Publisher's Weekly Review
When Pope Julius II saw Michelangelo's Piet, he determined to have his grand tomb made by the artist. Summoned from Florence to Rome in 1508, Michelangelo found himself on the losing side of a competition between architects and the victim of a plot "to force a hopeless task" upon him-frescoing the vault of the Sistine Chapel. How the sculptor met this painterly challenge is the matter of this popular account, which demythologizes and dramatizes without hectoring or debasing. Forget cinematic images of Charlton Heston flat on his back-Michelangelo's "head tipped back, his body bent like a bow, his beard and paintbrush pointing to heaven, and his face spattered with paint" is excruciating enough to sustain the legend. King (Brunelleschi's Dome) re-creates Michelangelo's day-to-day world: the assistants who worked directly on the Sistine Chapel, the continuing rivalry with Raphael and the figures who had much to do with his world if not his art (da Vinci, Savonarola, Ariosto, Machiavelli, Martin Luther, Erasmus), including the steely Julius II. King makes the familiar fresh, reminding the reader of the "novelty" of Michelangelo's image of God and how "completely unheard of in previous depictions of the ancestors of Christ" was his use of women. Technical matters (making pigments, foreshortening) are lucidly handled. The 16 color and 30 b&w illustrations were not seen by PW, but should add further specifics to a nicely grounded piece of historical dramatization. (Jan.) Forecast: Walker has been become extremely adept at spotting and packaging books in the Longitude mode-works that focus on a single significant cultural product, be it cod or a work of art. As an alternate selection of Book-of-the-Month, History and Quality Paperback Book Clubs, this should do even better than Brunelleschi's Dome, as its subject is better known in the U.S. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
A legend-busting, richly detailed account of the four-year making of the Sistine Chapel frescos. When Pope Julius II wasn't riding off to subdue some unfortunate neighbor during the endless Papal Wars, he was hounding poor Michelangelo--"When will you have this chapel finished?"--to make good on his three-thousand-ducat commission and reveal to an expectant world the mysteries of the Creation. If you've put those impatient words in the mouth of Rex Harrison, who brought Julius to the screen in The Agony and the Ecstasy, you'll know that poor Michelangelo worked alone, racked by the demons of poverty and artistic insecurity, to say nothing of the Inquisition. Not so, writes King (Domino, p. 1337, etc.). It's not that the pope was a patient or gentle man--from time to time he gave Michelangelo a good clout, and he once threatened to throw the recalcitrant artist off his scaffolding. But Michelangelo was being paid very well for his work and had a squadron of skilled craftsmen at his disposal, and it was they, not he, who spent years on their backs staring up at the ceiling, paintbrush in hand, while Michelangelo was ducking off to check on other commissions in Florence and Bologna. King supplies a richly nuanced view of Michelangelo and company's day-to-day life in the Sistine Chapel, placing it in the context of the overall Renaissance, a time of plenty of bloodshed and intrigue, but also of extraordinary artistic accomplishment thanks to the likes of Julius, Cesare Borgia, and other noteworthy hotheads. Disputing the now accepted view that Michelangelo was gay (there is no good evidence, King argues, that he had much of any kind of sex life), King examines Michelangelo's considerable virtues and quirks--one of which, his understandable desire not to show a work until it was done, was to get him into much trouble with his eminent patron. Readers looking for the lite version of this tale may still want to fire up the VCR and watch Charlton Heston chew the scenery. Those seeking a richer understanding of Renaissance art-making will find this a pleasure. Book-of-the-Month Club/Quality Paperback Book Club alternate selection
Booklist Review
