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Reviewed by:
  • Michelangelo scultore
  • Jonathan K. Nelson
Cristina Acidini Luchinat . Michelangelo scultore. Photographs by Aurelio Amendola. I Grande Libri D'Arte. Milan: Federico Motta Editore, 2005. 320 pp. index. append. illus. bibl. €98. ISBN: 88–7179–488–5.

This introduction to Michelangelo's sculptures, extremely useful for both beginners and specialists, represents a harmonious marriage of images and words. The limpid text by Cristina Acidini enriches a general overview with several interpretations and works not found in previous monographs. The extraordinary photographs by Aurelio Amendola show some of the most famous sculptures of the Western world in a new light. Thanks in part to the exceptionally high quality of both the paper and printing, these images allow us almost to feel Michelangelo's manipulation of the marble, wood, and clay. The combination of the photographs and discussions reveals the importance of relatively minor and often overlooked works. Now, for example, we can appreciate the pathos in the small wooden Crucifix in the Casa Buonarroti in Florence and the monumentality of Michelangelo's study of Two Fighters in the same museum.

As for the Bacchus — today on a low base in the Bargello — Amendola shows it from below, as visitors to Galli's garden would have seen it. From this perspective we too can observe the uncertain stance of the drunken god, aptly described by Acidini. With the photographs of the New Sacristy, the high contrast prevents us on occasion from seeing some details, but need we always reproduce (and display) sculptures with uniform and strong lighting? Amendola's images help us understand how the chapel must have appeared when Masses and chanting took place there around the clock, and often by candlelight. Other plates assist the viewer in identifying the role of Michelangelo's assistants. The raking light caressing the Adolescent in Saint Petersburg helps to confirm, as Acidini states, that Michelangelo himself must be responsible for "the extraordinary invention of the dramatically compressed male nude" but not for the marble surface. According to Vasari, Michelangelo made models for sculptures to be carved by Tribolo, and I suspect Tribolo carved this particular work. Another artist, however, carried out [End Page 539] the face of the Palazzo Vecchio Victory: a detail photograph allows all to evaluate Acidini's bold and convincing attribution of it to Vincenzo Danti.

The author, well-known for her research on sixteenth-century Florentine art, though not specifically on Michelangelo, shows great familiarity with the recent literature on the artist, especially the many Italian exhibition catalogues. With an admirable ability to present this specialized knowledge to a broad audience, Acidini proceeds in roughly chronological fashion, interweaving information about patronage, original settings, iconography, and conservation with perceptive and original visual analyses. She observes, for example, that the face of Madonna in the Rome Pietà is "Botticellesque," and notes several parallels with works Michelangelo could have seen during his visit to Florence in the late 1490s. (Along the same lines, I believe Christ's pose reflects Filippino Lippi's designs for a Pietà.) Acidini makes the interesting and plausible suggestion that Michelangelo's next sculpture, the David, represents how the shepherd described himself to King Saul: as one who bravely killed lions and bears. Saul, however, thought David looked like just a boy, not strong enough to fight an adult soldier. This view was shared by Goliath, but certainly not most viewers of Michelangelo's sculpture. Perhaps the work corresponds to David's self-image, not his appearance to others. With this statue, as with the Pietà, the physical perfection of the main figures contrasts with the biblical accounts: Mary is too young, and David is too old. Michelangelo used their outer beauty to reflect inner virtue.

Many of Acidini's observations are quite stimulating: they encourage readers to look again at even Michelangelo's best-known works and to rethink old questions. Moreover, the corpus of Michelangelo sculptures she presents is hardly canonical. In the short catalogue Acidini includes forty-six works, of which some major scholars have questioned no fewer than eleven. Some have been hotly debated over the last decade, such as the wooden Crucifix in a private collection, the Archer in New York, and the...

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