Restoration of unfinished Michelangelo masterpiece completed
CTV
The project to restore an unfinished sculpture that was abandoned by Renaissance master Michelangelo has finally been completed at a museum in Italy.
The Deposition, also known as the Bandini Pietà, is over two metres tall, weighs approximately 2,700 kilograms and was carved in the middle of the 16th century. It depicts a figure of Jesus Christ being held by his mother, Mary Magdalene and a third figure whose face is a rare self-portrait of Michelangelo himself.
The sculpture was originally meant to decorate the artist’s tomb.
“It’s a deeply personal work that he intended to express his spirit even after he died,” Timothy Verdon, director of the Opera del Duomo Museum in Florence, Italy, where the sculpture was restored, told CTV National News. “He was very old when he began. He was 80 when he stopped working on it.”
There’s a myth that Michelangelo was so unhappy with the sculpture that he tried to destroy it.
