It can be said that Michelangelo’s signature on the St Peter’s Pietà (executed 1498–1499/1500) is no less extraordinary and meaningful than the sculpture itself. The two components of the work, sculpture and inscription, move from the past to the future pari-passu, and the author believes that the innovations they bring in both domains are profoundly interrelated. The purpose of this paper is to reconsider Michelangelo’s work in what the author considers to be a new light, which may also illuminate, so to say, the inner relationship between Michelangelo’s words and image.