AB II-III 3 Contract for the Piccolomini altar

The sheet shows a series of changes that Michelangelo brought to the contract for the exevution of the statues of the Piccolomini’s altar in the Siena Cathedral, commissionated to the artist by the future Pope Pio III, in June 1501. The letter was written by Michelangelo in May 1501, just before leaving Rome to heading back to Florence. The value of this sheet rests especially in the anayomical studies that the artist drew on the paper from a point in time before the writing and that shall be deemed “extremely rare graphic testimonials of the master’s youthfulness”.