Two absorbing narratives featuring larger-than-life personalities and one sumptuous catalog provide fresh insights into three pivotal phases of the forever astonishing Italian Renaissance. A celebrated novelist as well as a lively nonfiction writer, King casts fiction's spell as he tells the creation stories of crowning artistic achievements, first in the widely acclaimed Brunelleschi's Dome (2000), and now in this exciting account of the making of Michelangelo's magnificent Sistine Chapel ceiling frescoes. Not only is King fluent in the complicated art of frescoing, a chancy technique sculptor Michelangelo (1475^-1564) was loathe to undertake, he also relishes the tumultuous politics of early-sixteenth-century Rome, particularly the escapades of the irascible, syphilitic, gourmand Pope Julius II, Michelangelo's demanding patron. Everyone in Rome was terrified of this stick-wielding, bearded, warrior pope except for moody, homely, antisocial Michelangelo, and King recounts their skirmishes with as much verve as he chronicles the arduous efforts involved in creating the most famous ceiling in the world. Brilliant and tireless, Michelangelo designed an ingenious form of scaffolding and quickly mastered fresco's secrets so that he could paint his powerful, anatomically exact Old Testament figures freehand in an inspired frenzy. King chronicles Michelangelo's aesthetic decisions and clarion triumphs over myriad forms of adversity with expertise and contagious enthusiasm. Walker, a prolific young adult and adult author, became just as fascinated as King did with Filippo Brunelleschi (1377^-1446), and now offers his unique take on this world-altering genius and the engineering marvel that made him all but immortal, the dome of Florence's cathedral, Santa Maria del Fiore. Walker's main premise is that Brunelleschi was goaded to greatness by a long-standing feud with Lorenzo Ghiberti, who won the first of several competitions the two Florentine artists entered, that for the bronze baptistery "Paradise Doors." Walker also posits a more intimate relationship between Brunelleschi and his protege, Donatello, than is usually presumed. As intriguing as these speculations about a possible love affair and the politically complex, ill-willed, yet artistically fruitful rivalry between Filippo and Lorenzo are, they actually pale beside Walker's ardent explication of Brunelleschi's towering achievements: "the single most important artistic breakthrough of the Renaissance: the rediscovery of linear perspective," and his cosmological vision of art and architecture "as a means to define man's place in the universe and his relationship with God." Florence, Michelangelo's beloved native city, became the capital of the Italian Renaissance thanks to the lavish arts and science patronage of the Medici dynasty. The Medici, Michelangelo, and the Art of Late Renaissance Florence, a beautifully produced volume based on a traveling exhibition, focuses on an especially fertile period, 1537^-1631, during which the Medici grand dukes--Cosimo I, his sons Francesco I and Ferdinando I, and grandson Cosimo II--supported not only the seminal Michelangelo but also artists Pontormo, Vasari, Cellini, and Giambologna. Richly descriptive essays offer brisk but vivid portraits of the Medici and the artists they commissioned, consider the city's illustrious if politically volatile tradition of highly skilled craftsmanship, and assess the glory of Renaissance drawing, painting, sculpture, and decorative arts, particularly the remarkable pietre dure, or hard stone inlays, examples of which take the reader's breath away. --Donna Seaman
Library Journal Review
When the powerful and willful Pope Julius II wanted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel covered with frescoes, he had any number of great artists to choose from. The 29-year-old Michelangelo, coming off the recent triumph of his colossal sculpture of David, was already at work on Julius's massive (and never to be fully realized) tomb. The much-sought-after sculptor had little experience as a painter and even less in the demanding medium of fresco. King (Brunelleschi's Dome) masterfully details the epic struggle between Michelangelo as egotistical genius and Julius as brilliant manipulator, descriptions that can easily be reversed. Those who have seen only the 1965 film The Agony and the Ecstasy will learn that Michelangelo did not paint the ceiling alone and that he did not work while lying on his back (though he did work in some contorted positions). King provides political background and shows how the ebb and flow of Julius's military campaigns affected the artist's work. Competition between Michelangelo and the young Raphael provides even more drama. This engaging narrative sets the record straight on a few points and is highly recommended for most public library collections.-Martin R. Kalfatovic, Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, DC (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.