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      ROME (CWNews.com) - The Italian government will gather Michelangelo's three complete "Pieta" sculptures for the Jubilee Year 2000, including the most famous version in St. Peter's Basilica, according to report in Il Messaggero newspaper.

    The Vatican's Pieta, depicting the Virgin holding the body of Christ after his crucifixion, was sculpted by Michelangelo for the Jubilee Year 1500 and is now the most famous of his three works. Another Pieta is kept at the Castello Sforzesco Museum in Milan. The third, known as the "Pieta' di Palestrina" -- taking its name from the town near Rome from which it came -- is kept at the "Galleria dell'Accademia" in Florence. A fourth, unfinished Pieta also exists in Florence.

    The exhibition of the three "Pietas", to take place at the Quirinal Palace -- a once residence to the popes and now to Italian presidents -- would start soon after the opening of the Holy Door, possibly on January 2, and continue until the Jubilee of Artists, February 18.

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