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Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History

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Class from how Stuff Works dot com.

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Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly

0:46

Frying and I'm Crazy V Wilson,

0:49

and today we're going to talk about what is perhaps

0:52

the most famous of all images in Christian

0:54

are are definitely one of the most famous, uh,

0:57

the Piata. And I was originally going

0:59

to research just the attack on Michelangelo's

1:02

piazza in nine two, and we

1:04

are going to talk about that. But as I got to

1:06

researching that, I ended up down this

1:08

sort of wonderful rabbit hole of

1:10

this image in art history is depicted

1:12

by many artists over time, and

1:15

specifically the ones that Michelangelo worked

1:17

on, because there were more than one. And we will

1:19

talk about all of those. So this episode

1:22

ended up really being a little bit of a smartest

1:24

board. There is a little bit of light art

1:26

history. There is a little bit about michel

1:28

Angelo, but we're not really doing a biography

1:30

of him. We're just talking about these works of art and kind

1:32

of some of his life surrounding them,

1:35

not in great depth, and a

1:38

bit about art defacement more than

1:40

one in fact. And we're also gonna touch

1:42

on the great care that is needed to

1:45

move a sculpture

1:47

of the nature of the famous piazza

1:50

that michel Angelo worked on. So we're getting

1:52

a little bit of all of that in today's episode. Just

1:55

in case you don't know the

1:58

Pieta and the jed world senses

2:00

any depiction or representation of

2:02

the Virgin Mary morning over

2:04

Christ's dead body. I

2:08

don't know why I suddenly was like that

2:10

sounded so bleak, right, Well,

2:12

it is bleak. They're

2:15

very sad, you should yeah.

2:18

Well, obviously the word derives from

2:20

the Latin word for pity. However,

2:23

the use of this word to apply to these

2:25

pieces comes after they

2:28

start to appear in art. Yeah,

2:31

we see them starting, these images

2:33

of of Mary holding Christ

2:36

after the crucifixion around the

2:38

thirteenth century, but that word doesn't

2:40

really come in in that sense until I

2:42

think the sixteen hundreds. So another

2:45

thing that's interesting is that although this

2:48

is a significant moment in the Christian religion,

2:50

this scene, in this this imagery,

2:52

that scene actually isn't present in the Gospels,

2:55

Like there's not a specific moment where they describe

2:57

this. Uh. The Christ

3:00

crucifixion is in there. The descent

3:02

from the cross, or the deposition

3:05

as it's often called uh, lamentation,

3:09

Christ being laid on the ground,

3:11

and the intombment are all there in the New Testament,

3:13

but there really is no description

3:16

of Mary cradling her son. Yet it became

3:18

a really important image.

3:21

An a lecture given by the Right Reverend Lord

3:23

Harry's at the Museum of London in March, the

3:26

speaker outlines the factors

3:28

that he believes contribute to the origin

3:31

of the pacha as a significant scene

3:33

in religious art, despite it not

3:35

actually being something that's ever mentioned in scripture.

3:38

Harry's describes the development of devotional

3:41

images versus narrative images,

3:43

and whereas narrative religious art clearly shows

3:46

a story playing out, devotional

3:48

imagery takes these images out of their

3:50

narrative context, and

3:53

this came about in the thirteen hundreds

3:55

in relation to an intense religious

3:57

reverence. These images were basically

3:59

so that the devoted could fixate

4:01

and think on the suffering of Christ as a

4:03

part of personal prayer and meditation. So,

4:06

as part of a group of common devotional images

4:09

to come out of Germany, specifically during the hundreds,

4:12

the scene of the pat I emerged.

4:15

This is due to the fact that Mary, as a religious

4:17

figure was gaining a greater position,

4:19

so her suffering too was to be

4:21

contemplated in devotionals.

4:23

Mary's pain and lament over Christ's

4:26

death had long been a part of religious

4:28

writings before the visual of

4:30

this moment of grief became a standard.

4:34

There are three main types of Pieta. The

4:37

first is the early German, in which the torso

4:39

of Christ is upright, with the head,

4:41

arms and legs at diagonal placements.

4:44

In relation to the torso, Christ

4:46

is often portrayed in a smaller size

4:48

compared to Mary. This hearkens back to his

4:50

child state. Sometimes when you see these, they're

4:52

a bit jarring because he looks

4:55

like an adult man, but he's very small in relation

4:57

to Mary. Uh and his

4:59

self ring is usually depicted in in great

5:02

depth and with clarity. He looks like he's in terrible

5:04

pain. Mary, for her part,

5:06

is often shown in deep sorrow. Her face is

5:08

often contorted with grief, and the

5:10

first of these images in this style date back

5:13

to again the early undreds.

