Exhibition: “Body and Soul. From Donatello to Michelangelo”

After the success of the display at Musée du Louvre in Paris, the exhibition “Il Corpo e l’Anima, da Donatello a Michelangelo. Scultura italiana del Rinascimento” becomes the protagonist of the spaces of Milan’s Sforza Castle. Hosted in the Sale Viscontee the exhibition offers visitors a look back over sixty years of art history, from Donatello’s return to Florence in 1453 to the death of Leonardo and Raphael.
Sixty years during which the masters of the Renaissance excavated the material to bring out the “motions of the soul“, the torments and tensions, the throbbing, to make the emotion even more vivid.

This intense creative activity resulted in beautiful works in marble, terracotta, wood and bronze, in a journey that finds its apex in the ‘Pietà Rondanini‘, on which Michelangelo worked until his death in 1564.

What’s on display?

Designed by the Musée du Louvre in Paris and the Sforza Castle Museums in Milan, the exhibition path gathers over 120 works coming from the world’s most important museums: from the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid, the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence, the Victoria&Albert Museum in London, from “Her Majesty the Queen Elisabeth II from the British Royal Collection”, as well as the Musée du Louvre and the Castello Sforzesco civic collections.

The featured works are divided into 4 themed sections: Looking at the ancients: fury and grace; Sacred art: moving and convincing; From Dionysus to Apollo; Rome “Caput mundi”.

Into more details

The focus of the exhibition is set on the art from the 15th century and on the artistic innovations introduced by masters of the Renaissance such as Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael, Pollaiolo, Michelangelo, il Verrocchio and Bambaia. Among these, the study of anatomy, perspective, optics, even that of the soul play a key role.
According to their vision, movements of the soul are made visible through the attitude of the bodies, as the artists investigate their psyche by depicting them at rest, in motion, struggling or dreaming, highlighting emotions, both sacred and profane.