Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the concepts covered in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book offers a well-balanced apportioning of two complementary tools: the careful reinterpretation of Michelangelo's texts in light of possible philosophical or theological models, and the reconstruction of possible encounters or contacts with leading figures in the religious milieu of those years. It discusses the highest point of the relationship between Michelangelo and Colonna, by analysing three admirable drawings the artist gave as a gift to his 'divine' woman: the Crucifix, the Pieta and Christ and the Samaritan Woman. Michelangelo's enfranchisement from iconographic tradition in favour of a markedly evangelical symbolism is persuasively pursued in the two frescoes of the Pauline Chapel. The book provides the poetic dialogue and iconographic correspondence between Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna, and brings to full fruition a religious response to a spiritual unease which had tormented Michelangelo for decades.