Michelangelo’s Pietà Attack
Michelangelo’s Pietà sculpture is revered as one of his best, if not his very best, work. It is a piece of art that is famous worldwide and people come from all over to see it. However, where most people are happy to admire it from below one man decided it would be a perfect way of getting the Pope’s attention. Like that ever works.
The Pietà
The Pietà has a very interesting background story and provides some context for the life and career of Michelangelo. He was commissioned to create it by French cardinal Jean de Billheres for the cardinal’s own funeral who wanted to be remembered long after his death. Therefore, he decided that a large impressive sculpture needed to be created for his tomb and he chose the tragic subject of Mary removing Jesus from the cross. When briefing Michelangelo apparently his exact words were that he wanted him to create “the most beautiful work of marble in Rome, one that no living artist could better” (Puchko, 2015). Clearly a modest and humble man with reasonable expectations. But this insane demand actually pushed Michelangelo to create this absolute masterpiece that many say is his best work.
When looking at the sculpture it is impossible not to marvel at the realism he has created with the clothing, body parts, and faces as well as the beautiful composition of the piece. You can visit it in St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City where it is stored and displayed. Before we move on to the crime, there are a bunch of interesting facts I want to tell you about this piece.
First is that it is all carved from one single slab of Carrara marble (the fancy white and grey kind). All. One. Piece. I can’t even imagine how you go about doing that.
Secondly, it is the only work that Michelangelo ever signed and he signed it right across Mary’s chest, so not exactly subtle. As the story goes Michelangelo was entering his workshop one day and he noticed that some strangers were admiring the work in progress and asking some of his workers who had created it. The workers replied that a different artist was responsible. Michelangelo didn’t say anything in the moment, but that night he shut himself in the workshop with a small chisel and a light and carved his name across Mary’s chest so it couldn’t be missed. To his credit, he later said that he regretted this move and thought it was way too vain of him and because of this he never signed another artwork for the rest of his career.
Third, apparently, after the statue was unveiled there was some backlash from the public saying that Mary didn’t look old enough to have a 33-year-old son (the age that it is said Jesus was when he died). Michelangelo did have a response to this but be warned it is a little uncomfy. He said that “chaste women stay fresh much more than those who are not chaste” (Puchko, 2015). So, basically, she looks young because she is a virgin.
Lastly, this statue was what shot Michelangelo to fame and he was only 24 at the time. Imagine doing something like this at 24 and then becoming famous, must be nice to be talented. This was partly because he had signed it so people knew his name. He ended up living a long life, dying at 88, so unlike so many underappreciated artists, he was able to enjoy lots of praise and accolades during his life, partly due to Pietà.
The Attack
Like many beautiful pieces of art, this sculpture attracted attention, both positive and negative. But nothing that manifested in physical damage to the piece itself like what happened on May 21, 1972.
On that day an Australian geologist by the name of Laszlo Toth entered St. Paul’s Basilica. He walked over to the side chapel where the sculpture was displayed over an alter. He proceeded to jump over the marble railing and climb the steps to access the Pietà. Once he got to it Toth took a hammer out of his coat and yelled ‘I am Jesus Christ - risen from the dead’. Interesting to note that he was 33 at the time, the same age as Jesus when he died. Then he started smashing the sculpture with the hammer until some bystanders in the church grabbed him and dragged him down away from the area. With the fifteen blows he inflicted, he knocked off Mary’s arm at the elbow and chipped off part of her nose and her eyelid among other things.
Interesting backstory on Toth, he moved from Australia to Rome (where his geology degree was not recognized so therefore he couldn’t work) in order to be acknowledged as Christ himself. He was trying to get a meeting with the Pope but had been unsuccessful. I’m thinking this was probably an attempt to get his attention and maybe even an audience? As I have said before, this is NOT the way to get people to feel sorry for you or to support whatever cause you’re trying to promote. It always backfires on you.
Luckily there were many people in the church that day and he was removed soon after the attack started so who knows how much worse it would have been had no one stopped him.
What is interesting here is that Toth was never charged with the crime. As a result of his behaviour at the church and his claims that he was Jesus, he was deemed criminally insane and therefore was not charged. Instead, he was committed to an Italian psychiatric hospital and was released after two years there. Upon his release, he was immediately deported to Australia where he was not detained either because the authorities did not see him as a threat.
The Restoration
So this was one of the most controversial restorations in art history. After the attack, the Vatican heard three different arguments for three different approaches. First, they heard from those who thought that there should be no restoration at all and that the sculpture should be displayed in it’s damaged state to reflect the violence of the modern age. The second group argued that the sculpture should be repaired but there should be visible cracks/lines remaining so that people would remember this horrible attack. Finally, the last group advocated for a seamless restoration where it would be impossible to tell where the repair work had occurred. There are definitely pros and cons of each and valid arguments on all sides but the Vatican ultimately close a seamless restoration so that people potentially would never know that the statue had been attacked.
The restoration was painstaking and took ten months. The first five months alone were used to examine old photographs of the sculpture to identify all the pieces and fragments and figure out where each one went before they started actually putting it back together. To do this the team created a makeshift workshop in the chapel around the statue so that it wouldn’t have to be moved. They used special invisible glue and marble powder made from the exact same type of marble that Michelangelo used to attach the fragments and fill in any gaps. One chunk of the statue even unexpectedly arrived from the USA where a tourist, who had been in the Basilica on the day of the attack, had picked up a chunk as a souvenir (excuse me what) but later had felt bad and mailed it back. Any remaining chunks that were missing were filled in with pieces from a copy of the statue that had been made from a mould created before the attack. And honestly, the results are pretty incredible.
Now the Pietà is on view behind bulletproof glass, they aren’t taking any chances. This piece of art is frequently called a miracle because it looks like you could reach out and touch real cloth or a real person where there is actually marble. In 1550 art historian Giorgio Vasari wrote, “it is a miracle that a rock, which before was without form, can take on such perfection that even nature sometimes struggles to create in the flesh” (Pullella, 2013). Regardless of the attack and subsequent restoration, we can still appreciate the beauty and mastery of this piece.
Works Cited
Puchko, Kristy. “15 Things You Should Know About Michaelangelo’s Pietà”. Mental Floss. 2015. https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/63602/15-things-you-should-know-about-michelangelos-pieta
Pullella, Philip. “Vatican Marks Anniversary of 1972 Attack on Michaelangelo’s Pieta”. Reuters. 2013. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-vatican-pieta-idUSBRE94K0KU20130521