Michelangelo's Most Powerful Statue

Moses (1545, Carrara marble, twice life-size, San Pietro in Vincoli Church, Rome)
The angry Patriarch has just seen his people worshipping the Golden Calf and he is about to throw down the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments that God has given him.
And the horns? Moses had horns after seeing God according to a medieval tradition based on what scholars say was a mistranslation of the Bible. Later translations speak of a saintly radiance or rays of light.

People have always admired Moses’ beautiful arms and hands, as well as his long, soft beard. “One might almost believe that the chisel had become a brush,” says Vasari. But some have found fault with the strange outfit he is wearing—imitated perhaps from antique statues of barbarians.
This Moses is the central figure of the tomb of Pope Julius II.

Michelangelo began many figures for the Pope’s tomb but one after another they were scrapped or sold. The commission kept changing. Originally there were going to be forty statues and Pope Julius would have had the most spectacular mausoleum in the world. But he cancelled the first project and later versions by his heirs got smaller and smaller. This is the final, almost pitiful, result. Yet the single statue of Moses, one of the most impressive figures ever carved, is enough to perpetuate Julius’ memory.