Description
The Madonna of the Stairs is a marble bas-relief by Michelangelo Buonarroti, datable to about 1491 and kept in Casa Buonarroti in Florence. The work, also according to Vasari, is a tribute to Donatello’s “stiacciato”. In the bas-relief, the protagonist is the Virgin Mary seated on a square support, shown in profile, with her gaze turned into the distance; Mary occupies a large part of the surface, and is sculpted with an almost prophetic attitude. Michelangelo, populating it with cupids, wants to accentuate the meaning of the staircase, namely that the faithful devotees of the Madonna through her intercession, as for a staircase, will climb in Sky.
