In Rome, inside the Basilica of St. Peter in Chains, is housed one of the most famous sculptural creations of Michelangelo Buonarroti: the Moses.

The story of this sculptural masterpiece is narrated to us by Martina Sorrenti, Tourist Guide of the Rome Guides, an Association which organizes city tours in Rome. Martina has a deep knowledge of this artwork, whose analysis is always included in the Tour of the Monti District, which also covers the visit inside the Basilica of St. Peter in Chains.

The funerary monument

The artist began working on the statue during the second decade of the 16th Century in order to place it in the monument that was intended to house the tomb of Pope Julius II, who died in 1513. However, the entire initial project of an imposing mausoleum adorned with more than forty statues underwent continuous revisions, which resulted in the progressive reduction of the monument’s dimensions, with continuous changes of opinion that unleashed the fury of Michelangelo, who defined this work as “the tragedy of the burial“.

The quarrels between the artist and the Pontiff (and with his heirs, after the death of the Pope) caused a serious stress to Michelangelo, who in the meantime was also dedicating himself to the pictorial decoration of the Sistine Chapel. Also the location of the monument changed: originally, indeed, it should have been placed in the choir of St. Peter’s Basilica.

The strength of Moses

Moses can be seen today in the central niche of the lower level of the tomb, flanked by the statues of Rachel and Leah, personifications of the Contemplative Life and the Active Life, while above them are placed, from left to right, a Sibyl, the deceased pope lying on a sarcophagus at the foot of a Madonna and Child, and a Prophet. Of these last four works only the statue of Julius II is entirely attributable to Michelangelo, while the others are mostly the work of Raffaello da Montelupo.

The sculpture depicting Moses imposes itself on the others for power and size, towering at the center of the monument with immense vigor. The marble portrait communicates tension and dynamism: a leg bent backwards, as if Moses were about to stand up, the powerful muscles of the arms uncovered, the face turned as the consequence of a motion of restlessness.

The vivid realism that characterizes the statue and the inner strength that emanates from it are, probably together with the well-known turbulent nature of Michelangelo, at the origin of the famous and unfounded anecdote according to which the artist, stunned by the vitality of his own Moses, would have hammered him on the knee screaming “Why do not you speak?“.

Sigmund Freud’s interpretation

The imposing figure has exercised great fascination on its viewers over the centuries, so much so that even Sigmund Freud published in 1914 a text entitled The Moses of Michelangelo, arriving to formulate a reconstructive hypothesis of the psychological and physical movements of the marble Moses, according to which the statue would appear to us with the posture and expression that we still see today. Indeed, Freud observed the statue as he would have done with a living being, of which he intended to reconstruct the emotional process.

Freud believed that Michelangelo’s biblical character was restraining his anger, trying to regain his composure. Freud focused particularly on the detail of the right index finger, the only one pressed firmly into the beard, while the other fingers softly graze it.

Freud therefore speculated that Michelangelo depicted a moment of transition, loosening his grip on the beard: in his opinion, the character who dominates the tomb of Julius II was on the verge of raging against the idolaters, but at the peak of his fury he turned against himself his own anger, grabbing his beard with his right hand with which he first held the Tables initially straight, which then slipped forward and risked to fall. It was at this point that Moses decided to self-control, withdrawing his right arm to press it against the Tables, which were now resting on their edges, and save them.

What the spectators see, therefore, is only the residue of a powerful anger, now dominated: what remains is the contemptuous gaze, the still bent leg of a man who is about to stand up and the Tablets in the strange position they have assumed. Moses has regained control and will not jump up in a rage: he will remain where he is, guarding the sepulchre of Julius II, although full of indignation and eternally paralyzed in a marble calm that radiates tension.

The latest analyses

A century later, it is possible to say that Freud’s considerations have generally not been accepted by art historians; new theories, based on a study performed starting from a recent restoration, imagine today a completely different scenario.

Indeed, according to the famous restorer Antonio Forcellino, Michelangelo would have made a crucial change to the work around 1542, paving the way for a very innovative interpretation of the Moses and its creative process. When he resumed sculpting the Moses, Michelangelo wanted to change its posture, despite its advanced state of workmanship: this extraordinary technical hazard has left many traces on the statue.

According to Forcellino, the statue had originally the frontal look and the two feet joined; Michelangelo would have then turned the head and bent a leg in search of a more complex three-dimensional spatiality of the sculpture. The powerful bending of that leg, which makes the movement so powerful, must therefore be interpreted as a consequence of the fact that the marble block was already sculpted, and it would not have been possible to find space for the new foot, except in a very backward position.

It would remain however to explain for which reason Michelangelo has decided to return on his work more than twenty years later and to modify it so radically. According to experts, the Renaissance sculptor turned the head of his Moses so that the statue’s gaze would no longer rest on the altar containing the chains with which, according to tradition, St. Peter was imprisoned: Michelangelo considered them only “supposed relics” and their veneration was considered by the artist a mere religious superstition.

In any case, Michelangelo’s Moses still petrifies with his terrible gaze, pushing away any historical or psychoanalytical theory and leaving the spectators who stop in front of him literally astonished.