The largest sculpture in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Piazza della Signoria is the Rape of the Sabines by Giambologna. Michelangelo’s powerful but slender David positioned near the Loggia in front of the Palazzo Vecchio nearby, exceeds five meters in height, and certainly was an incentive for Giambologna to create a monumental work 4.10 meters high.

These are three intertwined characters where a young Roman kidnaps one of the Sabine women by holding her up while trapping a frightened and desperate old man between his legs. The classic style with which Giambologna sculpts the work is in accordance with the myth of the “Rape of the Sabines” according to which the founder of Rome Romulus kidnaps the women of the nearby Sabina region by deception to procreate and populate the newborn city.

Although Giambologna preferred to make clay models to be cast in bronze with lost wax, he executed the work in a single monolithic block of marble which presents large masses and voids arranged asymmetrically while maintaining the ideal and real weight concentrated at the bottom; he was able to give the set of figures an “S” twist which allows the monument to have the innovative characteristic of three-dimensionality; in fact, it was made to be placed in the center of a space where it can be seen from all sides, as Michelangelo also claimed:

pyramidal figure, serpentine and multiplied by one, two and three […] because the greatest grace and prettiness that a figure can have is that it shows movement, which painters call fury of the figure […] and to represent this motion there is no it is a more adapted shape than that of the flame of the fire […] so that, when the figure has this shape, it will be beautiful,

as in fact Giovanni Paolo Lomazzo tells us in his “Treatise on the Art of Painting” of 1585.

Giambologna completed the execution of the work in 1583. It had been commissioned by the Grand Duke Francesco I dei Medici, as can be deduced from a letter that Simone Fortuna wrote to the Duke of Urbino on 17 October 1581 in which he informed him that a group would soon emerge of three statues opposite Donatello’s Judith in the Loggia dei Pisani [the Judith was then placed in the Loggia dei Lanzi].
The sculpture was signed with the inscription “OPVS IOANNIS BOLONII FLANDRI MDLXXXII” [by Giovanni de Boulogne of Flanders, 1582].

The Grand Duke Ferdinando I dei Medici found the work beautiful and, as Raffaello Borghini writes in his “Il Riposo” of 1584, wanted to have it placed in the Loggia dei Lanzi.
It is curious how Giambologna wrote on 13 June 1579 to the Duke of Parma Ottavio Farnese that with this work he wanted to “give space to the wisdom and study of art”, that is to express the strength of love of the young lover, the beauty of the beloved woman, and the desperation of her old husband. And thanks to the classical sculptural style, nudity did not offend the sensitivity of the Catholic Reform. Nothing to do, however, with the “Rape of the Sabines”.

But Raffaello Borghini confirms that originally Giambologna wanted to sculpt three figures that interacted in movement with each other, and that however he made the sculptor change his mind, and in fact he writes:

“he was told, I don’t know by whom, that it would have been well done, to continue the story of Perseus by Benvenuto [a work by Benvenuto Cellini present under the Loggia dei Lanzi] that he had pretended for the kidnapped girl Andromeda wife of Perseus, for her kidnapper Fineo, her uncle, and for the old Cepheus, father of Andromeda.But one day Raffaello Borghini having come to Giambologna’s workshop, and having seen to his great delight this beautiful group of figures and understood the story, that must have meant, he showed signs of amazement, of which Giambologna realizing, begged him a lot to give him his opinion on this, who concluded that in no way should he give that name to his statues, but that would be better the Rape of the Sabine Women; which story having been judged apt, gave its name to the work.“

Giambologna executed, as almost all sculptors used to do, a model in clay or raw earth, which fortunately was not destroyed and which is kept in the Academy of Florence.
From the clay model, which was particularly fragile and friable when dry, a plaster positive was normally drawn, more resistant than raw clay, used as a reference for sculpting the work in marble. A plaster model, probably the original by Giambologna, was found in the early 1900s by Marino Marinelli, father of Ferdinando Marinelli Jr.

One of the assistants of Giambologna’s studio for the marble sculpture of the mammoth work was Pietro Francavilla (Italianized name of Pierre de Franqueville) who worked on it since 1574.
When the title of The Rape of the Sabine Women became definitive, Giambologna executed a bronze bas-relief to be affixed to the base which made it clear the subject of the monument, as Cellini had done for the base of the Perseus.

