THE STORY OF MICHELANGELO'S PIETA

Drawing from previous publication in The Agony and the Ecstasy, the New York Times Magazine and the Readers' Digest, Irving Stone here revivifies the creation of Michelangelo's great Pieta, completed when the sculptor was twenty-four years old. He sketches the sculptor's early apprenticeships, follows him to Rome. There under the patronage of Jacopo Galli for whom he sculpts the Bacchus, Michelangelo receives the radically different commission from the French Cardinal Groslaye, to fill the niche of the Chapel of the Kings of France with a Pieta. Simply told, this is the tale of dedication and sacrifice culminating not in glory but in the secret placing of the Pieta in its intended niche with Groslaye dead in the meantime. Obviously reprinted for the visit of the statue to the United States, this may appeal to those demanding little more than sentiment.