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By Maria Wiering
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Thursday, 11 February 2010 |
Derek Olson and Manny Schwartz of Manny’s Piano Moving, Inc., prepare to move a statue into the Cathedral Feb. 11. It will be unveiled on Ash Wednesday at 7 a.m., when the doors of the Cathedral open for those wishing to come to the 7:30 Ash Wednesday service. - Photo by Dave Hrbacek/The Catholic Spirit
Any passerby would have taken a bewildered second look.
A statue was sitting on a Selby Avenue sidewalk outside the Cathedral of St. Paul Feb. 10, waiting to be moved inside. Even though it was sheathed in layers of plastic, its form was unmistakable.
It was Michelangelo’s Pietà.
The replica statue is currently situated in the Cathedral, although it’s covered by a blanket. It will remain hidden from public view until Feb. 17, when it will be unveiled before the 7:30 a.m. Ash Wednesday Mass.
On its moving day, five men — including two from Manny’s Piano Moving — carefully hoisted it through the Cathedral’s doors. They carried it to a designated spot in front of the Chapel of the Sacred Heart, near the Cathedral’s Dayton Avenue entrance.
After the men positioned the 750-pound statue on a wooden platform, Cathedral operations director Tim Schindler carefully peeled back the plastic, revealing the figures’ creamy, polished limbs, garments and faces. Mary gazed serenely at her lifeless son, as she held his body after he was taken down from the cross.
The Ash Wednesday unveiling kicks off the statue’s nation-wide tour. Created with Vatican consent by Nevada-based limited liability company Vescovo Buonarroti Art, it will also make other stops in North America.
Vescovo Buonarroti Art has the first-ever worldwide exclusive license agreement with the Vatican Observatory Foundation to produce and distribute the official replica of Michelangelo’s Pietà.
An Italian artist, Michelangelo Buonarroti carved his Pietà from marble in 1499, when he was 25 years old. It was the first of three Pietàs he created; the other two are considered unfinished. Always depicting a scene of Mary with the crucified Christ after his deposition, the pietà — Italian for “pity” — was popular in Medieval and Renaissance Christian imagery.
Art for learning
According to a press release, artisans made the casting from a bonded marble blend, and the results are said to be faithful to the original, including the visibility of Michelangelo’s own signature across the sash of Mary’s dress. Pietà is the only work Michelangelo ever signed.
“[The Cathedral] is here for faith, and it’s here for learning. And this is definitely for learning,” said Carolyn Will, Cathedral media relations representative.
This is not the first time the Pietà is on view for an American audience. The Vatican loaned the actual Pietà to the United States for the 1964 New York World’s Fair, honoring a promise by Pope John XXIII to the late Cardinal Francis Spellman, Archbishop of New York.
Pietà replicas are on display in a handful of U.S. locations including the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, St. Mary’s Parish in Spring Lake, Mich., and the Queens Museum of Art in New York.
Visitors to the Cathedral of St. Paul will get a closer look at the statue than they would at St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City, where the original statue is displayed. Because a mentally unstable visitor severely damaged the statute with hammer blows in 1972, the repaired Pietà is now separated from its viewers by bulletproof glass.
The replica on display at the Cathedral will provide the rare opportunity to see the statue from all sides.
Steven Bishop, owner of Vescovo Buonarroti Art, said that the statue’s nationwide tour is starting at the Cathedral because it is “the most beautiful cathedral in the country.”
Bishop hopes the statues will find buyers, and the royalties will benefit Vatican astronomy and scientific research.
View a video of the statue HERE.
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