Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c4f8m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T02:15:08.595Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Michelangelo’s Pietà as Tomb Monument: Patronage, Liturgy, and Mourning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Emily A. Fenichel
Emily A. Fenichel*
Affiliation:
Florida Atlantic University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In focusing on Michelangelo’s signature, recent scholarship on his “Pietà” in St. Peter’s has separated the sculpture from its spiritual intent. In contrast, this article will consider how the sculpture group spoke to its original religious context, principally as the funerary monument of Michelangelo’s powerful French patron, Cardinal Lagraulas. The Rome “Pietà” was an important part of the funeral rites for the cardinal that mirrors and amplifies the liturgy surrounding death, particularly the hour of vespers. Reconstructing the sculpture’s relationship to its liturgical and funerary ensemble will highlight Michelangelo’s iconographic and artistic ingenuity in the service of religion and his patron.

Type
Research Article
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 70 , Issue 3 , Fall 2017 , pp. 862 - 896
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 Renaissance Society of America

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Antoninus. Summa Theologica. 4 vols. Verona: Carratonius, 1740. Reprint, Graz: Akademische Drucku Verlagsanstalt, 1959.Google Scholar
Barolsky, Paul The Faun in the Garden. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Battifol, Pierre The History of the Roman Breviary. Trans. Atwell Baylay. New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1912.Google Scholar
Bernard of Clairvaux. De Acqueductu. Vol. 183 of Patrologia Latina. Ed. J.-P. Migne, 436–48. Paris, 1857–66.Google Scholar
Bernard of Clairvaux. St. Bernard’s Sermons on the Blessed Virgin Mary. Trans. Ailbe J. Luddy. Devon: Augustine Publishing, 1984.Google Scholar
Brandt, Kathleen Weil-Garris. “Michelangelo’s Pietà for the Cappella del Re di Francia.” In Life and Early Works, vol. 1 of Michelangelo (1995), 217–60.Google Scholar
Cabrol, Fernand “Office of the Dead.” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 11. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11220a.htm.Google Scholar
Cabrol, Fernand. “Vespers.” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15381a.htm.Google Scholar
Celani, Enrico, ed. Johannis Burckhardi Liber Notarum. Vol. 1 of Rerum Italicarum Scriptores. Rome: Citta di Castello, 1911.Google Scholar
Ciulich, Lucilla Bardeschi, ed. I contratti di Michelangelo. Florence: Scelte, 2005.Google Scholar
Condivi, Ascanio The Life of Michelangelo. Trans. Alice Sedgwick Wohl and Hellmut Wohl. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Coonin, Arnold Victor. “The Interaction of Painting and Sculpture in the Art of Perugino.” Artibus et Historiae 24.47 (2003): 103–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alighieri, Dante. The Portable Dante. Ed. and trans. Mark Musa. New York: Penguin, 2003.Google Scholar
Dehio, Georg “Andachtsbilder.” In Geschichte des deutschen Kunst, 2:117–23. Leipzig: De Gruyter, 1923.Google Scholar
Dobrzeniecki, Tadeusz “Mediaeval Sources of the Pietà.” Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie 8 (1967): 5–24.Google Scholar
Durand, William Rationale V: Commentary on the Divine Office. Trans. Timothy M. Thibodeau. Turnhout: Brepols, 2015.Google Scholar
Ellington, Donna Spivey. From Sacred Body to Angelic Soul: Understanding Mary in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Forsyth, William The Pietà in French Late Gothic Sculpture: Regional Variations. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1995.Google Scholar
Gambero, Luigi Mary in the Middle Ages: The Blessed Virgin Mary in the Thought of Medieval Latin Theologians. Trans. Thomas Buffer. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Gardner, Julian The Tomb and the Tiara: Curial Tomb Sculpture in Rome and Avignon in the Later Middle Ages. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Creighton Michelangelo: On and Off the Sistine Chapel Ceiling. New York: George Braziller, 1994.Google Scholar
Gill, Meredith J. “Death and the Cardinal: The Two Bodies of Guillaume d’Estouteville.” Renaissance Quarterly 54.2 (2001): 347–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, James Michelangelo and the Reinvention of the Human Body. New York: Ferrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2005.Google Scholar
Hartt, Frederick Michelangelo: The Complete Sculpture. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1968.Google Scholar
