The volume begins with overviews of Michelangelo's life and work and contains more focused essays on the artist's political thought and his chief biographers, Ascanio Condivi and Giorgio Vasari. Other articles survey Michelangelo's early career and principal works, including the Rome "Piet," the "David, " the "Doni Tondo," and his commission to paint the "Battle of Cascina" in competition with Leonardo da Vinci.

Accessible to readers-useful to spcialists Much as been written on Michelangelo. By 1970, the number of scholarly books and articles exceeded 4,000, approximately a tenth in English. In the past 25 years, the literature has grown exponentially, with a notable increase in English-language publications. The five-volume series reproduces some 100 articles in English, selected from a broad range of books and journals. The collection is both accessible to the general reader and useful to the specialist, offering a representative sample of old and new commentary on the artist and his work. The career of a geniusArticles are arranged chronologically with separate volumes covering the artist's early life and works, the Sistine Chapel ceiling, commission associated with San Lorenzo, the tomb of Julius II and other Roman projects, and a final volume devoted to drawings, poetry, and miscellaneous studies. Spanning his entire 89-year life, the articles explore Michelangelo's prodigious creativity as an artist, thinker, and poet. The sheer quantity of what has been written on Michelangelo can be intimidating; most student have little sense of how to approach or effectively utilize the vast literature. By presenting a varied introduction to a great artist, this collection is a handy reference tool for a wide array of topics, problems, and literature.

Presents a catalog to accompany an exhibition of drawings by Michelangelo.

Between 1512 and 1570, Florence underwent dramatic political transformations. As citizens jockeyed for prominence, portraits became an essential means not only of recording a likeness but also of conveying a sitter’s character, social position, and cultural ambitions. This fascinating book explores the ways that painters (including Jacopo Pontormo, Agnolo Bronzino, and Francesco Salviati), sculptors (such as Benvenuto Cellini), and artists in other media endowed their works with an erudite and self-consciously stylish character that made Florentine portraiture distinctive. The Medici family had ruled Florence without interruption between 1434 and 1494. Following their return to power in 1512, Cosimo I de’ Medici, who became the second Duke of Florence in 1537, demonstrated a particularly shrewd ability to wield culture as a political tool in order to transform Florence into a dynastic duchy and give Florentine art the central position it has held ever since. Featuring more than ninety remarkable paintings, sculptures, works on paper, and medals, this volume is written by a team of leading international authors and presents a sweeping, penetrating exploration of a crucial and vibrant period in Italian art.

The redecoration of the exhibition spaces at the Borghese palace and villa, undertaken together with the reinstallation of the family's vast art collections, was one of the most important events in the cultural life of eighteenth-century Rome. In this comprehensive study, Carole Paul reconstructs the planning and execution of the project and explains its multifaceted significance: its place in the history of Italian art, architecture, and interior design at a complex moment of transition from baroque to neoclassical style, as well as its unrecognized but profound influence on the development of the modern art museum. The study shows how the installations and decorations worked together to evoke traditional themes in innovative ways. Addressed primarily to a new audience of tourists from abroad, the thematic content of the spaces celebrated the greatness of the Borghese family and of Roman tradition, while their stylistic diversity and sophistication made a case for the continued vitality - even modernity - of Roman art and culture. Designed for the exercise of a highly refined social performance, these sites helped to model the experience of art as a form of enlightened modern civility.

In 1775 Prince Marcantonio Borghese IV and the architect Antonio Asprucci embarked upon a decorative renovation of the Villa Borghese. Initially their attention focused on the Casino, the principal building at the villa, which had always been a semi-public museum. By 1625 it housed much of the Borghese's outstanding collection of sculpture. Integrating this statuary with vast baroque ceiling paintings and richly ornamented surfaces, Asprucci created a dazzling and unified homage to the Borghese family, portraying its legendary ancestors as well as its newly born heir. In this book, Carole Paul reads the inventive decorative program as a set of exemplary scenes for the education of the ideal Borghese prince. Her wide-ranging essay also situates the Villa Borghese among the sumptuous palaces and suburban villas of Rome's collectors of antiquities and outlines the renovated Casino's pivotal role in the historic transition from the princely collection to the public museum. Rounding out this volume is a catalog of the Getty Research Institute's fifty-nine drawings for the refurbishing of the Villa Borghese and Alberta Campitelli's discussion of sketches for the short-lived Museo di Gabii, the Villa's other antiquities museum.

Michaelangelo: Selected Readings is the long-awaited condensation of the five volume English article collection of Michaelangelo's life. Selections include: Life and Early Works; The Sistine Chapel; San Lorenzo; Tomb of Julius II and Other Works in Rome; and Drawings, Poetry and Miscellaneous Studies.

This study explores the phenomenon of the cults of Raphael and Michelangelo in relation to their death, burial, and posthumous fame—or second life—from their own times through the nineteenth century. These two artists inspired fervent followings like no other artists before them. The affective response of those touched by the potency of the physical presence of their art- works, personal effects, and remains—or even touched by the power of their creative legacy—opened up new avenues for artistic fame, divination, and commemoration. Within this cultural framework, this study charts the elevation of the status of dozens of other artists in Italy through funerals and tomb memorialization, many of which were held and made in response to those of Raphael and Michelangelo. By bringing together disparate sources and engaging material as well as a variety of types of artworks and objects, this book will be of great interest to anyone who studies early modern Italy, art history, cultural history, and Italian studies.

The poems have been rendered into vigorous contemporary English. A selection of Michelangelo's letters, many of them to important contemporaries such as Vasari and Duke Cosimo, is accompanied by the "Life" of the great artist written by his pupil Ascanio Condivi.