Parution : Kathleen W. Christian, “Raffaele Riario, Jacopo Galli, and Michelangelo’s Bacchus, 1471-1572”, Turnhout, Brepols, 2025
On Michelangelo’s first day in Rome, in June 1496, Cardinal Raffaele Riario asked him if he could create ‘something beautiful’ in competition with the antique. The twenty-one-year old sculptor responded to this unique challenge with the statue of Bacchus now in the Bargello museum. This statue, as well as the Sleeping Cupid which first brought Michelangelo to Riario’s attention, have long been shrouded in mystery, and the Bacchus as well as its patron have long suffered...



