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Michelangelo's SignatureAuthor(s): Aileen June WangSource: The Sixteenth Century Journal , Vol. 35, No. 2 (Summer, 2004), pp. 447-473Published by: Sixteenth Century JournalStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20476944Accessed: 25-04-2016 17:42 UTC

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Sixteenth CenturyJournal

XXXV/2 (2004)

Michelangelo's Signature

AileenJune Wang

Rutgers University

Michelangelo signed only one work with his name, the Pietd in Saint Peter's Basilica.

As his first public commission in Rome, the sculpture gave the young artist an oppor

tunity to establish his reputation and public image. The band across the Virgin's chest

serves no other function than to hold Michelangelo's signature, which was not added

as an afterthought as Vasari claimed in his 1568 biography of the artist. Although

Michelangelo had carefully planned his inscription, its style of execution suggests let

ters that are spontaneously written, not carved. This effect calls attention to the artist's

manual presence. Michelangelo also revived the ancient Greek use of the imperfect

verb tense in his signature; Pliny the Elder had recalled that Apelles and Polyclitus used

it. The separation of Michelangelo's name into two words, Michael Angelus, empha

sizes his association with his namesake, Michael the Archangel, and introduces the

image of the artist as a divinely inspired creator, who conveys God's messages and ideas

as angels do.

MICHELANGELO SIGNED HIS NAME ONLY ONCE in his entire career, on the Pieta' of

1497-99, now located in Saint Peter's Basilica,Vatican City (fig. 1). Commissioned

by the French cardinal and ambassador to the Holy See,Jean de Bilheres Lagraulas,

the Pieta is one of Michelangelo's early works and his first public commission in

Rome.1 Michelangelo's signature is carved on a band placed diagonally across the

Virgin's chest and reads: MICHAELAGELVS BONAROTVS@FLORENT-FACIEBA (fig.

2).2 Never before had a sculptor dared to place his signature so close to a sacred

figure, on a band with such weighty presence that the Virgin's drapery folds are

*For thorough accounts of the Pietas commission, its patron, and its display, see Kathleen Weil

Garris Brandt, "Michelangelo's Piet? for the Cappella del Re di Francia," in "Il se rendit en Italie": Etudes

offertes ? Andr? Chastel (Rome: Dell'Elefante; Paris: Flammarion, 1987), 77-119; William Wallace,

"Michelangelo's Rome Piet?: Altarpiece or Grave Memorial?" in Verrocchio and Late Quattrocento Italian

Sculpture, ed. Steven Bule, Alan Phipps Darr, and Fiorella Superbi Gioffredi (Florence: Le Lettere, 1992),

243-55. For different types of Piet? statues, see W Forsyth, "Statues of the Piet? in the Museum," Met

ropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 9 (1953): 177-84.

2For studies focusing on Michelangelo's signature, see Lisa Pon, "Michelangelo's First Signature,"

Source: Notes in the History of Art 15 (1996): 16-21; Livio Pestilli, "Michelangelo's Piet?: Lombard Critics

and Plinian Sources," Source 19 (2000): 21-30; Weil-Garris Brandt, "Michelangelo's Piet?," 93; and Paul

Barolsky, The Faun in the Garden (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), 143-44.

For artists' signatures in the Renaissance, see the series of essays in Revue de VArt 26 (1974), esp.Vladimir

Juren, "Fecit-Faciebat," 27-30; see also Dario Covi,77*e Inscription in Fifteenth-Century Florentine Painting

(New York: Garland, 1986), appendixes 434, 436, and 437, which transcribe artists' signatures in Flo

Funding for this research was provided by the Rutgers University Graduate School and

the Princeton Pettoranello Sister City Foundation. Access to the Pietas inscription was

generously provided by His Excellency, Archbishop Oscar Rezzato.

447



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448 Sixteenth Century Journal XXXV/2 (2004)

Fig. 1. Michelangelo, Pieta, 1497-99, Saint Peter's Basilica,Vatican City

(Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY)



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Wang / Michelangelo's Signature 449

compressed underneath it and made to swell around its borders like waves.3

Michelangelo ensured the visibility of his name by beginning the inscription some

distance away from the left edge of theVirgin's strap (approximately 5 cm from the

edge). As a result, MICHELAGELVS sits squarely at the center of the Virgin's torso.

The letters in MICHAEL are generously spaced, but those in FLORENT and FACIEBA,

by comparison, have no spacing at all. In addition, the letters forming Michelan

gelo's name are larger in width than those in FLORENT and FACIEBA. The L in

MICHAEL has the longest horizontal stroke, but the stroke gets shorter and shorter

in subsequent L's. The last one, in FLORENT, has only the faint trace of a serif. The

O's in BONAROTVS have a larger diameter than the 0 in FLORENT, which is more

oval in shape by comparison. Significant also is the fact that the only words com

pletely spelled out in the inscription are MICHAEL and BONAROTVS. The boldness

of Michelangelo's declaration of authorship, however, is tempered by the shallow

ness of the carving. At a depth of one millimeter, it is not easily legible unless a

light shines on it directly (as seen in photographs) and would have been very diffi

cult to read in candlelit surroundings. The words can be read only when the

viewer is standing a few feet away from the sculpture and when there is not an

intervening altar, which is present nowadays.

The existence of sixteenth-century written explanations about the Pieta signa

ture, beginning with Giorgio Vasari's 1550 biography of Michelangelo, imply that

its location was considered unusual, even inappropriate, by contemporaries.

According to Vasari in the first edition of Le vite, Michelangelo invested so much

love and labor in the sculpture that "here- something which he would not do in

any other work-he left his name written across a strap that encircles the bosom of

rentine fifteenth-century paintings; Charles Sala, "La signature ? la lettre et au figure," Po?tique 69

(1987): 119-27; Omar Calabrese and Betty Gigante, "La signature du peintre," La part de l'oeil 5 (1989):

27-43; Victor I. Stoichita, "Nomi in cornice," in Der K?nstler ?ber sich in seinem Werk, ed. Matthias

Winner (Weinheim:VCH, Acta Humaniora, 1992), 293-315; Philipp Fehl, "Death and the Sculptor's

Fame: Artists' Signatures on Renaissance Tombs in Rome," Biuletyn Historii Sztuki 59 (1997): 196-216;

Louisa C. Matthew, "The Painter's Presence: Signatures in Venetian Renaissance Pictures," Art Bulletin

80 (1998): 616-48; Ro?a Goffen, "Vaheando le Alpi: Arte del ritratto neUaVenezia del Rinascimento,"

in // Rinascimento a Venezia e la pittura del Nord nei tempi di Bellini, D?rer, e Tiziano, exh. cat., ed. Bernard

Aikema and Beverly Louise Brown (Milan: Bompiani, 1999), 123-25; Sarah Blake McHam, "The

Influence of PHny's Natural History on the Aesthetics of ItaHan Renaissance Art" (paper presented at the

Medieval and Renaissance Conference, Sarasota, FL, March 2000); Rona Goffen, "Signatures: Inscrib

ing Identity in ItaHan Renaissance Art," Viator 32 (2001): 303-70. For the signatures function in Gio

vanni Bellini's works, see Rona Goffen's two articles, "Icon and Vision: Giovanni BelHni's Half-Length

Madonnas," Art Bulletin 57 (1975): 510-11, and "Bellini's Nude with Mirror," Venezia Cinquecento 2

(1991): 196. Jan van Eyck's signatures are discussed by R. W ScheUer in "Als ich can," Oud Holland 83

(1968): 135-39. Creighton G?bert examined Titian's signing habits in "Some Findings on Early Works

of Titian ,"^4ri Bulletin 62 (1980): 73-75;"A Preface to Signatures (with Some Cases in Venice)," in

Fashioning Identities in Renaissance Art, ed. Mary Rogers (Aldershop: Ashgate, 2000), 82-83.

3The audacity of the signature's placement has been noted previously by Weil-Garris Brandt,

"Michelangelo's Piet?," 93, and Barolsky, Faun in the Garden, 143-44.



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450 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXXV/2 (2004)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fig. 2. Michelanelo, Pietl, detail (Photo: Scala/Art Resource, NY)

our Lady, as something with which he himself was satisfied and pleased."4 When

the second edition of Le vite was published in 1568 (after Michelangelo's death),

however, Vasari's explanation had changed. He narrated that one day Michelangelo

entered the place where the Pieta was displayed and overheard a great number of

Lombard visitors praising it but mistakenly identifying their fellow countryman "Il

Gobbo nostro da Milano" (our Gobbo from Milan) as the author, referring to Cris

toforo Solari da Angera (active 1489-1520). Although Michelangelo remained

silent, he thought it strange that his labors should be attributed to another; conse

quently, he went back to the Pieta one night and carved his name upon it.5 This

story originated from a letter written soon after Michelangelo's death by a now

unknown correspondent who had been asked, presumably byVasari, to relate tales

about the artist.Vasari did not repeat the story in its entirety but incorporated only

4"Pot? l'amore di Mich?le Agnolo e la fatica insieme in questa opera tanto, che quivi quello che

in altra opera pi? non fece lasci? il suo nome scritto a traverso una cintola che il petto della Nostra

Donna soccigne, come di cosa nella quale e sodisfatto e compiaciuto s'era per se medesimo." Giorgio

Vasari, Le vite de'pi? eccellenti architetti,pittori, et scultori italiani, da Cimabue insino a' tempi nostri (Florence:

Torrentino, 1550), ed. L. Bellosi and A. Rossi (Turin: Giulio Einaudi, 1991), 2:886 (hereafter Vasari

Bellosi-Rossi).

