Nic­colò dell’Arca (c. 1435–1440 – 1494) was an Ital­ian Ear­ly Renais­sance sculp­tor, about which lit­tle is known except for his pos­ses­sion of a sub­lime skill in the art of sculp­ture.

His Com­pianto sul Cristo mor­to (the Mourn­ing, or Lamen­ta­tion, of Christ) is a life-size group of six sep­a­rate ter­ra­cot­ta fig­ures lament­ing in a semi­cir­cle around the dead Christ, in the Sanc­tu­ary of San­ta Maria del­la Vita in Bologna. Lamen­ta­tions were com­mon­ly depict­ed in Renais­sance Europe, it being the thir­teenth of the Sta­tions of the Cross. Here, the pain of Jesus’s friends, as he is tak­en down from the cross, could not have been expressed with more intense pathos. Sor­row digs into their faces, for­ev­er frozen in anguish.

More than 600 years after they were made, these frag­ile, now colour­less ter­ra­cot­ta stat­ues con­tin­ue to move and sur­prise vis­i­tors to the church who often don’t know about the church’s prized but untrum­pet­ed pos­ses­sion. It’s a uni­ver­sal and time­less grief the fig­ures express. The only peace­ful fig­ure of course is that of Christ who looks serene­ly asleep on a dec­o­ra­tive scal­loped cov­er­let. Each of the oth­er fig­ures’ dra­mat­ic pathos is inten­si­fied by the real­ism of the facial details.

It’s uncom­fort­able view­ing, of course, due to the nature of the scene, but you know these Renais­sance artists; they had a remark­able capac­i­ty for depict­ing pain and suf­fer­ing, all part and par­cel of the con­cepts embod­ied in the Chris­t­ian reli­gion. The anguish is stark, but the cause of the anguish becomes the focus for the Renais­sance view­er: the dead Christ and the impli­ca­tions of that death for mankind. Check out the image details to ful­ly appre­ci­ate Del­l’Ar­ca’s arti­san­ship.