III.

First Roman Sojourn

In 1496, after spending a few months in Florence, Michelangelo went to Rome, where he was able to examine many newly unearthed Classical statues and ruins. He soon produced his first surviving large-scale sculpture, the over-life-size marble Bacchus (1496-1497, Bargello, Florence), bought by the banker Jacopo Galli. One of the few works of pagan rather than Christian subject matter that he executed, it was considered to rival ancient statuary, the highest mark of admiration in Renaissance Rome. Michelangelo consolidated his career with the Pietà (1498-1499, St Peter’s, Rome), commissioned by the French cardinal Jean Bilhières de Lagraulas. The youthful Mary is shown seated majestically, holding the dead Christ across her lap, a theme borrowed from northern European art. Instead of revealing extreme grief, Mary is restrained, and her expression is one of resignation. In this work, one of the most highly finished of all his sculptures, Michelangelo summarized the sculptural innovations of his 15th-century predecessors while ushering in the new monumentality of the High Renaissance style of the 16th century. At the age of 25, he had already surpassed all other sculptors of the day.