"In 1508, despite strong advice to the contrary, the powerful Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo Buonarroti to paint the ceiling of the newly restored Sistine Chapel in Rome. Four years earlier, at the age of twenty-nine, Michelangelo had unveiled his masterful statue of David in Florence; however, he had little experience as a painter, even less working in the delicate medium of fresco, and none with the challenging curved surfaces of vaults.
The temperamental Michelangelo was himself reluctant: He stormed away from Rome, incurring Julius's wrath, before he was eventually persuaded to begin.".
"Michelangelo & the Pope's Ceiling recounts the fascinating story of the four extraordinary years he spent laboring over the twelve thousand square feet of the vast ceiling while the power politics and personal rivalries that abounded in Rome swirled around him. Contrary to legend, he neither worked alone nor on his back. He and his hand-picked assistants stood bending backward on a special scaffold he designed for the purpose.
Battling against ill health, financial difficulties, domestic and family problems, and the pope's impatience, Michelangelo created scenes - including The Creation, The Temptation, and The Flood - so beautiful that, when they were unveiled in 1512, they stunned onlookers. In the end, he produced one of the greatest masterpieces of all time, about which Giorgio Vasari, in his Lives of the Artists, wrote, "There is no other work to compare with this for excellence, nor could there be.""--BOOK JACKET.

Ross King

Random House Business Books

C W Daniel Co Ltd

Vintage

United Kingdom and Ireland, United Kingdom

London, 2006

2006-05-08

<p>In 1508, Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The thirty-three-year-old Michelangelo had very little experience of the physically and technically taxing art of fresco; and, at twelve thousand square feet, the ceiling represented one of the largest such projects ever attempted. Nevertheless, for the next four years he and a handpicked team of assistants laboured over the vast ceiling, making thousands of drawings and spending backbreaking hours on a scaffolding fifty feet about the floor. The result was one of the greatest masterpieces of all time.</p>
<p>This fascinating book tells the story of those four extraordinary years and paints a magnificent picture of day-to-day life on the Sistine scaffolding — and outside, in the upheaval of early sixteenth-century Rome.</p>

In 1508, Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Nevertheless, for the next four years he and a hand-picked team of assistants laboured over the vast ceiling, making thousands of drawings and spending back-breaking hours on a scaffold fifty feet above the floor.

Tells the story of the four years that Michelangelo and his hand-picked team of assistants labored on the fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in early-sixteenth century Rome

THE PIAZZA RUSTICUCCI was not one of Rome's most prestigious addresses.

2024-08-23