Vesperbild, an exhibition at Milan's Castello Sforzesco on the theme at the origins of Michelangelo's Pieta

On view from October 13, 2018 to January 13, 2019, at the Sale dell’Antico Ospedale Spagnolo of the Castello Sforzesco in Milan, is the exhibition Vesperbild. At the Origins of Michelangelo’s Pietà, curated by Antonio Mazzotta and Claudio Salsi with the collaboration of Agostino Allegri and Giovanna Mori. The exhibition aims to illustrate the fortune in Italy, and in particular in the Renaissance, of the iconographic theme of the Vesperbild (literally “image of the vespers”), translated in our country into the well-known theme of the Pietà (Michelangelo’s Pietà itself draws its origins from the Nordic Vesperbild).

The exhibition traces the different junctures and degrees of the development of this iconography, from the earliest Nordic examples to the classical interpretation provided by Michelangelo in the aforementioned Vatican Pietà (a cast of which will be on display in the exhibition) and destined to condition the perception of the theme in the centuries to come.

The presence of Michelangelo’s Pieta Rondanini in the museum dedicated to her, adjacent to the exhibition and right in the Castello Sforzesco, underscores the theme of the “return to the origins”: with this work we witness the master’s desire to return, at the end of his life, to the expressiveness of the oldest forms of the Vesperbild. The exhibition features loans from major national and international institutions, from the Louvre to the Victoria and Albert Museum to the Poldi Pezzoli Museum in Milan. Artists will include names such as Cosmé Tura, Francesco del Cossa, Ercole de’ Roberti, Giovanni Bellini, and Perugin. Also on public display for the first time is Vittore Carpaccio’s Pietà, now housed in a private collection.

The exhibition itinerary, designed by Andrea Perin, is divided into three sections and aims to tell the story of the Vesperbild through nearly two centuries, from the wooden sculptures of the Rhine Valley in the early 14th century to Michelangelo’s Vatican Pietà (1497-1499): an interpretation of the Vesperbild capable of decisively marking future declinations of the iconographic theme, to which posterity will absolutely refer, in characters and features.

The exhibition can be visited every day except Monday (closing day) from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Free admission. For more information see the dedicated section on the Castello Sforzesco website.

In the photo: a detail of Michelangelo’s Pietà Rondanini.

Vesperbild, an exhibition at Milan's Castello Sforzesco on the theme at the origins of Michelangelo's Pieta

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