Michelangelo's Pieta

\nThe Pietà by Michelangelo is a marble sculpture in the Vatican in Rome. This famous artwork depicts the dead body of Jesus in the arms of his mother Saint Mary, after his crucifixion. The figures are quite out of proportion, owing to the difficulty of depicting a fully-grown man cradled full-length in a woman's lap. If Christ were to be human scale, the Virgin, standing, would be sixteen feet tall. However, owing to Michelangelo's skill, much of the Virgin's size is concealed in her drapery, and the figures look quite natural. Michelangelo's Pietà was damaged on May 21, 1972 by Lazlo Toth, who hammered the sculpture, while shouting "I am Jesus Christ."