Madonna

Michelangelo made two small free-standing figures (St. Proculus and St. Petronius) for the shrine of St. Dominic in San Domenico, and one angel candelabra for the altar of the chapel. Clearly, he had been looking at San Petronio’s major masterpiece, the great portal carved by Jacopo della Quercia nearly sixty years before. He adapted the older master’s directness of characterization, his admirable economy of gesture which concentrates the impact of the figure, and also the use of bulky draperies to give mass and weight.

The torso of Michelangelo’s River God (c. 1526– 27), once bright white but long since mellowed to the silvery grey of driftwood, is an almost talismanic presence at the beginning of this exhibition, the third and final part of the Palazzo Strozzi’s reassessment of Mannerism. Made not from marble, but from clay mixed with plant and vegetable fibres, earth and sand, this preliminary model lies capsized somewhat, its position dictated by its precarious physical condition, all in disconcerting contrast to the exalted name of its maker.