#st peters basilica
La Pietà - Carved from a single block of white Carrara marble it took the 24-year old Michelangelo less than two years to complete (1498-1499).
It is alleged that just days after its installation in St. Peter’s Basilica, Michelangelo inadvertently overheard some visitors’ stray comments that Michelangelo was too young to accomplish a sculpture of such beauty and that the work had been completed by another artist, Cristoforo Solari; outraged, that night, under the cover of darkness and out of pride, Michelangelo snuck back into the Basilica and etched an inscription by candlelight, in Latin, across the Virgin’s sash: “Michael. Agelus. Bonarotus Florent Faciebat” (Michelangelo Buonarroti the Florentine, made this). It is also alleged that, having regretted the outburst of pride, Michelangelo vowed never to sign another work again; the Pietà remained the only work by the artist to ever bear his signature. (source,photo gallery)
Post link
Daguerreotype view of a crowd in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City taken by an unidentified Italian photographer in Rome, the Papal States, c. 1845. One of the earliest photographs of Vatican City.
Source: The J. Paul Getty Museum.
Post link
Maerten van Heemskerck, The Piers of the Cross Vault of New St. Peter’s Basilica and the Rest of the Northern Transept of the Old Basilica. Roman Sketchbook I (1532-1536). Pen and ink on paper. Staatliche Museen, Berlin.
Post link
