Shots of Borgo

Music

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NICHOLSON:  A labyrinth of lanes reveal the Borgo's medieval past. But it’s a very different place to when Michelangelo and other great artists were here at the turn of the 15th century and the flowering of the renaissance age. 

00:13:00

Caccinotta in workshop

Music

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NICHOLSON:  Now there are more artisans than artist like furniture maker Massimo Caccinotta, but memories of the past endure.

Caccinotta

CACCINOTTA:  Yes, I think he worked here at St Peter’s.  He would have been here in the Borgo.

00:44

Cutaway of pin up girls on wall

He’s a great admirer of the nude but he’s never heard of Michelangelo’s naked Christ.

00:57

Caccinotta

CACCINOTTA:  I’ve never heard of the statue of the naked Christ. 

01:03

People on dome of St. Peter’s

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01:07

NICHOLSON: Michelangelo was drawn to Rome by one of the world’s greatest building projects. The rebuilding of St Peter’s Basilica. The artist and architect was a papal favourite.

01:12

Papal audience

01:27

The square where Pope Benedict the sixteenth receives pilgrims was then a work in progress.

01:32

Michelangelo sculptures

Michelangelo stored huge lumps of marble for his sculptures here scholars believe, he used one of them to make the missing naked Christ. 

01:38

Inside St. Peter’s

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01:48

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NICHOLSON:  Michelangelo’s dome floods the basilica with light

01:59

La Pieta

In a side chapel rests one of the Vatican's greatest treasures. La Pieta. Michelangelo was in his early 20s when he sculpted Jesus Christ after his crucifixion. Held by his mother, and in this case, wrapped modestly in cloth.

02:04

Sculptors working in studio

Michelangelo followed the Greek and Roman artists’ fascination with the naked human body. Sculptors in Rome today are equally absorbed. 

02:28

Emma

EMMA:  For any artist who starts sculpting it’s inevitable that one will confront the genius of Michelangelo

02:42

Fabrizio

FABRIZIO:  When I see Michelangelo’s sculptures I realise that he has managed to make a hard material supple.

02:52

Santa Maria Sopra Minerva

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03:08

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NICHOLSON: The clue to the missing sculpture is in the church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva in central Rome.

03:17

Statues in church

This statue of Christ has had a loincloth added. Michelangelo meant it to be nude.  He was commissioned to make it for a tomb.  Instead it ended up here by the high altar.

03:28

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Music

03:39

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NICHOLSON: But scholars knew that Michelangelo had previously made a first version of this and  abandoned it.  So what happened to the original?

03:45

Nicholson and Prof Squarzina looking at pictures

Professor Silvia Danesi Squarzina was among those who rediscovered it.

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SQUARZINA:  The statue is over two metres tall including the cross.  When I saw it I was thunderstruck.

04:03

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NICHOLSON: The art historian helped verify the existence of the original naked Christ after she was alerted by one of her students who had spotted the sculpture in an obscure monastery outside of Rome.

04:14

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But proof was needed to say this was the masterpiece missing for four centuries. It came in a simple drawing found in the Louvre Museum in Paris.

04:27

Squarzina

SQUARZINA:   This beautiful sanguine drawing which is conserved at the Louvre can be superimposed on the hand of the statue.

04:38

Michelangelo’s drawings

NICHOLSON:  The professor found more proof, documents including Michelangelo’s contract that the sculpture must be nude to symbolise humility. The mystery remained. Why had Michelangelo abandoned the first sculpture and why had it disappeared?

04:51

Bassano Romano

To find the sculpture we travelled two hours west of Rome to the sleepy town of Bassano Romano .

05:12

Townspeople

The townsfolk know the sculpture well. It’s just that like everybody else – they didn’t know until recently who had made it.  And they’re divided over its nudity.

05:20

Man

MAN:  We’ve seen it ever since we were young children.  It’s the nether regions that made an impression on me.  In my opinion it was rude inside a church.

05:32

Woman

WOMAN: I have no problem with it because Jesus Christ was never shocked by anything. He was never a puritan, nor a goody two-shoes .

05:48

Monastery of San Vincenzo Martire

[Church bells]

05:57

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NICHOLSON:  The trail ends here, at the monastery of San Vincenzo Martire.  One of Italy’s powerful old families, the Giustinianis built the church in the 1600s and installed the sculpture. Two hundred years on, their descendents, not knowing of the Michelangelo,  donated the building  and contents to the priests.

06:03

Stained glass window

Its guardian today is Father Cleto.

06:31

Nicholson and Father Cleto in church

When he came to the monastery he had no idea either that the sculpture on the high altar was a Michelangelo.  In the seventies, it was banished to a back room.

06:35

Nicholson and Father Cleto at altar

FATHER CLETO: And there is the place where the statue had been for three centuries.

06:47

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NICHOLSON: It was hidden away in the sacristy. 

06:52

Super: Father Cleto
Monastry San Vincenzo Martire

FATHER CLETO: No one - nobody could see it because of this wooden door and the sacristies, the sacristies all over the world are closed. 

05:54

Shots of statue

Music

07:05

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NICHOLSON: But everything changed a few years ago.  Once it was identified, a special chapel was built with high security. 

07:13

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Music

07:21

Nicholson and Father Cleto at statue

FATHER CLETO: Well, there it is. The masterpiece -- Michelangelo’s best. You can admiring.

07:27

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And you can see the measurements are typically Michelangelo’s genius’s work.  The posture is typically Michelangelo’s. It recalls the David in Florence, the Perseus, and the Statues of Antiquity.

07:34

CU on feet on statue

Music

07:51

Nicholson and Father Cleto at statue

FATHER CLETO:  Nobody knew then precisely this being of Michelangelo’s. The documents actually proved the contrary.

07:57

Statue

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08:07

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NICHOLSON: Michelangelo toiled for two years from 1514 to 1516.  Too late, he discovered the marble wasn’t perfect.

08:09

Flaw in marble

FATHER CLETO:  But you can imagine I feel sorry

08:20

Nicholson and Father Cleto

for poor Michelangelo. Because as always he started from the bottom to the top, towards the end. He was at the end the last hits practically of the chisel and then he found out this flaw, this fault in the marble.

08:21

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NICHOLSON: Michelangelo didn’t want his Christ to have a blemish, he gave it away in exchange for a horse, and it languished in Rome for a time until it was brought here. Other sculptors worked on it, including the right hand.

08:40

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FATHER CLETO:   You can notice it on the right hand. You can see

08:54

Hands of statue

the fingers so streamline. 

NICHOLSON:  Yes, it’s different. 

FATHER CLETO:   So thin and without the nerves and muscles which Michelangelo usually puts in his statues.

09:01

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NICHOLSON: But the left hand matches the sketch found in the Louvre exactly.

09:15

Sketch of statue

FATHER CLETO:  And the holy redeemer is…

09:20

Statue

NICHOLSON:  The nudity offended the church during the 16th century counter-reformation. Artworks were censored and covered up.  Now it’s accepted once more.

09:22

Details of statue

FATHER CLETO:   The nude actually some people could makes their wonders. They could express their admiration, but not so much scandalised – we see worse today.

09:33

Church exterior

[Church bells]

09:43

Sculpture

NICHOLSON:  The sculpture has now been confirmed it stands in all its glory -- Michelangelo’s Missing Christ.

09:49

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09:58

Credits:

Reporter : Anne Maria Nicholson

Camera : Louie Eroglu  ACS

Editor : Garth Thomas

Research : Anthea Bulloch

10:07