There is no news on how Michelangelo worked to arrive at the finished David. We only know that the block entrusted to him had already been badly rough-hewn by others to make a giant prophet to be placed on the spurs of the Cathedral, without ever being finished.
However, Michelangelo managed to “pull” out of the block the David, one of the marvels of the Renaissance, of perfect proportions.

Normally the sculptors followed (and in some sculpture studios they still follow) a particular process, which even Michelangelo would have followed if the block of marble had been virgin, which consisted of various phases:

the first was a visit to the Carrara marble quarry, in this case the Fantiscritti quarry, to look for and choose the right block for the sculpture to be made; the block had to be of white marble without veins and without visible nor hidden cracks. Only quarrymen and sculptors with great experience were able to understand, from the outside of the block, how it appeared inside.

Once the perfect block was found, the sculptor sketched the volumes that the finished sculpture would have had on all its sides, in black chalk or red chalk, then asking the quarryman to roughly shape the block by removing the unnecessary ones.

The block, brought from the quarry to the port on carts pulled by a few pairs of oxen, was loaded onto a robust boat which, in the case of Florence, sailed up the Arno from its mouth near Pisa to a port near the city, normally the port of Signa. Here it was again loaded onto a cart pulled by oxen and taken to the sculptor’s studio. For the block entrusted to Michelangelo, the phase of choosing the marble and transporting it to the courtyard of the Opera del Duomo in Florence was not followed by Michelangelo but by others.

Despite what he made Condivi write for his autobiography, where Michelangelo claims to have always faced marble directly without drawings or sketches or clay models, normally he too, like the other sculptors, performed all of the above.

To understand the work required to make a marble sculpture, we can follow the creation of a full-size marble replica of David. Instead of the clay model presumably modeled by Michelangelo, a positive plaster model is used, made from the negative cast taken from the original work.

This is placed next to the marble block.

A first rough cut of the volumes is made.

The ancient system of the manual pantograph is still used, called in the sculptors’ jargon “macchinetta”, a system already practiced by Greek and Roman sculptors. It consists of transferring three-dimensional points taken from the plaster model onto the raw marble. The greater the number of points reported, the greater the fidelity of the marble sculpture.

In this way we proceed to eliminate the excess marble layer after layer, getting closer and closer to the model, and the sculpture goes on by layers until the work is perfectly equal to the original.

Obviously, when the sculptor performs his sculpture, he creates clay models with few details, which he will sculpt directly on the marble.

When all the volumes are finished, which for the replica means that they are identical to the original, the work of smoothing and finishing the surfaces begins, performed with special files and emery paper; Michelangelo also often worked the surfaces of his works with ever finer steps (chisels), deliberately leaving the relative signs visible.

Catalogue: The David by Michelangelo

Duke Cosimo I had commissioned the construction of the Biancone fountain at the north-east corner of Palazzo Vecchio, so that the central figure of Neptune would be in line with the other large statues of Michelangelo’s David and Hercules and Cacus of Bandinelli.

The project for a fountain in Piazza della Signoria is mentioned for the first time in a letter from Bandinelli to Jacopo Guidi dated March 1550.
In 1559 Vasari went to Rome and proposed Ammannati’s project to Michelangelo, in which Neptune has his arms raised.

As can also be seen on a medal by Pier Paolo Galeotti from 1565 relating to the project for the fountain, Neptune actually has his arms raised.

With Michelangelo’s consent it was easy to convince Cosimo I to assign the task of the fountain to Ammannati (also because Bandinelli had died in 1560) who gave a quick look at Cellini’s project but without even looking at the projects of other competitors such as Giambologna, Danti (and perhaps Vincenzo de’Rossi and Simone Mosca).
The marble Neptune was executed with his arms lowered: even so Ammannati did not sculpt it in a single block but several parts of marble joined together.

Cosimo I wanted most of the basin and the marble decorations to be done with the “Mischio di Seravezza” marble with violet inclusions, a quarry of his exclusive property and use.

Four bronze figures were placed at the four corners of the marble basin, two Satyrs and two Naiads (in reality they are Nereids, nymphs of the sea); and in fact Domenico Mellini (1566) speaks of Nereids, Raffaello Borghini (1584) writes that “the two females” were depicted for Thetis and for Doris.
In fact, Thetis has a shield as her attribute, with reference to her gift that she gave to her son Achilles. The attributes of the other Nereid (Doris), in addition to the dolphin, a buccina and a queen’s diadem, identify her as Amphitrite, wife of Neptune and therefore queen of the sea.