5:16

The second type, which came about in the late

5:18

fifteenth century, is characterized by

5:20

Christ's body depicted with a continuous

5:23

curve. Mary's grief is often

5:25

more restrained in these, and she often

5:27

holds her hands in a prayer position

5:30

rather than holding the body of her son. And

5:33

the third type, which also dates back to the

5:35

fifteenth century, is characterized by

5:37

the body of Christ in a horizontal, usually

5:40

straighter position, and these often

5:42

feature more people in the tableau's

5:45

not just Christ and Mary, and there's

5:47

often a peaceful landscape in the background,

5:49

and sometimes there is an architectural feature.

5:52

Christ wounds are frequently, though not always,

5:54

less of a focus. It's a little bit of a softer

5:57

image, it's not so fraught with

5:59

grief. Between thirteen

6:01

hundred and fifteen hundred, personal

6:04

iconography became a lot more common. Previously

6:06

to that art had been more of a public

6:08

concept, so during this

6:11

period, works of art representing the

6:13

Pieta became more prevalent in people's

6:15

private homes instead of just out in public

6:18

spaces. So it is a little

6:20

bit early on, but in the next segment

6:22

it runs kind of long, and we're going to talk about the

6:24

three different versions of the Pieta created

6:26

by Michelangelo. So we're gonna pause

6:28

and do our sponsor break now so we can keep

6:31

all of that chunk together. So

6:33

to get back to the story and discussion

6:35

of Michelangelo's work. In

6:37

the fourteen nineties, Michelangelo, still

6:40

very young at this point, traveled from Florence

6:43

to Venice and to Bologna and eventually

6:45

ended up in Rome. In fourteen, when

6:48

Michelangelo was commissioned to create

6:50

his famous Pieta, he was only twenty

6:53

four. The contract was signed

6:55

on August. That

6:58

document is actually now part of the Attican's

7:00

collection. The work was intended

7:02

for the funeral chapel of St. Petronia

7:05

in St. Peter's Basilica. The

7:07

person who requested that art was the French

7:10

ambassador, Cardinal bill Air de la

7:12

Grela. That piece would

7:14

be part of the decor of the chapel where

7:17

he was to be interred and where funeral

7:19

services would be given for other people as

7:22

well. Once

7:24

tasked with this piece, uh

7:26

the artist Michelangelo set out to find

7:28

the most perfect block of marble he could

7:30

find. He found one eventually, which

7:32

he claimed had no faults, and he set

7:34

to work. Michelangelo worked

7:36

on Jean de Blare's commission from hundred

7:40

and he worked in the round, so he was able to access

7:43

all sides of the piece at once, and

7:45

the finished sculpture waste three

7:47

tons. Blaire had died in

7:50

he did not get to see the completed work. This

7:54

sculpture, which a lot of our listeners have probably

7:56

seen at least in pictures of Spectacular,

7:59

will include a link to the show notes with a virtual

8:01

tour of it online. It's really unique

8:03

in its peacefulness. Mary

8:05

appears to be very young. It's an appearance

8:08

that Michelangelo attributed to her purity

8:10

when people criticized his choice to

8:12

show her as a youth. The

8:15

torso wound of Christ is minimized,

8:17

and there is, above almost all else

8:20

the sense of serenity to the work. Rather

8:22

than suffering, Mary

8:25

is not directly touching the body of Christ

8:28

in this sculpture. There's actually a cloth carved

8:30

in between her hand and the side of his torso

8:33

where she's supporting him, and this denotes

8:35

the sacred nature of his physical body.

8:39

The relative sizes of the two figures

8:41

is also something to note. While

8:43

her head is proportional to her son's

8:45

in the sculpture, Mary's body is

8:48

larger, unlike in the early German

8:50

style of pH i works, it appears to be more

8:52

of the visual and logistical need. In Michelangelo's

8:55

sculpture, Mary's body needed

8:57

to be large enough to support her son, and

9:00

the depth of the cloth draped around

9:02

Mary gives the sculpture an incredibly

9:05

realistic effect, but also hides

9:07

the size disparity. And

9:10

this commission Peace was also intended

9:12

to sit above the altar in the Funeral

9:14

Chapter chapel, so part

9:16

of the size disparity was possibly to

9:18

add to a visual illusion both of

9:20

Mary offering up Christ just

9:22

as mourners were offering up their deceased

9:24

loved ones uh and also

9:27

if she had been a normal size in the sculpture,

9:29

like if you were standing near it, uh, she

9:31

then would have appeared unrealistically tiny.

