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Old Age He began carving a third Pietà, which he intended for his tomb. Not satisfied with the quality of his own work, in the year 1557 he broke the statue and gave the pieces away. It was eventually put together again, being placed in its present location, in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo (the museum of the cathedral of Florence). In 1558 Michelangelo made a clay model of the Laurentian Library, sending it to be shown to Cosimo I for approval, In 1560 Michelangelo sent to Cosimo I drawings and a clay model of the Church of S Giovanni dei Fiorentini, which was eventually constructed under his supervision. In the same year, his 85th, he offered his resignation to the pope as architect of St Peter’s, a dismissal which was refused. The following year the cornerstone of the Porta Pia, designed by him, was laid. On 29 August it was feared he had died, following a seizure, but it all proved a false alarm and he was soon on his feet again. In 1563 he was reported to be in perfect condition, if a bit weak on his legs, living a normal life, and even, following a misunderstanding, being called before a judge to answer some minor charges. Because of his great age envious colleagues succeeded in taking from him some of his responsibilities at St Paul’s, altering the project to the extent it risked making the building unstable. Michelangelo, however, was kept posted and managed to call Pius IV’s attention to the problem and had it successfully solved and the incompetent architects removed from office. In 1558 he made the so-called Palestrina Pietà, of which hardly anything is known. It was sculpted on an ancient Roman marble and up to 1938, when it was transferred to the Museo dell’Accademia in Florence, was in the Rosalia Chapel in the Barberini di Palestrina Palace. On 5 February 1564 Michelangelo began to feel unwell, dying on the 18 of the same month, at the age of 89. He had been working until a few days before on the so-called Rondanini Pietà, a near-abstract work in which mother and son merge and which is charged with the emotional intensity Michelangelo’s contemporaries called “'terribilità”. It is a world apart from the famous Pietà in St. Peters, a natural evolution, considering sixty-five years separated one work from the other. This work is now to be found in the Castle in Milan. Michelangelo’s body was placed in the Church of the Holy Apostles in Rome, being later transported in secret to Florence, where it arrived after 3 weeks. It was transported, in the presence of a large crowd, to the Church of Santa Croce. The funeral service took place in July, in the Church of St Lorenzo, and the artist was placed in his final resting place rest in the church of Santa Croce. His tomb dates from 1574 |