Attack on Pietà embodied the ‘madness’ of the world

The Pietà is the Vatican’s most famous statue and an unprecedented interpretation in the history of sculpture.

To gaze upon it is to ponder and realize afresh the depth of the Christian faith and the range of its impact through the centuries. 

This inestimable treasure, located in St. Peter’s Basilica, is a favourite for everyone, a visual triumph that showcases the best of the ideals of classical beauty and naturalism. 

Each year thousands flock to gaze at Renaissance artist Michelangelo Buonarroti’s translation of classicism into Christian art for the ages. 

Pietà translates from the Italian as “pity.” The statue, made of one solid block of Carrara marble, depicts the crucified Christ just taken down from the cross and in the lap of his mother. 

The renowned work was the first such statue by Michelangelo, commissioned in 1498 by a French cardinal by the name of Jean Bilhères de Lagraulas, an ambassador in Rome.

The sculpture was intended for the prelate’s funeral monument in the old St. Peter’s Basilica, since torn down, to be displayed in the chapel of St. Petronilla, a mausoleum and chapel of the King of France. 

With the construction of the new basilica, the statue was preserved and moved to its current location in the newer St. Peter’s in the 18th century. Today it is located in the first chapel on the right as one enters the basilica. 

The Pietà is the only work Michelangelo ever signed.

Legend avers, according to biographer Giorgio Vasari, this is because visitors who first saw it believed it to have been sculpted by Cristoforo Solari, a fellow sculptor and rival of Michelangelo.

Michelangelo, to prove to the centuries he was the artist, ascended the statue and signed his name on the strap that runs along the chest of the Madonna.

His signature, in Latin, is still seen by all: MICHAELA[N]GELUS BONAROTUS FLORENTIN[US] FACIEBA[T] (“Michelangelo Buonarroti Florentine made this”).

Vasari includes another anecdote, that Michelangelo later regretted his outburst of pride and vowed never again to sign another work created by his hands. 

The Pietà left the safety of St. Peter’s Basilica in 1964 when it was lent by the Vatican to the Cardinal Archbishop of New York to be displayed at the Vatican pavilion at the New York World’s Fair. Thousands caught a glimpse, moving past the statue on a slow-moving conveyor belt. 

Michelangelo’s Pietà is novel for many reasons. It is far different from every previous rendition created by other artists, causing it to rise above its agonized Gothic predecessors to a level of pure nobility.

It was specifically Michelangelo’s Catholic faith that sustained the imaginative effort required of him to create such a theological scene that speaks forever of Christian fervour and artistic invention.

It is the Renaissance mind of Michelangelo the sculptor that invites us to rediscover God in the image of man. Christ has assumed the physical qualities of the classical heroes of Parnassus. 

The Renaissance’s release of admiration for pre-Christian achievements lent energy as well as nobility to Michelangelo’s art of sculpting which he carried to a new level. 

The Pietà is a profoundly Christian creation of the time. Michelangelo invested Christ with a new presence – that of a humanly inspired immortal, a sombre subject given a blazingly heroic treatment.

While Christ’s head lolls in death, his face bears a look of repose, almost of satisfaction, an irresistibly Greek face, elegant and seemingly untouched by the crucifixion. 

Further, the rendition of the recumbent body of Christ who lies in his mother’s lap shows no signs of the passion, save for the five major wounds discreetly carved in the languorously beautiful corpse. 

Restored to its classical status, the human form is used by Michelangelo on a Promethean scale, conceived for all times in emulation of the master sculptors of Greco-Roman antiquity. 

Our Lady is made to look youthful, depicted in a peaceful repose; her face displays what can only be described as a serene and heavenly countenance.

This depiction of Mary reflects her incorruptible purity, as Michelangelo himself described to his biographer and fellow sculptor, Ascanio Condivi. 

God is the source of all beauty and Mary is the closest to God – therefore her exterior reflects the unshakable faith and moral purity of her interior. 

The structure of the statue is pyramidal with the vertex coinciding with Mary’s head. As the statue widens progressively down, the shining corpse of Christ stands out amid the backdrop of the monumental drapery of Mary’s garments and veil.

The base of the statue is the rock of Golgotha, positioned just above the altar where Mass is celebrated on rare occasion. 

Local guides point out how the body of Our Lord slides from Mary’s lap and her open arms onto the altar of sacrifice below, where Christ is received into the hearts of men in the Blessed Sacrament. 

Unfortunately, on May 21, 1972, Pentecost Sunday, a Hungarian-Australian geologist by the name of Lazlo Toth attacked the Pietà with his geologist’s hammer, striking it a dozen times.

As he raced at the statue with a hammer in raised arm, he shouted with crazed anger: “I am Jesus Christ, I have risen from the dead.” 

Toth had moved to Rome the year before and was 33 years of age at the time of the attack, the same age Christ was when he died. 

When the madman had finished his assault on the marble, the statue had sustained significant damage - Mary’s arm was broken at the elbow, her nose was left shattered, and a large piece was missing from one of her eyelids. 

No charges were brought against the attacker. The horrified authorities were convinced only a crazy man would commit such an act.

Toth spent two years in an Italian psychiatric hospital and was released in 1975, then deported to Australia where he died at age 74 in 2012.

Bob Cassilly, an American sculptor and artist from St. Louis, was one of the first responders who removed the attacker from the statue. He leapt up and grabbed him by the beard and they both fell into the crowd of security agents and alarmed tourists. 

Onlookers scrambled to collect the pieces of marble that fell to the floor. Not all the pieces were returned, including Mary’s nose, which had to be reconstructed from a piece of marble discreetly cut from the back of the statue. 

As Catholic commentator Dr. David Allen White opined, “This single act contains within it all the madness of recent centuries – a belief by man that he has become God, an assertion of the primacy of the individual will, a burning anger at the glories of the past and the beautiful art that embodies them, an attempt to remove the Blessed Virgin and Mother from her central place in God’s plan for man’s redemption, a lack of respect for the sacred sanctuary, and an assumption of innocence toward all the destroyers.” 

After the attack the Pietà was painstakingly restored according to photographs and returned to its place of honour in St. Peter’s Basilica. 

Until the attack, visiting priests had celebrated daily Mass for the faithful every morning in front of the statue. That ended. 

In addition, visitors to the Pietà had been permitted for centuries to gather in line and approach the statue to reverence with a kiss the marble foot of Christ. This practice of popular piety came to an abrupt end after the attack, a loss still lamented by locals. 

The Pietà has since been protected by bulletproof acrylic glass panels, an unfortunate security precaution deemed necessary in today’s world. 

J.P. Sonnen is a tour operator, history docent and travel writer with Orbis Catholic Travel LLC.