Abstract: Land draws attention to the sophistication and subtlety of Vasari's criticism, focusing particularly on Vasari's masterful account of the complex qualities of Michelangelo's early Pietà in St. Peter's. For example, by relating anecdotes that link Michelangelo to Apelles as he appears in Pliny, Vasari suggests that Michelangelo's talent rivals that of the ancients. By pointing to the difference between Mary's youthful appearance and her son's limp lifeless body, Vasari demonstrates an acute awareness of the spiritual significance of the physical forms. And by evoking Dante's assessment of the sculptures on the terrace of pride - "morti li morti e i vivi parean vivi" -, Vasari reveals his understanding that "naturalism" serves as a means to a spiritual end. Land concludes that Vasari's criticism represents, in fact, spiritual writing, in much the same way that Dante's poetry represents poetic theology.
Abstract from the American Dante Bibliography 1998
Reproduced by courtesy of the Dante Society of America