The Drawings of Michelangelo and His Followers in the Ashmolean Museum

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0521551331 c 01 -p 3 a CUNY 160 /Joannides 052155 133 1 January 11 , 2007 10 : 18

CATALOGUE 54 WHOLLY OR PARTIALLY AUTOGRAPH SHEETS 255

lunette above, and a ribbed semi-dome. The beginning

of a plan of the adjacent chapel immediately to the right.

This juxtaposition illustrates Michelangelo’s willingness

to move from plan to elevation in the same drawing.

I.An arch in elevation up to cornice level flanked by two

high columns.

With the top edge as the base

J.Achapel in elevation up to cornice level. It contains

three wide round-topped niches and a large rectangular

panel above these. Above this is a single architrave sur-

mounted by a small lunette and a simplified shell-ribbed

semi-dome. This is flanked by two paired relatively short

columns carrying a very heavy cornice whose top is at

the level of the base of the shell semi-dome. In align-

ment with the columns, above the cornice, are paired

pilasters – or ribs – framing the semi-dome. It is not clear

whether the elements above the cornice represent a ver-

tical extension of these pilasters or ribs, or whether these

are pendentives supporting a ring at the base of the – pre-

sumed – drum, asK–which it slightly overlaps – would

suggest.

K.Across section of a barrel-vaulted aisle with columns

on pedestals on either side, with a round-topped? niche

opening off that and another round-topped space? above

that, with a straight roof line above. The profile of a pen-

dentive or a dome on the right.

L.Acurving profile supporting a cornice. It is not fully

clear to what this refers. It might indicate the shell semi-

dome in profile, surmounted by a cornice. Alternatively,

it could be a section of the “ribs” carrying the ring of the

putative drum.

Discussion

Recto

This side of the sheet is of particular interest in the prepa-

ration of the dome of St. Peter’s because it also includes

afragment of a commentary upon the project. Of the

hundreds of drawings that Michelangelo must have made

for St. Peter’s, an exceptionally complicated architectural

project that dominated the last seventeen years of his

life, very few survive. However, those that do provide

an invaluable guide to the transformations of the project

and to Michelangelo’s own uncertainties and changes of

mind, and they frequently reveal aspects of his work on

the project that could not be inferred from the docu-

ments alone. Furthermore, the present sheet demonstrates

acontinuation of Michelangelo’s practice throughout his

career: his use of the same sheets for drawings relating