9:34

Once the sculpture was placed in its intended

9:36

position in the chapel, and we know michel

9:38

Angelo kind of thought about these things and other

9:40

sculptures. It comes up. People will talk about

9:42

the David sometimes and how it was meant to be

9:45

displayed and how the proportions were affected.

9:47

So we know that he thought about this kind of thing, uh,

9:50

and that you know he was keenly

9:53

aware of how I and

9:55

sightline and presentation would

9:57

affect the need for size. This

10:00

was the only one of michel Angelo's

10:02

sculptures that he carved his full name into.

10:05

Allegedly, he had overheard visitors

10:07

attributing the work to another artist after

10:09

it had been installed in the chapel, and so he

10:11

made his mark on the ribbon draped across

10:14

Mary's chest by night. Later

10:16

on, though, he regretted having done that, and he vowed

10:19

to never again put his name on his work because

10:21

he found it to be prideful. And

10:24

this sculpture was so well received

10:26

that it was a really significant factor

10:29

in the launch of michel Angelo's career. This

10:31

was again very early on, he was in his twenties.

10:34

Immediately upon its reveal, this was seen

10:36

as a masterpiece, and other artists flocked

10:38

to the chapel to see it. And this

10:41

is sort of one of those wonderfully rare cases

10:43

of an artist actually appreciate being appreciated

10:45

in his time rather than after it because michel

10:47

Angelo lived another sixt or four years

10:50

after completing the Pietas, so he was able

10:52

to see the effect his work had on people

10:55

and how beloved it was from basically day

10:57

one of his existence. It kind of made

10:59

him a rock star. So the Pieta

11:01

that you think of when you hear the name Michelangelo,

11:03

that one that we have just been talking about. It's

11:06

his most famous, but not his only

11:08

depiction of that moment. His

11:11

second Piazza, also known as the Florentine

11:14

Pieta, and the deposition was

11:16

worked on over a number of years, beginning in fifty

11:19

seven, and this piece was not commissioned.

11:21

It was intended by the artist to adorn

11:23

his own final resting place, and

11:25

as such was something of a passion project.

11:28

The Florentine Pichi is kind of a puzzler.

11:30

It's meeting is not immediately clear.

11:33

Both the stage of the Christ's narrative and he was

11:35

included in the tableau have really been debated

11:38

by art historians at great length.

11:41

In the narrative context, some elements

11:43

of the piece indicate that it's a representation

11:45

of the deposition, Others

11:48

hint that it's more of a Pieta, and yet

11:50

others lead people to interpretation that

11:52

it's supposed to be the entombment of Christ.

11:56

It's even possible that Michelangelo

11:58

intended to blend multiple narratives

12:00

into this one work. And

12:02

there are four figures in this sculpture, so

12:04

already we're at a departure from the classic

12:07

marry in Christ set up. One

12:10

is Christ, one is the Virgin Mary,

12:12

and another person is Mary Magdalene.

12:15

But the fourth figure is where the confusion

12:17

and the variant interpretations really come into

12:19

play. This fourth figure is a

12:21

hooded figure and its male and stands

12:24

above the other three. And it is not entirely

12:26

clear to everyone who's

12:29

supposed to be. I will say when I say that,

12:31

there are people who believe very firmly that they

12:33

know who it's supposed to be, but debate

12:35

continues. It could

12:37

be the biblical figure Joseph of

12:40

Arimathea, who provided his own intended

12:42

tomb as the resting place for Jesus after

12:44

the crucifixion. It could be

12:47

Nicodemus, the Pharisee, who appears

12:49

in the Gospel of John and assists

12:51

in the burial of Jesus. The Nicodemus

12:54

interpretation is a common one.

