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MARMORA

The Works of Michelangelo

From the chapels of Rome to the galleries of Paris:
every work he left, and the door to each.

The space between
two hands

The journey begins

IThe Master

Portrait of Michelangelo Buonarroti holding a palette, beside a small sculpture and the dome of St Peter’s
Portrait of Michelangelo
Domenico Cresti, called Il Passignano

Sculptor, painter, architect, poet. He believed the figure already waits inside the marble, and that the sculptor only sets it free.

Born in 1475 in the Tuscan village of Caprese, Michelangelo was apprenticed in Florence as a boy and was carving within the circle of Lorenzo de’ Medici while still in his teens. Before he was twenty-five he had finished the Pietà for St Peter’s; at twenty-nine he unveiled the David, hewn from a block other sculptors had abandoned.

He signed his letters as a sculptor. Yet it was a painted ceiling and a painted wall in the Sistine Chapel that carried his name across the world, and a dome in Rome that crowned his last decades. He died in 1564, aged eighty-eight, still working.

The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection

  1. 1475

    Born in Caprese, Tuscany

  2. 1499

    Completes the Pietà

  3. 1504

    Unveils the David

  4. 1512

    Sistine Chapel ceiling

  5. 1541

    The Last Judgement

  6. 1564

    Dies in Rome

IIIn Marble

He held that sculpture is the art of taking away: the figure is found, not made. These are the ones he found, and the rooms where each of them now stands.

Detail of the left hand of Michelangelo’s David, veins swollen, resting against the thighDavid by Michelangelo Buonarroti

Carved at twenty-six from a towering block of Carrara marble that two sculptors had abandoned, David is shown not in victory but in the instant before: brow knotted, sling over the shoulder, the veins of his right hand swollen, eyes fixed on an enemy we cannot see. Raised in 1504 before the Palazzo della Signoria, he became the emblem of the Florentine Republic. Made to be read across a piazza, he is unsurpassed at arm’s length.

Carrara marble - 1501 – 1504

Kept at Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence

Michelangelo Buonarroti

David

Date
1501 – 1504
Medium
Carrara marble
Kept at
Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence
Dimensions
About 5.17 m high, without the base
Commissioned by
The Opera del Duomo of Florence, 1501
Moved
From the Piazza della Signoria to the Accademia in 1873

In 1501 the Opera del Duomo of Florence commissioned Michelangelo, then twenty-six, to carve a David from a tall block of Carrara marble that had stood unused for decades after two earlier sculptors had worked on it.

Where earlier sculptors had shown David victorious, Michelangelo chose the moment before the fight.

Completed in 1504, the statue was set up before the Palazzo della Signoria, the seat of the Florentine government. A copy now stands in the square.

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Detail of the dead Christ’s face, eyes closed, resting on the Virgin’s shoulderPietà by Michelangelo Buonarroti

Carved at twenty-four from a single block of Carrara marble, the Pietà is the only work Michelangelo ever signed: his name runs across the sash on Mary’s breast. She is serene and impossibly young, holding her dead son across her lap, while the drapery tumbles in deep folds polished until the marble seems to hold its own light. Mary’s face is calm. The grief is in the weight of the body across her knees.

Carrara marble - 1498 – 1499

Kept at St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City

Michelangelo Buonarroti

Pietà

Date
1498 – 1499
Medium
Carrara marble
Kept at
St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City
Dimensions
About 174 × 195 cm
Commissioned by
Cardinal Jean de Bilhères
Signed
On the sash across Mary’s breast

Michelangelo carved the Pietà in his early twenties for the French cardinal Jean de Bilhères, who had commissioned it for his own funerary chapel in Old St Peter’s.

The contract of 1498 promised that it would be the most beautiful work in marble in Rome, and that no living master would make a better one.

It is the only work Michelangelo ever signed.

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Detail of Moses’ right arm and hand, the tablets of the law beneath it and the beard falling besideMoses by Michelangelo Buonarroti

Planned for the monumental tomb of Pope Julius II, the seated prophet turns his head as if he had just heard the people below, one foot drawn back as though he were about to rise. Every vein in the forearm and every strand of the great beard is under tension, and the small horns on his brow, born of an old translation of the Hebrew for rays of light, give him an unearthly authority. He is seated, and yet he seems about to rise.

Carrara marble - c. 1513 – 1515

Kept at San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome

Michelangelo Buonarroti

Moses

Date
c. 1513 – 1515
Medium
Carrara marble
Kept at
San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome
Part of
Tomb of Pope Julius II
Dimensions
About 235 cm high, seated

Moses was made for the tomb of Pope Julius II, the vast monument Michelangelo first planned in 1505. The tomb was completed only in 1545, in a much reduced form, in San Pietro in Vincoli, and Moses sits at its centre.

The small horns on his brow come from the Latin Vulgate, which rendered a Hebrew word meaning both horned and radiant as horned.

