Giorgio Vasari e le undici "statue finite" di Michelangelo: nota ecdotica su un passo delle "Vite" del 1568

• Autores: Francesco Caglioti
• Localización: Paragone. Parte arte, ISSN 1120-4737, Nº 137, 2018, págs. 30-39
• Idioma: italiano
• Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
• Resumen

  • A passage in the second edition of the "Life of Michelangelo" -in which Giorgio Vasari takes his cue from the difficulties encountered in carving the Bandini "Pietà" to explain the master's "nonfinito" -contains a slightly corrupt passage, starting with its publication in 1568. Consequently, when the biographer listed the few marble "statues" Michelangelo left entirely "finished", it is unclear whether he meant to refer, as examples, solely to the "Bacchus", the Vatican "Pietà", the "David", and the Minerva "Christ", or also to four figures in the New Sacristy (Giuliano, Lorenzo, Night, Dawn) and three figures from the Tomb of Julius II (Moses, Rachel, Leah), thus producing a list, complete in its own way, of only eleven sculptures. An attentive review of the text, misunderstood in all subsequent editions of Vasari until now (with the sole exception of an English edition), shows that the writer was thinking of eleven statues overall, forgetting nearly all of Michelangelo's first works in marble. This amounts to a true prelude to the misfortunes -not just critical but material- that befell some of the artist's youthful masterpieces right up to the nineteenth century.