P 1 : KsF
0521551331 c 01 -p 3 CUNY 160 /Joannides 052155 133 1 January 11 , 2007 10 : 14
CATALOGUE 48 WHOLLY OR PARTIALLY AUTOGRAPH SHEETS 235viewer’s right, as seen in B. However, if Vasari’s account is
believed – and there is no good reason not to believe it –
these drawings would not be initial studies for the group
but rather sketches in which Michelangelo was trying to
work out in what ways he might continue – and per-
haps revise–agroupcarvedandputtooneside some
years earlier. Thus, the outward lolling head of Christ
(as the group was reconstructed in 1935 by Arno Breker
[see Baumgart, 1935 b], partly on the basis of B on the
present sheet) and the upturned head of the supporting
figure, would already have been present in the first ver-
sion of the group, and Michelangelo’s primary purpose
in making the present sketches would rather be to recon-
sider the head position of the supporting figure. However,
there is a major obstacle to such a reconstruction. If the
damaged fragment of Christ’s torso is authentic, it is clear
that in the version of the group of which this fragment
formed part, as well as in the final version, Christ’s head
bent inwards, and did not loll outwards. Hence, Man-
tura takes the present drawings to be of c.155 0,preced-
ing not only the second but also the first state of the
group.
Even though this reconstruction of events is reason-
able in principle, the compiler finds it difficult to accept.
He cannot convince himself that this sheet of sketches is
as early as c.155 0, the latest possible date for the incep-
tion of the first version of the Rondanini group. The
sketches seem to him to be no earlier than the second
half of the155 0s(adating supported by the similarity of
paper and organisation of the sketches to Cat. 47 ), and,
as remarked previously, they probably represent variant
ideas for a revision of the group. If this is correct, then the
torso fragment (if authentic) would post-date the present
drawings, perhaps by several years. It would come from
a second version of the group of which the first version
showed an outward-lolling head, the drastically emaci-
ated final – third – version would be a further reduction
of this second version.
However, it is important to appreciate that both solu-
tions – outward and inward – co-existed in Michelan-
gelo’s artistic and spiritual imagination in the last decade
of his life and had done do for some quarter century.
The motif of the outward lolling head, common to both
the four-figure Piet`a and thePalestrina Piet`a,isseen in a
not dissimilar form in Michelangelo’s design for Sebas-
tiano’s UbedaPieta`of around 1534 (Paris, Louvre, Inv.
716 /J 38 /Corpus 92 ;black chalk, 254 ×31 9 mm). The
head bent inwards is found in a drawing in Vienna
(BK 103 / Corpus 432 ;red chalk, 404 × 233 mm), which is
probably of 1531 – 2. Supplementing the autograph Vienna
drawing is another, little-noticed drawing of a two-figurePiet`a, which is probably a copy of a lost original by
Michelangelo of about the same date (Uffizi, 194 S; red
chalk, 240 × 113 mm/Berenson, 1963 ,no. 2479 a, fig. 688 ,
as Sebastiano del Piombo). As Berenson remarked, this
composition re-works with some modifications part of
the group at the upper right of Michelangelo’s drawing of
theDepositionin Haarlem (Teyler Museum A 25 recto/VT
60 /Corpus 89 ;redchalk, 273 × 191 mm); this copyist may
also be responsible for the precise same-size copy of the
same detail in Paris (Louvre, Inv. 836 /J 110 ;red chalk,
94 × 63 mm). Thus, as his drawings demonstrate,
Michelangelo was certainly considering the theme of
two-figure as well as multi-figure Pietas (see Cat.` 40 ) dur-
ing the153 0s.
Even in the second and third versions of theRon-
danini Pieta`therefore, as well as the putative first version,
Michelangelo would have been reprising ideas tried in
the early153 0s. That said, it cannot be ruled out that the
Rondanini Pieta`may have even been begun in the153 0s
rather than in the15 4 0s. Certain aspects of its first form
seem closer to those of theLast Judgementthan of a later
period, and although its present appearance reflects the
moribund Michelangelo’s convulsive rejection of physical
beauty, the forms of the first and second versions would
have been in his mind for many years.
The role of the three-figure groups on this sheet is also
conjectural. In their frontality and alignment across the
surface they recall Michelangelo’sEntombment(London,
National Gallery, NG 790 ; oil on wood, 161. 7 × 149. 9 cm)
butinamore severe key: indeed, no other treatment of
the subject of such severity and frontality is known. It
is probable that Michelangelo was thinking of sculpture
rather than painting, but given the mutuality of these
media in Michelangelo’s work, this can hardly be taken
as certain. The obvious referent for such a group, of
two standing figures supporting the dead Christ, is the
Palestrina Pieta`, also severely frontal in its arrangement.
Michelangelo’s authorship of thePalestrina Pieta`is fre-
quently denied – notably, and most lucidly, by the late Sir
John Pope-Hennessy – and it was certainly reworked by
a later sculptor, but it is recorded as by Michelangelo as
early as 1618 , and its stylistic peculiarity, the distension of
forms as they approach the front of the block as though,
as Wilde pointed out, pressed against glass, is wholly
Michelangelesque, wholly characteristic of his work of
the155 0s, appropriate to the present studies, and quite
unlike the work of any other Italian sculptor after Tino da
Camaino.
ThePalestrina Pieta`is carved from a block that probably
once formed part of a Roman cornice. It is both wide and
shallow, encouraging a flat presentational arrangement,