They are mannerist reworkings of the two marine deities whose proportions seem to draw inspiration from the school of Fontanebleau, of which many engravings were widespread at the time of Ammannati: in particular, the famous shield of Achilles described by Homer in the Iliad is wholly symbolic, in fact it presents a battle generic in bas-relief conducted with rapid style, of great spontaneity and in some places just mentioned.

If in the past the execution of the two Nereids, later renamed “Naiads”, had been attributed to various mannerist sculptors, and in particular to Giambologna, critics have long since attributed them to Ammannati, as well as the two Satyrs.

For Hitler’s visit to Florence in 1938, cleaning and restoration interventions were ordered, in particular of the bronzes present in Piazza Signoria, followed by podestà Paolo Venerosi Pesciolini and cared for by the municipal architect Alfredo Lenzi. They were thus cleaned up by Ferdinando Marinelli Sr., founder of the homonymous Artistic Foundry; on that occasion Marinelli asked and obtained permission to make negative moulds directly on the originals.
Those moulds then passed to his nephew Ferdinando Marinelli Jr. thanks to whom the identical copies of Ammannati’s “Naiads” exhibited in the Bazzanti Gallery on Lungarno Corsini were made.

Michelangelo had a splendid life but also a very difficult one, which he often complained about: discouragement due to body fatigue, lack of friends of any kind, political and religious crises, extreme avarice towards himself and his others (but not with family members he felt guilty towards) so much so that he fled Florence while he was directing the fortification works for the nearby siege of the city, for fear of seeing his own money taken to support the expenses of the war, from the passion senile for the young and beautiful Tomaso Cavalieri, to the spiritual love for Vittoria Colonna.

At the same time his art was immediately admired and venerated by his contemporaries, it fascinated the great personalities he commissioned, historians, his disciples and contemporary and subsequent artists. His life was written by the biographers Giovio, Vasari, Condivi while he was still alive. He was admired by Cellini, Tintoretto, Buontalenti, Greco.

His sculptural style is the watershed between the Renaissance, of which it is the ripe fruit, and the beginning of Mannerism. In the unscrupulous use of the “unfinished” Michelangelo brings an impressive modernity to sculpture for the first time, both unresearched as in the works he actually could not or did not want to finish, and where he used it in the works in which unfinished areas deliberately appear alongside finished and polished areas.
Many hypotheses have been made to explain the meaning of this way of sculpting, and still the critics do not agree. The fact remains that it creates deep sensations and emotions in the viewer.

When Michelangelo dictated his autobiography to Condivi, he wanted to highlight that he always did everything alone without help, even the frescoes in the Sistine Chapel, and even alone he declares that he never used the normal methods that sculptors have always used: he left almost no preparatory drawings for his sculptures, having burned them all before he died, he never made clay models, even if there is a life-size clay and wax model of his at the Academy of Design Arts.

For the David the situation in which Michelangelo found himself was different, the block of marble had already been roughed out even if badly. Michelangelo had to think the shape of his David forced from the existing blank. However, he was able to perform perhaps his greatest masterpiece even with these difficulties.
David is the young biblical hero who, challenging the giant warrior Goliath to a duel, kills him with a stone thrown with a slingshot and then takes him off with his sword, making the Israeli army led by King Saul win against the Philistines.
Michelangelo sculpts him with the stone still to be thrown, Goliath is still alive; in the two Davids by Donatello, the one in marble and the one in bronze, Goliath was killed and his head was cut off, the sword also appears in the bronze, as well as in that of Verrocchio.

The Florentine Republic was led albeit indirectly by the Medici family, who always found it prudent to highlight and insist on freedom from tyranny.
Already in 1416 the Signoria of Florence had purchased the marble David that Donatello had sculpted in 1408 placing it in the Sala dell’ Orologio of Palazzo Vecchio, a symbol of freedom against any dictator. At his feet he had carved the inscription Pro patria fortiter dimicantibus etiam adversus terribilissimos hostes Dii prestant auxilium, i.e. The gods give support to those who fight vigorously for their country even against the most formidable enemies.
Cosimo the Elder also wanted the statue of a bronze David for his courtyard of Palazzo Medici in via Larga to underline how the Medici too were advocates of freedom against tyranny, and asked Donatello for it who sculpted a more pagan and naked David which we know to have been in 1469 in his Palace. However, when the Medici were expelled from the city in 1495, the people who raided the Palazzo transported the statue to Palazzo Vecchio as a symbol of the freedom of the Republic.

