BARGELLO, Michelangelo

If you want to go in chronological order, your tour of the Bargello Museum should start from the first floor, but I suggest immediately going to the large ground floor hall dedicated to monumental 15th-century sculpture, and mainly centered on Michelangelo's marble sculptures from his first early works up to his full ripening.

The exciting Bacchus dominates the room: this is Michelangelo's first monumental sculpture that he made when he was just over twenty years old. Inspired by the elegance and perfect smooth surface of classical sculpture, this work shows how casually young Michelangelo could approach the Greek-Roman models: the god of wine is in a precarious balance and is clearly drunk with wandering eyes, holding a cup that looks like it could fall any second. Behind him you can see a mocking spirit biting into a bunch of grapes. Buonarroti sculpted this statue during his first stay in Rome, and it was for the courtyard of the Palazzo della Cancelleria, in direct comparison with some ancient sculptures. The work made him immediately famous in the eternal city, so much so that shortly after, the Vatican commissioned his first masterpiece, Pietà....