Michelangelo's Crucifixion of St. Peter: Notes on the Identification of the Locale of the Action

* The basic points of this essay were first presented in a paper read at the Annual Meeting of the College Art Association of America in Boston, January, 1969. I am grateful to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation for a travel grant which permitted me to complete my research. To Professor Leo Steinberg, who is preparing a book on Michelangelo's frescoes on the Paoline Chapel, I also wish to acknowledge my indebtedness for his encouraging and heartfelt interest in this study. At last year's Brarnante Congress in Milan and Rome Mr. Hubertus Gunther of the Biblioteca Hertziana read a paperon the Tempiettowhich, had I heardit, might have helped me state some of my questions and suggestions regarding it and its site with more precision and which might have allowed me to omit others altogether. I can only refer to the forth-coming publication of Mr. Gunther's paper and to the book on the Tempietto he is presently preparing. I want to thank Mr. Gunther for the kindness and generosity with which he acquainted me with the results of his work when we recently met, unfortunately too late for me to effect any changes in this essay. I also must acknowledge my indebtedness to Mrs. Marilyn Perry Caldwell and Miss Hilary Smith who helped me in various ways and most generously in the preparation of the final pescript. My greatest obligation is to the American Academy in Rome there I was a resident when I began this work and where I have received the finest support ever since.

Abstract

The scene in Michelangelo's Crucifixion of St. Peter (Fig. 1) is often described as if it were a no-man's land, a bleak, bare, abstract scaffolding upon which Michelangelo placed his gigantic array of figures. The latter, in turn, are said to exist in a kind of isolation, in space as well as in time, enigmatic figures who walk from the world of the painting into that of the viewer, and through it, on to an unknown destiny. On occasion these traits are identified as hallmarks of the “late style” of Michelangelo and connected with presumed tenets of the Counter-Reformation and Mannerist art.¹