⛏Michelangelo‘s Pietà is a marble sculpture of the Virgin Mary mourning over the dead body of Jesus, just taken down from the cross. The statue, created by a 24-year-old master in 1499, was commissioned for the French Cardinal Jean de Bilhères, who was a representative in Rome. Buonarroti’s fee was 450 gold ducats and this is the only work with the autograph of the genius.
⛏ It took Michelangelo 9 months to select the block of marble and transport it to Rome from the Carrara quarries. The figures of the characters were made life-size. The height of the composition is 174 cm, the width is 195 cm. To maintain the equilibrium of the statues Buonarotti slightly violated the proportion of bodies – Jesus is 30 cm below Mary.
⛏ The sculpture has one peculiarity: Christ has a 5th incisor, the so-called “tooth of sin”. Thus, the master showed that after the crucifixion the Son of God accumulated all the sins of the world upon himself.
Since the XVIII century, the statue is kept in the Vatican in St. Peter’s Basilica. In the early 70’s it “survived” the attack of a vandal.
⛏ László Tóth, a crazy Hungarian geologist who considered himself the living incarnation of Christ, hammered the face and the left hand of the Virgin Mary. Before he was grabbed by the guards, he managed to beat off several dozens of pieces of marble. The madman was locked in a psychiatric hospital, and the Pieta was successfully restored.
⛏ In addition, a spectral analysis found that Maria’s left hand had already been repulsed and then successfully restored several centuries ago. After an unpleasant incident, it was decided to install the sculpture behind the bulletproof glass. It is located to the right of the cathedral entrance at some distance from those present.
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