Night

Object belonging

One's own

Category

Terracotta sculpture

City

Rome

Location

Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia

Specific location

Room 20

Inventory

PV 13441

Material and technique

Terracotta

Author

Sculptor active in the second half of the 16th century, after Michelangelo

Dating

Second half of 16th century

Dimensions

29x31x13 cm.

Origin

Cavaceppi Collection (after 1799); Gorga Collection (1948)

Image copyright

SSPSAE e per il Polo Museale della città di Roma

Short description

In a list of the sculptures owned by Bartolomeo Cavaceppi, dated to around 1770, one entry cites “a maquette of Twilight, a gift that is in the store of the Medici in Florence, a work by Michelangelo”. In 1802, following the acquisition of the whole collection by the Marquis Giovanni Torlonia, the works were inventoried by Vincenzo Pacetti, and amongst them was also a “Twilight by Michelangelo”, valued at one scudo and 20 pennies. At the start of the twentieth century, the work passed into the hands of the opera singer Evan Gorga, before becoming part of the Palazzo Venezia museum in 1948, as attributed to Michelangelo and correctly identified as the figure of Night from the Medici tombs in the Sagrestia Nuova (New Sacristy) in San Lorenzo in Florence. The attribution to Buonarroti was recently questioned by Barberini (1996) who suggested the author was Niccolò Tribolo, who took part in the works on San Lorenzo. The sculptor was supposed to have created the allegorical figures of the Earth and Sky, which were never finished due to the unexpected departure of Michelangelo from Florence in 1534 following the death of Clement VII. Giorgio Vasari relates that not long after this episode, Tribolo dedicated himself to “modelling all the figures that Michelangelo had made in marble, that is Dawn and Dusk, Day and Night, and they turned out so well that Monsignor Giovanni Batista Figiovanni, the prior of San Lorenzo, who had been given the statue of Night because he opened the sacristy for Tribolo, judged the work so rare that he gave it to Duke Alessandro [de’ Medici], who then gave it to Giorgio [Vasari] who was with His Excellency, knowing that he dealt with such studies”. While the statuette of Night seemed to have been lost, the other three figures are kept at the Bargello in Florence, and form a homogenous group, both in size and style. The Palazzo Venezia terracotta is around a third smaller than those at the Bargello, and its modelling is different, its volumes less boldly described and certain decorative details less defined. And when compared to the marble original, there is a greater openness of the figure, with the left leg placed lower and the twisting of the torso less accentuated. Other features do not appear in the model, including the long plait that hangs over the right shoulder of the statue, the owl and the mask, which accompany sleep; and the drapery on which Michelangelo’s Night lays is replaced by a simple base, roughly modelled from a block of clay.

                                                                                                                        Cristiano Giometti

Bibliography

M.G. Barberini, Nicolò Tribolo, Night, in Masterpieces of Renaissance and Baroque Sculpture from the Palazzo Venezia, Rome, exh. cat., Athens 1996, pp. 48-49; M.G. Vaccari, Ignoto scultore del Cinquecento, La notte, in Venere e Amore: Michelangelo e la nuova bellezza ideale, exh. cat., Florence, ed. F. Falletti, Florence 2002, pp. 170-171