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Beauty and goodness, and grief and pity, alive in the dead marble," began a poem by one spectator awestruck by Michelangelo's earliest masterpiece: the marble Pietà that now stands in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

The term pietà (meaning both "pity" and "piety") is used to describe works of art picturing the dead Christ held by his mother after he has been taken down from the cross. In Michelangelo's sculpture (c. 1497-1500), Mary cradles the body of her son in her lap. The work shows a breathtaking level of skill for a 25-year-old artist and emulates the delicate beauty and utter calm of ancient Greek and Roman statues. Influenced in his youth by the humanist circle around Lorenzo de' Medici, Michelangelo came to believe that art should not merely copy reality but strive for the ideal.

The quiet beauty of the Pietà has Christian significance as well. When contemporaries described the Pietà as "perfect," they were making a theological statement, which Michelangelo shared: Christ's outward physical perfection mirrors his inner spiritual perfection as the Son of God. There is no blood evident, and Christ's wounds are barely visible. His calm beauty points away from his suffering and death and toward his ultimate victory.

Decades after carving the St. Peter's sculpture, when he was in his 60s, Michelangelo returned to the image of the dead Christ in drawings and sculptures. He continued to explore this theme until his death. The St. Peter's Pietà was a public work commissioned by a French cardinal. But the later Pietàs and related drawings were private, highly personal creations bound up with the artist's deep belief in Christ's gift of salvation to those who have faith. They also reveal his awareness of his own sin and imperfection and his longing for redemption.

The impetus for Michelangelo's return to the image of the dead Christ was the strengthening of his faith in the 1530s, nourished by his friendship with Vittoria Colonna. Around 1540, Michelangelo presented Colonna with an elaborate graphite drawing of a Pietà group. In the St. Peter's Pieta, the position of Christ in Mary's lap had focused devotional attention on Mary. In the drawing for Colonna, the focus is on the upright Christ offering himself for the sin of humanity. His body is wedged between his mother's legs while her arms are raised in prayer. His love, humility, and grace have overwhelmed her, and she knows that her son will live again and redeem the world. Her faith symbolizes that of all believers.

On the cross is written a verse from Dante's Paradiso: "They think not how much blood it cost." In Dante's poem the blood refers to the efforts of preachers and martyrs to spread the gospel, but for Michelangelo it echoes the Catholic reformers' message that salvation comes from Christ. The word cost, as historian Alexander Nagel has observed, also reminds the viewer of the free yet priceless gift of Christ's grace, in contrast to the prevailing system in which prayers, indulgences, and other good works counted toward salvation.

Around 1547 or 1548, while he was in Rome, Michelangelo began carving a marble Pietà that he intended for his own tomb. (It now stands in the Museum of Cathedral Works in Florence.) Though a personal work, it was the most ambitious single sculpture he ever attempted, consisting of four more-than-life-size figures: Christ in the center, his mother Mary to the right, Mary Magdalene to the left, and Nicodemus above. Christ's twisted pose intensifies the love that flows between him and the mourners. Mary's eyes are closed, and her head is joined with her son's. Mary Magdalene is embraced by Christ's right arm. 

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