Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling

Rating:
Summary: His pain is our gain - The sacrifices of a Master
Review: "Michelangelo & the Pope's Ceiling" by Ross King tells the story of four years (1508-1512) in the lives of three great figures in history: Michelangelo, Pope Julius II, and Raphael.

The author's latest nonfiction historical "thriller" is, however, more than a story of the four years that Michelangelo spent laboring over the twelve thousand square feet of the vast ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. In King's skilled hands it becomes an early 16th century soap opera, starring Michelangelo, Pope Julius II, and Raphael, and featuring all the intrigue, passion, violence, and pettiness of a General Hospital episode. Amzingly none of the action is fiction, but an accurate re-telling of historical facts.

This is how the author sees the three heroes of his book:

"Pope Julius II was not a man one wished to offend.... A sturdily built sixty-three-year old with snow-white hair and a ruddy face, he was known as il papa terrible , the 'dreadful' or 'terrifying' pope.... His violent rages, in which he punched underlings or thrashed them with his stick were legendary.... In body and soul he had the nature of a giant. Everything about him is on a magnified scale, both his undertakings and passions."

"Almost as renowned for his moody temper and aloof, suspicious nature as he was for his amazing skill with the hammer and chisel, Michelangelo could be arrogant, insolent, and impulsive....If Michelangelo was slovenly and, at times, melancholy and antisocial, Raphael was, by contrast, the perfect gentleman. Contemporaries fell over themselves to praise his polite manner, his gentle disposition, his generosity toward others....Raphael's appealing personality were accompanied by his good looks: a long neck, oval face, large eyes, and olive skin -- handsome, delicate features that further made him the antithesis of the flat-nosed, jug-eared Michelangelo."

For the millions out there who are fascinated by the mere existence of the unparalleled genius responsible for the creation of Michelangelo's commissioned work for Pope Julius II, and for those with a knack for detailed historical accounts, this book certainly delivers! With less interest in the fine arts, yet great interest in history, I deeply appreciate "Michaelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling".*****

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Summary: The Misanthrope And The Warrior Pope
Review: Ahhh.....remember Charlton Heston as Michelangelo- all alone, on his back- painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? Well, in this very informative and enjoyable book, Ross King quickly clears up those two major misconceptions. Michelangelo was not on his back: the scaffolding was placed 7 feet below the ceiling. Michelangelo painted while standing, reaching overhead, with his back arched. And, he had plenty of help in his glorious enterprise. Michelangelo took on the project with a great deal of reluctance. What he had really been excited to do was the job Pope Julius II had originally had in mind: the sculpting of the Pope's burial tomb. For Michelangelo considered himself to be a sculptor rather than a painter. Though originally trained, in his early teens, as a painter, he had devoted himself almost entirely to sculpting in the nearly 20 year period which had elapsed between his training and receiving the summons from Pope Julius II to begin work on the Sistine Chapel. Additionally, Michelangelo had never before painted a fresco, which is a very tricky process involving painting on wet plaster. (He had once started preparatory work on a fresco project where he was supposed to go "head to head" with Leonardo. Alas, that project never came to pass!) So, Michelangelo did what any sensible person would do...he hired as assistants artists who had prior experience doing frescoes. Thus begins the fascinating tale of the four year project. Along the way we learn of Renaissance rivalries- Michelangelo had once taunted Leonardo da Vinci in public for having failed in his attempt to cast a giant bronze equestrian statue in Milan. Leonardo gave as good as he got: "He claimed that sculptors, covered in marble dust, looked like bakers, and that their homes were both noisy and filthy, in contrast to the more elegant abodes of painters." There was also the rivalry between Raphael and Michelangelo. The two artists couldn't have been more different- Raphael, handsome, charming, well-mannered and sociable (and a notorious connoisseur of beautiful women); Michelangelo- squat nosed and surly, pathologically suspicious, seemingly uninterested in anything unrelated to his art. Raphael was at work on a fresco in the Pope's library, in another section of the Vatican, at the same time Michelangelo was working on the Sistine Chapel. One of the most interesting parts of the book occurs when the ceiling is halfway completed. All the scaffolding was removed so that the Pope could examine the work to date. This was also the first time that Michelangelo could get an idea of how the ceiling would look from the floor of the chapel. He is said to have been shocked at how small his figures looked, and when he started work on the second half of the ceiling he decreased the number of figures portrayed but increased their size by an average of four feet. It is also said that at this time Raphael, realizing how much more public and prestigious the Sistine Chapel project was than his own assignment in the Pope's library, lobbied to be allowed to do the second half of the ceiling. Of course, that never came to pass. Mr. King manages to incorporate an amazing amount of material into such a relatively small book: We learn about the complexities of fresco painting, especially on a concave surface; what materials the pigments were made of and the processes involved in making them; Michelangelo's lack of interest in adding realistic landscapes to the backgrounds of his compositions (he considered landscape painting to be an inferior form of art); his sense of humor- in one of the tableaus he has a character "making the fig" at another character (an Italian equivalent of giving someone the finger). The author also shows us the difficult relationships Michelangelo had with his father and brothers (they were always hitting him up for money or trying to get him to use his influence to get them jobs, etc.). And, as a change-of-pace, punctuating the entire book we have Pope Julius II going out on various military campaigns to punish wayward Italian city-states (and dragging along his reluctant cardinals)! Somehow, Mr. King manages to weave all this together into a seamless, smoothly flowing narrative. This is an excellent book, both educational and entertaining!

