Pietà

Pietà, a monumental marble sculpture by Renaissance artist Michelangelo depicting Mary cradling the body of Jesus after he has been removed from the cross. The work was commissioned by a French Cardinal, Jean de Bilhères Lagraulas, for his funerary monument in Old St. Peter’s Basilica (razed in the early 16th century) in Vatican City. It was eventually moved to its current location in the new St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, where it became one of the most famous sculptures in the world. Completed in 1498, the work continues to draw pilgrims for its moving depiction of the Virgin quietly mourning the death of her son..

Commission and production

Cardinal Lagraulas, a French diplomat in Rome, commissioned the sculpture for his tomb in Old Saint Peter’s, likely choosing the theme of the pietà for its funerary associations. Although the word pietà derives from the Italian word for pity, the theme of the Virgin mourning her son originated in 14th-century German art. It does not directly correspond to any Biblical source but was extracted from narrative scenes of the lamentation after Christ’s death. Early sculptures of the pietà often included angels or additional mourners such as Mary Magdalene and John the Apostle and were usually small in scale. The contract between the cardinal and Michelangelo, however, stipulated that the figure of Jesus would be “of the proper size of a man” (i.e., life-size). It also included the hyperbolic requirement that the monument “be more beautiful than any work in marble to be seen in Rome today, and such that no master of our own time shall be able to produce a better.” This ambitious claim was made in spite of Michelangelo’s youth—the artist was in his early 20s and not yet well known. 

Perhaps hoping to meet the contract’s high standards, Michelangelo sought out high-quality Carrara marble from the Apuan Alps, in northern central Italy. He carefully chose a block of statuario, a pure type of stone with little silica, and polished it to the degree that it mimicked the suppleness of human flesh. After Cardinal Lagraulas’s death in 1499, the completed sculpture was placed on view, inspiring many of Michelangelo’s contemporaries to marvel at his achievement. He had solved the complex problem of extracting two figures from one marble block by treating the group as one dense and compact mass, creating a pyramidal structure by draping the dead Christ across Mary’s lap. Yet, Michelangelo differentiated the two figures by underlining their many contrasts—male and female, vertical and horizontal, clothed and naked, dead and alive.

To accommodate the body of a fully grown man in the Virgin’s lap, Michelangelo subtly widened her shoulders and flattened her thighs to give her larger-than-life proportions. Yet the distortions are often not apparent at first glance and can only be discovered through sustained observation. Some observers, however, were more skeptical of the artistic liberties taken with the subject. Certain critics took issue with the anomalously youthful appearance of the Virgin Mary, who, according to the Bible, would have been well into her 40s or early 50s at the time of her son’s death. Michelangelo’s biographers, Giorgio Vasari and Ascanio Condivi, addressed her uncreased and unblemished visage in their writings, arguing for the preservative effects of virginal purity. In another notable feature, the artist incised his name onto a sash worn by the Virgin, writing in Latin “Michelangelo Buonarroti, Florentine, made this.” The Pietà is the only artwork the artist signed during his entire career. The piece was such a success that it promptly led to Michelangelo’s receiving the commission for another sculpture—one of David.

Installation at St. Peter’s, travel to the World’s Fair, and attack

Although the precise details of the original installation of the Pietà have been lost, the sculpture is known to have been placed alongside the cardinal’s tomb in Old St. Peter’s but only for a brief period. The demolition of the basilica soon after led the work to be relocated to the Vatican grottoes. It underwent additional moves within the Vatican before arriving in 1749 at its current location near the entrance of the new St. Peter’s. With its removal from the Cardinal’s tomb, the sculpture became dissociated from its original context as a grave marker and instead attracted pilgrims who were drawn by either the intercessory role associated with the Virgin Mary or the artistic skill of Michelangelo. The Pietà has rarely moved since, with the exception of 1964–65, when it traveled to Queens, New York for the World’s Fair. Pope John XXIII had approved the loan of the work before his death in 1963 for the Vatican Pavilion, which was orchestrated by Jo Mielziner. The Broadway stage designer set the stark white sculpture against a deep blue velvet background and surrounded it with a halo of lights. Subsequent to this adventure, the sculpture was never permitted to leave the Vatican again, as decreed by John XXIII’s successor, Pope Paul VI.

Unfortunately, the pope’s ruling did not keep the work out of danger. On May 21, 1972, a man named Laszlo Toth attacked the Pietà with a hammer while proclaiming himself to be Jesus Christ. The sculpture underwent restoration to repair Mary’s damaged face and left arm and returned to public view the following year—though it was set back 25 feet (7.62 meters) from viewers, behind bulletproof glass about two-thirds of an inch thick. In 2024 a new shatterproof bulletproof glass was installed at the site in anticipation of more than 30 million pilgrims visiting the Vatican during the 2025 Jubilee Year. The celebration is observed for one full year every 25 years, during which Catholics may be granted remission of sins by the pope under certain conditions, such as completing a pilgrimage.