ROME.- This drawing on a support made by gluing two sheets together, has often been called a “small cartoon”. However there is no evidence that this piece represents a preparatory phase of any work by Michelangelo or by artists connected to him. It is instead enlightening to think of this piece, without comparison in the corpus of Michelangelo’s drawings, as a meditation – continually recurring in the artist’s mind- on a maternity that is too painful for the mother to fully express her love for her son. It is no accident that the most