Pietro Annigoni: Pope John XXIII and the Pietà

Michelangelo's "Pieta"

"'Time' magazine came to me with a request for a portrait of Pope John, upon which I started work in the Vatican on 5th June. A man from 'Time' took me there and presented me to Monsignor Cardinale, who in turn passed me on to the Pope's secretary, who in his turn, led me into the study of John XXIII. There, bending on one knee as I had been instructed, I kissed, and did not kiss, the hand that was extended to me and withdrawn from me at the same time. The Monsignor introduced me: 'Maestro Annigoni, who is here for the portrait.' 'Young for a maestro,' remarked the Pope with a little smile. 

During one of our conversations as I worked, our principle subject was the proposed shipment of Michelangelo's 'Pietà' to the New York World's Fair in 1964. I had been told that the Pope had promised Cardinal Spellman that the sublime sculpture would go and that there was nothing anyone could do to stop it. All the same, I felt very strongly that it should not and I said so.

He could scarcely wait for me to finish speaking and answered impatiently: 'I don't understand why this project should be so discussed and opposed in so many quarters. If it is sent to the New York World's Fair, this 'Pietà' will give satisfaction and joy to millions of people who would never have a chance to admire it, won't it? So why shouldn't it be sent? Even works of art - even the greatest of them - are things of this world, and we should not become fanatically attached to them.'

Although disheartened, I insisted on telling him that we had the duty of protecting works of art, of not exposing them voluntarily to the risk of being damaged or absolutely destroyed, if we wished to hand them down unharmed to those who come after us, whose number will be vastly greater than that of the beneficiaries of the Fair.

'That's true,' he replied. 'Even so, I was in Paris when Leonardo's 'La Gioconda [Mona Lisa]' was stolen from the Louvre, and what a rumpus there was about it. What a rumpus - for such a little thing.' With his fingers he indicated just how 'little', and continued: 'Of course the thief deserved to be punished, - he mimed the spanking of a child - but, all in all, what exaggeration!'

At that moment I remembered involuntarily how, a few days before I met him, he had been described to me as 'a good parish priest.' It was so true that I had to be careful not to address him by name or give him a comradely slap on the back."

To be continued 

(Excerpted from "Pietro Annigoni: An Artist's Life" by Pietro Annigoni, 1977.)