12:57

If the figure is Joseph of aramassay

13:00

that that figure combined with the presence

13:02

of Mary Magdalen, would suggest that this is

13:04

an intombant piece, as those two figures

13:06

are traditionally more associated with art

13:09

depicting that phase of the narrative. If

13:11

it is Nicodemus, it may hint more strongly

13:13

at being the deposition, as both Joseph

13:16

and Nicodemus are featured in that element

13:18

in the narrative traditionally in art, but

13:20

Nicodemus is not normally featured

13:22

in depictions of the entombment. In

13:25

fifty five, michel Angelo attempted

13:28

to destroy the Florentine pat

13:30

He was successful in breaking off Christ's

13:33

left leg and arm, and

13:35

he chipped other sections. And

13:38

why he did this is unclear, but there

13:40

are a number of theories, and the truth may

13:43

lie in some combination of several

13:45

or all of them. One is that the

13:47

artist was troubled by a particularly

13:49

problematic vein in the marble, which frustrated

13:52

him to the point of despair, and he just got

13:54

angry and wanted to smatch it. Anybody

13:56

who's done something creative can know that those moments

13:59

happen. Another is that

14:01

his servant had been nagging him to finish

14:03

the piece, which made him irritated with the whole

14:05

enterprise again to the point where he was just

14:08

frustrated and angry. Those

14:10

two reasons were given by Michelangelo himself

14:12

when pressed on the matter in the

14:14

account written by one of his contemporaries,

14:17

Georgia Vasari. The third

14:19

and fourth theories and exactly what

14:21

happened are a little bit more involved. So

14:24

the first of these involves the placement of Christ's

14:26

leg, which is slung across his mother's lap,

14:29

and that this was a problematic symbol that

14:31

michel Angelo believed could be

14:33

misconstrued, or that he felt that he hadn't

14:35

properly captured. So at this

14:37

point in our history, a leg placed in another's

14:40

lap held a sexual meaning.

14:42

It suggested that the pair involved

14:44

in this crossing of legs across laps

14:47

were romantically or erotically entwined,

14:50

and for Christ to have his leg in his mother's lap,

14:52

though actually easily fit in with the symbolism

14:55

of Mary representing the church as the bride

14:57

of Christ. So this was not necessarily an

14:59

issue, and there was existing art

15:01

at the time that included the leg of Christ

15:04

draped across Mary as he was taken

15:06

down in the deposition, and and as in a state

15:09

where the body is not supported by the self,

15:11

so it's it's drooping and it's

15:13

falling. It

15:15

is possible, however, though,

15:18

that michel Angelo was concerned that there

15:20

could be confusion, and so he intended

15:22

to alter this piece by first removing

15:24

the leg, so it was less of a destruction

15:27

situation and more of a let's a race

15:29

and start over and fix some pieces.

15:32

The fourth theory involves

15:34

the figure again. It's often been

15:36

discussed that the Nicodemus figure was

15:38

also intended to be a self portrait

15:40

of michel Angelo. As Nicodemus

15:42

had connections to sculpting, this would have been

15:44

a pretty natural move on the part of the artist,

15:47

but michel Angelo had become more involved

15:50

with the school of belief known as Nicodemism,

15:53

which didn't wish to separate from

15:55

the Catholic Church, but also held beliefs

15:58

more in line with Protestant values. He

16:00

may have intended to remove his likeness

16:03

as Nicodemus from the work in

16:05

order to avoid suspicion that he was

16:07

actually a religious dissenter. Eventually,

16:10

Michelangelo consented to allow one of

16:12

his pupils, to Burriocalcani,

16:15

to restore the piece, but not the

16:17

leg, which may give credence to the slung

16:19

leg theory. Cal Kani's work

16:22

was eventually completed. He did restore the

16:25

other elements that have been broken, and it

16:27

is now on display at the Museu dela

16:29

del Duomo in Florence, Italy. In

16:32

the fifteen fifties, michel Angelo

16:34

began yet a third Pieta

16:37

sculpture, the Rondanini Pieta.

16:39

He worked on this piece right up until the

16:41

week of his death in fifteen sixty four.

16:44

Like the Florentine Pieta, this work

16:46

was intended for himself rather than as

16:48

a commission, and it breaks from the structure

16:51

of the earlier works, depicting

16:53

this moment. Instead of Mary

16:55

holding her son in front of her, she stands

16:58

behind him, not supporting him.

17:00

It almost looks from some angles

17:02

as though he is actually supporting her. And

17:06

this is a less refined and nuanced work

17:08

than his two other pietas. If you look

17:10

at photographs of them, you can tell obviously

17:12

by comparison to the Roman Piazza,

17:14

which is just the spectacular, beautiful, realistic

17:17

looking thing, this is not at that level,

17:19

And in part that was because near the

17:22

time of his death he hacked apart

17:24

a lot of this statue and intended

17:26

to start over, and he retained only

17:28

one of Christ's arms from the original

17:31

part of his work. In ninety

17:33

four, the sculpture was loaned to the

17:35

New York World's Fair, where it was displayed

17:38

as part of the Vatican Pavilion behind bulletproof

17:40

glass. More specifically, it was displayed

17:43

behind seven sheets of bulletproof plexiglass,

17:45

each of which weighed about seven hundred

17:48

pounds, which is about three eights

17:51

But just to get the sculpture to New

17:53

York from the Vatican took an

17:55

incredible and careful effort.

