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The
Tomb of Julius II
Before
the assignment of the Sistine
ceiling in 1505, Michelangelo had
been commissioned by Julius II to
produce his tomb, which was
planned to be the most
magnificent of Christian times.
It was to be located in the new
Basilica of St. Peter's, then
under construction. Michelangelo
enthusiastically went ahead with
this challenging project, which
was to include more than 40
figures, spending months in the
quarries to obtain the necessary
Carrara marble. Due to a mounting
shortage of money, however, the
pope ordered him to put aside the
tomb project in favor of painting
the Sistine ceiling. When
Michelangelo went back to work on
the tomb, he redesigned it on a
much more modest scale.
Nevertheless, Michelangelo made
some of his finest sculpture for
the Julius Tomb, including the
Moses (circa 1515), the central
figure in the much reduced
monument now located in Rome's
church of San Pietro in Vincoli.
The muscular patriarch sits
alertly in a shallow niche,
holding the tablets of the Ten
Commandments, his long beard
entwined in his powerful hands.
He looks off into the distance as
if communicating with God. Two
other superb statues, the Bound
Slave and the Dying Slave (both
c. 1510-13), Musée du
Louvre, Paris, demonstrate
Michelangelo's approach to
carving. He conceived of the
figure as being imprisoned in the
block. By removing the excess
stone, the form was released.
Here, as is frequently the case
with his sculpture, Michelangelo
left the statues unfinished
(non-finito), either because he
was satisfied with them as is, or
because he no longer planned to
use them.
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Study
for "The Colonna
Pietà", Isabella
Stewart Gardner Museum,
Boston
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on image to
enlarge
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