Cristo della Minerva

Step inside from the bright piazza, and the first thing you notice is the colour overhead. The vaulted ceiling is a deep, saturated blue, scattered with small gold stars. Your eyes take a moment to adjust. The air is cooler here, and it carries a faint smell of old stone and candle wax. Footsteps echo softly off the marble floor. Somewhere ahead, near the high altar, a pale figure stands on a pedestal. This is Michelangelo's Risen Christ, known in Rome as the Cristo della Minerva.

Before we walk closer, consider where you are. This is the Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, whose name means Saint Mary above Minerva. Medieval Romans believed the church sat on the ruins of a temple to Minerva, the Roman goddess of wisdom. In fact, the ancient sanctuaries in this area were more closely linked to the Egyptian goddess Isis. Either way, the name stuck. And here is a surprise many visitors miss — this is the only major Gothic church in Rome, a city otherwise dominated by Baroque and Renaissance interiors.

Now look to the left of the high altar. There he stands, a life-size marble figure of Christ, fully nude in Michelangelo's original vision. He holds the cross against his body. He also holds the instruments of his suffering — a rope, and a reed topped with a sponge, the one used to offer him vinegar on the cross. Yet he does not look broken. His body is calm, strong and upright. This is Christ after the Resurrection, holding the objects of his death as signs of victory.

The commission dates to 1514. A Roman nobleman named Metello Vari, together with other patrons, asked Michelangelo for a statue of Christ for this church. At the time, Michelangelo was one of the most sought-after artists in Europe. He had already finished the Sistine Chapel ceiling only a couple of years earlier. A single marble figure might seem a modest project for such a famous artist. But the statue's story became anything but simple.

Michelangelo began carving a first version. Then disaster struck — a dark vein appeared in the marble, running across the face of Christ. For a sculptor who chose his stone with great care, this was unacceptable. He abandoned the block. Here is the second surprise. That rejected first version did not vanish. Metello Vari kept it, and many scholars now identify it with a statue in a monastery church at Bassano Romano, a small town north of Rome. So, in a sense, two Michelangelo Christs exist.

Michelangelo started again with a fresh block. This time he worked on it in Florence, then sent it to Rome to be finished. The final carving was entrusted to his assistant, Pietro Urbano. That decision went badly. Urbano's work damaged parts of the figure, especially the finer details. Michelangelo's friend, the painter Sebastiano del Piombo, wrote to him with sharp criticism of the assistant's efforts. Another sculptor, Federico Frizzi, was brought in to complete the statue. It was finally installed here in 1521.

So what you are looking at is a Michelangelo design, largely his own carving, finished by other hands. Some critics over the centuries found the statue less lively than his greatest works. Others admire its clear, balanced pose. Look at the way the weight rests on one leg while the other relaxes. Sculptors call this contrapposto, a classical stance borrowed from ancient Greek and Roman statues. The head turns gently to one side. The cross creates a strong diagonal line through the whole composition.

Now notice something that Michelangelo never made — the gilded bronze drapery around the hips. Michelangelo carved Christ completely nude, in the spirit of classical sculpture and of a perfect, risen body. Later generations found this uncomfortable. In the decades after the Council of Trent, a major church reform meeting in the sixteenth century, attitudes toward nudity in sacred art became much stricter. The bronze cloth was added later. It still covers the figure today.

Look down at the right foot. You will see a bronze covering over it, like a metal shoe. This is not decoration. For centuries, pilgrims and worshippers touched and kissed the foot of this statue as an act of devotion. Stone wears away under so much contact, just as the bronze foot of Saint Peter in the Vatican has been smoothed by touch. The bronze cover was added to protect the marble from that slow, loving erosion.

Take a moment to look around the rest of the church. Its walls hold a remarkable collection for one building. The body of Saint Catherine of Siena, one of Italy's patron saints, rests beneath the high altar. The painter Fra Angelico, a Dominican friar known for his gentle religious paintings, is buried here too. To the right of the altar, the Carafa Chapel holds bright frescoes by the Renaissance painter Filippino Lippi. This is very much a working church, run by Dominican friars.

When you step back outside, look at the small square in front of the church. In the centre stands a marble elephant carrying an ancient Egyptian obelisk on its back. The design came from Gian Lorenzo Bernini, the great Baroque sculptor, in the seventeenth century. Romans affectionately call it the Pulcino della Minerva, which means something like the little chick of the Minerva. The obelisk itself was found nearby, linked to those same ancient sanctuaries of Isis.

The Pantheon stands just a short walk away, behind the church. Many visitors pass through this neighbourhood heading straight for that famous dome. They never step inside Santa Maria sopra Minerva at all. Yet here, in this blue Gothic interior, you can stand a few steps from a Michelangelo sculpture with no velvet rope crowds and no long queue. That quiet closeness is part of the experience. You can study the marble almost as worshippers did five centuries ago.

Before you leave, look once more at the figure's face. Remember the dark vein that ruined the first attempt, and the assistant who struggled to finish the second. Remember the hands that added bronze cloth and a bronze shoe in later centuries. All of that history sits in one pale figure beside the altar. Listen to the soft echo of the nave, look up at the painted stars, and then walk back out into the light of the piazza.