17:58

Properly packing and trans warding

18:00

this priceless piece was a work of really

18:02

careful engineering. A special

18:04

committee called the Vatican Pavilion Transport

18:07

Committee was formed to address this task,

18:10

and one of the challenges involved here was that

18:13

no one really knew for certain precisely

18:15

how delicate or fragile or

18:17

strong the statue was. At this point it

18:20

had been sitting in the Vatican for hundreds of years,

18:22

and there was a danger of internal fissures

18:24

in the marble that couldn't be seen, uh

18:27

just from external examination, but

18:29

that could cause it to crack if it was bumped or

18:32

moved in the wrong way. When the piece

18:34

had been moved within the Vatican

18:36

roughly two centuries prior to this New

18:38

York adventure, the left hand of the Virgin

18:41

Mary had suffered damage, so there

18:43

was a very real awareness of the danger

18:45

involved in an overseas

18:47

voyage. Radiologists from

18:49

Eastman Kodak were called in to make films

18:52

of the Pieta, and the marble was determined

18:54

to be perfect, although X rays did

18:56

clearly show pins that had been used to

18:58

repair the damaged hand. Just

19:01

the same, the engineers working on the packaging

19:03

approached the job with the assumption that there

19:05

were indeed fissures, so they designed the

19:07

most shockproof ride that they possibly

19:10

could. There were

19:12

three nesting cases initially

19:14

made for the job. The exterior case was

19:16

steel and inside that were two wooden

19:19

cases, and inside those was the pie

19:21

top and the weight of the cases.

19:23

The statue and all of the packing materials

19:25

had to be carefully calculated to

19:28

ensure that as the parcel traveled across the

19:30

Atlantic Ocean on a ship, any

19:32

shock would be at an absolute minimum,

19:34

and that all physical extensions of the arts

19:36

of the pieces that are separate away from

19:39

the main central piece

19:41

would be carefully cradled and supported,

19:44

with the void spaces carefully managed

19:46

and braced. If you have access

19:48

to j Store, one of my sources on this is

19:50

a very fantastic and very technical

19:53

article about all of this, which includes

19:55

tables of calculation for static stress

19:57

and all kinds of other testing laid

20:00

out in graph and table form. So if you're

20:02

interested in the nitty gritty of the engineering

20:04

around this, I highly recommend you go take a

20:06

peek at that. To test the

20:08

design, a plaster replica of another

20:11

Michelangelo statue, Moses, was

20:13

used to perform drop tests from

20:15

heights ranging from a hundred and

20:17

seven to two hundred and sixty centimeters

20:19

in similar packaging. The

20:21

combination of nesting cases and loose

20:24

phone fill proved successful in this testing.

20:27

Compression testing was also performed.

20:29

Eventually, the second inner case was abandoned

20:32

to enable the use of more phone polystyrene,

20:35

which added both cushion and

20:37

buoyancy should things go awry

20:39

at sea. I

20:42

can't imagine how stressed I would be if

20:44

I were one of the people tasked with figuring

20:46

this out. Why are you doing this?

20:48

It made me stress just reading this

20:51

guy and this the article I

20:53

mentioned was written by one of the engineers

20:55

that worked on this, and it made me stress just reading

20:57

his description of it, even though he seemed very

20:59

like, Okay, we're solving these problems,

21:01

we're figuring it out, we're being meticulous and thorough

21:04

and careful, but oh it was stressful.

21:06

Uh So the packing procedure to actually

21:09

get the sculpture into this casing was

21:11

just as carefully planned as the

21:13

design of the packaging itself. So

21:16

for that previously broken hand that we mentioned,

21:19

each of the digits uh was wrapped

21:21

in elastic bandage individually,

21:24

and then they carefully packed foam polystyrene

21:27

in the gaps between the fingers, and

21:29

then the whole hand was wrapped again. That's

21:32

just one example of sort of the care that they were taking.

21:34

And the assembly of the wooden crate was

21:37

carefully choreographed, like they

21:39

had an exact number

21:42

of stages in order of stages

21:44

that like, every piece had

21:46

to be put together as the

21:49

sculpture was going into the crate. Uh.

21:52

And at multiple stages the foam polystyrene

21:54

which was in the form of these dilute beads,

21:56

was added. And again there is more and

21:58

more more detail of this extraordinarily

22:01

complex and careful effort in the

22:03

article, which I can't stop talking about to everyone

22:05

because I'm in love with that article. The

22:10

exterior steel case was painted white

22:12

with blue markings and orange on top,

22:14

because that's the most easy to see color

22:17

at sea. The case was then

22:19

escorted extremely slowly on trucks

22:21

to the dock. Police escorted it there, and

22:23

it was cabled to the deck of the transport

22:25

ship with extreme care and precision.