5 Michelagnolo stette cheto, e quasi gli parve strano che le sue fatiche fussino attribuite a un altro.

Una norte vi si serr? dentro con un lumicino, e avendo portato gli scarpegli, vi intagli? il suo nome."

Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de' pi? eccellenti pittori, scultori ed architettori (Florence: Giunti, 1568), ed. G.

Milanesi (Florence: G. C. Sansoni, 1906), 7:152 (hereafterVasari-Milanesi).



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Wang / Michelangelo' Signature 451

those parts that best suited his purposes.6 Other contemporary opinions echoed

eitherVasari's first or second explanation.7 Equally illuminating is the failure of

Michelangelo's follower Ascanio Condivi to mention the Pieta signature in his ver

sion of Michelangelo's life (published in 1553), which was largely written under the

direction of the master himself.8 Condivi described theVirgin and Christ at length

but did not mention a word about the signature.9

Condivi's omission signals an unwillingness on Michelangelo's part to call

attention to that part of the sculpture, perhaps because the artist realized that it was

perceived by some as too audacious and even irreverent. The discrepancy between

Vasari's first and second accounts reflects his own uneasiness towards the issue: the

first suggests that the signature was planned, but the second claims that it was an

afterthought, carved only because people were attributing Michelangelo's master

piece to another sculptor. Paul Barolsky points out that Vasari's second version of

events protected Michelangelo "from the imputation of sinful pride, justifying his

signature, instead, as the defense of his very name and honor."10

That contemporaries did not entirely accept Michelangelo's method of self

promotion can also be gleaned from a copy in Santa Maria dell'Anima, Rome. Ex

ecuted between 1530 and 1532 by Lorenzetto and Giovanni Lippi (also known as

6 Although scholars have generaUy assumed that the letter was addressed to Vasari, neither the

author's name nor the recipients appears.The original anecdote also narrated an encounter with a nun

on the night when Michelangelo returned to sign his name. Upon learning his identity, she asked him

for a piece from the wound on Christ's side out of piety for Christ. When Michelangelo compHed, she

returned the favor by offering him an omelette, which he ate "proprio in quel luogo, queUa notte" (then

and there).The letter is published and discussed in Paola Barocchi, ed., Giorgio Vasari, La vita di Miche

langelo nette redazioni del 1550 e del 1568, vol. 2 (M?an: R. Ricciardi, 1962), 187-88 (hereafter Vasari

Barocchi). For the anecdote's impHcations in Vasari's biography, see Norman Land, "Dante, Vasari, and

Michelangelo's Piet? in Rome," in (?Visibile Parlare": Dante and the Art of the Italian Renaissance, ed.

Deborah Parker, a special issue of Lectura Dantis 22-23 (1998): 181-92; PesteUi, "Michelangelo's Piet?"

21-30; Rona Goffen, Renaissance Rivals: Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael, Titian (New Haven: Yale Uni

versity Press, 2002), 117-19.

7Weil-Garris Brandt, "Michelangelo's Piet?," 105n205, summarizes the various opinions besides

Vasari's. See also PesteUi, "Michelangelo's Piet?," 28nl3.

8That Michelangelo supervised Condivi's writing of his biography is widely accepted by modern

scholars. See the introduction in Le Vite di Michelangelo Buonarroti scrute da Giorgio Vasari e daAscanio Con

divi con aggiunte e note, ed. Karl Frey (BerHn, 1887); JuHus Schlosser, La letteratura art?stica, trans. FiHppo

Rossi (Florence: La Nuova ItaHa, 1964), 358?60; AHce Sedgwick Wohl and HeUmut Wohl's introduction

in Ascanio Condivi, The Life of Michelangelo, trans. Alice Sedgwick Wohl, ed. HeUmut Wohl, 1st ed.

(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1976), and 2nd ed. (University Park: Pennsylvania State

University Press, 1999); Johannes Wilde, "Michelangelo, Vasari, and Condivi," in Michelangelo: Six Lec

tures (Oxford: Clarendon, 1978), 1-16; Barolsky, Faun in the Garden; Michael Hirst, "Michelangelo and

His First Biographers," Proceedings of the British Academy: Lectures and Memoirs 94 (1996): 63?84. Six

teenth-century marginal annotations to a copy of Condivi's book, recording Michelangelo's responses

to parts of the text, indicate that Condivi misunderstood or was not entirely faithful to his master's inten

tions. See Ugo Procacci, "Postule contemporanee in un esemplare deUa vita di Michelangelo del Con

divi," in Atti del convegno di studi michelangioleschi (Florence/Rome, 1964) (Rome: Ed. deU'Ateneo, 1966),

279-94; CaroHne Elam,"Ch? ultima mano ":Tiberio Calcagni's Marginal Annotations to Condivi's Life

of Michelangelo" Renaissance Quarterly 51 (1998): 475-97.

9Ascanio Condivi, Vita di Michelangiolo (1553), ed. A. Maraini (Florence: Rinascimento del Libro,

1927), 29-30 (hereafter Condivi-Maraini).

10Barolsky, Faun in the Garden, 144.



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Nanni di Baccio Bigio), it inverts Michelangelo's priorities by leaving the Virgin's

strap blank and displaying the name of its German patron on the left front edge of

the rocky base.11 In the early 1540s, Lippi made another copy for Michelangelo's

close friend Luigi del Riccio.12 The significance of the plain strap in the earlier ver

sion is implied by the inclusion of Lippi's signature in the second one, where he

followed Michelangelo in declaring his authorship on the strap of the Virgin: 10

LIPPUS STAT * EX IMITATIONE FACIEBAT. Lippi considered himself a rival of Mich

elangelo, and the second copy was executed by Lippi alone. Emphasizing that the

sculpture was a version after Michelangelo, the signature declares Lippi's belief that

his copy is better than the original. Indeed, Lippi made significant emendations. He

portrayed the Virgin as an older woman and tilted Christ's head forward for better

visibility.

Vasari's two different stories and Condivi's reticence have generated diverse

opinions in modern scholarship about Michelangelo's signature. Charles de Tolnay

transcribed the signature and completed abbreviations without indicating his

additions.13 Michael Hirst and Lisa Pon analyze the meaning of the signature's

wording but leave the question of its genesis unanswered.14 Kathleen Weil-Garris

Brandt asserts that Michelangelo carved his signature "apparently, as an after

thought."15 Paola Barocchi and Paul Barolsky, on the other hand, express doubt

regarding the truth ofVasari's anecdote.16

The physical evidence of the sculpture supports the notion that Michelangelo's

inscription was planned from the beginning. The strap or band on which the

inscription is carved has no other function except to hold Michelangelo's signature.

The restorers of the Pieta, Nazzareno Gabrielli and Fabio Morresi of the Vatican

Museums, confirmed this observation in a personal interview with the author, 8

May 2000. Because the strap exerts considerable pressure on theVirgin's dress, one

assumes that it is attached to the cloak and that the cloak's weight is pulling down

the strap. A careful examination of the band's position, however, refutes this

assumption. On the left side of the sculpture, the edge of the Virgin's cloak drapes

over theVirgin's right shoulder and upper arm and covers her raised right forearm,

which supports the head of Christ.The cloak's edge reemerges from under Christ's

head to cascade down from the Virgin's wrist. The lower end of the band holding

nThe inscription reads: IOHANE SCHVTS/BOHEMVS HAS/dvas D. D. Ernst Steinmann, Michelan

gelo im Spiegel Seiner Zeit (Leipzig: Buchdr. Poeschel &Trepte, 1930), pi. 24; Rudolf Wittkower, "Nanni

di Baccio Bigio and Michelangelo," in Festschrift Ulrich Middeldorf (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1968), 248-62.

12 The sculpture was likely executed prior to Riccio's death in 1547, although it was not installed

until 1549 in his family chapel in Santo Spirito, Florence. Steinmann, Michelangelo, pi. 23; Wittkower,

"Nanni and Michelangelo," 250; Louis Alexander Waldman, "Nanni di Baccio Bigio at Santo Spirito,"

Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Instituts in Florenz 42 (1998): 198-204.

13Charles deTolnay, Michelangelo, vol. 1,The Youth of Michelangelo (Princeton: Princeton University

Press, 1943), 145-50.

14Michael Hirst and Jill Dunkerton, The Young Michelangelo: Making and Meaning (London:

National Gallery Publications, 1994), 54; Pon, "Michelangelo's First Signature," 16.

15Weil-Garris Brandt,"Michelangelo's Piet?" 93.

16Vasari-Barocchi,2:187-88nl58;Barolsky, Faun in the Garden, 142-44.



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Michelangelo's signature emerges from the right side of the Virgin's waist, but the

edge of the cloak on this side skims over theVirgin's right shoulder and raised arm;

consequently, the band's lower end could not possibly be attached to the cloak.The

same holds true for the right side of the statue. The upper end of the band disap

pears under the Virgin's veil and does not reemerge at the back. Although Miche

langelo brought the rear of the sculpture to only a rough finish (just the front and

slightly over half of the sides are polished, corresponding to the areas visible to the

viewer), he clearly indicated that the cloak falls diagonally from the top of the Vir

gin's right shoulder to the left side of her waist (fig. 3). The position of the cloak

in the back indicates that the strap does not belong to it.That the strap would be

Fig. 3. Michelangelo, Pietd, rear view (Photo: From Michelangelo, Pieta by Robert Hupka

?1975 (Courtesy of the estate of Robert E. Hupka)



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conveniently available if Michelangelo had decided to insert his signature only at

the last minute defies common sense.

