One Pietà Rondanini gesso cast back to place

The Hall of the Forensic Medicine Institute has back a copy of the last Michelangelo Buonarroti sculpture work

A few days ago a plaster cast of Michelangelo Buonarroti's Pietà Rondanini returned to situ in the atrium of the Institute of Legal Medicine in Milan where it had been missing since for some time.

The lobby had been inhabited from the "Calco Gariboldi" performed by the then conservator of Brera Cesare Gariboldi in the summer of 1953 for the set-up test of the BBPR studio.

Owned by the Civic Art Collections of the Castello Sforzesco, this cast had to be recently brought back to the museum's deposits. However, wanting to honor the memory and symbolic presence that Pietà Rondanini had for the Milanese Institute of Forensis Medicine, Giovanna Mori - Conservator of the Civic Art Collections of the Castello Sforzesco and Museo Pietà Rondanini - immediately took the opportunity to purchase this specimen offered for sale at Maison Bibelot in Florence.

This cast comes from a private collection and was made using a mold of the Pietà Rondanini owned by the State Institute of Art in Florence, of which it keeps the monogram.

Over time, the Institute made some known casts of this work for use by its own - still important today - as plaster cast example. The Pietà Rondanini is the last work that Michelangelo Buonarroti worked on, in several phases between 1552 and 1564 and probably intended for his own grave.

Purchased in 1774 by the Marquis Rondanini for the library of their palace in Rome in via del Corso, it bears its name ever since. Purchased in 1952 by the Municipality of Milan and intended for the Civic Art Collections of the Castle, it is the subject of affection and pride by the Milanese.

Today's purchase and repositioning were possible thanks to teamwork led by Giovanna Mori who asked for the collaboration of an important benefactor who purchased the item directly and made on display on the spot.

They then turned to our Studio, for the operation part. An interview with the auction house was necessary for the condition report, for the conditions of sale, the commissions, the effective participation in the auction and finally the logistics of the delivery of this giant of one meter and ninty-five.

I am grateful for the opportunity to be useful and to have collaborated with old friends and important milanese Museums and Institutions.