Michelangelo's Tomb in Rome: Observations on the "Pietà" in Florence and the "Rondanini Pietà"

Abstract

The chief concern of the present study is the evaluation of the evidence the work in question itself - Michelangelo's Florentine Pieta - offers for the placement of Christ's left leg before Michelangelo attacked it. If, as the author suggests, we abandon our trust in the square socket in the thigh of Christ as a guide to the original position of the left leg, more than one position of the leg seems possible. The reconstruction proposed here narrows the angle between the legs and the pathos of the scene (Deposition) is more silent. If Calcagni, forced by the exigencies of the destruction, invented a new position for the left leg, he did it with a high regard for the pathos of the work as a whole. His restoration has preserved the group, and continues to give us access, like a frame around a painting, to its grief and lonely beauty.