According to art scholar Amel Olivares, “A small Last Judgment with Christ the Judge and other figures from the famous fresco that can be admired in the Sistine Chapel,” was painted by Michelangelo in oil on canvas.
Amel Olivares’ research lasted more than 8 years and was presented to the Foreign Press in Rome. The work under investigation is “The Last Judgment of Geneva,” the traces of which had been lost for more than 100 years.
Olivares, a specialist in Renaissance art, collaborated on the project with art history and conservation scholar Monsignor José Manuel del Rio Carrasco.
According to the reconstruction, it was a gift from Michelangelo to painter Alessandro Allori, who used it as a model to make an Altarpiece in the Basilica Santissima Annunziata in Florence. The painting is on fine linen canvas and has the dimensions of 96.52 x 81.28 cm. The painting, according to the scholar, has some interesting peculiarities, including the figure of Christ the Judge who is portrayed “boldly,” without a beard, exactly as in the original fresco in the Sistine Chapel, the creation of incomplete or only sketched characters, the technique of movement in the figures depicted, and the inclusion of angels apteri, i.e. without wings.
Among the souls who are the “saved” is what is believed to be a self-portrait of Michelangelo Buonarroti as a young man. The Judgment, according to Amel Olivares, is an example of Michelangelo’s knowledge of the oil-on-canvas technique, presumably learned from Sebastiano dal Piombo, who arrived in Rome around 1512. A detailed description of Geneva’s Last Judgment was found in the Florence State Archives in 1792, in documents relating to the inventory of Furniture and Works of Art owned by Florentine Marquis Donato Guadagni.
The work has changed ownership over the centuries and was restored in 2015 by Antonio Casciani. The painting, which is preserved today in excellent condition, has been the subject of research, stylistic studies, historical studies and scientific analysis, including spectrophotometry, stratigraphy, and reflectography, while facial reconstruction, physiognomic and anthroposomatic comparison studies have been carried out on Michelangelo’s face.
“Allori, the putative son of Agnolo Bronzino,” says Olivares, “was in close contact with Michelangelo during his stay in Rome around 1554 and 1560, a period in which he had the opportunity to study the Master’s works. Michelangelo at that time had ties with some influential and aristocratic Florentine families such as the Bardi, the Capranica and the Montauto families, who with their Banco, also financed the Master’s realization of the tomb of Pope Julius II. It was the Montauto family that commissioned Allori to embellish their private chapel in the Basilica Santissima Annunziata in Florence. Allori, based on the sketch he received as a gift from Michelangelo, masterfully created a majestic Altarpiece with the theme of the Last Judgment, the painter’s words written in Latin at the bottom of the painting attest: ‘The Florentine citizen, disciple of Bronzino, Alessandro Allori, faithfully painted this invention of the most excellent painter Buonarrotì.”
