At the International Conference Capricci luterani. L’opera di Michelangelo sullo sfondo del dibattito interconfessionale (Frankfurt, 5-7 May 2021), Chiara Franceschini discussed new possibilities for interpreting the Sagrestia Nuova and other sixteenth-century Italian works in relation to vigilance and artistic practices of working at night.

Chiara Franceschini, Il tempo bruno – Michelangelo’s nocturnal work and the virtues of vigilance at the International Conference: Capricci luterani. L’opera di Michelangelo sullo sfondo del dibattito interconfessionale, Frankfurt, 5-7 May, 2021

The conference, to which historians, art historians and literary historians contributed in a fruitful debate between different disciplines and approaches, tackled the crucial and much debated issue of the relationship between Michelangelo and the religious crisis of the 16th century and whether and how Michelangelo’s works from the 1540s and 1550s can be interpreted or not against this background.