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Further works

Dying Slave, Marble - 1513 – 1516
Rebellious Slave, Marble - 1513 – 1516
Leah, Marble - 1542 – 1545
Rachel, Marble - 1542 – 1545
Saint Peter, Marble - 1501 – 1504
Saint Paul, Marble - 1501 – 1504
Saint Pius, Marble - 1501 – 1504
Saint Gregory, Marble - 1501 – 1504

RachelMarble - 1542 – 1545Kept at San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome

Michelangelo Buonarroti

Rachel

Date
1542 – 1545
Medium
Marble
Kept at
San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome
Part of
Tomb of Pope Julius II

Rachel and her sister Leah stand in niches of the Tomb of Pope Julius II, on either side of the Moses. Michelangelo carved them himself, in the 1540s, when the tomb was finally completed in a much reduced form.

The two sisters of the Old Testament were read as figures of the active and the contemplative life. Rachel stands for the contemplative life.

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IIIOn Panel and Plaster

The sculptor took up the brush and kept the habits of the chisel: bodies with weight, light that falls like stone. A panel, a ceiling, two walls: the paintings as the centuries have kept them.

Doni Tondo, Tempera on panel - c. 1507
The Torment of Saint Anthony, Tempera and oil on panel - c. 1487 – 1488
The Creation of Adam, Fresco - c. 1512
The Last Judgement, Fresco - 1536 – 1541
The Conversion of Saul, Fresco - 1542 – 1545
The Crucifixion of Saint Peter, Fresco - 1546 – 1550

The Creation of AdamFresco - c. 1512Kept at Sistine Chapel, Vatican City

Michelangelo Buonarroti

The Creation of Adam

Date
c. 1512
Medium
Fresco
Kept at
Sistine Chapel, Vatican City
Dimensions
About 280 × 570 cm
Part of
The Sistine Chapel ceiling, 1508 – 1512
Commissioned by
Pope Julius II

One of nine scenes from the Book of Genesis that run along the centre of the Sistine Chapel vault. God reaches out to Adam, and the two fingers never touch. The small gap between them has become one of the most recognised images in Western art.

Pope Julius II first asked Michelangelo for a ceiling of twelve apostles. Michelangelo, who thought of himself as a sculptor rather than a painter, was reluctant, and the final scheme he proposed was far larger: the ceiling carries more than three hundred figures.

He worked on a scaffold of his own design, and he painted standing, with his head tilted back, not lying down as legend has it. The ceiling was unveiled on 31 October 1512, and a restoration begun in 1980 cleaned away centuries of candle smoke and grime to reveal its colours.

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IVTurn the Marble

A sculpture is made to be walked around. Turn each figure as you would in the room, and see it from the side no gallery rope lets you reach.

VWhere He Is Kept

A work by Michelangelo is never seen alone. It has a room: a chapel, a basilica, a gallery. In Italy, the Vatican, France and the United States, these are the rooms that keep him.

Galleria dell’Accademia, Florence, Italy
Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence, Italy
San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome, Italy
St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City
The Sistine Chapel, Vatican City
The Pauline Chapel, Vatican City
Siena Cathedral, Siena, Italy
Musée du Louvre, Paris, France
Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, United States

The Sistine ChapelVatican CityThe Creation of Adam · The Last Judgement

Vatican City

The Sistine Chapel

City
Vatican City
Michelangelo here
The Creation of Adam, The Last Judgement
Named for
Pope Sixtus IV, who had it built
Length
About 40 metres
Used for
The papal conclave

Michelangelo painted the ceiling between 1508 and 1512, and returned between 1536 and 1541 to paint the Last Judgement on the altar wall.

The side walls were frescoed in the early 1480s by Botticelli, Perugino, Ghirlandaio and Cosimo Rosselli, among others.

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VIFind the Way

Somewhere between you and the Sistine Chapel lies a distance. Name where you stand, and the map will draw it.

Loading the map
VIIPrivate Access

Most visitors meet Michelangelo in a crowd, for a few minutes, over a shoulder. We arrange it the other way: a private viewing, agreed with the institution that keeps the work, at an hour chosen for you.

  • The Sistine Chapel, empty: the ceiling, the Last Judgement on the altar wall and the choir benches below

    One house ·One day ·For one guest or a group

    The Private Visit

    1. I

      Arrival

      A welcome drink.

    2. II

      The visit

      A guide leads you through the whole house, room by room. Photography, where the institution permits.

    3. III

      The table

      A dinner of your choice.

    For those who want to stand before one work, or one house, without the crowd.

    Request this visit →
  • The Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence
    St Peter’s Basilica in Rome
    The Musée du Louvre in Paris

    Several houses ·Several days ·All arranged

    The Michelangelo Pilgrimage

    1. I

      The road

      A tour leader and a curator for the whole journey.

    2. II

      The nights

      Hotels and dinners.

    3. III

      The doors

      All tickets and entries. Photography, where the institution permits.

    For those who want to follow Michelangelo from city to city and leave the arranging to us.

    Request this journey →

How it unfolds

  1. I

    Choose the work

    Name the sculpture, the fresco or the city. We know where each of his works is kept.

  2. II

    Name your hour

    Tell us when you will travel and who will stand before it with you.

  3. III

    We open the door

    We approach the institution that holds the work and arrange your visit, subject to its approval.