The Artist's Hands

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

(Unfinished) Pietà Rondanini 1564 Michelangelo

“No one has mastery before he is at the end of his art and his life.”
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475 - 1564)

In a 2016 essay published by the Royal Society of Medicine, prominent surgeons and rheumatologists from Italy and Australia posit that Michelangelo suffered greatly later in his life from osteo-arthritis, particularly in his hands. They reached their conclusions after studying Michelangelo’s writings and reviewing several portraits done of him, focusing on how his hands were portrayed. With great dedication and skill, Michelangelo sculpted until his death. A note he wrote to his nephew points to the impairment he was suffering. “I have received several letters from thee of late to which I have not replied because my hand refused to write. In the future, therefore, I shall get others to write for me and will sign the letters myself.” Michelangelo’s final, unfinished sculpture is the Rondani…