Michelangelo likely intended the shallowness of the inscription to simulate let

ters written, not carved, on the strap. He executed the letters freehand-that is, he

did not use instruments, nor did he base the letters on a geometric module as had

become standard practice for stone inscriptions by the third quarter of the fifteenth

century, beginning with Leon Battista Alberti.17 Christine Sperling has demon

strated that Alberti constructed the letters on the Holy Sepulchre in the Cappella

Rucellai (1467, San Pancrazio, Florence) according to a geometric module. Lightly

scratched guidelines around the upper and lower edges of the letters can still be

detected. A number of treatises described this method of letter construction, the

earliest surviving being Felice Feliciano's Alphabetum Romanum of around 1460.

Damianus Moyllus printed a similar alphabet treatise with accompanying drawings

of the letters in Parma around 1483.18 In contrast, Michelangelo's letters are not

evenly spaced and their sizes are irregular, as we have seen. The letters also lack

shading, the thickening and thinning of strokes customary in classical Roman epi

graphs, which created the illusion of light shining on the letters from the upper

left.19 Shading was employed as well by Renaissance artists like Donatello, who

sought to produce archaeologically correct classical letters (fig. 4).

The forms of Michelangelo's letters resemble more closely those created by

brush and ink or paint, especially the M that begins the inscription. Unlike the

straight vertical strokes of the standard epigraphic M, those of Michelangelo's M

curve, echoing the drapery folds surrounding the letter. A similar type with splayed

vertical strokes commonly appears in Renaissance manuscripts (fig. 5).20 Michelan

gelo's M also follows the form of the letter as delineated in fictive stone inscriptions

found in some Florentine paintings, most notably Andrea del Castagno's Equestrian

Portrait of Niccolo da Tolentino (1456) in the Cathedral and The Adoration of the Shep

herds (1485) in Santa Trinita by Michelangelo's master, Domenico Ghirlandaio (fig.

6).21 Contrary to painted examples, however, real stone inscriptions generally fea

ture M's with straight, not splayed, strokes, as seen in the works of Donatello and

Lorenzo Ghiberti (figs. 4 and 7).

17Freehand lettering is defined as stone inscriptions produced by hand apparently without the sup

port and guidance of instruments or measurements; Joyce S. Gordon and Arthur E. Gordon, Contribu

tions to the Paleography of Latin Inscriptions (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957), 89. A

geometric module is a diagram based on the square and circle, used in letter construction; Christine M.

Sperling, "Leon Battista Alberti s Inscriptions on the Holy Sepulchre in the Cappella Rucellai, San Pan

crazio, Florence," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 52 (1989): 221?22.

18Sperling,"Alberti's Inscriptions," 221-28.

19For a good description of this technique, see Dario Covi, "Lettering in Fifteenth Century

Florentine Painting," Art Bulletin 45 (1963): 6n46. For shading in ancient inscriptions, see Gordon, Latin

Inscriptions, 80?81; Giancarlo Susini,77ie Roman Stonecutter: An Introduction to Latin Epigraphy, trans. A. M.

Dabrowski (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Littlefield, 1973), 29.

20Examples are illustrated in Covi, "Lettering," figs. 6, 7; Bernhard Bischoff, Latin Palaeography:

Antiquity and the Middle Ages, trans. D?ibh? ? Cr?in?n and David Ganz (Cambridge: Cambridge Uni

versity Press, 1990), figs. 22,23.

21For illustrations of Florentine fifteenth-century inscriptions, see Covi, "Lettering."



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One can often find the supralineate abbreviation sign-used by Michelangelo,

to indicate the omitted N between A and G in A[N]GELUS-in medieval and

Renaissance Humanist manuscripts which also contain the M similar to that in his

inscription. Ancient Roman stone inscriptions, however, employ the straight

horizontal line for the same purpose. The straight line with a hump in the middle,

as modern scholars have defined this abbreviation sign, rarely appears in ancient

epigraphy.22

The differing preferences of epigraphers and paleographers most likely

stemmed from practical considerations, since it would have been easier and quicker

to carve on stone a straight rather than a curved line. Paleographers, on the other

hand, did not have this technical difficulty and generally preferred curved lines, as

existing manuscripts demonstrate. Michelangelo's choice to use a curved abbrevia

tion stroke that is harder to execute, in addition to his M, suggests an intent to evoke

handwritten forms. He may also have seen the inscription on the monument of

Lorenzo Gerusino in Santa Margherita, Rome, erected in 1498. The inscription

features the same kind of line to indicate an omitted M or N and the enclosure of a

letter within a Q. Michelangelo's serifs and the R with its slightly curved, elongated

tail also resemble those in the Gerusino inscription.23

An inscription appearing to be lettered by brush or pen gives the impression

of immediacy, as distinct from an incised one, which would necessarily entail a

more mechanical, time-consuming process. The uneven spacing and irregular sizes

of Michelangelo's letters call attention to his manual presence and evoke the image

of the artist finishing his masterpiece with the spontaneous act of signing (asVasari

had portrayed Michelangelo doing in the 1568 Le vite). Including an inscription

that appears to be executed in a different medium also provides a contrast to the

sculptural work. Painters often signed their works on fictive stone. Titian's Saint

Sebastian from the 1522 Brescia Altarpiece, which displays a signature with the same

wording fictively engraved on the cross-section of a broken column, pointedly

reverses Michelangelo's signature on the Pieta. Indeed, the figure of Saint Sebastian

has been recognized as Titian's self-conscious answer to Michelangelo's style and to

antique sculpture.24

In both Florence andVenice, selecting the letter style based on the fictive

medium was an established custom. Painters customarily employed Gothic minus

cules or cursive script on folios or leaflets shown in the act of being written or read

or placed casually next to a figure, as exemplified by Piero di Cosimo's Visitation (ca.

1490) and Sandro Botticelli's Madonna of the Magnificat (ca. 1480-81).25 Antonio

22Arthur E. Gordon, Supralineate Abbreviations in Latin Inscriptions (Berkeley: University of CaHfor

nia Press, 1948), 60?61. For another example of this symbol, see p. 347, fig. 5, ofYoni Ascher, "Manifest

Humbleness," in this issue of Sixteenth Century Journal.

23John Sparrow, V isible Words: A Study of Inscriptions in and as Books and Works of A rt (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1969), fig. 43.

24Matthew,"Painters Presence," 639 and 647nl08; G?bert,"Early Works ofTitian," 38-41.

25Matthew, "Painter's Presence," 15?17. For Piero di Cosimo, see Anna ForlaniTempesti and Elena

Capretti, Piero di Cosimo: Catalogo completo (Florence: Octavo, 1996), 104?5, cat. 12. For Sandro Botti

ceUi, see Ronald Lightbown, Sandro Botticelli: Life and Work (New York: AbbeviUe, 1989), 82-86.



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456 Sixteenth CenturyJournal XXXV/2 (2004)

Fig. 4. Donatello,Judith and Holofernes, late 1450s, Palazzo della Signoria, Florence,

detail (Photo: Alinari/Art Resource, NY)

$mIIIIIIig, IlLIt0

r-~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Xi r

Fig. 5. Giuliano Amadei, A Forge. Initial P. Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis,

ca. 1480,Victoria and Albert Museum, London (Photo: Victoria and Albert Museum,

London/Art Resource, NY)



12/28


Fig. 6. Domenico Ghirlandaio, Adoration of the Shepherds, 1485, Sassetti Chapel, Santa

Trinita, Florence (Photo: Alinari/Art Resource, NY)

Fig. 7. Lorenzo Ghiberti, Shrine of Saint Zenobius, posterior, 1439-40,

Cathedral, Florence (Photo: Alinari/Art Resource, NY)



13/28


Vivarini used uppercase Roman script for his signature fictively engraved on the

stone base of the Virgin's throne in the central panel of the S. Moise Triptych of

1446, but he used Gothic script for a signature "written" on a scroll in the Corona

tion of the Virgin of 1444.26 Cima da Conegliano in the 1490s was sensitive to the

distinctions between "stone" and "paper" as well, employing lowercase cursive

writing for signatures on a cartellino (a fictive paper carrying an inscription) but

uppercase Roman script for fictive incised signatures on stone.27

Although the overall appearance of the letters in Michelangelo's inscription are

classical, some of the ligatures are conventions characteristic of medieval and

Renaissance epigraphy and paleography: the curved superposed line to indicate an

omitted M or N and a letter enclosed in a preceding o.28 The same holds true for

Michelangelo's M, with its splayed vertical strokes and the apex of its central angle

high above the base line rather than in it.29 The source of these letter conventions

can be traced to early-fifteenth-century paleography, based on medieval Carolin

gian script that the early humanists mistook for genuine antique writings.30

By the time of Michelangelo's Rome Pieta, however, humanists and artists had

realized these mistakes. By 1470, Florentine painters like Domenico Ghirlandaio

had purged their inscriptions of nonclassical conventions.31 More importantly,

Alberti's inscriptions on the Holy Sepulchre in San Pancrazio and on the facade of

Santa Maria Novella (1470) were accessible Florentine models of the new archae

ologically correct appearance of classical epigraphs.32 Michelangelo would have

seen the Santa Maria Novella inscription every day that he went to work as an

apprentice of Ghirlandaio, who was decorating the choir of the church between

1485 and 1490.

