The Drawings of Michelangelo and His Followers in the Ashmolean Museum

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248 WHOLLY OR PARTIALLY AUTOGRAPH SHEETS CATALOGUE 52

which he himself had begun over half a century earlier,

and which was again the focus of activity towards15 6 0.It

is clear that some of the studies on the verso of Michelan-

gelo’s profile of the dome of St. Peter’s in Haarlem (Teyler

Museum A 29 /VT 67 /Corpus 596 ;black chalk, 397 × 232

mm) are for individual niched statues, and that Michelan-

gelo did make an attempt to indicate a scale for them,

although both the purpose of these drawings and the sig-

nificance of the scale pricked beside them are debatable

and debated.

Interpretation of the architectural sketches is also prob-

lematic. The slight sketch in part cut by the right edge

could be a segmental pediment to surmount a door or a

window. During the later155 0sand early15 6 0s, Michelan-

gelo was considering pediments of different types for St.

Peter’s, for San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, for the Capitoline

Palaces, and, no doubt, other schemes, and the compiler

is unable to relate this slight sketch to a specific project.

Another, just below the right-hand figure, D, seems to

be an irregular rectangle with one small circle at each of

its corners. It is difficult to be sure whether this is simply a

shakey drawing from an old man, and that it was intended

to be a normal rectangle, or whether what we see is what

wasplanned. If the latter, then the compiler can make no

guess as to what it represents. If the former, then taken

in conjunction with the bold line that divides the form

in two roughly equal parts (but which might simply be

adventitious) this might represent a door in plan, with

column-flanked aedicules on either side. The third draw-

ing, at the lower right corner, E, again cut by the right

edge, could be a development of this with the inclu-

sion of a step. But it is also reminiscent of Michelangelo’s

plan of the thrones intended to surmount the attic of the

ducal tombs in the New Sacristy (CB 72 A/B 63 /Corpus

199 ;red chalk, 167 × 133 mm) so a throne of some kind is

also a possibility. Again by analogy with the New Sacristy,

whose altar has balusters set in its corners, it might also be

aproject for an altar. However, more probable, and cer-

tainly more appropriate chronologically, is that there may

be a connection with the Sforza Chapel. There is a simi-

larity with the forms in one area of a drawing in the British

Museum (W 84 /Corpus 623 ;black chalk, 241 × 210 mm),