Hartt, Frederick. Michelangelo’s Three Pietàs. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1975.Google Scholar
Hibbard, Howard Michelangelo: Painter, Sculptor, Architect. New York: Vendome Press, 1978.Google Scholar
Hilloowala, Rumy, and Oremland, Jeremy. “The St. Peter’s ‘Pietà’: A Madonna and Child? An Anatomical and Psychological Reevaluation.” Leonardo 20.1 (1987): 87–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirst, Michael, and Dunkerton, Jill. The Young Michelangelo. London: National Gallery Publications, 1994.Google Scholar
Jurěn, Vladimír. “Fecit-feciebat.” Revue de l’Art 26 (1974): 27–30.Google Scholar
Körte, Werner. “Deutsche Vesperbilder in Italien.” Kunstgeschichtliches Jahrbuch der Biblioteca Hertziana 1 (1937): 1–138.Google Scholar
Land, Norman “Dante, Vasari, and Michelangelo’s Pietà in Rome.” Lectura Dantis 22–23 (2008): 181–98.Google Scholar
Lavin, Irving “Divine Grace and the Remedy of the Imperfect: Michelangelo’s Signature on the St. Peter’s Pietà.” Artibus et Historiae 68.34 (2013): 277–328.Google Scholar
Michelangelo: Selected Scholarship in English. 5 vols. Ed. William Wallace. New York: Garland, 1995.Google Scholar
Martimort, A. G. L’Eglise en Priere: Introduction a la Liturgie. Paris: Desclee, 1965.Google Scholar
Ottosen, Knud The Responsories and Versicles of the Latin Office of the Dead. Copenhagen: Aarhus University Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Panofsky, Erwin “‘Imago Pietàtis’ Ein Beitrag zur Typengeschichte des ‘Schmerzsmanns’ und der ‘Maria Mediatrix.’” In Festschrift fur Max J. Friedlander zum 60. Geburtstag, 261–308. Leipzig: E. A. Seemann, 1927.Google Scholar
Pestilli, Livio “Michelangelo’s Pietà: Lombard Critics and Plinian Sources.” Source: Notes in the History of Art 19.2 (2000): 21–30.Google Scholar
Pinder, Wilhelm “Die dichterische Wurzel der Pietà.” Repertorium fur Kunstwissenschaft 42 (1920): 145–63.Google Scholar
Pon, Lisa “Michelangelo’s First Signature.” Source: Notes in the History of Art 15.4 (1996): 16–21.Google Scholar
Richardson, Carol M. Reclaiming Rome: Cardinals in the Fifteenth Century. Leiden: Brill, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samaran, Charles Jean de Bilhères-Lagraulas, Cardinal de Saint Denis: Un Diplomate francais sous Louis XI et Charles VIII. Paris: Librarie Ancienne Honore Champion, 1921.Google Scholar
Savonarola, Girolamo Prediche Sopra Amos e Zaccaria. Ed. Paolo Ghiglieri. 3 vols. Rome: Angelo Belardetti Editore, 1971.Google Scholar
Schiavo, Armando “Giovanni de Villiers de la Groslaye e la ‘Pietà’ di Michelangelo.” Studi Romani 6.6 (1958): 659–67.Google Scholar
Schiavo, Armando. San Pietro in Vaticano. Rome: Stab. A. Staderini, 1960.Google Scholar
Steinberg, Leo “Metaphors of Love and Birth in Michelangelo’s Pietàs.” In Studies in Erotic Art, ed. Theodore Bowie and Cornelia V. Christenson, 231–84. New York: Basic Books, 1970.Google Scholar
Taft, Robert The Liturgy of the Hours in East and West: The Origins of the Divine Office and Its Meaning for Today. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Tolnay, Charles de. Michelangelo. 5 vols. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1943.Google Scholar
Unger, Miles J. Michelangelo: A Life in Six Masterpieces. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2014.Google Scholar
Vasari, Giorgio La Vita di Michelangelo nelle Redazioni del 1550 e del 1568. Ed. Paola Barocchi. 5 vols. Milan: R. Riccardi, 1962.Google Scholar
Vasari, Giorgio. The Lives of the Artists. Trans. Julia Conway Bondanella and Peter Bondanella. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Verdon, Timothy Mary in Western Art. Milan: Mondori Electa Spa, 2001.Google Scholar
Wallace, William “Michelangelo’s Rome Pietà: Altarpiece or Grave Memorial?” In Life and Early Works, vol. 1 of Michelangelo (1995), 261–77.Google Scholar
Wallace, William. “Michelangelo, Tiberio Calcagni, and the Florentine Pietà.” Artibus et Historiae 21.42 (2000): 81–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wallace, William. “La Bella mano: Michelangelo the Craftsman.” Artibus et Historiae 32.63 (2011): 85–100.Google Scholar
Wang, Aileen June. “Michelangelo’s Signature.” Sixteenth Century Journal 35.2 (2004): 447–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Woolfenden, Gregory Daily Liturgical Prayer: Origins and Theology. Farnham: Ashgate, 2004.Google Scholar
Ziegler, Joanna The Sculpture of Compassion: The Pietà and the Beguines in the Southern Low Countries, c. 1300–c. 1600. Brussels: Brepols, 1992.Google Scholar
Ziegler, Joanna. “Michelangelo and the Medieval Pietà: The Sculpture of Devotion or the Art of Sculpture?” Gesta 31.1 (1995): 28–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar