Joe Zammit Ciantar writes about the figure of the sorrowful Virgin Mary with the lifeless body of Jesus on her lap – as inspired and sculpted by Michelangelo in his Pietà. While not so popular in Malta, similar effigies are very common in France, especially in Toulouse, as the author found out.

A mother’s sorrow and grief…

Deposition (1965) by Angelo Capoccia is a copy of Michelangelo’s Pietà with the addition of Nicodemus and Joseph from Arimathea. It forms part of the Good Friday processional sets of Żejtun and Qormi. Photo: www.goodfridaymalta.com/zejtun-it-tieni-parti

Although the Gospels do not say that Christ’s lifeless body was ever given to his mother Mary to grieve upon before the eventual burial, many artists have been inspired by, and depicted and sculpted, such a sorrowful moment for Christians to contemplate and reflect upon.

One distinguished artist who immortalised this moment of profound desolation was the Italian poet, architect, painter and sculptor of the High Renaissance, Michelangelo (1475-1564), in the Pietà (1498-99).

The statue was commissioned for the funerary monument of French Cardinal Jean de Bilhères, in St Peter’s Basilica, in Rome. The Carrara white marble image, which in the 18th century was moved from the monument to the first chapel on the right as one enters the basilica, is the only piece Michelangelo ever signed.

Another effigy at the Basilica of St Nazaire and St Celse in Carcassonne, France.

… in Malta

In Malta and Gozo, we have several statues of Our Lady of Sorrows, but less of Mary holding Christ’s lifeless body. Relatively recently, similar statues made of papier-mâché – with other figures and with the cross in the background – have been commissioned to form part of sets of life-size sculptures used in Good Friday processions.

These representations... impress Christians and evoke sadness and dejection for the cruelty of human beings on innocent people

Michelangelo’s Carrara white marble sculpture Pietà (1498-99), found at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, shows Mary holding the dead body of her son Jesus before he was placed in the tomb. Photo: www.italianrenaissance.org

Two such compositions are found in the processional sets of Żejtun and Qormi.

The former, titled Deposition – wherein Mary and the dead Christ are a copy of Michelangelo’s Pietà – has the addition of  Nicodemus and Joseph from Arimathea. It was made by Angelo Capoccia from Lecce, Italy, in 1965.

... and in France

While on holiday in Toulouse, Carcassonne and Albi in France, around a year ago, I visited churches and museums containing many religious artistic works. I was impressed by the fact that, at least in the past, images of Mary with Jesus dead on her lap, like Michelangelo’s Pietà, enjoyed great and widespread devotion.  I saw several paintings, statues and bas-reliefs with the Virgin Mary sitting, holding and looking at the body of her dead son, Jesus, stretched in front of her.

An effigy of Our Lady of Sorrows at the the church dedicated to St Exupere in Toulouse, France.

Mary is presented almost always with a youthful woman’s face even though when Jesus died, he was about 33 years old, and so his mother should have been around 45 to 48 years of age. Mary looks sad, yes, but never in despair; her sorrow is contained, holy, heavenly.

On the other hand, the body of the lifeless Jesus is never robust or muscled as depicted by Rubens and Rembrandt in their Crucifixion paintings. It is always abnormally thin, emaciated, weak; a body that had suffered anguish, flagellation, beating, the weight of a cross, nailing in both of his hands and feet, sometimes with his ribs bulging out. In one of the works, the wound in Jesus’s side caused by a spear in his chest, like in Rubens’s various paintings, appears on the left.

A sculpture titled Vierge de Pitié Davant Les Instruments de la Passion, at the Musée des Augustins in Toulouse, France.

These representations of a Mater Dolorosa – Our Lady of Sorrows – impress Christians and evoke sadness and dejection for the cruelty of human beings on innocent people, for injustice, and – for those who believe – for the Passion and death on the cross Jesus had to suffer for the redemption of man.