Michelangelo murals found

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34042, 5 January 1976, Page 1

Michelangelo murals found

FIVE CENTURIES IN DAMP BASEMENT

(N Z. Press Assn —GupyrtyntJ FLORENCE, Jan. 4. Italian art experts say 'that murals they believe to be previouslyunknown works by Michelangelo are in remarkably good condition. despite their five centuries in a damp; church basement. Reflecting the optimism of! the Italian art world about the discovery. Mr Luciano Berti. the suoerintendent of! all the galleries and chapels'

in Florence, said “It is much riskier to say that the artist is not Michelangelo than to ’ suggest that he is.” > Mr Paolo del Poggetto, the , director of the Medici , chapels, under one of which the works were found, says i he is 80 per cent certain that • the murals are by Michel- , angelo. r The works were first > described as frescoes — paintings done on freshlyfi spread plaster — but experts t later said that they were > murals done with graphite p) and traces of vermilion. ; Various theories have been

advanced as to how Michel-; angelo, who is known to have worked on the new Sacristy of the Basilica of San Lorenzo from 1523 to 1531, came to do the murals in the basement room: He may have been sketching to pass the time, he may have hidden in the room during his falling out with the Medicis,,; who were his patrons, or he may have done the basement works out of his passion for secrecy. Carlo Deglinnocenti. a respected art critic of the' Communist daily newspaper.: “Unita.” says that whether

the murals were done by Michelangelo or by one of his students, the discovery is an important one because the works are the bestpreserved example of sixteenth-century mural designs. The discovery was made in a long-abandoned basement room used centuries ago to store coal and wood. When workmen carefully chipped away the lime covering the walls, they found the murals depicting angels, a cloaked man, and a figure, possibly representing Christ. Other art critics say that the wall sketches of the angels. particularly, bear remarkable resemblence to the angels painted by Michelangelo on the ceiling of the Sistine Chape) in the Vatican. Michelangelo worked on the new Sacristy from 1523 to 1531. and left it unfinished. It is considered a perfect

.• example of High Renaissance f art si The cleaning and restoration of the murals is expected - to be completed by March For April, when experts hope I to give a definitive opinion ‘on their authorship. i The discoveries were made t as Italy was still celebrating > the five hundredth anni\-er- | sary of Michelangelo’s birth, rjand art experts say that this -was partly responsible for sispurring the Government to II turn over funds to help in ,!the restoration. • If the find is confirmed, it t will be the second discovery -I in two years of a work attributed to Michelangelo: >'in July, 1974. the ruins of a - house in the Trastevere sec- - tion of Rome yielded what - experts say was the original' head of Michelangelo’s Pieta i Rondanini. They say that the 1 temperamental artist was' . probably dissatisfied with his t carving, and threw it away.