Michelangelo's sculpted lettering comes closest to that of Donatello, who

retained medieval conventions even as he later altered his epigraphic style to simu

late true Roman capitals. The inscription on the tomb of Baldassare Coscia (Pope

John XXIII) in the Florence Baptistery (ca. 1425) represents Donatello's early let

tering style, with its serifless capitals and splayed strokes terminating in clean-cut

edges.33 Donatello used the same type of abbreviation symbol found in Michelan

26Rodolfo Palluchini, I Vivarini (Venice: N. Pozza, 1962), 95-96; Matthew, "Painter's Presence,"

620-21.

27Matthew, "Painter's Presence," 627 and 645n51, for examples by Cima da Conegliano. For sig

natures on a cartellino, see Goffen, "Vaheando le Alpi," 122?26. It is interesting in light of this practice

that Bellini did not usually make this distinction.

28See Covi, "Lettering," 6?7, for a list of nonclassical lettering conventions.

29For the classification of this type of M as nonclassical, see Millard Meiss, "Toward a More Com

prehensive Renaissance Palaeography," Art Bulletin 42 (1960): 103.

30Covi, "Lettering," 3; Meiss, "Renaissance Palaeography," 98.

31 Covi, "Lettering," 6.

32That Alberti was known for his expertise in classical epigraphy is demonstrated by Lodovico

Gonzaga's 1470 letter to Luca Fancelli, who was asked to obtain from Alberti the letter forms for an

inscription on the Torre dell'Orologio. Alberti agreed to supply them; Covi, "Lettering," lln93.

33For an illustration, see H.WJanson,77ie Sculpture of Donatello, vol. 1 (Princeton: Princeton Uni

versity Press, 1957), fig. 86a.The use of serifless capitals is characteristic of inscriptions in early quattro

cento Florentine architecture and sculpture. See also the lettering style of Lorenzo Ghiberti's inscription

on the 1439/40 Shrine of Saint Zenobius (fig. 7).



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Wang / Michelangelos Signature 459

gelo's signature to denote omitted letters. After working in Padua in the 1440s and

coming in contact with humanists and such works by Andrea Mantegna as the

fresco Sacred Monogram Held by SaintAnthony of Padua and San Bernardino, Donatello

began carving letters that were more regular and geometric and closer to classical

conventions.34 His signature on the bronzeJudith and Holofernes from the late 1450s

exemplifies this new lettering style. Notwithstanding the change, Donatello still

used ligatures of medieval origin, placing P, v, and s within the 0 to form the word

oPvs (fig. 4). The Judith and Holofernes stood in the Medici garden during Miche

langelo's sojourn in the Medici household.35 The adoption of a decidedly old-fash

ioned lettering style by Michelangelo looks back to the humanistic script and art of

the early quattrocento, despite the developments that had already been made in

Renaissance epigraphy and paleography by this time.

The last word in Michelangelo's inscription, FACIEBA, does not have its final

T. 36 The word appears to trail off naturally under the Virgin's veil, since the A runs

into the intersecting edges of the veil and the band. There is actually no room for

the T. The verb faciebat (was making), which is in the imperfect tense, indicates a

continuous action in the past that may continue into the present and future. As

Vladimir Juren argues, the wording imitates the manner of signing of Apelles and

Polyclitus, the founders of painting and sculpture in antiquity. In the preface of his

Natural History, Pliny the Elder wrote:

I should like to be accepted on the lines of those founders of painting and

sculpture who, as you will find in these volumes, used to inscribe their fin

ished works, even the masterpieces which we can never tire of admiring,

with a provisional title such as Apellesfaciebat or Polyclitus [faciebat], as

though art was always a thing in process and not completed, so that when

faced by the vagaries of criticism the artist might have left him a line of

retreat to indulgence, by implying that he intended, if not interrupted, to

correct any defect noted. Hence it is exceedingly modest of them to have

inscribed all their works in a manner suggesting that they were their latest,

and as though they had been snatched away from each of them by fate. Not

more than three, I fancy, are recorded as having an inscription denoting

completion-Illefecit [he made this] (these I will bring in at their proper

34See Meiss, "Renaissance Palaeography," 101-2, for a discussion of DonateUo's experience in

Padua. The fresco of the Sacred Monogram (1452) originaUy decorated the lunette over the central door

way of Sant'Antonio; Ronald Lightbown, Mantegna:With a Complete Catalogue of the Paintings, Drawings,

and Prints (Berkeley: University of CaHfornia Press, 1986), 400-401 and pi. 30. On classical lettering

conventions, see Covi, "Lettering," 8.

35Janson, Donatello, 1:371 and 2:198-205; John Pope-Hennessy, Donatello Sculptor (New York:

Abbev?le, 1993), 280 and 347nl9.

36We?-Garris Brandt, "Michelangelo's Piet?," 93, and Pon, "Michelangelo's First Signature," 19,

note this omission as intentional. Other scholars add the T within brackets or in dotted lines in their

transcriptions, but make no comment about the missing letter, e.g., Joachim Poeschke, Michelangelo and

His World (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996), 76; Hirst and Dunkerton, Making and Meaning, 54.Tol

nay,Youth of Michelangelo, 146, even adds the T without indicating that it is not in the original inscription.



15/28


places); this made the artist appear to have assumed a supreme confidence

in his art, and consequently all these works were very unpopular.37

By consciously emulating the greatest ancient artists through his signature,

Michelangelo was able to align himself with them while at the same time imbuing

an air of modesty to his bold declaration.38 The signature's incompleteness is a

clever visual pun on the meaning offaciebat, as Pon points out.39 The choice not to

finish the verb was certainly deliberate. If Michelangelo had wanted to include the

whole word, he could have provided adequate space by making all letters in the

inscription smaller. He could also have chosen to begin closer to the left edge of

the strap. More importantly, if he had accidentally run out of space for whatever

reason, he could have chosen the more frequently usedfecit, which would have fit

easily into the remaining space. Alternatively, the classical abbreviation forfaciebat is

fac orfaci, and using either of these forms would have completed the inscription.

Another possibility would have been to indicate the presence of the T in FACIEBA

by simply adding a line above the A, which was an acceptable ligature. Michelan

gelo's intentional omission of the T contradicts the now unknown source of Vasari's

1568 anecdote, which explained the missing letter as an accident: "And this was the

reason for the writing of the letters, which truly one can recognize as having been

done at night and almost in darkness, because they are not finished."40

Michelangelo's inscription is the earliest Renaissance imitation of the Greek

masters' signatures. Juiren rightly credited Angelo Poliziano, the Humanist poet

and tutor in the Medici household during Michelangelo's stay there in the early

1490s, with informing the young artist of the use and implications offaciebat. In

his 1489 Liber Miscellaneorum, Poliziano wrote of a Greek inscription on a pedestal

using such a verb, which he saw on a trip to Rome the previous year, and noted

Pliny's remarks on it as a sign of modesty.41 The majority of signatures in the fif

teenth century consisted either of the Latin word opus followed by the name of the

artist in the genitive, or the artist's name followed by fecit (made), or simply the

37Pliny the Elder, preface to Natural History, Loeb Classical Library, trans. H. Rackham, vol. 1

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1979), 16?19. Juren, "Fecit-Faciebat," 27-30, first noted

the signature's aUusion to ApeUes and PolycHtus. See also Weil-Garris Brandt,"Michelangelo s Piet?," 93;

Goffen, "BeUini's Nude with Mirror" 196; Pon, "Michelangelo's First Signature," 19.

38Michelangelo's presentation of the Piet? as a work to equal and surpass the art of antiquity is

discussed by We?-Garris Brandt, "Michelangelo's Piet?," 93, and by McHam, "Influence of Pliny's Nat

ural History ' McHam notes: "Michelangelo was showing off his knowledge of ancient art, and asking

that his modern sculpture be compared to the greatest ancient sculptures by this device, just as the other

sculpture he carved in Rome, the Bacchus, demanded that the viewer recognize it as the first monu

mental sculpture of an Olympian deity since Roman times?and as good or better than any created in

the past.

39Pon, "Michelangelo s First Signature," 19.

40"Et questa fu la causa del' scrivere di queUe lettere, quale veramente si cognoscono esser state

fatte di notte et quasi che al buio, perche non sono finite." Karl Frey, Der literarische Nachlass Giorgio Vasa

ris (Munich: Georg M?Uer, 1923), 1:64, no. 438; cited in Pon, "Michelangelo's First Signature," 20n5

and 21nl9.

41Jufen, "Fecit-faciebat," 28-29, with a translation of the relevant passage by Poliziano. See also

Goffen, "BeUini's Nude with Mirror," 196.