Rating:
Summary: Intretgration of Chemical methodolgy and artistic creativaty
Review: As a chemical engineer by training and an amature historian by choice, I found King's book to be hard to put down. His explaination of the chemical aspects of creating a fresco were both poignant and detailed. Those explicit details were important in understanding the difficulty an artist faced in creating a fresco. I only wish more script was spent on detailing the mechanical problems in producing a fresco vs. a canvas painting. Nonetheless, the book was fascinating and would have appeal to a wide audiance. I "loved" it.

Jim Albus

Rating:
Summary: Things are Looking Up
Review: Continuing in the tradition of his earlier book, "Brunelleschi's Dome," Ross King explores the genesis of Michelangelo's masterpiece, the Sistine Chapel ceiling. King eloquently discusses not only Michelangelo's technique and composition, but also the contemporaneous rivalry with Raphael, who at the time was engaged in frescoing several of Pope Julius II's apartments. Written for the general reader, "Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling" is must reading for anyone visiting the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel for the first time--and indeed for the repeat visitor. What one misses, though, are more comprehensive illustrations of the various sections of the ceiling itself, which would assist in following King's descriptions and analysis. Still, by the end of the book, one realizes that the hand of God in the "Creation of Adam" is really the hand of Michelangelo, and we are all blessed by his divine inspiration.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Excellent intro to Italian Renaissance and History. Makes you want to know more. I'd now love more than ever to travel to Rome to see the Sistine Chapel.

Rating:
Summary: A journey into the past.
Review: Few do not know of Michelangelo's almost miraculous frescos in the Sistine Chapel. The author, Ross King, provides a nearly visual journey to the artistic project that began nearly five hundred years ago. With literary clarity not often found in non fiction, the author gives succinct, but never dull details of the Sistine masterpiece. The author is obviously in his element when giving interpretations and rationale for the various designs.

I did not, however, find myself able to fully comprehend the process of fresco painting due to my limited understanding of this medium, but I did not find myself cast adrift. I similarly do not understand Einstein equations, but I can appreciate the genius behind the formulations. Michelangelo is to art, what Einstein is to science. The same, though, cannot be said of Pope Julius II, who commissioned the work. The author, though, resists either canonizing the artist, or demonizing the pope.

Of special interest to me is the author's attention to other characters such as the master artist Rafael. Also, the author provides logical evidence to refute many of the commonly held beliefs of Michelangelo's fresco and of his personal life. Part of the book's fun is reading these tidbits, so I will not give examples. I utilized the internet to obtain close up and whole pictures of the work. For those of us who have not had the pleasure of seeing the masterpiece in person, this book is especially welcomed.

Rating:
Summary: Superb author as engaging tour guide
Review: Have you ever visited a landmark and had a tour guide who brought history to life - an engaging and entertaining person who had all the facts at his (or her) fingertips, but who delved beneath the facts to bring the participants to life? If so, you will understand the appeal of Ross King's "Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling," for Mr. King is that kind of a tour guide. He takes us into the Sistine Chapel and fully explicates Michelangelo's masterpiece as a work of art, including everything from the technique of fresco to the kinds and colors of paint (and their origins) to the various challenges in the technique known as foreshortening. Although he liberally sprinkles the text with Italian and art terms, he explains each as he goes along.

