The inscription in Latin can be seen on the Virgin’s sash and reads, in translation: 'Michelangelo Buonarroti, Florentine, was making (this)'. The gobbo (hunchback) in question was Cristofero Solari (c.1460-1527), a sculptor from Milan, who had achieved fame in Rome working for Pope Alexander VI (r. One night, bringing his chisels along, he locked himself in with a little light and carved his name there.” Michelangelo kept his counsel though it seemed rather strange to him that his painstaking work should be attributed to someone else.

One of them asked another who had made it, and he replied: ‘Our Gobbo from Milan’.

“One day coming into the place where the Pieta had been installed, Michelangelo found a large number of strangers from Lombardy praising it highly. Giorgio Vasari (1511-74) explains why in his book Le Vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori (The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (first published in 1550, enlarged in 1568):

Michelangelo's sculpture of the Pieta (1498-99), in St Peter's Basilica , is not only one of his most exquisite creations, it is also the only work of art he ever signed.

Meaning of faciebat latin