Michelangelo: His Epic Life

It is the work of an artist whose vision is shifting from transcendence to immanence. Choose your FT trial. Non-Fiction Add to myFT.

Review by Rachel Spence November 15, Listen to this article Play audio for this article Pause Cookies on FT Sites We use cookies for a number of reasons, such as keeping FT Sites reliable and secure, personalising content and ads, providing social media features and to analyse how our Sites are used. Close Financial Times International Edition.

Search the FT Search. World Show more World links. US Show more US links. Companies Show more Companies links. For over half a century, he was at the heart of political and ecclesiastical power, coveted by princes and the intimate of popes, one of whom, Julius III, planned to keep his embalmed corpse faithfully by his side if Michelangelo predeceased him fortunately, the pope died first.

Gayford is the author of two lively, poignant studies of crucial episodes in the history of art: Here, bucking the trend for micro-histories and slimmed-down biographies, he turns to history on a grander scale, attempting to render full justice to a figure even more titanic than Constable or Van Gogh.

Despite its size, the work is a marvel of economy as it hurtles smartly through the action-packed decades that see Michelangelo scurrying back and forth from Florence to Rome, with long forays in the marble quarries of Carrara. The Sistine Chapel fresco was a triumph, but Gayford shows how, with excruciating consistency, various other projects either languished incomplete or disastrously came a-cropper.

He may have been known in his own lifetime as Il Divino, but few of his works, even the greatest, escaped criticism of one sort of another. Gayford is clearly entranced by this bizarre and at times appalling character whose personality was as strained and contorted as one of his sculptures: But he is imaginative and inquisitive throughout, distilling the tomes of scholarship and judiciously sifting the evidence.

The modern-day analogies occasionally jar: A biography of Michelangelo declared him the greatest man the arts had ever known. Yet it is sobering to think that, at the end of his long life, he doubted his achievement. He need not have feared. Later on the book slowly takes a life of its own, the pace becomes in my opinion less erratic and the account of the artist's life which is most strangely very long while all around him 7 popes, rivals, lovers, servants, foes, friends and close or distant family members were dropping dead one after the other, at a comparatively young age, due to plagues, persecutions, murderers, incurable illnesses and so forth becomes more linear and more the author's own words.

I was left with the feeling that both these geniuses were after all also half human. Michelangelo's epic life is well worth reading. He was most certainly an incredible man, surrounded by mystery and full of contradictions, with an irascible temperament and yet most sensitive soul, and with an incredible imagination and richness of thought. He seemed to be proud, arrogant and irascible one minute and unreasonably modest, generous and pious the very next.

Conflicted about his sexuality and - to me endearingly - very much antisocial, yet fiercely attached and loyal to his young beautiful friends and platonic loves, lovers and even servants of his life. He very inexplicably escaped death quite a few times, managing to flee at the right time, avoiding various assassination plots and also surviving deadly diseases and strong fevers, and making lots of enemies along the way. He was very wealthy and yet lived most of his life humbly, almost in squalor.

Never afraid to voice his opinion, his 'terribility' was felt by all who came close to him, including the several popes he worked for, his rivals and his helpers and apprentices I could just picture him, 80 years old in his workshop, losing his temper and taking a mallet to his last Pieta' and smash it to pieces, to his helper's consternation, in his frustration when the huge block of marble suddenly revealed a crack.

Martin Gayford's Michelangelo: an Epic Life bucks the trend for micro-history in compelling style

Understandably, like most highly gifted people, Michelangelo had far too many projects on the go at the same time, starting an overambitious project only to take another even more ambitious one half way through, and then another, losing interest a little over the grandeur of one, to start planning the next even more grand work of art, effectively lacking the time to complete all, and so it is no surprise that so many of his major works rest sadly unfinished. What is astonishing is that for someone who claimed that painting was not 'his profession' and so looked sometimes scornfully upon this form of art, Michelangelo left us with what must be the most breathtaking frescoes known to man far superior in my very modest opinion to Leonardo's or another one of his rivals, Raphael's, both of whom believed painting was a more divine form of art than sculpting , never repeating the same expression or pose in the hundreds nudes he painted.

Later in life he even took the sometimes controversial role of architect, even though he would still claim that it also wasn't 'his profession', creating some astonishingly innovative plans for buildings such as San Lorenzo with the Medici Chapels and the Laurentian Library in Florence, and St Peter's in the Vatican itself amongst others.

