The Deposition (Michelangelo)

The Deposition ("The Florentine Pietà")

Artist	Michelangelo
Year	c. 1550
Type	Marble
Dimensions	226 cm (89 in)
Location	Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence

The Deposition (also called the Florence Pietà, the Pietà del Duomo or The Lamentation over the Dead Christ) is a marble sculpture by the Italian High Renaissance master Michelangelo. The sculpture, on which Michelangelo worked between 1547 and 1555, depicts four figures – the dead body of Jesus Christ, newly taken down from the Cross, Nicodemus (or possibly Joseph of Arimathea), Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary. The sculpture is housed in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Florence.

Michelangelo's last sculptures were two pietàs (or three assuming the Palestrina Pietà is his work). According to Vasari, Michelangelo made the Florence Pietà to decorate his tomb in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome. After smashing the sculpture, he gave it to his servant Antonio. Later the servant sold the work and the new owner had it reconstructed by Tiberio Calcagni following Michelangelo's models.

The face of Nicodemus under the hood is considered to be a self-portrait of Michelangelo himself. Additionally, the female figure at left was finished by sculptor Tiberio Calcagni. Cacagni was assigned the job after Michelangelo abandoned the sculpture after eight years of tireless work upon discovering an impurity in the marble that had gone undiscovered until that point.

Bibliography

• Bershad, David L. "Recent Archival Discoveries concerning Michelangelo's 'Deposition' in the Florence Cathedral and a hitherto undocumented Work of Giuseppe Mazzuoli (1644-1725)." Burlington Magazine 120, 901 (1978): 225-227.
• Fehl, Philipp. "Michelangelo's Tomb in Rome: Observations on the 'Pietà" in Florence and the 'Rondanini Pietà." Artibus et Historiae 23, 45 (2002): 9-27.
• Kristof, Jane. "Michelangelo as Nicodemus: The Florence Pietà." Sixteenth Century Journal 20, 2 (1989):163-182.
• Liebert, Robert S. "Michelangelo's Mutilation of the Florence Pietà: A Psychoanalytic Inquiry." Art Bulletin 59, 1 (1977): 47-54.
• Schulz, Juergen. "'Michelangelo's Unfinished Works," Art Bulletin 57, 3 (1975): 366-373.
• Shrimplin-Evangelidis, Valerie. "'Michelangelo and Nicodemism: The Florentine Pietà." Art Bulletin 71, 1 (1989): 58-66.
• Spector, Jack J. "Towards a Psycho-History of Art." In Problemi di metodi: condizioni di esistenza di una storia dell’arte. Ed. L. Vayer. Bologna: CLUEB, 1982, 117-24.
• Steinberg, Leo. "Michelangelo’s Florentine Pietà: The Missing Leg." Art Bulletin 50, 4 (1968): 343-353.
• __________. "Michelangelo's Florentine Pietà: The Missing Leg Twenty Years After." Art Bulletin 71, 3 (1989): 480-505.
• Arkin, Moshe. “ ’One of the Marys . . .’: An Interdisciplinary Analysis of Michelangelo's Florentine Pietà." Art Bulletin 79, 3 (1997): 493-517.

• Wallace, William E. “Michelangelo, Tiberio Calcagni, and the Florentine ‘Pietà'." Artibus et Historiae 21, 42 (2000): 81-99.
• Wasserman, Jack, Michelangelo's Florence Pietà. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton U P, 2003.