Michelangelo

 

Michelangelo: Life, Letters, and Poetry was translated and edited by George Bull and Peter Porter. It has 182 pages. It was fairly hard to read because it was originally written by a man who knew Michelangelo Buonarroti personally, and so is very old, and some times confusing.

Michelangelo was born on 6 March 1475. He was a child genius. He could draw and sketch with amazing accuracy from a young age. He then moved to paintings and then into sculpture. Michelangelo did many sculptures and his work was renowned for it’s beauty and accuracy. He drafted and began construction on the tomb of Pope Julius while Julius was still alive. He did work for seven different Popes. Michelangelo had to redraft the tomb of Pope Julius several times and was only able to work on it intermittently after Julius’ death. He painted and sculpted for each Pope in succession as often as they could pay him more than the local duke or cardinal. He was also called to help with military fortifications. He was a man of many talents and was sought after for many tasks. He lived a long life and died on 18 February 1564.

Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Eventually he also painted a scene on the wall of that same chapel. He also did many different statues for the tomb and he did commission work for anyone who had the money. He traveled to many different cities and met many people. He loved his work and hated to be torn from it. He cried when he was taken from his work on the tomb to do work for another Pope. He took a giant slab of marble that everyone else said was to rough and flawed to be sculpted and made his statue of David (from David and Goliath). He also helped erect defenses for cities and helped defend them from attack. He also directed workers in various construction projects. Michelangelo was an artistic genius.

This book, though harder to read, was very interesting and informative. The original author made several references to where items could "currently" be found, which were totally inaccurate for our time, but the editors have added a section of notes that gives explanation and current locations items. Many of Michelangelo’s ideas and works were fascinating. Michelangelo himself was innovative and hard-working and loved what he did with a passion. He loved the human body and dissected many cadavers as well as dead animals. He always showed humans as nude or mostly nude, but the book has (thankfully) no pictures. Until his death, Michelangelo never ceased to create and to observe. The author expresses his vitality with an almost first-person view.

I would probably recommend this book to people who are of a higher reading level and are already interested or they will be totally lost. It makes a great book to do reports or papers from because it gives you his birth and death dates in the introduction and has notes in the back that are very helpful. Teachers could benefit from this book as well as dedicated students or potential historians. This book is a truly wonderful and complex tapestry of the life of a wondrously complex man.