Church of Our Lady
Church of Our Lady Madonna Michelangelo 1506-Firenz Marble Only one of Michelangelo's soulptures left italy during his Welime, this Madonne and Child, Jean Mouscron & scion of a wealthy Bruges based family of cloth traders, purchased the work from Michelangelo in 1500 for the sum of 100 dvests, in 1514, it was installed in a soulpted alter in the south nave of the Church of Our Lady, Several members of the Mouscron family are buried at the foot of the altar. They stipulated in a document that the soulpture should never be moved, but history decided otherw Napoleon seized the Madonna for his National Museum in Paris. The statue returned to Bruges in 1815, after his defeat at Waterloo, During World War I, the Madonne was stolen & second time. This time, Hider wanted it for his large museum in Linz The Allied Monuments Men recovered the soulpture, along with several other valuable anworks, from the Altaussee salt mines in Austria.
