Drawings by Michelangelo in the Ashmolean (Collection)

The Drawings by Michelangelo in the Ashmolean Museum rank among the most immediate surviving records of an artistic process that profoundly shaped the Renaissance. Unlike completed paintings, sculptures or buildings, drawings preserve the moment of exploration: the first appearance of an idea, an abandoned solution, the testing of a movement or the gradual development of a composition. In Michelangelo’s case, such sheets are of exceptional importance. With only a few lines, he could suggest weight, volume, tension and physical energy, while his more finished studies reveal the intensity with which he examined anatomy, posture and expression.

The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford preserves one of the most important collections of Michelangelo drawings in the world. At its core is the celebrated collection assembled by the English painter and connoisseur Sir Thomas Lawrence, which was acquired for the University of Oxford in 1846. With 57 sheets wholly or partly drawn by Michelangelo himself, the museum holds the world’s third-largest collection of autograph drawings by the artist, surpassed only by the Casa Buonarroti in Florence and the British Museum in London.

The facsimile edition published by Treccani presents 40 leaves with 67 reproduced recto and verso views. Together they illuminate different periods and fields of Michelangelo’s career, showing him not only as a painter and sculptor but also as an architect. Rapid sketches stand beside carefully developed figure studies; firm outlines alternate with delicate hatching, corrections and superimposed forms. These visible traces of the working process reveal an artist who continually observed, tested, rejected and reconsidered his ideas.

Among the most significant sheets are studies connected with the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. They make it possible to follow the development of the powerful prophets, sibyls, ignudi and biblical figures that dominate its monumental pictorial programme. Individual limbs, heads and bodies were examined independently before being integrated into the larger composition. The drawings disclose how Michelangelo transformed anatomical observation into figures of extraordinary physical presence and spiritual intensity.

Further studies relate to the Last Judgement on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. Here his attention is directed towards twisting, falling and ascending bodies and towards the organisation of numerous figures within a single dramatic vision. Rather than functioning merely as preparatory exercises, the drawings record the gradual construction of movement and emotional force.

Michelangelo’s architectural work is represented as well. Designs for the dome of St Peter’s offer insight into one of the most important building projects in European history, while studies for the Laurentian Library in Florence reveal how he developed proportions, spatial effects and structural solutions on paper. His architectural drawings possess an almost bodily energy: walls, columns and stairways appear to be subjected to the same forces of tension and movement that animate his human figures.

A particularly moving sheet contains a Pietà study associated with the development of the late Rondanini Pietà. The subject of the Virgin supporting the dead Christ occupied Michelangelo throughout his life. In this drawing, the bodies, their grief and their intimate connection are compressed into a concentrated form that anticipates the transition from the classical completeness of his earlier works to the spiritual reduction and expressive intensity of his final sculpture.

Works on paper are extremely sensitive to light and therefore cannot remain on permanent display. The facsimile edition creates a degree of access and proximity that is rarely possible in the museum itself. Treccani reproduced the sheets in four-colour printing with the additional use of opaque white on Freelife Vellum White paper. Thirteen leaves are printed on the recto only, while 27 reproduce both recto and verso. Each is placed individually in a folder made of Merida Cream card, preserving the impression of separate working sheets rather than presenting them as pages in a conventional book.

The accompanying scholarly volume by Angelamaria Aceto examines the drawings from both art-historical and technical perspectives. It discusses Michelangelo’s materials and working methods, identifies the projects to which individual sheets relate and reconstructs the history of the Oxford collection. The facsimiles, commentary volume and notarial certificate are housed in a leather-covered case with raised bands and gold tooling. A sheet featuring studies of horses and a battle scene is additionally presented in a frame.

The edition is limited to 999 hand-numbered copies and six copies numbered in Roman numerals. It combines scholarly documentation with an ambitious form of reproduction, making accessible not only designs for some of Michelangelo’s most celebrated works but also the creative path that led to them. In the studies for the Sistine Chapel, St Peter’s, the Laurentian Library and the Rondanini Pietà, the viewer encounters Michelangelo at work: concentrated, experimental and engaged in a continuous search for the most powerful and convincing form.