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Wang / Michelangelo s Signature 461

artist's name.42 They were also placed in marginal locations. Lorenzo Ghiberti

signed the north doors (1403-24) of the Florence Baptistery OPVSLAVREN

TIIFLORENTINI (work of Lorenzo the Florentine). Later on, he used a variation

of this grammatical structure on the east doors (1427-52), that is, with his name

also in the genitive: *LAVRENTIIOCIONISDEGHIBERTISMIRAOARTEFABRICATVM

(made by the miraculous art of Lorenzo Cione di Ghiberti). Both signatures are

found on the frames around the reliefs.43 Donatello often signed with oPvs

DONATELLI (work of Donatello), as can be seen in works like theJudith and Holo

fernes from the late 1450s (fig. 4). Here, the inscription appears on the edge of a

pillow framed by Holofernes's dead hands.

Michelangelo's contribution to artistic self-consciousness and self-promotion

is reflected in the works of other artists, who began signing withfaciebat (or another

verb in the imperfect tense) after the unveiling of Michelangelo's Pieta.Vittore Car

paccio composed his signatures with fingebat (was inventing/fabricating) in the fres

coes for the Scuola di San Giorgio degli Schiavoni inVenice.44 No documents show

that Carpaccio went to Rome, but the composition of the Triumph of Saint George

(1504-7) derives from Pietro Perugino's Charging of the Keys to Saint Peter in the Sis

tine Chapel,Vatican. Carpaccio used an imperfect verb only during this period,

apparently in response to Michelangelo. Before and after the Scuola di San Giorgio

paintings, he employed either the past tense of a verb or opus with his name in the

genitive or simply his name. Albrecht Diirer's first Latin signature, on a plaque in

the engraving Adam and Eve, reads: ALBERTVS/ DVRER/ NORICVS/ FACIEBAT/

I504. Durer indicated his geographic origins ("of Nuremberg") as Michelangelo

had done, following customary practice for a work to be displayed outside an artist's

native town.45 Andrea Sansovino placed the inscription ANDREAS/SANSOVINVS/

FACIEBAT in a central location in each of his tombs for Cardinals Ascanio Sforza

(1505) and Girolamo Basso Della Rovere (1507) in Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome.

Giovanni Bellini signed his late work Nude with Mirror with "Joannes bellinus facie

bat M.D.X.V."46 Titian signed three of his works withfaciebat, the earliest of which

is the Saint Sebastian from the Brescia Altarpiece.47

The identity of Cardinal de Bilheres, who died in 1499, is not indicated on the

sculpture itself but on a slab presumably placed at the foot of the devotional image.

42See the survey of artists' signatures in Calabrese and Gigante, "La signature du peintre," 33-35.

43Pon, "Michelangelo's First Signature," 16-17, contrasts the location of Michelangelo's signature

to those of Ghiberti and Donatello.

44Stefania Mason, Carpaccio:The Major Pictorial Cycles, trans. Andrew Ellis (Milan: Skira, 2000),

110-69. VICTOR CARPATHIUS/ fingebat/ MDII appears in the Funeral of Saint Jerome, and VICTOR/

CARPATHIUS/ FINGEBAT in the Vision of Saint Augustine. Both signatures are on a cartellino.

45Erwin Panofsky, The Life and Art ofAlbrecht D?rer (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1955),

87; Juren, "Fecit-faciebat," 28-29.

46The signature is on a cartellino; Goffen, "Bellini's Nude with Mirror" 196. A Madonna and Child

(Rome, Galleria Borghese) attributed to Bellini and dated ca. 1510 also has a signature with faciebat, but

the attribution is contested. For an illustration, see Renato Ghiotto and Terisio Pignatti, L'opera completa

di Giovanni Bellini (Milan: Rizzoli, 1969), 108-9, no. 196.

47For Titian's other signatures usingfaciebat, see William Hood and Charles Hope, "Titian's Vatican

Altarpiece and the Pictures Underneath," Art Bulletin 59 (1977): 535; Gilbert, "Early Works of Titian."



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Because the funerary complex was dismantled in the early sixteenth century, we can

no longer determine the original location of the cardinal's slab relative to the Pieta,

but existing evidence proves that most artists before Michelangelo did not privilege

references to authorship over that to the patron.48 In Donatello's tomb slab for

Bishop Giovanni Pecci, of Grosseto (ca. 1428-30, Siena Cathedral), his signature

OPVS DONATELLI-appears at the foot of the effigy, with the letters partly covered

by the scroll of the funerary inscription. This device, in effect, separates the artist's

name from the epitaph of the deceased. The placement of Donatello's name above

the bishop's is unusual, as H.WJanson points out.49 On the rim of the tomb slab

for Archdeacon Giovanni Crivelli (1432-33) in Santa Maria in Aracoeli, Rome,

OPVS DONATELLI FLORENTINI follows the epitaph.50 In both cases, the buried

person's name features prominently in the main section of the monument. Gio

vanni Antonio Amadeo also signed his name on his Monument of Medea Colleoni (ca.

1473) in the Colleoni Chapel, Bergamo, but he modestly separated his signature

from the epitaph and executed it in much smaller letters.51 Tullio Lombardo made

a similar choice and placed his signature on the base of one statue adorning the

Monument ofAndrea Vendramin (1494) in SS. Giovanni e Paolo,Venice.52

The tombs of Pope Sixtus IV and Pope InnocentVIII by Antonio Pollaiuolo,

both originally erected in Old Saint Peter's, most likely inspired Michelangelo with

their significant displays of artistic self-consciousness and self-promotion.53 Just

four years before Michelangelo began the Pietd, Pollaiuolo completed the monu

ment of Pope Sixtus IV (1493), then in the Cappella del Coro on the south side.

Pollaiuolo expressed pride in his work through a small plaque located on the edge

of the mattress behind the effigy's head: oPvs ANTONI POLAIOLI/ FIORENTINI ARG

AUR/ PICT AERE CLARI/ AN DOM MCCCCLXXXIII (work of Antonio Pollaiuolo,

who is famous in silver, gold, picture, and bronze, in the year of our Lord 1493).

Nevertheless, the epitaph occupies a more visible and prominent place at the pope's

feet. InJanuary 1498, the remains of Pope InnocentVIII were transferred to his new

tomb in the Chapel of the Holy Lance.54 There Pollaiuolo inserted even bolder

48The slab is now in the Grotte Vaticane. See We?-Garris Brandt, "Michelangelo's Piet?," 82 and

97n61, for a transcription of the inscription; and WaUace, "Michelangelo's Rome Piet?" 245 and fig.

197, for an iUustration.

49Because of the inferior shape and spacing of the letters in DonateUo's signature, Janson suggested

that the artist inserted it as an afterthought. Janson, Sculpture of Donatello, 1:109,2:15-11.

50Janson, Sculpture of Donatello, 1:139,2:101-2.The original site of the CrivelH tomb was not Santa

Maria in AracoeH. Janson has speculated that it may have been Santa Maria sopra Minerva.

51John Pope-Hennessy, Italian Renaissance Sculpture, vol. 2 of An Introduction to Italian Sculpture, 3rd

ed. (Oxford: Phaidon, 1986), 324 and fig. 122.10VANES?ANT0NIVS?DEAJV1ADEIS?FECIT?H0C?0PVS is

carved across the bottom of the sarcophagus.

52Pope-Hennessy, Italian Renaissance Sculpture, 54-55 and figs. 57-58. The statue Adam originaUy

stood in one of the lower niches of the monument but now belongs to the MetropoHtan Museum of

Art, New York. The signature reads: TVLLII.LOMBARDI.O.

53Pope-Hennessy, Italian Renaissance Sculpture, 300-301; L. D. Ettlinger, "PoUaiuolo's Tomb of

Pope Sixtus IV," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 16 (1953): 239-71; Fehl, "Artists' Signa

tures," 197-98.

54Fehl, "Artists' Signatures," 215nll.



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words on the side of an armrest belonging to the enthroned statue of InnocentVIII,

advertising his achievement in Sixtus IV's monument: ANTONIVS/POLAIOLVS A/

VR ARG AER /PICT CLARVS QVI XYST SEP/VLCHR PERE/GIT COEPTVM/

AB.SE.OPVS/ ABSOLVIT (Antonio Pollaiuolo, famous in gold, silver, bronze, and

painting, he who finished the sepulchre of Sixtus here by himself brought to an end

the work he had begun). The sculptor also included a medallion with his self-por

trait (now lost). Philipp Fehl has demonstrated that Pollaiuolo intended the living

figure of the pope to occupy the lower tier of the monument (with a dead effigy

above it); therefore, this part would be first to occupy the viewer's contemplation.55

Although these fifteenth-century examples established a tradition for Miche

langelo to follow, the Pietad differs from its predecessors in the priority given to the

maker's signature. Neither did Donatello, Amadeo, Lombardo, or Pollaiuolo sign

his name on the image of a holy being. As Kathleen Weil-Garris Brandt notes,

Michelangelo's centrally located signature ensured the value of the Rome Pieta as a

work of art, independent of the patron whom it intended to honor or the funerary

complex to which it originally belonged. Michelangelo's subsequent renown fur

ther cemented its identity as his creation. Cardinal de Bilheres's tomb slab and his

connection to the Pietd did not survive the subsequent transfers that occurred after

the 1514 demolition of the original site, Santa Petronilla.56 In 1568, slab and sculp

ture were permanently separated when the latter was made to commemorate Pope

Sixtus IV in his funerary chapel in new Saint Peter's.Vasari, Condivi, and Benedetto

Varchi in the mid-sixteenth century hardly paid attention to the identity of the

French cardinal and even confused him with other prelates.57

The placement of Michelangelo's inscription on a part of the Virgin's attire

derived from a medieval and Renaissance custom. Socially prominent or wealthy

people had their clothes embroidered with the names of emperors or other distin

guished persons as well as with monograms, mottoes, or verses. Church vestments

likewise displayed embroidered names, scriptural passages, dedications, or invoca

tions. Fifteenth-century Florentine painting followed this tradition, where the

saints' names appear on collars or hems or accessories, as can be seen in a Coronation

of the Virgin by Fra Angelico (ca. 1430) and another by Fra Filippo Lippi (1447).58

Executed with workshop assistance, Pietro Perugino's Madonna and Child with Saint

John the Baptist, painted after 1500, is a contemporary work with a signature similar

to Michelangelo's; PETRUS PERUGINUS adorns the border of the Virgin's sleeve in

fictive embroidery.59

55Fehl, "Artists' Signatures," 199-203.

