P 1 : KsF
0521551331 c 01 -p 3 CUNY 160 /Joannides 052155 133 1 January 11 , 2007 10 : 14
CATALOGUE 50 WHOLLY OR PARTIALLY AUTOGRAPH SHEETS 243Lower right:Mic. Ang. Buonarotiin pen and grey ink (cf.
Cats. 45 [further discussion], 47 , 48 ).Discussion
The references topictoreandPasquinoand Casteldurante
make it clear that Michelangelo is thinking about Cor-
nelia, the widow of his servant and friend Francesco
d’Amadore, called Urbino, who had returned to her
home town of Casteldurante after the death of her hus-
band on 3 December 1555. Michelangelo maintained con-
tact with Cornelia, sometimes forwarding her sums of
money via the muleteer Pasquino. On 13 December155 7
Cornelia wrote to Michelangelo to tell him that she
had been pressured to make over as a gift to the Duke
of Urbino two paintings executed by Marcello Venusti
to Michelangelo’s designs. These had been painted for
her late husband as mementoes for their two sons (the
Duke may have felt some justification for this shabby act
byhis belief that Michelangelo had swindled the Della
Rovere family over the tomb of their great kinsman,
Pope Julius II). Cornelia begged Michelangelo to com-
mission for her repetitions of these paintings to be made
by“vostro messer Marcello.” The two paintings Cornelia
wanted replicated were, respectively, of aCrucifixionand
anAnnunciation. They followed Michelangelo’s designs.
TheCrucifixionwaspart new invention, part repetition:
It combined the famousChrist on the Crossthat Michelan-
gelo had drawn for Vittoria Colonna c.15 4 0(see Cat. 67 ),
with figures of the Virgin and Saint John at the Cross’s
foot, prepared in two drawings of c. 1555 ,inParis (Louvre
Inv. 720 and 698 /J 39 and 40 /Corpus 412 and 413 ;black
chalk, respectively 230 × 110 mm and 250 × 82 mm). This
addition was no doubt undertaken by Michelangelo as a
special favour to his beloved servant. TheAnnunciation
wasareduced version, without changes, of that painted
byVe n usti to Michelangelo’s design on the commission
of Tommaso de’Cavalieri for St. John Lateran, and now
in the church’s sacristy.
The sequel to Cornelia’s request is not known, but it
may be that Michelangelo, instead of simple compliance,
considered designing a new work for her, showingChrist
Appearing to the Virgin on the Morning of the Resurrection,
an appropriate subject for a woman recently widowed.
Or he may simply have been prompted to reconsider
the subject of theAnnunciationbyher plea, at a period
when, as contemporaries reported, he was increasingly
preoccupied by death. Indeed the present drawing was
always interpreted as anAnnunciationuntil Pfeiffer eluci-
dated its true subject. Another possibility is suggested by
the similarity between the present drawing and one in the
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (Inv. 3056 /Corpus 401 ;
black chalk, 265 × 162 mm). The recto of the Fitzwilliamsheet bears a study ofChrist Taking Leave of His Mother,no
doubt a preparatory drawing for the cartoon of the sub-
ject recorded in Michelangelo’s house after his death. This
cartoon was begun, according to a note by Daniele da
Volterra, for Cardinal Morrone, but it is clear that, some
time before Michelangelo died, the project, presumably
for a single painting, had been shelved since Michelan-
gelo had offered the cartoon as a gift both to Vasari and
to Tommaso Cavalieri; the latter finally claimed it. The
drawing on the verso of the Fitzwilliam sheet, however,
rather than preparatory for the recto, as most scholars
believe, could well be a study for the present composi-
tion. If so, it would imply that Michelangelo thought of
the two as pendants. But whether or not the Fitzwilliam
versoisrelated to the present drawing, it need not affect
the possibility that the two subjects, which so well com-
plement each other, were intended either as a pair – or as
alternatives.
In the present drawing, the block-like form of the
Virgin, her angular pose, and the rhythmic compres-
sion of the relation between the two figures suggest that
Michelangelo was looking to trecento sources, in partic-
ular, perhaps, to the relief of the same scene on Andrea
Orcagna’s great tabernacle at Orsanmichele, which he
would have known from childhood. He had referred to
this earlier in the decade when he made a finished draw-
ing (New York, Morgan Library, IV, 7 /Corpus 399 ;black
chalk, 383 × 296 mm) of theAnnunciationfor Marcello
Ve n usti to execute as the altarpiece of the Cesi Chapel in
Santa Maria della Pace, a painting now lost but known
in numerous autograph reductions and copies. The first
position of the Virgin’s head, drawn back slightly and
looking up to her Son in wonder, would have been still
more “primitive” in effect.
In representing Christ Taking Leave of His Mother
andChrist Appearing to the Virgin on the Morning of the
Resurrection, subjects that are commoner in the north
than in Italy, and in turning to the art of the Flo-
rentine trecento for their visual vehicle, Michelangelo
demonstrates once again how deeply he was indebted
to his very earliest artistic interests in his effort to forge
a sacred style. Whether Michelangelo’s representation
ofChrist Appearing to the Virgin on the Morning of the
Resurrectionwas known outside his immediate circle is
conjectural: The subject was treated by Pellegrino Tibaldi
in a fresco in the cloister of the Escorial, c.15 8 8,but
that has no immediate visual relation with the present
drawing.
The fact that this sheet is recorded by Ottley in his
sale catalogue of 1814 (correcting his statement in his
sale catalogue of 1804 )ascoming from the Cicciaporci
collection suggests that it was among the drawings by