Vatican Museums

The Milanese critic Enrico Piceni defined Adolfo Wildt's portraits as “portraits of ideas, not of men: and therefore of a terrible resemblance”. With regard to this extraordinary marble bust Piceni, after being asked whether it portrayed Pius XI, answered, “No, the Roman Apostolic Church. A block, masterly and static as a cathedral; the face of the man almost disappears below the enormous weight of the triregnum, and the ring of Peter is more important than the hand that wears it”. Adolfo Wildt completed the work in 1926 – the year in which he became Professor of Sculpture at the Brera Academy – without a commission from the Vatican, which took over forty years to accept it. A mature work by this extraordinary virtuoso of marble sculpture, the large bust was exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1926, at the centre of the rotunda, under Galileo Chini’s dome.