The Painter of Souls by Philip Kazan

This is the first of a series of books that will be issued, each imagining a phase in the life of the early Italian Renaissance painter Fra Filippo Lippi.  We know only about some of his artworks and some basic points about his life.  The author imagines the rest, and presents this biography of the artist's early years in great detail, often from the artist's perspective.

In this book you might be deceived by the simple style into thinking this book is written for teens.  When you encounter the first vulgarities in English and in Italian, you'll realize the book is written for adults.  There is even a sex scene.

Lippi self-portrait
 

Historical novels tend to be told in the present tense these days, to bring the past to life in the reader's mind, and this novel is no exception.  Please don't complain about this in the reviews.  I'm very tired of reading people's complaints because they don't want to read more than a few pages written in present tense.

If you read ten pages plus, you won't even realize it is in present tense any more, and you'll just enjoy the intimate closeness the tense creates with the events and the main character.  Give it a try.  You might actually enjoy it, like so many others, especially younger readers who devour whole popular series in the present tense.

Just because it is unfamiliar to you doesn't make it wrong, or deserving of terrible reviews or terrible ratings.  Okay, enough said...

Fra Lippi was not a very good friar, but this first book only covers his life up to his parting with early Renaissance artist Masaccio, his mentor and surrogate father figure.  All the really scandalous things occur later.

The book's Prologue is deceptive, suggesting that the artist's whole life will be covered in the book.  That is not the case.  Future volumes will cover the later periods. 

Each volume will presumable present the artists and local bigwigs from that era, along with some major artworks, just like this first book does.  How those artworks came to be created is covered in quite a bit of detail.

From the book's description:

An extraordinary story of passion, art, and intrigue, this novel journeys to a time and place in Italy where desire reigns supreme—and salvation is found in the strangest of places.

Beauty can be a gift—or a wicked temptation. So it is for Filippo Lippi, growing up in Renaissance Florence. He has a talent—not only can he see the beauty in everything, he can capture it, paint it. But while beauty can seduce you and art can transport you—it cannot always feed you or protect you.

To survive, Pippo Lippi, orphan, street urchin, budding rogue, must first become Fra Filippo Lippi: Carmelite friar, man of God. His life will take him down two paths at once.

He will become a gambler, a forger, a seducer of nuns; and at the same time he will be the greatest painter of his time, the teacher of Botticelli and the confidante of the Medicis. So who is he really—lover, believer, father, teacher, artist? Is anything true except the paintings?

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com:

Please visit the author's website/blog.

For those who would like to know more about Lippi:

Fra Filippo Lippi at Wikipedia.

Fra Filippo Lippi in Vasari's Lives of Artists (free e-book,and free to read on-line).

Fra Filippo Lippi actually has his own website.

Italian Renaissance Courts by Alison Cole

156 color photographs make this art and social history book about the 1400s in Italy a real treasure.  Large print runs allow the publisher to sell this quality hardback book at a very reasonable price.  If you have a friend or relative who is an amateur Italian Rinascimento art historian, then you've just discovered their perfect gift at a price that won't break the bank.

The subtitle of the book is "Art, Pleasure and Power" because the focus is on how the Renaissance's powerful elite commissioned art for two main reasons:  for their own and their family's pleasure, and as a display of their power to their subjects and to other power players.

The illustrations on this page are from a Book of Hours (Prayer Book) that was commissioned by Isabella d'Este (Aragon), which was recently auctioned off for over 300,000 dollars.

The text is scholarly.  The images fit the text very well.  I would have liked the image caption text to be larger and darker.  If you love history and art, and you're traveling to the places covered in this book, or have recently traveled there, you should enjoy this book very much.

The displays of power and wealth by the rulers in Italy during the 1400s included much more than the paintings and sculptures one sees in museums when touring Italy.  The author discusses all that the city-state Princes and the minor royals of Duchies, and the Popes commissioned:

• buildings and city-renovation projects,
• public parades and religious and secular festivals,
• plays and musical compositions,
• churches and religious community buildings,
• commemorative medallions to give as gifts,
• decorative arts like jewelry and glass and ivory carvings and tapestries, and
• illuminated works of literature.

The 1400s power centers studied in this book include:

• Naples under Alphonse of Aragon
• Urbino under Federico da Montefeltro
• Ferrara under the Este family
• Mantua under the Gonzaga family
• Milan-Pavia under Ludovico "Il Moro"

These power centers were actually military dictatorships run by either tyrants or benevolent Princes, along with a few so-called Republics which were in reality oligarchies.

Foremost in their thoughts when commissioning art was their own validation and aggrandizement in the eyes of everyone from their rival family members, rival Princes, the Pope, their subjects and the Holy Roman Emperor.

