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An exhibition on art and friendship Vittoria muse of Michelangelo
[Susan Glasspool]
The new exhibition opening at the Buonarroti house is entitled Vittoria Colonna and Michelangelo and based on the deep platonic friendship between Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna, Marquise of Pescara (1490-1547), which has always fascinated historians. Thus Ascanio Condivi described this intense relationship - "In particular he was very fond of the Marquise of Pescara" - in his Life of Michelagnolo Buonarroti (1553), much of which was based on what the great master told him. The couple corresponded regularly and Vittoria often visited Rome just to see him. Michelangelo was extremely fond of her and grieved for long after her death.
Their friendship coincided the difficult stage in the artist's career that accompanied and coincided with his execution of the Last Judgement and the long drawn-out battle over the funeral monument for Pope Julius II.
The private and intellectual dialogue between Michelangelo and Vittoria, both of them involved in the spiritual restlessness that was soon to be suffocated by the Council of Trent, was to inspire some of the extraordinarily original religious subjects devised by the artist.
The exhibition illustrates the various aspects of Vittoria Colonna’s life, her ideas and personality, reconstructing the Humanistic environment in Naples, where Vittoria was brought up and educated, and its connections with all the most important courts in Italy, from Mantua to Milan, Ferrara, Urbino and Venice, encouraging the circulation of art and literarature.
In her youth Vittoria, related to the Dukes of Urbino, Montefeltro and the Gonzagas, often stayed at the Castle of Ischia, the property of the Avalos family and, in fact, in 1509, married Francesco Ferrante d'Avalos to whom she had been betrothed from childhood. The exhibition continues by illustrating the period following the Sack of Rome (1527), when Vittoria, by then a widow, hosted many writers and humanists at Ischia. Her beauty was to inspire many poets, among them Ludovico Ariosto, and by the 1570’s Vittoria, influenced by one of the greatest protagonists of the time, Pietro Bembo, was writing herself, in particular poetry, and already showing signs of her own spiritual unease. She first came into contact with Michelangelo when she asked him, as well as Titian, to carry out paintings of Mary Magdalen for her. The last part of the show therefore illustrates their friendship, with a series of documents, drawings and paintings. This show is a unique chance to find out more about this intellectually refined woman and her spiritual affinity with one of Florence’s greatest artists and definitely not to be missed!
Exhibition details
Entrance: e 6,50 / 4,00 (including Museum).
Address: Casa Buonarroti, Via Ghibellina, 70
Bookings and Info:
tel. 055.2340742 - fax 055.244145
Monday-Friday 9am-1pm - 2.30-6pm
Hours: 9.30am-2pm
From May 24th to September 12th
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