22:29

And that journey across the

22:31

ocean, like to get to the docks, to get

22:33

to the ship, to get across the ocean to get to New York,

22:36

was just incredibly kind. Uh.

22:39

That engineer that wrote that article was saying, we did

22:41

all this work, and thankfully

22:43

our work, like our our

22:46

skills were never really tested, because

22:48

at no point did the parcel

22:50

ever shift like drop unprepared

22:53

more than a third of a centimeter so

22:55

really all of that engineering effort, they

22:57

were all happy to do it and they were glad it was never

23:00

we put to the test. But we don't know if

23:02

they really, like did everything perfect,

23:05

Like if it had fallen, we don't know still if

23:07

it would have survived or not. Well

23:09

in the sea is also the sea moves

23:12

a lot. There.

23:14

I saw a terrifying photograph

23:18

of this case just strapped

23:20

to the deck of the ship like it wasn't inside

23:23

it was And that was all part of like the

23:25

plan because it was

23:27

waterproof, and it was determined that that was a

23:29

safer way to do it than to put it in a cargo hold.

23:32

But oh my god, it

23:34

was so stressful to look at

23:36

these pictures. The

23:38

p h I was not the only art that was sent

23:40

to New York by the Vatican. It traveled along

23:43

with an even older sculpture, The Good

23:45

Shepherd, But the p h I was

23:47

really the star of the show. It was displayed

23:50

against a blue lip background surrounded

23:52

by vertical strings of votive lights.

23:55

Millions of people visited the pavilions

23:58

to view it, and you can find photograp grafts

24:00

and home movies taking up of the display

24:02

online. Yeah, there are

24:04

lots of those available. If you just do an

24:07

Internet search for Pieta New

24:09

York World's Fair, you'll instantly see just

24:11

dozens and dozens of in many

24:13

cases really beautifully taken photographs

24:16

of how it was displayed. And

24:18

the World's Fair appearance of the Roman Piezza

24:21

was so incredibly popular that the Vaticans

24:23

started receiving a steady stream of

24:25

requests for the statue to be loaned for other

24:28

events. And overwhelmed

24:30

by all of this correspondence and unwilling

24:32

to take the risk of having this prize work

24:34

of art on a prolonged tour, the

24:37

Vatican ended up issuing a statement that michel

24:39

Angelo's Pieta would stay in St. Peter's

24:41

permanently once it returned home. Although

24:46

the no travel announcement was made

24:48

in part to keep the Pietas safe, trouble

24:50

still befell the statue in nineteen seventy

24:53

two. Uh And

24:55

this was originally the only thing I was going to talk about,

24:57

but obviously I got interested in lots of other

24:59

stuff along the way. Uh So, while

25:01

visiting St. Peter's Basilica in nineties

25:04

two, a thirty three year old Hungarian

25:06

man named Laslow toss,

25:09

jumped over an altar railing and attacked

25:11

the pieta. He was able to hit

25:13

the statue twelve times with a hammer. Mary's

25:16

left arm and hand were damaged. The arm was completely

25:19

severed off, and her nose was broken

25:21

into three parts. Her left

25:23

eyelid, head and neck were also

25:25

damaged, and when the attack was over, more

25:27

than one hundred fragments had been knocked

25:29

from the statue. Poth was subdued

25:31

by tourists and security guards and he was

25:33

taken away. He yelled throughout

25:36

the incident, I am Jesus Christ. Christ

25:38

has risen from the dead. He went

25:40

on to claim that God had told him

25:42

to destroy Mary's image because

25:45

he, as Laslow slash Christ,

25:47

is eternal, he could have no mother.

25:51

There was a great deal of debate about

25:54

how to repair the statue, and in fact

25:56

whether it should be repaired at all. There were

25:58

plenty of art historians making

26:01

the case that it should be left in

26:03

its damaged state as sort of a historical

26:07

record of the attack. Eventually,

26:09

however, the decision was made to perform

26:11

a thorough and careful restoration

26:13

which would leave no obvious visual

26:15

clues as to what had happened. Over

26:18

the course of five months, fragments

26:20

and pieces were identified and cataloged.

26:23

Once that process was complete, a lab

26:25

was set up around the statue so it could

26:27

be worked on without removing it from the chapel,

26:31

and a combination of an invisible

26:33

glue and marble powder UH

26:35

was used as a fixative, and restorers

26:38

painstakingly placed each broken

26:40

piece back into position. And they didn't

26:42

even actually have every missing piece, which

26:44

they knew based on their months of inventory

26:47

work that they had done prior to reassembly. I'm

26:52

so angry. I know, I

26:55

know. This is the part where of like, oh, this did

26:58

get sad at the end of a couple of reasons.

