MICHELANGELO Buonarroti
(b. 1475, Caprese, d. 1564, Roma)

Ignudo

1509
Fresco
Cappella Sistina, Vatican

The picture shows the Ignudo at the lower right corner of the Drunkenness of Noah (above the Delphic Sibyl).

Only the head, a shoulder, and the feet are now visible of this ignudo. The rest of the body was destroyed by the detachment of intonaco caused by the explosion of the powder magazine at Castel Sant'Angelo in 1797. A sixteenth century engraving shows that the figure was a mirror image of the one facing it, and it is likely that it was executed using the same cartoon reversed.