The message of Michelangelo’s David was the same: God would protect the city of Florence and its Republican government based in Palazzo Vecchio from any enemy of freedom.
Michelangelo’s David is a completely naked young man, and it is the first time since Rome that a large statue has been executed completely naked.
The pose of resting the weight on one of the two legs, which leaves the other free as in the classical heroes at rest, which happens to the various Davids, derives from classical art and also reappears from the little Hercules symbolizing the Force, present in the pulpit of the Baptistery of Pisa, sculpted by Nicola Pisano.

When in 1537 Cosimo I dei Medici becomes Duke of the Republic of Florence, he chooses to change the symbol, no longer the republican David, but Hercules against whose strength it is useless to fight.
He has the statue of Hercules who conquers Cacus sculpted and, while leaving Michelangelo’s David in its place, he places it on the other side of the Porta del Palazzo Vecchio, the meaning of which is clear: God is no longer with the Republic, now he is Hercules , symbol of Cosimo, and of the new branch of the Medici, which commands.

It was Cosimo dei Medici the Elder who, around 1440, commissioned Donatello to create a bronze statue of David cast in lost wax.
In 1420 his father Giovanni di Bicci dei Medici, founder of the Banco dei Medici and great patron of art in Florence, left the management of his activities to Cosimo dei Medici the Elder, who was as skilled as or more than his father, enormously expanded the circle of business by opening branches of the Medici Bank in most of Europe. Politically shrewd, he managed to win the favor of the antipope John XXIII, and Pope Martin V who replaced him in 1417, requested a large loan from the Banco dei Medici, and Cosimo granted it to him: friendship with the current pope was very important for the Banco dei Medici.

Upon the death of his father Giovanni di Bicci in 1429, Cosimo managed to create a pro-Medici party in the government of the city which was an enemy of the oligarchic faction headed by the Albizi through alliances and marriages with the great families such as the Tornabuoni, the Salviati, the Bardi, the Cavalcanti. He managed to appear pro-popular while simultaneously transforming the Medici family from nouveau riche to aristocracy.
Having failed in 1430 the plan of the oligarchic government of the Florentine Republic to have Cosimo exiled from Florence on various pretexts, due to the opposition of Niccolò da Uzzano, when Uzzano died in 1433 they managed to have Cosimo imprisoned by accusing him of wanting to become dictator of Florence.

In prison he was isolated, but he bribed the warden Federico Malavolti who allowed him to warn his party which organized a popular uprising, and the oligarchic government of Rinaldo degli Albizi was forced to let him out, condemning him to exile from the city.
Cosimo with a crowd of friends and servants stopped in Venice, where he lived as a great lord, controlling and directing the government of Florence: in 1434 he had a group of pro-Medicean rulers appointed who had him recalled to Florence; Cosimo in turn had his enemies exiled.
It was from the Palazzo Medici in via Larga, designed by Michelozzo, that he managed city politics, extorting his enemies with the taxman and always making sure that in the government of Florence there was a majority of men who strictly trusted him.

The bronze David was modeled and cast in bronze with lost wax method by Donatello around 1435-1440, before the artist was called to Padua in 1443 to sculpt Christ and the bas-reliefs for the altar of the Basilica of S. Antonio in Padua and then the monument to Gattamelata.

It is assumed that it was placed in the great hall on the first floor (piano nobile) and in 1457 (or in any case before the arrival in Florence in 1459 of Galeazzo Maria Sforza hosted in the Palazzo and of Pope Pius II Piccolomini) it was brought to the courtyard of Palazzo Medici , which Cosimo was furnishing, and placed in the center on a red porphyry column probably salvaged and adapted from Rome, in turn resting on a white marble base sculpted by Desiderio da Settignano with four harpies at the corners. In David the thick bronze crown of oak leaves at the base framed the support of the bronze to the marble of the column.
A reconstruction of the base was made in fiberglass by the Bargello Museum and is the one shown here in the photographs

