Wk 5 Class 225

Week 6 Class 225

Today, we visited St. Peter's; however, the dome was closed today because Pope Benedict the XVI decided to go to the dome. Unfortunately, Pope Benedict did not report his change in itinerary to Danilo :-( Even so, while at the St. Peter's, we mingled with the many visitors of the day. Professor informed us later that he was asked to leave because Pope Benedict decideed to say a Mass in honor of St. John Paul II death 5 yrs ago.

For Class 225, Michelangelo’s Pietá is the subject and can be found, according to Smiles, “at the front of a small chapel on the right” in the basilica (109). This sculpture of the Blessed Virgin holding her dead son is sculpted in white Carrara marble, and it is, according to Brigitte Hintzen-Bohlen’s Art and Architecture: Rome and the Vatican, one of Michelangelo’s earliest works. (484) The work was “originally intended for the tomb of French Cardinal Jean Bihѐres de Lagraulas in Old St. Peter’s and brought to St Peter’s around 1519.” (Bohlen,484) Bohlen explains that in the sculpture, Michelangelo managed harmonize and blend the upright position of the Mary’s figure with the horizontal figure of Christ as he is stretched across her lap. (Bohlen, p484)

Michelangelo took some criticism for this sculpture because the Virgin Mary is portrayed as a young woman. When critics questioned Michelangelo about Mary’s age he replied, according to Smiles, with the following questions: “Don’t you know,” [Michelangelo] asked…”that women who are chaste remain much fresher than those who are not? How much more so a virgin who was never touched by even the slightest lascivious desire which might alter her body?”’ (109)

The iconography of the piece is that it represents the criticism Michelangelo received; the expression of the Virgin’s incorruptible purity and finally, “it successfully combines death and youth, grief and beauty.” (485)