I grew up in the mountains of Colorado. I don't remember ever going to an art museum before setting off at 21 to study art history in Vienna for the summer. For two months, I attended lectures in the morning and spent my afternoons in museums, then we all went our separate ways for one month of travel. I teamed up with a fellow student, crisscrossing Europe according to where the night trains went, exploring whatever city we arrived at in the morning and only finding a hostel if we found a reason to stay. Our only pre-planned destinations were Spain and Paris for Bobbi, and I was adamant about going to Milan to see Michelangelo's Rondanini Pieta. The books said the Pieta was at the Castello Sforzesco, but we walked round and round the grounds without finding any mention of it. Bobbi and I ended up in a heated argument; she was adamant that it wasn't there and I was refusing to give up on my dream of seeing it. She finally stomped off in disgust to get something to eat, while I tried to figure out a plan B for finding it.
I finally found a gardener and repeated "Rondanini Pieta" over and over, pointing to my map. Somehow he conveyed that the building housing it was being renovated - "So sorry." Heartbroken, I crumpled to a nearby bench in defeat. I had been sitting there for awhile when he returned and motioned for me to follow. He unlocked an unobtrusive door and guided me down the stairs to a tall cylindrical room where the Rondanini Pieta stood, lit with natural light from the windows circling high above it. He told me to stay as long I wished and to go out the same way I had come in, and he went back to his gardening. When I came out Bobbi was waiting but the gardener was gone. 
I can't say why I am so drawn to this sculpture. It is so different than Michelangelo's Pieta at Saint Peter's in Rome, finished in 1499, when he was twenty-four. Michelangelo had started the Rondanini Pieta in 1556; but had abandoned it for seven or eight years before resuming work on it. He had carved on the piece an enitre day just six days before he died in 1564, at the age of 89. It must have been important to him because he bequeathed it to his servant, Antonio. It is clear that the piece was changing; the remnant of an arm going nowhere remains. Maybe it is the mystery of being left to wonder how the piece would have evolved had Michelangelo had more time.
I have thought of the Pieta and the gardener many times over the years. I seem to pull out its picture when there are hard times and grief surrounding me. The Pieta is as captivating and mysterious as ever. I will forever be grateful to a gardener who understood my need to see it and for his incredible gift of leaving me alone, to sketch, to photograph, and to simply sit and contemplate Michelangelo's Rondanini Pieta.