27:00

One missing piece did arrive in an anonymous

27:03

parcel from the United States of visiting

27:05

tourists who had witnessed the attack took

27:07

one of the pieces home, but then mailed it back

27:09

over feeling guilt over the superstitious

27:12

souvenir. Many other tourists

27:14

took shards as well, which were never never returned.

27:17

And I would like to say, what is wrong with you?

27:20

Yeah, I as I was thinking about it,

27:23

UH writing up these notes, I was just thinking

27:25

about how many tiny pieces of the Pieta

27:27

are spread no

27:30

telling where throughout the globe, which

27:33

is just an oddly shocking

27:35

thought to me. Fortunately, a mold

27:37

of the piazza had also been made before this

27:39

attack happened, and using that

27:42

the remaining missing pieces were recreated

27:44

and replaced. So after ten

27:46

months of research and restoration, so

27:48

remember it took five months just to do the cataloging

27:50

and then roughly another five to do

27:53

the actual reassembly, the

27:55

sculpture that had made michel Angelo famous

27:58

was back on display for public viewings, though

28:01

once again, as it had been at the World Fair, it

28:03

was placed behind protective bulletproof glass

28:05

and it still is. As

28:07

for Laslow taught, his story is patchy

28:10

and sad. At the time of the

28:12

attack, he was a former geologist,

28:14

unemployed at the time of the incident, and deemed

28:16

to be mentally unstable. He claimed,

28:19

as he shouted during the assault on the Pieta

28:21

to beat Jesus Christ and sometimes Michaelangelo.

28:24

And I want to clarify that my what is wrong

28:26

with you is about nondisturbed

28:29

people who took pieces of a century old

28:31

piece of art home with them. Yeah,

28:34

that was what I presumed you. I just wanted

28:36

to make sure because I know somebody's going to write

28:38

us an email about it. And I'm talking about

28:40

the tourists who took pieces of at home.

28:43

Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. Like

28:45

I said, I just imagined how many tiny pieces

28:47

are spread throughout the world when they should be back

28:49

with statue. But uh yeah, talks.

28:52

Story is continues

28:54

to be sad. Uh. In the years prior to

28:56

this violent outburst, he had moved

28:58

from Hungary to Australia. Although

29:00

he did not speak any English,

29:03

his degree as a geologist was not recognized

29:05

in Australia and so he ended up having to work factory

29:07

jobs. He did, in fact, try

29:09

to unionize some

29:12

of those jobs, and he worked on that until

29:14

he was in a violent fight in nineteen sixty

29:16

seven, and in that fight he fractured his skull.

29:19

He vanished for some time after that injury,

29:21

and then he would turn up in familiar spots, though

29:23

only briefly, before venturing to Italy in

29:25

nineteen seventy two. And it sounds like the people

29:28

that knew him found

29:30

him to be very different when he reappeared

29:32

than he had been prior to that injury. No

29:35

criminal charges were ever filed against

29:37

him. He was, and said, instead sent

29:39

to a psychiatric institution for two years.

29:42

When he was released in nineteen seventy five, he

29:44

was deported back to Australia. His

29:48

story goes cold after that. It's

29:50

inspired various creative works, and there

29:52

are certainly corners of the Internet where

29:54

tall tales of sightings and theories about

29:56

his life after he left Europe just abound

30:00

it. It appears that tough all but vanished

30:02

once he got back to Australia. Yeah,

30:05

we just there is like

30:07

no thread of what happened to him after that.

30:10

Uh, troubling

30:12

on a variety of levels.

30:14

Um, So we don't know if he could still

30:16

be alive, if he you

30:18

know, went on to let a completely different

30:21

life, if he lives a life of anonymity.

30:23

We just have no idea.

30:26

It always seemed

30:28

to me reading about this because I

30:31

remember, I mean, I was born

30:33

in the very early seventies, so I remember this

30:35

was an event that was talked about a lot in my

30:37

family. My mother's side of the family particularly

30:40

is very devout Roman Catholic and

30:42

and this was something that would come up in conversation

30:44

often. And I remember,

30:46

like I always had questions about the

30:49

perpetrator, and they

30:51

never had answers but and now that I have done a

30:53

little bit more research, it appears no one has answers,

30:55

and it always seems sort of cruel that when he got out

30:57

of a mental institution, he was deported

31:00

and there was no further care

31:02

or concern about his treatment.

