Michelangelo
  • Published: 18 April 2017
  • ISBN: 9780241299425
  • Imprint: Fig Tree
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 688
  • RRP: $35.00

Michelangelo

Formats & editions
Tr. Paperback
18 Apr 2017
EBook
7 Nov 2013
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A new biography of Michelangelo by the acclaimed author of Constable in Love and The Yellow House.

'An absorbing book, beautifully told and with the writer fully in command of a huge body of research' Philip Hensher, Mail on Sunday

There was an epic sweep to Michelangelo's life. At 31 he was considered the finest artist in Italy, perhaps the world; long before he died at almost 90 he was widely believed to be the greatest sculptor or painter who had ever lived (and, by his enemies, to be an arrogant, uncouth, swindling miser). For decade after decade, he worked near the dynamic centre of events: the vortex at which European history was changing from Renaissance to Counter Reformation. Few of his works - including the huge frescoes of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling, the marble giant David and the Last Judgment - were small or easy to accomplish. Like a hero of classical mythology - such as Hercules, whose statue Michelangelo carved in his youth - he was subject to constant trials and labours. In Michelangelo Martin Gayford describes what it felt like to be Michelangelo Buonarroti, and how he transformed forever our notion of what an artist could be.

'It is a measure of [Michelangelo's] magnitude, and Gayford's skill in capturing it, that you finish this book wishing that Michelangelo had lived longer and created more' Rachel Spence, FT

'One of our most distinguished writers on what makes modern artists tick . . . It is very difficult to cut through the thicket of generations of scholarship and say anything new about David, the Sistine Chapel, The Last Judgement, the Basilica of St Peter's or many of Michelangelo's other masterpieces, but Gayford manages to do so by encouraging us to think - and look - at both the obvious and the overlooked' Sunday Telegraph

'Only the most ambitious biographer can take on the talent of Michelangelo Buonarroti' The Times
  • Published: 18 April 2017
  • ISBN: 9780241299425
  • Imprint: Fig Tree
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 688
  • RRP: $35.00
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About the author

Martin Gayford

Martin Gayford studied philosophy at Cambridge and art history at the Courtauld Institute. He is the art critic of the Spectator, and contributes regularly to the Daily Telegraph, Modern Painters and Harpers & Queen. He is married, with two children, and lives in Cambridge. His latest book is The Yellow House: Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Arles.

Also by Martin Gayford

Constable In Love
The Yellow House
See all

Praise for Michelangelo

Effortlessly intimate, Gayford shows how Michelangelo sweated blood to create awe-inspiring art. He turns a marble legend into a hero for the 21st century

Guardian

A thrilling story, engrossing. An absorbing book, beautifully told and with the writer fully in command of a huge body of research. Gayford meets the challenge of making the best-known of all artists young again, and new

Phulip Hensh, Mail on Sunday

A fine new biography, a scholarly account with a pleasing lightness of touch

Independent

A monumental, readable epic

Economist

Dazzling, engrossing, an epic, exhaustively researched and absorbing everything from contemporary letters to the latest research. A perceptive and finely nuanced biography . . . compellingly readable. Gayford is imaginative and inquisitive throughout [and] presents shrewd insights

Spectator

It is very difficult to cut through the thicket of generations of scholarship and say anything new about David, the Sistine Chapel, The Last Judgement, the Basilica of St Peter's or many of Michelangelo's other masterpieces, but Gayford manages to do so by encouraging us to think - and look - at both the obvious and the overlooked

Sunday Telegraph

Only the most ambitious biographer can take on the talent of Michelangelo Buonarroti

The Times