Animate tracings in Michelangelo’s paper modani at San Lorenzo

This paper opens an inquiry into Michelangelo's unusual, yet highly ordered, exercise of the classical vocabulary through a close examination of his 1:1 scaled paper modani. Unlike modani from his contemporaries such as Antonio da Sangallo il Giovane and Bartolomeo Ammannati, Michelangelo's modani exhibit no evidence of the use of compass or rule, a realization that has led scholars to conclude that he drew them free-hand. However, new observations reveal that his modani were constructed by means of a deliberate and highly ordered working method linked through cutting and tracing. Although Michelangelo did not rely on instruments of geometry or mathematics, manipulative tracing nevertheless generated a sequential order of guide marks, ticks, and smears. While tracing, he would freely shift, rotate, or flip the template, trace only part of it, or combine it with other sketches or tracings. Far from capricious inventions, his extraordinary implementation of paper modani provides a wealth of clues as to how Michelangelo conceived of the elasticity and anatomical potential of the classical vocabulary.