Books on Michelangelo Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer

Title: Michelangelo

This is the life of one of the most revolutionary artists in history, told through the story of six of his greatest masterpieces: “The one indispensable guide for encountering Michelangelo on his home turf” (The Dallas Morning News).

Author(s): Miles J. Unger

ISBN 13: 9781451678789
Pages: 448

Title: Michelangelo

Michelangelo is universally recognized to be one of the greatest artists of all time. In this vividly written biography, William E. Wallace offers a substantially new view of the artist. Not only a supremely gifted sculptor, painter, architect, and poet, Michelangelo was also an aristocrat who firmly believed in the ancient and noble origins of his family. The belief in his patrician status fueled his lifelong ambition to improve his family’s financial situation and to raise the social standing of artists. Michelangelo’s ambitions are evident in his writing, dress, and comportment, as well as in his ability to befriend, influence, and occasionally say “no” to popes, kings, and princes. Written from the words of Michelangelo and his contemporaries, this biography not only tells his own stories but also brings to life the culture and society of Renaissance Florence and Rome. Not since Irving Stone’s novel The Agony and the Ecstasy has there been such a compelling and human portrayal of this remarkable yet credible human individual.

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Author(s): William E. Wallace

ISBN 13: 9781107673694
Pages: 420

Title: Michelangelo

Don't miss the opportunity to see the places where Michelangelo lived and worked during the Renaissance in Italy! If you are going to Italy for any reason, take time to learn about Michelangelo and his legacy of art in architecture, sculpture and painting. As one of the greatest artists of all time, Michelangelo is still inspirational and influential today. Visit the places in Tuscany and Rome where his art is viewable but often missed. This book covers Michelangelo and his works for the traveler interested in art and history.

Author(s): Charles J. Washington

ISBN 13: 9780966777512
Pages: 160

Title: The Agony and the Ecstasy: A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo

Author(s): Irving Stone

ISBN 13: 9780451213235

Title: The Life of Michelangelo

Author(s): Condivi Ascanio Staff

ISBN 13: 9781843680123

Title: Life, Letters, and Poetry

Author(s): Michelangelo Buonarroti , Bull, George , Porter, Peter

ISBN 13: 9780199537365

Title: Michelangelo A Biography

Much has been written about the paintings and sculptures of Michelangelo, arguably the greatest artist of the Renaissance. But what about the man? In this revealing look at the Florentine genius, acclaimed author George Bull traces the life and spiritual quest of Michelangelo, drawing a fuller portrait of the man himself. In all his work, Michelangelo impressed his contemporaries as a forceful personality, a divine genius endowed with terrabilita, or intense emotional power. Often portrayed as a solitary and austere figure, he in fact enjoyed a wide range of friendships. And it is those whom he loved and hated, served or resisted, who are presented here— from his family and fellow artists to the popes, nobles, and rulers of Europe. George Bull presents the life of Michelangelo in the round, bringing before the reader a towering genius whose versatility and originality are constantly being rediscovered.

