1555 .Itisthe most elab-
orate multifigure composition to survive by Michelan-
gelo from the post–Pauline Chapel period, and obviously
required time and trouble. Apart from the present frag-
ment, certainly excised from a larger sheet – quite likely by
Michelangelo himself – and later attached to the presentone, there are three other sheets of studies for the compo-
sition, all drawn on both recto and verso, usually in differ-
ent orientations and all now in the British Museum (W 76 ,
77 , 78 /Corpus 385 ,38 6,38 7; all black chalk, respectively,
148 × 276 mm, 139 × 167 mm, 178 ×37 2 mm). Insight
into Michelangelo’s method of composing so complex a
group is provided by the third of these, which Venusti
employed – directly or indirectly – as the cartoon for
his panel. It is made up of six separate pieces of paper.
Michelangelo built up or modified his design as he drew
it, pasting together irrregularly cut pieces of paper of
unrelated weights and textures, some of which he had
previously used for studies of elements of the composi-
tion (three of whose versos also contain sketches of vari-
ous figures in the scene), to assemble the final image (by
analogy, it may be that Michelangelo himself excised the
upper section of hisDavid and Goliathstudy to use else-
where, although he would not have been responsible for
joining to it the present fragment).
Michelangelo seems to have considered two basic stag-
ings, probably sequentially rather than simultaneously.
The first shows Christ in left profile advancing right to
left across the picture surface. This is found on W 76 ,
and in it the pose of Christ provides another example of
retrospection: It is closely similar to theCascinastudy, Cat.
7 verso.On W 77 , Michelangelo seems for a moment to
have considered Christ moving left to right. But all the
other treatments show Christ centralised, advancing for-
ward towards the spectator.
It is difficult to be sure whether the light curve that
can be descried on this fragment is a product of accident
or design. If the latter, it might register some moment of
Michelangelo’s thoughts about the curvature of the dome
of St. Peter’s.
The subject of theCleansing of the Temple, has, of
course, a reformist dimension, and it would be interest-
ing to know for whom the composition was prepared, but
nothing is known of the whereabouts of Venusti’s paint-
ing prior to its first recorded appearance in the Borghese
Collection in 1650. The painting does not seem to have
been engraved, nor is Venusti known to have produced
more than the single version; this is unusual and suggests
that it was reserved for a particular client and not part of
Ve n usti’s stock-in-trade. However, it was not unknown,
and it did have some effect. The various treatments of the
subject by El Greco, of which the earliest (Washington,
D. C., National Gallery of Art), was painted in Rome
c.15 7 0, and of which another version, in the Institute
of Fine Arts, Minneapolis, only marginally later, actually
includes a portrait of Michelangelo – together with those
of Raphael, Clovio, and Titian – can hardly have been