The Genius of Victory was sculpted by Michelangelo for one of his many projects for the tomb of Pope Julius II, who died in 1513. The famous Prisoners statues also belonged to that project.
The statue of Victory may have been started as early as 1519, but it remains unknown whether it was originally planned as part of the tomb. Today, the most reliable dating for this statue is 1534. The strong manneristic features (exaggerated contortions and complex movements) link this figure to the Prisoners.
In this work the artist wanted to symbolize man’s struggle and suffering. The Genius of Victory is an allegory of victory overlooking the defeated. For this reason, the Victory depicts a vigorous young man overlooking an old sagging and wrinkled man on the surface of the stone. This statue was once kept with the Prisoners in the Florentine study of Michelangelo.
Giorgio Vasari recommended the heirs of the artist to donate the statue to Cosimo I de’ Medici, who assigned the Prisoners to the Boboli Gardens and the Genius of Victory to Palazzo Vecchio. Today, after many vicissitudes, The Genius of Victory is back in the Hall of the Five Hundred, along with the Labors of Hercules.
“Far easier on the eyes was Michelangelo’s breathtaking Genius of Victory, which stood to the right, dominating the central niche in the south wall. At nearly nine feet tall, this sculpture had been intended for the tomb of the ultraconservative pope Julius II—Il Papa Terribile—a commission Langdon had always found ironic, considering the Vatican’s stance on homosexuality. The statue depicted Tommaso dei Cavalieri, the young man with whom Michelangelo had been in love for much of his life and to whom he composed over three hundred sonnets.” (Dan Brown, Inferno)
According to tradition, Michelangelo depicted the features of his lover Tommaso dei Cavalieri in the face of the statue. Michelangelo was born in 1475 in Caprese, in Tuscany.
Part of his childhood was spent in Florence. When he was 6 years old his mother died. For the better part of his life he cared above all for his father and his four brothers; it was only for a short period of time, when he was in his sixties, that he began to engage in serious relationships, such as the one with Tommaso dei Cavalieri.
Therefore, we can understand that he would do this in protest against the conservative attitude of the Pope… like our Dante Alighieri, Michelangelo was very proud and stubborn…