56See Weil-Garris Brandt, "Michelangelo's Piet?," 87-90,93.

57BothVasari and Condivi mistakenly identified Michelangelo's patron as Cardinal Rovano (car

dinal of Rouen). Vasari-Bellosi-Rossi, 885; Condivi-Maraini, 29;Vasari-Milanesi, 151. Weil-Garris

Brandt has cited the misidentifications in "Michelangelo's Piet?," 87 and 101nl28.

58Covi, Inscription, 13, 27, 604-5 (appendix 349b), 608 (appendix 439g). For illustrations, see

Giorgio Bonsanti, Beato Ang?lico: Catalogo completo (Florence: Octavo, 1998), 51 and 128; Jeffrey Ruda,

Fra Filippo Lippi: Life and Work with a Complete Catalogue (London: Phaidon, 1993), 422-26.

59Christopher Baker and Tom Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue (London:

National Gallery Publications, 1995), 524.The authors believe the signature to be reworked but authen

tic. Not all scholars share this assessment.



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Both Michelangelo and Perugino reinvented the traditional use of embroidery.

The clothing belongs to the Virgin, yet carries neither her own name nor an

inscription relating to her. Unlike Perugino, who marginalized his signature, Mich

elangelo put his self-referential stamp on a prominent part of theVirgin's garment,

personalizing it for himself. Although Michelangelo's signature undoubtedly refers

to his piety and to his work as an offering expressing perpetual devotion, as Louisa

Matthew and Herbert Kessler have argued, its unconventional placement asserts

other meanings as well.60 In general, artists who expressed devotion through their

signatures placed them in humbler marginal locations, as Domenico Veneziano did

in the Saint Lucy Altarpiece (ca. 1445-47) for Santa Lucia de' Magnoli, Florence, and

Fra Filippo Lippi in the Virgin in Adoration with the Infant SaintJohn the Baptist and

Saint Bernard (late 1450s) for the Medici Palace chapel.61

Although images of theVirgin wearing a cloak held by a horizontal orV-shaped

decorated strap are frequent, the motif of the strap worn across the shoulder is not

common in fifteenth-century art, especially among female figures. John Shearman

has traced Michelangelo's band and the treatment of drapery around it to a statue

type depicting the goddess Diana from A.D. first century.This, in turn, derives from

a Hellenistic prototype.62 Shearman has also suggested that the strap may allude to

motherhood, since Italian women wore something similar when carrying a child on

the right hip. The Virgin in Filippo Lippi's Madonna and Angels with Saints Frediano

and Augustine (Barbadori Altarpiece) wears such an accessory. If Michelangelo did

intend his motif to evoke the strap worn by mothers, however, he simultaneously

negated its function because in his depiction the strap does not support theVirgin's

son. Finally, Michelangelo's disavowal of any kind of practical function performed

by the strap reinforces its important role as the bearer of his signature.

Donatello's oeuvre provides some comparable fifteenth-century examples of

the strap motif. AVirgin and Child terra-cotta relief in Berlin, dated around 1445,

shows theVirgin's chest adorned with two richly decorated crisscrossing straps.63 A

bronze relief of an angel in the high altar of Sant'Antonio, Padua (1446-50), is

similarly attired. The bunched drapery over the angel's right shoulder also finds a

parallel in the dress of Michelangelo's Virgin.64 Michelangelo probably saw this

60Matthew, "Painter's Presence," 640; Herbert Kessler, "On the State of Medieval Art History," Art

Bulletin 70 (1988): 180.

61DomenicoVeneziano inscribed his signature on the front face of the lower step of the Virgin s

throne: OPVS/D[OMl]NICI DE/ve/[n]eTIIS/HO MATER DEI MISERERE MEI/DATUM EST (The work of

Domenico of Venice. O Mother of God, have mercy on me, and it will be granted]?]). Covi, Inscription,

681-82 (appendix 437a); HellmutWohl,77ie Paintings of Domenico Veneziano, ca. 1410-1461 (New York:

New York University Press, 1980), 123. Fra Filippo Lippi inscribed FRATER?PHILIPPVS#P# on the handle

of an ax stuck in a tree trunk. Covi, Inscription, 682 (appendix 437c); Ruda, Fra Filippo Lippi, 447-48.

62John Shearman, Only Connect:Art and the Spectator in the Italian Renaissance (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1992), 236-38.

63Donatello's relief of pigmented terra-cotta was formerly in the Bode Museum, East Berlin, and

is now in the Staatliche Museen. Pope-Hennessy, Italian Renaissance Sculpture, 20,349, and fig. 28; idem,

Donatello Sculptor, 261 and fig. 262.

64Janson, Sculpture of Donatello, vol. 1, pi. 264. The motif of drapery bunched over the shoulder

can also be seen in Desiderio da Settignano'sVirgin and Child relief (before 1478) in the Victoria and



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relief during one of his trips to Venice.65 A David (ca. 1470-75) attributed to

Antonio Rossellino wears a single strap across his shoulder, which pulls on the

fabric of his tunic (not as dramatically as in Michelangelo's Virgin).66 The rough

hewn back view shows that the pull of the strap results from an attached pouch,

which would contain stones for his sling.

After Michelangelo's Pieta, the single diagonal strap motif began to appear in

sculpture more often.A bust of Hope (ca. 1525, Castello di San Salvatore, Susegana)

attributed to Tullio Lombardo wears a strap with the inscription IN TE DOMINE

SPERAVI.67 A marble figure ofAbundance by Danese Cattaneo, part of the tomb of

Leonardo Loredan (1572, SS. Giovanni e Paolo,Venice), has a strap encircling her

chest and supporting the upper part of her robe.68 Tiziano Aspetti's bronze Hope

or Fortitude (1593-94) for the altar of the Chapel of Saint Anthony in the Santo,

Padua, wears a cloak with a strap attached to it with a button.69

Michelangelo's use of a symbol in MICHAEL AGELVS to separate the two com

ponents into distinct words (the only such occurrence in the entire inscription)

deviates from his usual manner of writing his name. The conversion of the name

into Latin, even with the requisite changes in spelling (Michael for Michel and Ange

lus for Agniolo/Angelo), does not require the insertion of this symbol, technically

known as an intersyllabic interpunct. For instance, the 1501 Latin document for

the commission of the Florence David, the next commission after the Pieta, stated

that the Operai was appointing "Michelangelum Lodovici Bonarroti, civem floren

tinum."70 Michelangelo himself spelled "Michelagniolo" as one word, not two, on

paper (letters) and in Italian, a less formal context than Latin on stone. Near the

right margin of the sheet containing sketches related to the marble and bronze stat

Albert Museum, London; John Pope-Hennessy and Ronald Lightbown, Catalogue of Italian Sculpture in

the Victoria and Albert Museum (London: HMSO, 1964), 2:114 and 3:135.

65For Michelangelo's presumed visit to Venice in 1494, see Craig H. Smyth, "Venice and the

Emergence of the High Renaissance in Florence: Observations and Questions," in Quattrocento, vol. 1

of Florence and Venice: Comparisons and Relations, Acts of Two Conferences at Villa ITatti, 1976-77 (Florence:

La Nuova Italia, 1979), 209-49.

66This statue is now in the Widener CoUection, National GaUery of Art, Washington, DC. It was

attributed to DonateUo by Janson and dated ca. 1412, 1430; Janson, Sculpture of Donatello, 1:21-25 and

2:22. Pope-Hennessy attributed it to Antonio RosseUino instead; "The MartelH David," Burlington Mag

azine 101 (1959): 134-39; idem, Donatello Sculptor, 1 and 322n33.

67Andrea Moschetti, J danni ai monumenti e alie opere d'arte dette Venezie nella guerra mondiale 1915

1918 (Venice: Sormani, 1932), figs. 192 and 197. Pope-Hennessy and Lightbown, Catalogue of Italian

Sculpture, 2:539,judge the bust to be from the same period asTulHo Lombardo's two signed reHefs in the

Santo, dated 1520?25. Weil-Garris Brandt, "Michelangelo's Piet?" 105n202, cites a bust of Hope by

Cristoforo Solari (II Gobbo) with an inscribed diagonal strap, but in fact, this figure does not wear one.

68Sarah Blake McHam, The Chapel of Saint Anthony at the Santo and the Development of Venetian

Renaissance Sculpture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1994), 89-91 and fig. 127.

69McHam, Chapel of Saint Anthony, 89 and fig. 50.

