ABSTRACT
Rome was governed by the notorious Borgia pope, Alexander VI (1492–1503), but, although Michelangelo was familiar with one or two cardinals, he seems to have had no direct contact with the papal court. In his first letter from Rome, on 1496, Michelangelo wrote to Lorenzo di Pier-francesco de' Medici that Cardinal Riario, after showing him his collection of ancient statues. Messer Iacopo Galli, a Roman gentleman of good understanding, made Michelangelo carve a marble Bacchus in his house. Several figures of Bacchus survive from antiquity, none is so evocative of the god's mysterious, even androgynous antique character: as Condivi says, it is in the spirit of the ancient writers. Michelangelo's Pieta is one of those famous works, like the Mona Lisa or the Venus de Milo, that it is almost impossible to see afresh. In 1500, however, it was a novelty in Italian art and at first must have looked strange to the Romans who flocked to see it.
