Last, unfinished work by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), the Pietà Rondanini, is a marble work that is the old artist’s testament and meditation on death and the salvation of the soul. In this work the sculptor renounces the perfection of the body and its heroic beauty, transforming the dead Christ into an emblem of suffering. The position of the bodies of Mary and Jesus at different heights seems to suggest the intertwining of several moments in the story of Christ: deposition from the Cross, burial, even Resurrection, in the dissolution of the body of the Son in the maternal embrace. Left unfinished due to Michelangelo’s death, the Pietà is testimony of the last years of his genius.
From May 2, 2015, the Pietà can be seen in the new museum, set up in the old Spanish Hospital in the Cortile delle Armi of the Castello Sforzesco.
