Saint Matthew

In 1503, with the David not yet finished, Florence's cathedral works office signed Michelangelo up for 12 more marble giants, the Apostles, for the piers of the Duomo. Saint Matthew is the only one he ever began. Pope Julius II called him to Rome, and in December 1505 the contract was cancelled, though letters suggest he was still working on this block the following year. In January 1506 the Laocoön group was dug up in Rome, and Michelangelo saw it that year. The way Matthew's head turns against the twist of his body seems to echo it. This was the first sculpture he left unfinished. One knee pushes forward out of the block and the face is lifted and turned, while the rest is only roughed in. The inscription on the base records its move in 1831 from the courtyard of the cathedral workshop to the art academy next door.