By Jessica Easthope
It’s the first thing you see driving into Gate of Heaven Cemetery in East Hanover, New Jersey: a 10-foot statue – a replica of Michelangelo’s Rondanini Pietà – captures attention and elicits expressions of faith. The piece’s architect Lorenzo Pedrini says that’s the hope.
“We’re giving something different, something new, but giving justice to what the master did in the past,” he tells Currents News.
Lorenzo and his family are from the Carrara region of Italy, which is famous for its marble quarries. They are the same ones Michelangelo walked through to select the block of stone he used in the original two sculpture.
The beginning and the end of the process of making a statue like this have been the same for centuries, starting with a sketch and ending with a hammer and chisel in the hands of some of the most skilled artists in the world. But recently the middle of this process has become a bit more high tech: an anthropomorphic robot makes the first cuts through the 30,000-pound block of marble. Then, the last 20% is done just like Michelangelo did it.
“And that 20% is really the most important part, because we were able to give our craftsmanship, our passion for what we do,” Pedrini explains.
Francesca Lofaro, a representative for Pedrini Sculptors at the company’s office in the Diocese of Brooklyn, says the meaning of the statue guides the year-long process.
“That will help people to realize that it doesn’t end here, does it” she asks.
The Executive Director of Catholic Cemeteries of the Archdiocese of Newark, Joseph Heckel, says the inscription at the base of the pieta was chosen to help those grieving a loss.
“We think that whoever has Jesus in their life, all those people that come in to visit, they’re going to have eternal life and they’re going to be with their loved ones again,” he says.
The statue, which was installed in October, is not just for those visiting the cemetery. For construction director Michael Saul, it’s an invitation into faith.
“Just kind of, a beacon of hope to everyone driving by, it gives us an opportunity to evangelize to them,” he says.
Pedrini Sculptors has created three replicas for the Archdiocese of Newark, and they have two of the last remaining molds of Michelangelo’s original works.