Michelangelo's Rondanini Pietà,, while relatively new to the master's canon of accepted works, is often discussed as part of his changing conception of the Pietà as an iconographic type -especially the relationship between mother and son. But close observation of the statue reveals that the work was not begun with the idea of having Mary hold her Son. Furthermore, Michelangelo's retention of fragments of successive stages in the carving in an elaborate sculptural palimpsest suggests that the dialogue of different historical moments is itself not just a part of the formal history of the work, but of its meaning as well.