P 1 : KsF
0521551331 c 01 -p 2 CUNY 160 /Joannides 052155 133 1 January 11 , 2007 10 : 5
CATALOGUE 38 WHOLLY OR PARTIALLY AUTOGRAPH SHEETS 199conform with, rather than, as one might have expected,
to contrast with the pre-existing Brunelleschian archi-
tecture of the church’s interior. His stated admiration for
Brunelleschi may have influenced this decision. But while
the tribune shows little that is Michelangelesque in archi-
tectural detail, Wallace ( 1987 b) showed that Michelan-
gelo was himself involved in carving the distinctive and
innovative “horse-head” coat of arms. And Wallace was
also able to demonstrate, by an analysis of documents,
that Michelangelo’s architectural inventiveness, somewhat
repressed in the tribune itself, flowered in the tabernacle
frame of the door to the passage that leads to it. Wallace
showed that de Tolnay was correct in his belief, dismissed
bymost scholars, that Michelangelo designed this portal,
which opens off the upper cloister of San Lorenzo. This
door type, developed from the tabernacles in thericetto,
wasevidently considered so successful by Michelangelo
that he re-used it virtually unchanged in the lower storey
of the Palazzo Conservatori.
The labelling on the present drawing suggests that it
was made for a client to read. The criticisms of the plan
made by the Pope certainly correspond to this plan, and
Ackerman’s contention, that it was the very drawing sent
to the Pope, is plausible. However, it is largely executed
free-hand, and Michelangelo might have got a pupil to
make a fair copy. If it was the sheet sent to the Pope, it
was certainly returned to Michelangelo, for he employed
the verso for an unrelated sketch. It seems likely that he
would, simultaneously, have provided an elevation draw-
ing, but if he did so, it is lost.
The plan is not identical with the project as put into
practice, and Ackerman accurately notes the differences.
The space at Michelangelo’s disposal was very limited,
buthedoes seem to have taken some advantage of it
to include in the chamber apsidal ends, before both of
which are two lightly sketched steps. It was no doubt
that in these apses the relics were to be stored and dis-
played, and Michelangelo seems to have envisaged for
them an altar-like approach. Barbieri and Puppi attribute
this idea to Michelangelo’s knowledge of Roman archi-
tecture, probably tomb chambers: An allusion to cata-
comb burials might even have been intended.
The plan also implies that some articulation of the exte-
rior was still planned. As Ackerman notes, Figiovanni in
a letter to Michelangelo of late October–early Novem-
ber 1531 (Carteggio, III, pp. 339 – 41 ; letter MCCCXXXII)
remarked that the exterior balcony should not be ofpietra
serena, like that on the interior, but of “marmo per unirlo
con la facciata,” which suggests that a marble fac ̧ade was
still envisaged. But no known drawing for the fac ̧ade by
Michelangelo is compatible with a balcony, and because
nothing else is heard about a fac ̧ade, it seems unlikely thatMichelangelo was re-designing one to accommodate a
balcony in 1531 .Indeed, were it not for Figiovanni’s let-
ter, the inclusion of a balcony in the present drawing
would surely be taken to indicate that Michelangelo had
abandoned hope of any overall fac ̧ade scheme. Failing
further evidence, the matter can only be left open but,
for whatever reason the exterior platform was never exe-
cuted, although, as Wallace notes, one of the two passages
to the fac ̧ade was opened and then re-sealed.
The loosely drawn squares beneath the exterior plat-
form are puzzling. The fac ̧ade was planned to be articu-
lated with columns, and these forms are smaller than the
columns supporting the interior which are clearly indi-
cated as such and provided with bases. Perhaps they were
no more than utilitarian consoles to support the balcony,
on which, strangely, Michelangelo did not, as in that of
the interior, indicate a balustrade.Verso
The verso drawing, which clearly represents theRisen
Christ,isone of sixteen treatments of the subject drawn
byMichelangelo in the early years of the153 0s. There has
been virtual unanimity about the attribution and approx-
imate date of these drawings but little about their pur-
pose. Broadly speaking, the drawings divide into two
series. One comprises multifigure compositions, in which
guards scatter in alarm as Christ rises from the tomb.
The second consists of single-figure – or primarily single-
figure – compositions, showing Christ at His moment of
triumph over death.
There exist two, arguably three, multi-figureResurrec-
tiondesigns, all relatively fully worked-out:Multi-figure 1. The Royal Collection, Windsor Cas-
tle, PW 427 recto/Corpus 255 (black chalk, 240 ×
34 7 mm); this was prepared in a preliminary sketch
in the Louvre (Inv. 691 bis/J 37 /Corpus 253 ;red chalk,
15 2× 169 mm) and a single-figure study, for the guard
sprawled on the sarcophagus lid, in Florence (CB
32 F/B 139 /Corpus 254 ;black chalk, 139 × 196 mm,
irregular). The Windsor composition is orientated hor-
izontally and lit from the left.
Multi-figure 2 .British Museum, W 52 /Corpus 258 (black
chalk, 326 × 289 mm) is roughly square in composition
but could be seen as lunette-shaped. It is lit from the
right.
Multi-figure 3 .British Museum, W 53 /Corpus 264 (black
chalk, 406 × 271 mm) is more problematic. It is orien-
tated vertically and lit from the left, but it is debat-
able whether it should be classed as a multi-figure
composition because the subsidiary figures are entirely