Santuario di Santa Maria della Vita
Baroque sanctuary sheltering a haunting terracotta Lamentation by a little-known Renaissance sculptor.
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About this audio guide
This guide to the Santuario di Santa Maria della Vita in Bologna opens with a question the poet Gabriele D'Annunzio asked standing in the same chapel: can a face carved from wet clay actually scream. It follows the sculptor behind that terracotta Lamentation, first recorded in 1462 as Maestro Nicolo da Puglia, later renamed Niccolo dell'Arca after the unfinished marble shrine of Saint Dominic he left behind, a job a teenage Michelangelo was brought in to complete. The guide traces what little is known of his life up to his death in 1494, and the dispute among scholars over exactly when he made this Lamentation. Lean close to the figures and look for the tool marks still visible in the clay.
This audio guide was created using AI.