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Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling

By Ross King

(12)

| Hardcover | 9780802713957

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Book Description

In 1508, despite strong advice to the contrary, the powerful Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo Buonarroti to paint the ceiling of the newly restored Sistine Chapel in Rome. Four years earlier, at the age of twenty-nine, Michelangelo had unveiled his masterful statue of David in Florence; however, he had little experience as a painter, even less working in the delicate medium of fresco, and none with the curved surface of vaults, which dominated the chapel’s ceiling. The temperamental Michelangelo was himself reluctant, and he stormed away from Rome, risking Julius’s wrath, only to be persuaded to eventually begin.
Michelangelo would spend the next four years laboring over the vast ceiling. He executed hundreds of drawings, many of which are masterpieces in their own right. Contrary to legend, he and his assistants worked standing rather than on their backs, and after his years on the scaffold, Michelangelo suffered a bizarre form of eyestrain that made it impossible for him to read letters unless he held them at arm’s length. Nonetheless, he produced one of the greatest masterpieces of all time, about which Giorgio Vasari, in his Lives of the Artists, wrote, “There is no other work to compare with this for excellence, nor could there be.”

Ross King’s fascinating new book tells the story of those four extraordinary years. Battling against ill health, financial difficulties, domestic problems, inadequate knowledge of the art of fresco, and the pope’s impatience, Michelangelo created figures—depicting the Creation, the Fall, and the Flood—so beautiful that, when they were unveiled in 1512, they stunned his onlookers. Modern anatomy has yet to find names for some of the muscles on his nudes, they are painted in such detail. While he worked, Rome teemed around him, its politics and rivalries with other city-states and with France at fever pitch, often intruding on his work. From Michelangelo’s experiments with the composition of pigment and plaster to his bitter competition with the famed painter Raphael, who was working on the neighboring Papal Apartments, Ross King presents a magnificent tapestry of day-to-day life on the ingenious Sistine scaffolding and outside in the upheaval of early-sixteenth-century Rome.

Critics

The trouble with plaster

Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling by Ross King 371pp, Chatto & Windus, £17.99 Writing Michelangelo Buonarroti's life is a tough option. This ought not to be so, because his first biographers and best sources were his friends, Giorgio Vasari and Asc ... (read full critics)

guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

Danger: man at work

My heart is always lifted when a book begins with a map; it is like getting on a plane, we are about to go on an adventure. The first image in this generously illustrated work is a map of Italy 400 years ago; it shows a loose collection of independen ... (read full critics)

spectator published on Fri, 17 Sep 2010

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1 Review

After Andrew Graham-Dixon's book, I thought there must be lots more interesting information about the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. And Ross King certainly does not disappoint. He really pulls you into the story, describing Michelangelo's background, the relationship with the Pope and also with Raf ... (continue)

After Andrew Graham-Dixon's book, I thought there must be lots more interesting information about the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. And Ross King certainly does not disappoint. He really pulls you into the story, describing Michelangelo's background, the relationship with the Pope and also with Rafael, who was at work in the Vatican (on the famous Stanze)at the same time as Michelangelo was there. A great book for everyone who wants to visit, or has visited the chapel and for everybody who is interested in Michelangelo and in Renaissance art.

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Linda Wilke said on Jul 23, 2009 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback