The contract concludes with a guarantee and surety given by Jacopo
Gallo. "And I, Jacopo Gallo, pledge my word to his most Rev. Lordship
that the said Michelangelo will finish the said work within one year,
and that it shall be the finest work in marble which Rome to-day can
show, and that no master of our days shall be able to produce a
better. And, in like manner, on the other side, I pledge my word to
the said Michelangelo that the most Rev. Card. will disburse the
payments according to the articles above engrossed. To witness which,
I, Jacopo Gallo, have made this present writing with my own hand,
according to the date of year, month, and day as above."

The Pietà raised Michelangelo at once to the highest place among the
artists of his time, and it still remains unrivalled for the union of
sublime aesthetic beauty with profound religious feeling. The mother
of the dead Christ is seated on a stone at the foot of the cross,
supporting the body of her son upon her knees, gazing sadly at his
wounded side, and gently lifting her left hand, as though to say,
"Behold and see!" She has the small head and heroic torso used by
Michelangelo to suggest immense physical force. We feel that such a
woman has no difficulty in holding a man's corpse upon her ample lap
and in her powerful arms. Her face, which differs from the female type
he afterwards preferred, resembles that of a young woman. For this he
was rebuked by critics who thought that her age should correspond more
naturally to that of her adult son. Condivi reports that Michelangelo
explained his meaning in the following words: "Do you not know that
chaste women maintain their freshness far longer than the unchaste?
How much more would this be the case with a virgin, into whose breast
there never crept the least lascivious desire which could affect the
body? Nay, I will go further, and hazard the belief that this
unsullied bloom of youth, besides being maintained in her by natural