70"Spectab?es viri c?nsules artis lane una cum dominis operariis adunati in audentia dicte opere,

attendentes ad utilitatem et honorem dicte opere, elegerunt in sculptorem dicte opere dignum magis

trum Michelangelum Lodovici Bonarroti, civem florentinum, ad faciendum et perficiendum et pro fede

finiendum quendam hominem vocato Gigante abozatum...." The document is published in Charles

Seymour Jr., Michelangelo's David: A Search for Identity (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1967),

136, doc. 37.



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ues of David (1501-2, Paris, the Louvre), the artist wrote: "Davitte colla fromba e

io coll'arco. Michelagniolo" (David with his sling, and I with my bow).71 Since an

interpunct normally occurs between distinct words in Roman as well as Renais

sance inscriptions, its inclusion in Michelangelo's first name-transforming its

meaning into "Michael the Angel"-appears to emphasize his association with his

namesake Michael the Archangel.72

The small but significant change in Michelangelo's name enabled him to

project an important aspect of his self-image. Angelus derives from the Greek

a&YeEoX (angelos), meaning messenger or envoy, and refers literally to a messenger

of God.73 Michelangelo's emphasis on the angelic component depicts himself as

someone with spiritual powers akin to angels and as a vehicle for conveying God's

thought or idea. Such a self-conception comes closest to Marsilio Ficino's defini

tion of an angel in his commentary (1475) on Plato's Symposium, with which the

artist was familiar:74

As soon as the Angelic Mind and the World-Soul were born from Him,

the Divine Power over everything beneficently infused into them as His

offspring that light in which lay the power of creating everything. In these

two, because they were nearest, he depicted the pattern of the whole

world much more exactly than it is in the material world. Whence this

picture of the world which we see shines whole and more clearly in the

Angelic Mind and in the World-Soul. For in these two are the Forms of

each planet, the sun, the moon, the rest of the stars, the elements, stones,

plants, and each of the animals. Representations of this kind the Platonists

call Prototypes, or Ideas in the Angelic Mind, Concepts or mental images

in the World-Soul, and Forms or physical images in the material world.

They are bright in the material world, brighter in the soul, and brightest

in the Angelic Mind.Therefore, the single face of God shines successively

in these three mirrors, placed according to their rank: the Angelic Mind,

the World-Soul, and the Body of the World. In the first, because it is the

nearest to God, the light is most bright....

Hence, the holy Angelic Mind, because it is unimpeded by any atten

dance upon the body, reflects upon itself where it sees the face of God

engraved within its own breast, and seeing there, is struck with awe, and

clings most avidly to it forever.75

7Charles de Tolnay, Corpus dei disegni di Michelangelo (Novara: Istituto Geogr?fico De Agostini,

1975-80), no. 19; James Saslow, trans, and ed., The Poetry of Michelangelo, an Annotated Translation (New

Haven:Yale University Press, 1991), 503-4.

72Gordon, Latin Inscriptions, 150,183.

73Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, rev. ed. (Oxford: Clarendon,

1996), 7.

74For a discussion of Michelangelo's literary knowledge, see David Summers, Michelangelo and the

Language of Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 9 and 17.

7^Marsilio Ficino's Commentary on Plato's Symposium, trans. Sears Reynolds Jayne (Columbia: Uni

versity of Missouri, 1944), 169-70, 5th speech, chap. 4.



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In the apocryphal book Tobias (12:15), the archangel Raphael implies that

angels of his kind are the closest to God. Michael the Archangel was the chief of

angels and helped them in their battles against infidels (Dan. 10:13, 21; 12:1). Saint

John envisioned him leading a host of angels to battle the Devil and his minions

(Apoc. 12:7). Michelangelo's admirers understood his conceit, as Giulio Bonasone's

portrait engravings suggest. These follow Michelangelo's lead in separating the two

components of his name. One engraving served as the frontispiece of Condivi's Vita

and another as an author's portrait inserted in a print of the Sistine Chapel LastJudg

ment. Although he does not specifically discuss the inscriptions of the engravings,

William Wallace has recognized that Bonasone's officially sanctioned portraits pro

moted Michelangelo's desired image.76

A viewer could interpret Michelangelo's signature over the heart of theVirgin

Mary as a visualization of an archangel's closeness to divinity. The signature repre

sents Michelangelo's person, and its substantial weight implies his physical presence.

The Petrarchan trope of the lover expressing envy toward the piece of clothing

worn by his beloved (ribbon, girdle, or glove), which touches her as he himself may

not, offers a parallel metaphor of secular meaning.77 In this instance, the poet

equates the closeness of the garment or accessory of a beloved with emotional inti

macy with that person. Michelangelo used this concept in a poem of 1507: "Ma

piCu lieto quel nastro par che goda,/ dorato in punta, con si fatte tempre/ che preme

e tocca il petto ch'egli allacia" (But even more delighted seems that ribbon, gilded

at the tips, and made in such a way/ that it presses and touches the breast it laces

up).78 Weil-Garris Brandt cites this poem in her discussion of the strap but inter

prets the placement of the signature solely as a gesture of votive adoration.79

The explicit association with Michael the Archangel and the unusual location

of the signature imply divine origins for Michelangelo's artistic inspiration. His self

conception drew on two threads of thought-the role of an angel as a messenger

of God and the certainty of divine inspiration in the work of a gifted poet or artist.

A work created by a messenger of God must necessarily reflect divine ideas, as

angels do according to Ficino. The idea of the poet or artist receiving divine inspi

ration was already established in Tuscan artistic tradition by Michelangelo's time. At

his coronation with laurel on the Roman capitol in 1341, Petrarch argued that the

poet's princely status derived from his divine election: "The inherent difficulty of

the poet's task lies in this, that whereas in the other arts one may attain his goal

through sheer toil and study, it is far otherwise with the art of poetry, in which

nothing can be accomplished unless a certain inner and divinely given energy is

infused in the poet's spirit." His oration ended with the statement, "And I do not

76 William Wallace, "MICHAEL ANGELVS BONAROTVS PATRITIVS FLORENTINVS," in Innovation and

Tradition: Essays on Renaissance Art and Culture, ed. Dag T. Andersson and Roy Eriksen (Rome: Edizione

Kappa, 2000), 60-73 and figs. 2 and 3.

77Paul Barolsky discussed the erotic implications of this poem in "Michelangelo's Erotic Invest

ment," Source: Notes in the History of Art 11 (1992): 32-34.

78Saslow, Poetry of Michelangelo, 69, no. 4.

79Weil-Garris Brandt, "Michelangelo's Piet?," 93.



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deny that in the struggle I have had the advantage of a certain genius given to me

from on high by the giver of all good things, by God himself-that God, who may

be called, in the words of Persius, 'Magister artis ingenique largitor' (Master of art

and bestower of genius)."80 As David Summers explains, Petrarch asserted that God

not only inspired him but also ordained him, and the precious fruit of his ordination

was his poetry, which ornamented the world and men's lives. Boccaccio repeated

this idea in book 14 of De genealogia deorum, where he defined poetry as divinely

inspired, proceeding "from the bosom of God."81 Cennino Cennini put painting

on equal footing with poetry in the first chapter of his Libro dell'arte (first quarter

of the fifteenth century), and in the second chapter, applied the concept of divine

inspiration to the painter by stressing the innateness of artistic excellence.According

to him, the animo gentile (lofty spirit) is necessary to the highest attainment because

"the intellect is delighted by design, only in those whose very nature draws them

to it, without the guidance of a master, per gientileza d'animo."82 Summers recog

nized Cennini's book as an invaluable record of the Florentine tradition of painting,

which set forth issues discussed by painters and those interested in their art. Gio

vanni Pisano's inscriptions on the pulpits in Sant'Andrea, Pistoia (1302), and in the

Pisa Cathedral (1311) echo the ideas expounded by Petrarch and Boccaccio. Rona

Goffen notes that the Pistoia inscription, extolling the artist as "blessed with greater

skill" (sensia meliore beatus), may be the earliest written assertion that artistic talent

is bestowed by God. Giovanni's signature on the pulpit in Pisa asserts the same idea

even more explicitly: "I praise the true God, the creator of all excellent things, who

has perniitted a man to form figures of such purity. In the year of our Lord thirteen

hundred and eleven the hands of Giovanni, son of the late Nicola, by their own art

alone, carved this work...83

Michelangelo's implied claim to being a messenger of God-a conveyor of

God's ideas-proved to be a suitable preemptive defense against the criticism that

arose after the Pieta' was unveiled, specifically regarding Michelangelo's unconven

tional representation of theVirgin as a young woman close in age to her adult son.

The 1532 and 1547 copies by Giovanni Lippi bear witness to negative public opin

80Petrarch's oration is translated in E. H.Wilkins, Studies in the Life and Work of Petrarch (Cambridge,

MA: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1955), 300?313, quoted in Summers, Michelangelo and Language

of Art, 34.

81 Summers, Michelangelo and Language of Art, 33-34, 36.

82"Non sanza cagione d'animo gientile alchuni si muovono di venire a questa arte, piacciendoH

per amore naturale. Lo'nteUetto al disengno si d?etta, solo che daUoro medesimi la natura accio gli trae,

sanza nuUa ghuida di maestro, per gientileza d'animo." Cennino d'Andrea Cennini, // libro dell'arte, ed.

