2 The Pietà, Saint Peter’s Basilica

YOU’LL FEEL THE PULL of the greatest sculpture ever made as soon as you enter the doors of Saint Peter’s. It’s over there, to your right. Where cameras are flashing. Where tourists are posing. Where among the crowd there is at least one nun. Get close: the Pietà. Pietà means pity. And compassion. 02 pieta.jpg

Has compassion ever looked more beautiful? How did Michelangelo make marble flow? How did he capture such grace and serenity in Mary’s face?

Michelangelo modeled the face of Mary after his mother: his mother who died when he was six.

He got all kinds of criticism for it. “Mary looks too young,” people said. “If she has a thirty-three-year-old son, she’s gotta be at least forty-five.”

And Michelangelo said: “A woman so pure of body and soul is eternally young.”

He was twenty-two, in 1498, when French Cardinal Jean de Bilheres, thinking ahead, commissioned Michelangelo to sculpt this image for his tomb. The Cardinal gave him 450 papal ducats. Not that Michelangelo cared much about money. He slept in his clothes in his studio; got his nose broken in drunken street brawls.

After he signed the contract, Michelangelo took off to Carrara in Tuscany to pick out the best piece of marble for the Pietà. He believed “Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”

Michelangelo was supposed to have the Pietà done in 1500, for the Holy Year. But when the pilgrims came through, he was still working on it. They stood back and watched Michelangelo free the statue from the stone. Can you imagine? They thought it was amazing—divine grace made flesh. They went back home spreading the word.

When it was finally unveiled, Michelangelo heard visitors saying he didn’t sculpt it, that another artist, Gobbo di Milano, did. He got so enraged he snuck in late at night and carved his name onto Mary’s sash. It was the only work he ever signed. He always regretted it.

This is one of the many masterpieces in Italy that may hold a memory for you of the first time you saw it. Maybe it was on a postcard or a slide in art history class.

For me, each time I see it in Rome, I’m pulled back to 1964, when the Pietà came to New York for the World’s Fair. I lined up with the crowd, my mother behind me. The Vatican Pavilion!

We stepped onto a moving walkway. I heard a chorus singing “Alleluia, Alleluia.” I felt my mother’s hands on my shoulder. The room was draped in blue velvet with a sparkling light over the Pietà.

We floated by. It was the first A-R-T that I ever saw. I was seven, the age of reason. I wondered: How could something sad be beautiful? I heard gasps. I took a long look and reasoned: Beautiful.

Saint Peter’s Basilica: Daily 7-6:30 (www.vatican.va)

Golden Day: See the Pietà and the rest of the awe-inspiring St. Peter’s Basilica. Have lunch at Da Benito e Gilberto (Via del Falco, 19, 06 686 7769, reservations recommended, closed Sunday), a cozy family run place that serves great fish. Or if your timing is such that a caffè or wine bar is the right choice, head to Sorpasso (Via Properzio 31-33, 06 8902 4554) or its nearby sister wine bar Passaguai (www.passaguai.it, Via Pomponio Leto 1, 06 8745 1358).

TIP: Best to go in the afternoon, when the lines where you are screened to enter (like in airport security) are shorter. Avoid Wednesday mornings when there are Papal Audiences in the square.