Sunday, July 13, 2008

Michelangelo's Pieta

In addition to introducing Spring Lake citizens to Winsor McCay, we also hope to use this blog to introduce its visitors to Spring Lake. Those of you with a taste for art history will be especially interested to discover that Spring Lake, Michigan is home to one of only three exact replicas of Michelangelo's Pieta.


In 1964 Michelangelo's original Pieta was put on public display at the World Fair. Millions of people who otherwise would have never gotten the chance to see this masterpiece now could enjoy it firsthand. However, just in case some unforeseen disaster should befall, before moving the statue from Rome, a mold was made directly from the original marble and three replicas were cast.

The first casting resides at the Vatican, the second is in Iowa, and the third is right here in Spring Lake Michigan. It resides outside St. Mary's, right up the street from Spring Lake District Library and the former sites of Winsor McCay's childhood school and home. The statue boasts exact reproduction of every minute detail from Michelangelo's original. You can read more about this treasure at St. Mary's website, here.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is a COPY really at the Vatican? If one is in Iowa and one in Spring Lake and I was with one today in the Seminary of the Archdiocese of NY --- we have math problems. I actually signed on to find out where the other two were.

Anonymous said...

It looks like a amazing statue. I wish I could see a picture of it up close. I love to see the fine little details that go into statues like these. I admire things like these.

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