Michelangelo Finishes the Pieta

1500

A twenty-four-year-old Florentine unveiled a marble Virgin cradling her dead son in Saint Peter's Basilica. Pilgrims wept at the unnatural smoothness of the flesh and the stillness of the grief. When visitors doubted his authorship, Michelangelo crept back at night and carved his name across Mary's sash. It was the only work he ever signed, the sash inscription carved after overhearing visitors attribute the sculpture to a rival.