What I'd seen in Florence strengthened my resolve.

My Pietà must be true to the emotion... of a mother cradling her dying son.

I knew that God had intended for me to do this work.

I was emboldened and clear-sighted.

I would make something of such great and rare beauty that no one who saw it would not be moved to pity.

Why is it that the Pietà is such a powerful vehicle for him?

Well, I think it's to do with the fundamental challenge of sculpture.

How do you make inert matter live?

Michelangelo produces, for me, one of the most extraordinary and moving pieces of art in the entire Renaissance.

I remember first going to Rome and seeing it myself.

I, I could not believe it.

The power of that image could be created through marble.

I, I just, I was completely stunned by it.

There's not a chisel mark to be seen.

It's absolutely beautiful.

It's like Christ isn't even dead because his veins are still up.

It looks like he's asleep.

Michelangelo is the most unbelievable technician in the world.

I mean, look at her... hand.

Projecting into the air.

This is the most difficult thing in the world to carve.

Every single finger is at a different angle, separated.

And that hand offers us the body of her son.

And she's so serene.

The grief that I can associate with losing your son isn't on her face at all.

Maybe it's more about that quiet moment of being with her son.

It's not Christ, it's not anybody else, it's her son.

In that quiet moment is she somehow saying to God... this is my everything and Im giving him to you.