The height of about 160 cm of the bronze together with that of the base made it possible to reach a total height of about 3.5 meters. And in fact the work was created to be looked at from below. Gentile Becchi, an educator who lived in Palazzo Medici, dictated an epigraphic inscription that accompanied the David:
“Victor est quisquis patriam tuetur. / Frangit immanis Deus hostis iras. / En puer grandem domuit tiramnum./ Vincite cives!”
“Whoever defends his country is bound to win, / for God breaks the furious resolves of the most fearsome of enemies. / Here is the boy who defeated a huge tyrant. Citizens, to victory!” (Caglioti 2000, p. 205);
the epigraph makes David a heroic symbol of great political as well as moral strength. With the door of the building open, it was visible to all who passed in front of it (as Marco Parenti underlined in his letter of 1469 where he describes the marriage of Lorenzo the Magnificent to Clarice Orsini sent to Filippo Strozzi in Naples).
When the Medici were expelled from Florence in 1495, the Florentine Republic, which had requisitioned the family’s homes, took possession of their works of art in the Palazzo Medici, including the David di Donatello, which they transferred to the courtyard of the Palazzo dei Priori.
In 1511 the David was struck by lightning, and from that moment on he appeared and disappeared from the courtyard of Palazzo Vecchio: in 1555, when Duke Cosimo I and his family lived in the Palazzo Vecchio, the David was removed from the courtyard and was closed in a warehouse; it was replaced by the Putto with the Dolphin executed in bronze by Verrocchio taken from the Medici villa of Careggi, and was placed on the porphyry fountain created by Francesco del Tadda in the center of the courtyard.
The David reappeared with its column base in the courtyard in 1570 in a niche in the east porch, but in 1592 it was again removed and replaced by Pierino da Vinci’s Samson on the Philistine.
Until 1638 we do not know where it was, the year in which it appears, according to the inventories of Palazzo Pitti, in the Sala Bianca. It then reappears when it is transferred in 1778 to the Uffizi gallery.
Finally in 1865 it was housed in the Bargello, transformed into the National Museum and here it stopped.
David is a naked youth with one foot on the severed head of the Giant Goliath. The naked body is flaunted in the attitude of a winner; he wears a laurel-wreathed Mercury-like brimmed hat with a lost plume cap; at his feet he has ancient-type footwear, in his right hand he holds a large flat-pointed sword that rests on Goliath’s helmet, in his left a sling stone. Goliath has a winged helmet where a bas-relief appears on the visible side. David’s sword indicates precisely the small bas-relief which therefore probably highlights the “moral” of the entire sculpture. It represents a chariot pulled by two winged and naked putti; on the chariot is enthroned a wingless figure who receives gifts from two other winged putti; behind the throne appears a naked and fat character without wings who has an amphora at his feet. The scene seems to be taken from an ancient Roman gem, probably from the Medici collection; it is probable that the seated figure is Bacchus accompanied by Silenus, and that the winged putto is offering him a cup of wine. Being on Goliath’s helmet, it could be the representation of incontinence, pride and arrogance, vices associated with Goliath (and the tyrannical enemies of Florence) conquered by the virtue of David (the Republic of Florence, crypto-managed by Cosimo).

That it was placed high above the column is proven by many details: his head and gaze are turned downwards, the only way to be able to see his face, but also by a series of anatomical irregularities, such as the shoulder blades and lowered buttocks in the flattened and then broken backside and in all the angular joints that Donatello performed as an optical correction for the high placement of the statue, the strong rotation of Goliath’s head to make the plate with the cherubs visible, many unfinished parts that would have been hidden by the garland protruding on the base. Comparing the impression of David at eye level with the same place above, completely changes the grandeur and vigor of the character and the meaning of the helmeted head of Goliath.

The David, which had been commissioned by a private individual, would be displayed so high in a private home, Donatello sculpted the nude David for the first time. His childhood, his sanctity, humility and warrior heroism would have saved Donatello and the client any suspicion of heterodoxy. Donatello was also inspired by classical sculpture, almost always nude. Only after a few generations, with Michelangelo, did another completely naked David appear.
The David is one of the less successful castings from a technical point of view: it has many cold-assembled plugs to correct the deficiencies, it has various cracks, parts which were not reached by the bronze during the casting, the need for remelting to reconstruct parts that did not come (clearly visible is the crown of the hat, the back of the helmet of Goliath, part of the base wreath, lack of fusion under the chin). The many movements of the statue have caused other damages probably also due to falls, such as the breakage and loss of a lock of hair on the left shoulder.