He was also an accomplished poet, with his numerous, at times very humourous, at other times moving or simply stunning, sonnets. And yet he always claimed that 'his profession' was liberating those divine angels from huge blocks of marble which he would personally jealously supervise excavation and transportation of , chisel in hand, hacking away until his very last days, even when quite old and frail. Overall I felt it was a worthwhile read and Gayford portrayed quite well how Michelangelo thought of himself and his time, and how he lived and I would recommend this to anyone who, like me, has recently been to Florence and felt the amazingly strong, still very much alive, impression Michelangelo left all around the city, or quite simply has ever admired any of his incomparable works of art, or even more strongly to those who know nothing of this great artist mmmm My favourite passage from the book: Night was the time of shadows, melancholy and thoughts of death — but also of soothing oblivion and dreams.

The year of the poems is unknown, but they seem to date from later than the period of the Medici Chapel, in which the most imaginatively extraordinary figure was that of Night. It was literally true, as recorded by his father, that Michelangelo was a child born in the night: But also at a deep level he came to identify himself with the hours of darkness, and secrecy. I came to this book after a long weekend in Rome; sat in the airport bar massaging the neckache I had obtained from holding my neck in an unnatural position underneath the remarkable Sistine Chapel ceiling.

The view, which was worth the pain, was still lingering and it led me to buying the genre of non-fiction I have always least been interested in: Gayford has produced an exceptionally immersive book that takes you back to an unstable time filled with danger and beauty; providing I came to this book after a long weekend in Rome; sat in the airport bar massaging the neckache I had obtained from holding my neck in an unnatural position underneath the remarkable Sistine Chapel ceiling.

Gayford has produced an exceptionally immersive book that takes you back to an unstable time filled with danger and beauty; providing enough historical and political context to the subject of the biography to understand the journey of his life and complex nature of his artistry. The challenge in writing about someone like Michelangelo is balancing their phenomenally important place in the canon of Western art history and their reality as human being.

Gayford provides both in appropriate measures.

My relationship with Michelangelo throughout the book was in a constant state of flux; one moment he was endearing, others he was enraging—throughout it all, he was engaging. A clear amount of scholarship has gone into this book. Gayford uses letters, sketches and other historical accounts to create a credible interpretation of the life and times of one of the most important artists in human history. I savoured this book over several months, reading it delicately and slowly.

It is a well written and deeply engaging account. If you have an interest in the renaissance, I cannot recommend this book enough. Aug 22, George Foord rated it liked it. Aug 20, Verena Wachnitz rated it it was amazing. An excellent biography that brings you closer to both the artist and the person. Jul 08, David Grierson rated it it was amazing. Well researched and very readable.

In patches it felt that it rather traced the contemporary biographies, but that is understandable. Apr 25, Auriea rated it really liked it Shelves: Enjoyed this book immensely. One can only come away with sympathy for a fellow artist who time and again imagined grand designs and was thwarted by a mixture of politics and his own limits.

The mind boggles at the lengths he would go to realize his vision and yet notice how few of his works he managed to fully complete. This biography offers a glimpse into the mind and world that made the epic work of Michelangelo possible and impossible. The drawings, paintings, buildings, sculptures and fragme Enjoyed this book immensely. The drawings, paintings, buildings, sculptures and fragments we are still able to see in our century seem all the more worthy of praise in light of the efforts he took to bring them into being.

Jan 04, K. Kumar rated it really liked it. Overall, this is an impressive book covering the life of Michelangelo. It is apparent that the author put a lot of effort into researching the artist, including reviewing letters between Michelangelo and his friends and family. Also, I thought the author did a good job of setting the story within the historical context and events that were happening during the time period. This was the first book I have read on Michelangelo and I enjoyed it. Oct 02, Ed Hashek rated it really liked it.

A remarkable history of a man, an artist who had left an incredible impact on the Western world. The history of Italy and Europe as well as the Papacy of the Catholic Church plays so much into the output of this innovator from the 16th century. A must read for both the art and history lover! Nov 11, Peter Jakobsen rated it really liked it. Straightforward but intelligent and informed biography of the world's greatest visual artist, well sourced and well-imagined.

Dec 14, Kate marked it as to-read Shelves: