MYSTERIOUS MICHELANGELO, EXTRAORDINARY DISCOVERY?

Vincenzo Danti, famous pupil of Michelangelo, is the creator of the Michelangelo’s plaster positive moulds positive moulds depicting the four allegories of the day’s phases (Dawn and Dusk, Day and Night) carved by Michelangelo for the tombs of the Medici Dukes in the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo in Florence.

These positive moulds (preserved at the Academy of Fine Arts in Perugia and exhibited in 2008 at the Museum of the Bargello in Florence, during the exhibition ” I grandi bronzi del battistero, l’arte di Vincenzo Danti discepolo di Michelangelo”) compared to the marble statues, show some clear differences. The mystery regarding the origin of the four figures still has not been solved: it could be possible, because of these differences, that the Danti’s moulds would have been made on clay models, made by Michelangelo himself, now lost, and not on the marble sculptures.

In the Ferdinando Marinelli Foundry’s plaster moulds collection there are, among many others, also those moulds derived from Danti’s models, from which were cast four gorgeous bronzes. The director of the Casa Buonarroti in Florence, Pina Ragionieri interested in the matter, came at the Foundry to admire and study the bronzes.

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