In a letter from Gentile Becchi, tutor in the Medici house and friend of Lorenzo the Magnificent, a fitting judgment appears on the type of work by Donatello:

…Contende la magnificentia con l’ utilità, l’ utilità chol p[iacere] et novità… ma perché l’ oficio mio con Voi è asuto più riprendere che lodare, un [man]camento vi viddi, et questo è quello hebbe Donatello et qualunque ha più inventio[n]e [e sa] bozzare più che finire, ordire più che essere patiente a tessere. (ASF, Mediceo avanti il Principato, XXXVII, 489)

And in fact Donatello took care of the final effect of his sculptures so that they gave the viewer the effect he had wanted, without wasting too much time on details and finishes, because he believed the rough and unfinished surface would have given greater strength and expressiveness to his works.
A very interesting detail is the cold scratching of a large part of the surface of the sculpture, probably to limit its reflections.

The hair, spared from the rain thanks to the visor of his hat, tells us that in many parts Donatello had highlighted some parts of the work with gold leaf (“a missione”), as he did for example in Attis.

The rite of tearing down the wall was repeated until the opening of the Holy Door on December 24, 1974 by Paul VI. Until that day, the Holy Door in the basilica atrium was closed off by a white wall decorated with a gilded metal cross, with a leaden plaque underneath, a wall raised at the closure of the Holy Door itself at the end of the Jubilee Year of Pius XII in 1950.

Paul VI at the end of the Holy Year of 1975 introduced a ritual change for the closing of the Door: in 1949 the one cast in bronze was applied to the inner part of the Holy Door, used for the night closing of the gate passage after the collapse of the Door masonry. The bronze doors were moved to the front of the opening, and since then the wall has been demolished a few days before the opening of the door from the inside and rebuilt at the end of the Jubilee.
And the opening and closing ceremony has undergone a profound change: from 1975 the pope opens the Holy Door only by pushing and throwing open the two bronze doors (the wall was demolished by the masons a few days earlier); and the closing of the Holy Door takes place in reverse, the pope locks the two bronze doors (and the wall will be rebuilt a few days later).
So since 1950 the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica has been closed from the outside by the bronze door, and no longer by the simple wall.
And these doors have become a reminder of the spirituality of the Holy Years, of indulgence, mercy and forgiveness.

The idea of renovating the gates dates back to the pontificate of Benedict XIV in the 18th century. But of the project only wooden models remain at the factory of San Pietro.

Prince George of Bavaria, born in Munich in 1880 from the royal family of Wittelsbach, was Vatican Canon in 1926. Upon his death in 1943, he destined his private estate to make the doors of St. Peter’s Basilica in bronze. He also left written the rules for the establishment of a commission to preside over the work, which was to have the Archpriest of the Basilica at its head, the Treasurer and Secretary of the Reverend Fabbrica di San Pietro as secretary, and his brother the Prince of Bavaria as collaborators , two representatives of the canons of the Basilica elected by the Chapter, the Director of the Pontifical Museums and Galleries and finally the Ambassador of Germani to the Holy See. The Commission had to announce an international competition and decide the winner.

After the war, in 1947 the Commission was formed by Cardinal Federico Tedeschini, Mons. Ludovico Kaas, Mons. Carlo Grosso and Mons. Vincenzo Bianchi Cagliesi, prof. Bartolomeo Nogara, Prof. Piero Canonica, Prof. Arnaldo Foschini, Archbishop Arthur Wynen. Count Eng. Enrico Pietro Galeazzi, Eng. Francesco Vacchini.
The announcement was published in July 1947 with the obligation to present the drawing of a door at 1:10 scale, the plaster sketch of a panel at 1:4 scale and a detail of the true plaster panel.
More than 80 projects arrived from all over the world. Only 12 were awarded, including Dazzi, Manzù, Morbiducci, Consorti, Cambellotti, etc., i.e. those who had kept to a classic scheme.
While they were discussing who to give the job to, Mons. Ludovico Kaas decided to have a smaller door built, not foreseen in the competition, that is the Holy Door, which was to replace the one of 1750. The cost of the new Holy Door was supported by the bishop of Basel and Lugano Mons. Franziskus von Streng, in thanks to the Swiss people for having been spared from the horrors of war. Mons. Kaas directly entrusted the execution of the work to the Sienese sculptor Vico Consorti, already registered in the competition for the other doors for the Vatican Basilica.