Author(s): George Anthony Bull

ISBN 13: 9780312187460
Pages: 528

Title: Young Michelangelo: The Path to the Sistine - A Biography

In the most important biography of Michelangelo to appear in modern times, John T. Spike illuminates heretofore unrevealed aspects of Michelangelo’s complex personality through examinations of the Pietà, the David, the artist’s struggle with Leonardo da Vinci for artistic mastery, and an uneasy relationship with Pope Julius II. Over the long arc of his artistic development, Michelangelo was involved in the most troubling controversies of his age, an eyewitness to the bonfires of the vanities, the Rome of the Borgias, the siege of Florence, and the Inquisition’s burning of heretics at the stake. In this long-awaited reinterpretation of the artist’s early life and career, Spike re-creates Michelangelo’s cities, Florence and Rome, animating their daily life with sketches of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Leonardo, Savonarola, Raphael, and Machiavelli.
Praise for Young Michelangelo:
"Spike captures his magnetism, his drive and the sheer scale of his ambition.... A veteran biographer of Caravaggio, Masaccio and Fra Angelico, Spike relates Michelangelo’s wanderings to his restlessness and the troubles of his era, from the rise of the fundamentalist preacher Savonarola in Florence to the many skirmishes provoked by Rome’s bellicose Julius."—The Sunday Times
"No art historian has got closer to Michelangelo than John T. Spike. The Florence-based American, whose coup here is his access to the artist’s recently published financial accounts and consequently enhanced understanding of his dealings with patrons, is an immensely flexible writer who has produced a book of alternating pans and zooms. . . . At the same time, however, the worldly dealings that Spike recounts, and his textured reconstruction of the times that his subject moved moodily through, make the artist seem more human than ever before. We’re left with a Michelangelo who lived on earth as a man, but also had an element of the unearthly about him. . . . Though it probably only portends a trilogy, it’s perhaps no accident that Spike’s narrative ends in the artist’s 33rd year."—The Telegraph
"As John T. Spike argues in this crisply thorough biography, Michelangelo Buonarroti, like so many men of talent, seems to have known his own worth almost from the moment he came into the world. . . . Certainly the man Spike gives us is an altogether more worldly figure than the agonised ecstatic served up by Irving Stone and Charlton Heston on the silver screen."—Daily Express
"John T. Spike, an art historian, curator and critic, has done some impressive research to flesh out the early years of the artist's life, right up until his return to Rome in 1508 to focus on a commission in the Sistine Chapel. The young sculptor's daunting talent and quest to earn as much money as possible are woven into the story of the Italian Renaissance and the outsized figures of the age."—The Washington Post
"Spike, a renowned art critic, curator, and author, is the first modern writer to create such a comprehensive account of the master’s early life and rise to fame amid the political upheaval in the Papal States and Florentine Republic."—Art + Auction
"He was possibly the world's greatest artist, certainly its greatest sculptor, but John Spike gives us a nuanced human view of Michelangelo on his path to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The reader meets a man dealing with financial problems, family pressures, artistic feuds, all set within the turbulent world of the Medici, the Borgias, and Savonarola. This is Michelangelo of reality, not myth."—Bill Cusumano, Nicola's Books, Ann Arbor, MI from September 2010 Indie Notables List
"Spike crystallizes historical detail into vivid, memorable imagery. . . . Alternating between accounts of the turbulent political atmosphere and details of Michelangelo’s most private moments in the sculpture studio, Spike creates a rich narrative that promises more intrigue than the best adventure novel."—Publishers Weekly
"Making the most of Michelangelo's ample correspondence and the recently published records of his extensive banking transactions, Spike has drawn an astonishingly vivid portrait of the artist's first 33 years. It's the best life of Michelangelo I've read, and it leaves one wishing the author would complete Michelangelo's life with his wonderful grasp of the artist's tenacious personality and Herculean achievement."—Everett Fahy, John Pope-Hennessy Chairman of the Department of European Paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art
"Tense and agile as an early sculpture, Young Michelangelo is a compelling portrait of the artist as a young man in a dangerous time."—Peter Robb, Author of M: The Man Who Became Caravaggio
"This erudite but immensely readable account is essential for anyone who desires to know more about Michelangelo's formation."—David Alan Brown, National Gallery of Art
"Spike is a masterful weaver of disparate information into a synthetic narrative. He provides a rich web of the political, social, and personal contexts against which Michelangelo's early career unfolded."—John Hunisak, Co-Author of The Art of Florence
"John T. Spike proves himself, yet again, as one of our most astute and readable authorities on the Italian Renaissance. In Young Michelangelo he approaches the artist through a compelling blend of solid scholarship, animated storytelling, and shrewd insight—and in the process he makes Michelangelo more fascinating than ever."—Ross King, Author of Brunelleschi's Dome and Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling

Author(s): John T. Spike

ISBN 13: 9780865652835
Pages: 272

Title: Michelangelo

In this masterly, Howard Hibbard relates Michelangelo’s art to his life and to the times in which he lived, relying on the earliest biographies and the latest scholarly research as well as on Michelangelo’s own letters and poems. What emerges is both a perspective appraisal of his work and a revealing life history of the man who was arguably the greatest artist of all time.

"Certainly the best summary of Michelangelo's life and achievement written in the English language."--Anthony Blunt, Times Literary Supplement.

Author(s): Howard Hibbard

ISBN 13: 9780064301480
Pages: 352

Title: The life of Michel Angelo

Author(s): Vasari, Giorgio

ISBN 13: 9781843680116

Title: Michelangelo: A Tormented Life

Author(s): Forcellino, Antonio

ISBN 13: 9780745640068

Title: Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

The Shocking Secrets of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel Artwork

The recent cleaning of the Sistine Chapel frescoes removed layer after layer of centuries of accumulated tarnish and darkness. The Sistine Secrets endeavors to remove the centuries of prejudice, censorship, and ignorance that blind us to the truth about one of the world's most famous and beloved art treasures.

Author(s): Benjamin Blech

ISBN 13: 9780061469053
Pages: 336