Along the way, he also drops in interesting bits of information, such as, which panels in the painting, Michelangelo first saw from the floor of the chapel and what stylistic and color changes he incorporated in the panels after that, or which poses must have been difficult for the models (and who some of the models may have been) or why the medallions are disproportionately small to the rest of the work. Mixed in with art history and art appreciation are relevant pieces of contemporary history: the debauched and demanding Pope Julius II and the state of the papacy during his reign, the wars and diseases that afflicted the various participants and hindered work on the chapel, and numerous other small details that enliven the narrative.

King compares and contrasts Michelanglo with great rival, Raphael, who was painting the pope's private apartments at the same time Michelanglo was painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Raphael, who died relatively young, was more attractive, more popular, more adept at fresco (at least more adept than Michelangelo was when he began the ceiling) and generally a more sympathetic character than Michelangelo who lived to be almost ninety, had disgusting personal habits, was really not much to look at, and who really wanted to sculpt, not paint. While Raphael had the characteristic Italians call sprezziatura (making the difficult look easy), Michelangelo seemed to find everything difficult, or make it so.

King also debunks some of the more popular myths, particularly that Michelanglo painted the entire ceiling by himself, lying on his back. He had a host of helpers, some of whom also served as his teachers because he had minimal fresco experience when he began the chapel, and, while the scaffold was positioned so that neither he nor his assistants had to lie on their backs, the half squatting and bent-backward positions they did assume were equally uncomfortable, if not more so.

Though longer than "Bruneleschi's Dome," "Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling" moves just as quickly. King is never slow, dry or pedantic. He is, however, unfailingly informative. Should you be fortunate enough to visit the Vatican, this is obligatory preparatory reading. If you do not have that opportunity, King's tour of the Sistine Chapel is the next best thing to seeing it in person.

Rating:
Summary: A Favorite
Review: I am an avid reader, and for me to say that this is one of my new favorite books says a lot! An incredibly compelling story--non fiction that reads like fiction. The only disappointment is the images of the ceiling aren't good quality. I highly recommend also purchasing a book of images of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling to reference as you read King's book.

Rating:
Summary: Mr. King Stays on Point
Review: I enjoy reading biographies and Mr. King is one of the better writers when documenting those periods of European History he chooses. He wrote a wonderful book about Brunelleschi, and now offers readers and even more ambitious work on Michelangelo and Pope Julius II. Many writers seem to often stray, and are too sweeping and inclusive of other persons and events that also took place during the time they are documenting. Mr. King gives enough information to keep his subjects and their pursuits in context without diluting the premise of his books.

The painting of the Sistine Chapel may seem like too well worn a subject for another book but the author dispels so many misconceptions about the events that were involved in this creation that his clarifications are worth the read on their own. The book also includes magnificent color plates and numerous black and white drawings that make the book all the more interesting. But the images add to the book, they do not act as a crutch for an author lacking information.

Did Michelangelo paint while lying on his back, the book answers that question by sharing a letter and diagram of Michelangelo that he penned himself sharing the manner by which he worked? Were the frescoed ceiling and vaults designed and painted by Michelangelo on his own, how long did the work really take, and how close did the work come to be handed over to another artist before its completion?

The author also demonstrates the influence and politics that were a daily part of working for The Vatican and this particular Pope. Mr. King will share the discovery and rapid rise of the artist Raphael who was painting at The Vatican simultaneously with Michelangelo. Bramante who was to initiate the rebuilding of St. Peter's Cathedral was also always present, in the shadows or in front, scheming or openly attempting to influence who would gain specific commissions for the Pope. And there is also the famous/infamous Savonarola who held great influence with the artist who painted the 12,000sf ceiling at a time when approving of the doomed holy man could mean death to those who shared his thoughts.

I have no way of knowing which person or architectural marvel Mr. King will turn to next. He explores several fascinating people in this work that would fill several additional books. I only hope that he continues to produce these eminently readable and enjoyable studies of History and her participants.

Rating:
Summary: The Beauty That Was Rome - And Florence
Review: I found it difficult to get into this book but once I used my trick of jumping from back to middle, I was hooked. ( I still used my own speed-reading tricks on the war information.) This may mean that I'll re-read it because the history of the times of Pope Julius put it all into perspective. It may be a very [costly] book for me because it looks like right now, it's going to cost me a trip to Rome and Florence to eye the original once more.