Consorti had already created for Count Guido Chigi Saracini, as a thank you for the liberation of the city of Siena from the Germans, the Door of Gratitude for the Cathedral of Siena, inaugurated on August 16, 1946. This door has classical references, with a search for Renaissance forms , and favorably impressed Archbishop Kaas. The contract was signed on March 1, 1949, and Consorti chose the Ferdinando Marinelli Artistic Foundry in Florence for casting and mechanical construction.
In the photo from left: Ferdinando Marinelli Sr., Vico Consorti, Count Chigi Saracini.

The Ferdinando Marinelli Foundry had already made itself known for its ability to cast other doors for the Church with lost wax, such as the one sculpted by Ludovico Pogliaghi for the Roman church of Santa Maria Maggiore and completed in 1947.

Casting the Holy Door made the Ferdinando Marinelli Foundry known throughout the Christian world, so much so that the castings and creations of other doors were assigned to it, such as the one commissioned by Cardinal Chrisanto Loque in 1956 for the Archbishop’s Palace in Bogotà (Colombia), who also turned to the sculptor Vico Consorti; and the doors for the Cathedral of Oropa (Biella) modeled by Vatteroni, Consorti and Audagna in 1960, whose total weight exceeded 11 tons; that of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Sasssari modeled by Mario Moschi and cast in 1969; and the Porta by Onofrio Pepe for the park of the new Court of Florence, carried out in 2005.

Consorti drew up a first sketch in January 1949 (the construction time for the Gate was very tight) which he had Marinelli cast in bronze. In the sketch there were panels with scenes taken from the Gospel and with two moments relating to the Holy Year: Boniface VIII delivering the bull of the first Jubilee against the background of the ancient Constantinian basilica, and the new Basilica with characters around the cross to indicate the last jubilee proclaimed.

In the month of June 8 panels were modeled in clay, and already cast by the Marinelli Foundry, the panels of the Buon Ladrone modeled between January and February 1949 and the four of the upper register cast in record time and never retouched by the Consorti.
On 31 August Consorti went to Rome in his Topolino Fiat to show the cast panels to Mons. Kaas.
The entire door arrived in St. Peter’s on 18 December while preparations were underway for the ceremony of the Holy Year, and the two doors were temporarily placed on the left side of the Chapel of the SS. Sacrament. After the Pope crossed the threshold of the Holy Door followed by the cardinals and prelates, the Holy Father proceeded to bless the two doors of Vico Consorti who was present on his knees and in the throes of emotion. He still didn’t know that from that day on he would be called “Vico dell’Uscio” for the rest of his life.
On 28 December the two doors were hinged into place

and subsequently in 1974 they led to a change in the ceremonial: no longer the breaking of the wall at the hands of the Pope, but the opening of the bronze doors and the subsequent closure at the end of the Jubilee. In fact in that year, when on Christmas day Pope Pius VI gave the three symbolic (but effective) hammer blows on the lime and brick wall, part of these fell on him.
With the Jubilee of Pope Pius XII in 1950 there was thus the opening of the bronze doors and his entry into St. Peter’s and likewise their subsequent closure

rite that was repeated in the special Jubilee of the end of the millennium of 2000 with the opening of Pope Francis

and subsequent closure

The Ferdinando Marinelli Foundry was placed under pressure: a work of this magnitude had to be carried out and delivered from January to December 1949, i.e. in less than a year with the further difficulty that the models of the tiles and frames were not brought to the foundry all together, but little by little over time, that is as Consorti completed them. The “miracle” succeeded and the bronze Holy Door arrived at the Vatican on December 18, 1949, six days before the opening for the Jubilee!
In those early post-war years, the Ferdinando Marinelli Foundry worked with craft techniques very similar to those of the Renaissance: there were no lifting machines such as cranes or forklifts, everything was done by hand, there was only electricity that gave light and allowed the use of drills and electric motor discs as seen in the photo.

The long cooking of the MOULDS to burn the wax, in brick and mud stoves built on top of each form and fed day and night with bundles of wood, and then the ritual of casting the molten bronze in a primitive oven powered by charcoal and oxygenated with a fan, the crucible with about 200 kg of molten bronze lifted and moved by hand, with such precision as to pour the liquid metal precisely into the buried forms up to the apex. Then the breaking of the forms, the cleaning of the raw castings obtained, the cleaning and chiselling of the bronzes, then the assembly, the welding with an oxy-acetylene flame, the processing of the welds, and finally the patina and the gilding.
When the work was finished, the meticulous control of Ferdinando Marinelli Sr., grandfather of Ferdinando Marinelli Jr. who has been managing the Foundry since 1976.