31:05

Uh. But yeah, so we don't know. What

31:08

we do know is that Michelangelo's Pieta is

31:10

still currently on display in St. Peter's

31:12

Basilica in Rome. You

31:14

can go visit it, and if you can't go visit

31:16

it in person, like I said, there is a Pieta

31:19

virtual tour that you can visit

31:21

online and zoom in and see

31:23

it fairly up close. There's also been a number

31:25

of just spectacular photographs taken of it over

31:27

the years, so it is easy to

31:30

to look at and examine and appreciate the

31:32

incredible work for yourself. It's

31:34

it's one of those pieces of sculpture that, um

31:37

when you hear people talk about it, even

31:40

people that are not religious speak about it,

31:42

in incredible

31:44

having a just an incredible sense of

31:47

a sort of otherworldly experience

31:49

because it is so just indescribably

31:52

beautiful and sort of moving. So

31:54

it's a piece of love. I think it's gorgeous. I

31:57

love to talk about a little bit of art here and there. Yeah,

32:01

I heard you also have some cool listener mail.

32:03

I do. I have some fun listener

32:05

mail. This one comes from our

32:08

listener, Joshua. He says,

32:10

Hello, Tracy and Holly, thank you for your work on stuff

32:12

you missed in history. I've enjoyed

32:14

it for a couple of years and have dived into the archives

32:17

in search of little treasures. I just listened to the

32:19

Mind Disaster episode in which

32:21

someone lamented about how most requests are about

32:23

wars and disasters. That was me. Yeah,

32:26

that was Tracy. Some of it may be morbid

32:28

fascination, but some of it, and I speak for myself.

32:30

Here is also a look back on what we survived

32:32

and when humanity has shown its best.

32:35

Even in the Mind Disaster, the countryside

32:37

of two countries showed up to help. Also,

32:39

those who do not learn the mistakes of history are doomed

32:42

to repeat them. Besides, I also used

32:44

a little gem of knowledge glean from your show to win a

32:46

battle in Super Fight. So

32:48

he says, bring on the shipwrecks, the disasters, the wars

32:50

and accidents, Bring on the plagues, the disappearances,

32:53

the mythology, and the crimes, because in each one

32:55

of those we see many stand to make something wrong

32:57

into something right. But what was

32:59

really interesting is that we also got a parcel

33:02

with this letter, and it says, as a thank

33:04

you for all you've done for free for me, I give

33:06

you something to enjoy for yourself and a few friends.

33:08

I call it the hand Huggy the mitt for

33:10

lovers, and it is this ingenious and wondrous

33:13

thing which is a little sort

33:15

of pocket with a cuff on

33:17

it so you can you and your

33:19

beloved can hold hands in the winter

33:22

and nobody has cold hands you can. It fits

33:24

two hands together and that

33:26

way everybody's got warmth. I love this idea.

33:29

It's so cute. Uh If if

33:31

you want to check it out, you can hand

33:33

Huggy dot com. And his

33:35

mother, who works at Eulogia

33:38

Studio, made the prototype

33:40

and now he produces them. I love it. It's so cute.

33:43

We also got some really beautiful postcards which

33:45

I won't read, but I'm going to put them on

33:47

our social feed

33:49

so people can see them. From Sonja. We

33:52

got a beautiful one from Canada,

33:54

and we got another lovely one from

33:58

I think it is Lynda

34:00

aid at Lindy. I think it's

34:02

a Lindy and I'm sorry. It's once again a

34:04

case where she probably wrote it very leegibly, but

34:07

the postal service has put marks over it. And

34:10

this is a postcard from Cape Town. So

34:13

thank you for all of our listeners that send us wonderful

34:15

fun things. I'm totally using my hand

34:17

huggy, that's for sure, and I wanted

34:19

to mention he Joseph talked about how this

34:22

came about because it's considered like a pocket

34:24

for lovers. But when I was sharing it with Julie

34:26

Douglas, who works here with us, her first thought

34:28

was that her little girl would love it because little

34:30

kids like the whole hands at their parents. But it's cold

34:32

out and they know want cold hands. So thank

34:35

you, thank you, Thank you too, Joshua.

34:37

I really appreciate it as though, Tracy.

34:40

So if you would like to write to us, you can do that.

34:42

We are in History podcast a house to works

34:44

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34:46

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34:49

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34:51

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34:54

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34:56

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34:58

history dot com. We have an archive I of every

35:00

episode of the show that has ever happened. We

35:02

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35:04

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35:07

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35:10

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35:12

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35:14

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35:16

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35:18

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35:24

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