We feel that such a woman has no difficulty in holding a man's corpse upon her ample lap and in her powerful arms.

Her face, which differs from the female type he afterwards preferred, resembles that of a young woman.

For this he was rebuked by critics who thought that her age should correspond more naturally to that of her adult son.

Condivi reports that Michelangelo explained his meaning in the following words: "Do you not know that chaste women maintain their freshness far longer than the unchaste?
How much more would this be the case with a virgin, into whose breast there never crept the least lascivious desire which could affect the body?
Nay, I will go further, and hazard the belief that this unsullied bloom of youth, besides being maintained in her by natural causes, may have been miraculously wrought to convince the world of the virginity and perpetual purity of the Mother.

This was not necessary for the Son.