Michelangelo's Vatican Pietà and its afterlives

Abstract

"This book offers a fresh perspective on Michelangelo's well-known masterpiece, the Vatican Pietà, by tracing the shifting meaning of the work of art over time. Lisa M. Rafanelli chronicles the object history of the Vatican Pietà and the active role played by its many reproductions. The sculpture has been on continuous view for over 500 years, during which time its cultural, theological, and artistic significance has shifted. Equally important is the fact that over its long life it has been relocated numerous times and has also been reproduced in images and objects produced both during Michelangelo's lifetime and long after, described here as artistic progeny: large-scale, unique sculpted variants, smaller-scale statuettes, plaster and bronze casts, and engraved prints. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, Renaissance studies, early modern studies, religion, Christianity, and theology"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents

Chapter 1. Opening Act: Michelangelo's Vatican Pietà -- Cardinal Jean de Bilhères Lagraulas and the Commission Envisioning the Pietà The Finished Sculpture (and Some Lingering Questions) -- Encountering the Pietà -- Experiencing the Pietà -- The Madonna della Febbre -- The Peripatetic Pietà: From Santa Petronilla to the Secretarium -- Chapter 2. Canonicity and its Discontents: Artistic Progeny of the Pietà during the Sixteenth Century -- Pietà for Santa Maria dell'Anima in Rome-- Intermezzo: Florentine Rebellion -- A Pietà for Santo Spirito in Florence -- An Anonymous Critic and a Madrigal -- Pietà for the King of France -- Pietà for Everyone: Reproductive Prints Canonicity and its Discontents -- Chapter 3. Restaging the Pietà in the Late Sixteenth to Seventeenth Centuries -- Marian Devotion and Imagery in Tridentine Rome The Pietà and the Canons' Choir (1568-1609-- On the Road Again (1609-1625) -- Early Seventeenth Century Posthumous Bronze Copies of the Pietà in Italy and Spain -- The New Canons' Choir (1625-1750) -- Coronation -- Chapter 4. Shifting Perspectives: Michelangelo and the Pietà from the Mid- Seventeenth to Nineteenth Centuries -- The Pietà and the Grand Tour -- Robert Samber's Roma Illustrata (1722) Mid-Century: The Pietà takes Center Stage -- The Late Eighteenth-Early Nineteenth Centuries: Revolution, Romanticism, and Michelangelo Entre'acte: Napoleon and the Looting of Rome -- The Mid-Nineteenth Century: Nationalism and the Art of Michelangelo -- The Great Exhibition of 1851 -- Michelangelo's Florentine Birthday Bash of 1875 -- Chapter 5. The Pietà on the American Stage: The Twentieth Century -- A Question of Authenticity -- Marble Pietàs in Early Twentieth Century America: Icons of Faith, Beauty, and Identity -- The Pietà and Popular Devotion: Our Lady of Sorrows -- Ars Longa, Vita Brevis: The Pietà at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale -- Lost-Wax Bronze Casts of the Pietà: Icons of Faith, Beauty, and Commerce - The Pietà and American Consumer Capitalism -- Only the Original Will Do: The 1964-1965 New York World's Fair -- Staging the Pietà in the Vatican Pavilion -- Critical Reception -- Souvenirs, Body Doubles, and Effigies -- Plot Twist: An Iconoclastic Attack (1972) -- Chapter 6. : The Pietà on the Global Stage -- Something Borrowed: Recasting Casts -- Fragmentation, Proselytization, and Commodification -- Something New: Contemporary Artists and the Vatican Pietà -- Artistic Appropriation: The Sacred and the Profane -- The Vatican Pietà as a Symbol of Social Justice -- Performance, Empathy, and Memory: Seeing the Pietà Afresh.