D.V.Thompson Jr. (New Haven:Yale University Press, 1932), 1-3; trans, in Cennino d'Andrea Cennini,

The Craftsman's Handbook, trans. D.V.Thompson Jr. (New York: Dover, 1933), 1-3. Summers, Michelan

gelo and Language of Art, 37.

83"LAUDO DEUM VERUM PER QUEM SUNT OPTIMA PvERUM/ QUI DEDIT HAS PURAS HOMINEM

FORMARE FIGURAS./ HOC OPUS HIC ANNIS DOMINI SCULPSERE IOHANNIS/ ARTE MANUS SOLE

QUONDAM NATIQUE NICHOLE/ CURSIS UNDENIS TERCENTUM MILLEQUE PLENIS...." For a complete

transcription, see John Pope-Hennessy, Italian Gothic Sculpture, vol. 1 of An Introduction to Italian Sculpture

(New York: Vintage, 1985), 177?78. See also Summers, Michelangelo and Language of Art, 38; Goffen,

"Signatures," 306?7.



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ion, for they "correct" their model by representing the Virgin as an old woman.

Pietro Aretino provided written testimony in a letter to his friend Fausto Longiano,

dated 17 December 1537. The context of the letter suggests that Aretino was

repeating an opinion that had been circulating for some time.84 Criticizing those

who thought themselves erudite but who in reality lacked good judgment or sense,

he mentioned in passing Michelangelo's Pieta and Sistine ceiling frescoes as exam

ples of art that were wanting such good judgment: the Pieta's Virgin appears

younger than her son, and the fresco figures should not have been made to appear

suspended in a void. The brevity of his descriptions suggests an assumption that his

reader was already familiar with the issues in question. An anonymous diatribe of

March 1549, which denounces Lippi's second copy of Michelangelo's Pieta, also

reveals the criticisms directed at the original: "In the same month they unveiled in

Sto. Spirito a Pieta, which was sent by a Florentine to the said church, and they say

that it derives from that inventor of obscenities, Michelangelo Buonarruoto, who

is concerned only with art, not with piety. All the modern painters and sculptors,

pursuing Lutheran whims, now paint and carve nothing for our holy churches but

figures that undermine faith and devotion."85 Leo Steinberg notes that the adjective

"Lutheran" refers more to the presumption of interpreting doctrine according to

private caprice than to a matter of indecency.86

Condivi's discussion of the topic is revealing as well. Although he gave no indi

cation of or explanation for Michelangelo's inscription, he acknowledged public

criticism by discussing the appearance of theVirgin at length. Michelangelo's voice

resounds clearly in the text:

It is an image truly worthy of that humanity with which the Son of God

and so great a mother were endowed, even though there are some who

object to the mother as being too young in relation to the Son. When I

was discussing this one day with Michelangelo, he answered: "Don't you

know that women who are chaste remain much fresher than those who

are not? ... Indeed, I will go further and say that this freshness and flow

ering of youth, apart from being preserved in her in this natural way, may

also conceivably have been given divine assistance in order to prove to the

84"Giudizio, dico: che l'altre cose son buone per vedere gli ingegni degli altri, onde il tuo si desta

e si corregge. Ecco che fino a quello che tanto sa quanto si desidera ne la scultura e ne la pittura, nien

tedimeno la Nostra Donna di marmo de la Febbre ? assai pi? giovane che il figliuolo, e le figure ne le

volte non dien farsi in aria." Pietro Aretino: Lettere, ed. Francesco Erspamer (Parma: Fondazione Pietro

Bembo, 1995), 1:619-22, no. 300.

85"Nel medesimo mese si scoperse in Sto. Spirito una Piet?, la quale la mando un florentino a

detta chiesa, et si diceva che l'origine veniva dallo inventor d?lie porcherie, salvandogli Farte ma non

devotione, Michelangelo Buonarruoto. Che tutti i moderni pittori et scultori per imitare simili caprici

luterani, altro oggi per le sante chiese non si dipigne o scarpella altro che figure da sotterrar la fede e la

devotione." Johann Wilhelm Gaye, ed., Carteggio in?dito d'artisti (Florence: G. Molini, 1840), 2:500. A

partial English translation is in Leo Steinberg, "The Line of Fate in Michelangelo's Painting," Critical

Inquiry 6 (1980): 448.

86This equation of artistic license and theological heresy survives into the mid-seventeenth cen

tury and beyond. Steinberg, "Line of Fate," 448.



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world the virginity and perpetual purity of the mother.... Therefore, you

should not be surprised if, with this in mind, I made the Holy Virgin,

mother of God, considerably younger in comparison with her Son than

her age would ordinarily require, though I left the Son at his own age.87

Following this quotation, Condivi depicted Michelangelo as a receiver of God's

ideas, which are reflected in his works. This depiction echoes Michelangelo's self

conception as expressed in his signature:

This consideration would be most worthy of any theologian and perhaps

extraordinary coming from others, but not from him whom God and

nature formed not only to do unique work with his hands but also to be

a worthy recipient of every most divine concept, as can be recognized not

only from this, but from very many of his thoughts and writings.88

Michelangelo's technique of separating his name into two words to emphasize

its angelic association was also used by Ludovico Ariosto in the third and final edi

tion of his epic poem Orlando Furioso (1532). Ariosto even attached the adjective

divino to Michelangelo's name.

Timagora, Parrasio, Polignoto,

Protogene, Timante, Apollodoro,

Apelle, piiu di tutti questi noto,

e Zeusi, e gli altri ch'a quei tempi f6ro;

di quai la fama (mal grado di Cloto,

che spinse i corpi e dipoi l'opre loro)

sempre stara, fin che si legga e scriva,

merce degli scrittori, al mondo viva:

e quei che furo a' nostri di, o sono ora,

Leonardo, Andrea Mantegna, Gian Bellino,

duo Dossi, e quel ch'a par sculpe e colora,

Michel, piiu che mortale, Angel divino;

Bastiano, Rafael, Tizian, ch'onora

non men Cador, che queiVenezia e Urbino;

e gli altri di cui tal l'opra si vede,

qual de la prisca eta si legge e crede:89

87Condivi?Maraini, 29?30. EngHsh trans, from Condivi?Wohl, 25.

88"Considerazion degnissima di qualunque te?logo, maravigHosa forse in altri, in lui non gi?, ?

quale Iddio e la natura ha formato non solamente ad oprar ?nico di mano, ma degno subietto ancora di

qualunque divinissimo concetto, come non solamente in questo, ma in moltissimi suoi ragionamenti e

scritti conoscer si pu?."

89Ludovico Ariosto, Orlando Furioso (1532), canto 33:1?2.The context of this passage is the debate

over the paragone. Ariosto argued that the fame of even the greatest artists survives only so long as there

are writers.



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Ariosto devotes almost two lines to Michelangelo (Apelles has one line to himself)

in his enumeration of the greatest artists of antiquity and the modern age.The line

about Michelangelo translates as "Michael, more than a mortal man, an Angel

divine." Ariosto mentions Michael the Archangel many times, and his epithet for

Michelangelo calls attention to the parallel between the artist and his namesake. In

canto 14:78, the archangel is similarly called "Michel angel." Ludovico Dolce noted

Ariosto's epithet in his Dialogo della pittura, intitolato L'Aretino (1557), a fictive dia

logue on painting between Pietro Aretino and Giovan Francesco Fabrini.90

Ariosto's attachment of divino to Michelangelo's name underlines

Michelangelo's angel-like persona, for the word could mean derived directly from

God or inspired by God; Dante in n convivio (1304-8) and Sperone Speroni (1500

88) in his Dialoghi used the adjective in this way.91 Divino did not necessarily have

to refer to a holy being; it had many other possible meanings in the sixteenth

century. The word often described someone or something as extraordinary or

superlative, without implying an association to God or divinity. Aretino, for

example, used the adjective profusely and made playful puns with it.92 For this

reason, the meaning ofAriosto's description of Michelangelo as divino is ambivalent.

Some of Aretino's remarks about Michelangelo, however, suggest a contemporary

understanding of his persona as an angel-like artist. In criticizing the impropriety

of the nude figures in the master's Sistine LastJudgment,Aretino gave Michelangelo's

epithet an unflattering twist in an unsent letter to the artist dated November 1545:

"Is it possible for you, who through being divine do not condescend to the

company of men, to have made this in the foremost temple of God?"93 In the

postscript, Aretino even made a pun on divino: "[S]e voi siate di vino, io non so

90"So d'altra parte, che l'Ariosto nel principio del trentesimo terzo canto del suo Furioso distingue

in tal guisa Michel'Agnolo da gli altri Pittori, che lo fa Divino" (On the other hand, I know too that

Ariosto, at the beginning of the thirty-third canto of his Orlando Furioso, sets Michelangelo apart from

other painters in such a fashion as to call him "divine"). Mark W Roskill, Dolce's Aretino and Venetian

ArtTheory of the Cinquecento, 2nd ed. (Toronto: University ofToronto Press, 2000), 93 and 223.

91Salvatore Battaglia, ed., Grande dizionario della lingua italiana, vol. 4 (Turin: Unione Tipografico

Editrice Torinese, 1966), s.v. "Divino." Dante, II convivio, 4-5-13: "Chi dir? che fosse sanza divina inspi

razione, Fabrizio infinita quasi moltitudine d'oro r

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