Family histories that purported to link the leader to historical greats were popular commissions from writers.  It is amusing to note that narcissistic, wealthy people today emulate many of the commissions of the Renaissance (Rinascimento in Italian) elite. 

Illumination art that included the family in monumental historical and religious events was common.  It reminds me of the reproduction paintings wealthy people can commission today with the rich person's family members' faces replacing the original faces.

Ancient Roman style commemorative medallions attempted to show the link to the Roman Empire, with families often claiming to be descended from the ancient elite.

Behind all the pomp and self-serving commissions there was also pure pleasure as the author points out:

Against the backdrop of constant warfare, factional rivalry, popular unrest, arbitrary violence, devastating plague epidemics and a litany of everyday concerns, there were real pleasure, spiritual nourishment and consolation to be found in the arts and scholarship that the courts commissioned and consumed.

This is a quality scholarly book sold at an insanely reasonable price.   

From the book's description:

In this fascinating study, Alison Cole explores the distinctive uses of art at the five great secular courts of Naples, Urbino, Ferrara, Mantua, and Milan. The princes who ruled these city-states, vying with each other and with the great European courts, relied on artistic patronage to promote their legitimacy and authority. Major artists and architects, from Mantegna and Pisanello to Bramante and Leonardo da Vinci, were commissioned to design, paint, and sculpt, but also to oversee the court's building projects and entertainments.

The courtly styles that emerged from this intricate landscape are examined in detail, as are the complex motivations of ruling lords, consorts, nobles, and their artists. Drawing on the most recent scholarship, Cole presents a vivid picture of the art of this extraordinary period.

Here is a direct link to the book at Amazon.com, where it is only available in the quality hardback edition:

Please visit the publisher's website for more information on the subject in their "Associated Materials" section, and follow them on Facebook.

Murder Most Unfortunate (Rick Montoya Italian Mystery) by David P. Wagner

Rick Montoya, the protagonist of the Rick Montoya Italian Mystery Series, is a cowboy boot-wearing, hyphenated Italian from New Mexico in the United States.  His mother was from Rome, Italy, and she made sure her son grew up fluent in her native tongue.  University degrees helped Rick's language skills further, and set him up well for his career as a translator and interpreter in Italy, which is possible because he holds dual citizenship.

The recurring cast of the series includes a friend with the Italian art police, and an uncle who is a police Commissario, providing Rick, the amateur detective, with that necessary insider information to help the hero catch the bad guys by the end of the book.

These are the books in the series to date:

1. Cold Tuscan Stone
2. Death in the Dolomites
3. Murder Most Unfortunate
4. Return to Umbria (reviewed on this site) 

I've only read book three in the series, Murder Most Unfortunate, which is set in Northern Italy's Bassano del Grappa on the Brenta River, in the Veneto region.  The murder mystery begins with the murder and we know the motive, making it structured like a police procedural, but we follow an amateur detective, not the police on their search for the killer. 

Cozy mysteries establish the setting and possible suspects and victims long before the murder takes place, then set the amateur detective loose, but we get those suspects and learn about the victim after the murder in Murder Most Unfortunate. 

So I'd have to put this book/series as a cross between the two genres, with elements of the traditional male protagonist adventure story, like the hot female character who falls for our tough-smart hero and joins him on his adventure, and some action sequences.  Rick, or Riccardo as he is often called by Italians, has an eye for the ladies, and his handsome looks and cowboy boot, New Mexican uniqueness draws the ladies to him.

The author includes descriptions of the Italian setting, but spends a bit more time describing the local food specialties, which should please the vicarious gourmand readers.  There are also some Italian words sprinkled through the story to add flavor.  The dialog is a bit stilted, but that could be because it is used to move the story forward, presenting much of the information through interviews with the suspects.

Part of the male adventure story aspect of the story is a hot, green-eyed waif in tight clothes who falls for Rick Montoya and helps him with his investigation.  I thought the author shouldn't have called the thirty-year-old woman a "girl" or even a "young woman".  Rick and his hot waif get to enjoy some action scenes with racing cars and motorcycles.  The author keeps the story clean, however, and there is only a small bit of in scene violence.

All in all the book was a light, entertaining read, but probably more suited to a male reader.  Don't expect literature or psychological drama or deep conspiracies.  This is a light mystery novel set in Italy, with a hunky male protagonist, some local color, and much local food.

 

Here are all the books in the Rick Montoya Italian Mystery Series to date, with their official book descriptions.

Cold Tuscan Stone - Book 1

Rick Montoya has just moved from Santa Fe to Rome, embracing the life of a translator. He’s beginning to embrace la dolce vita when school friend Beppo, now senior in the Italian Art Squad, recruits Rick for an unofficial undercover role. Armed with a list of galleries, suspects, and an expense account, Rick would arrive in Tuscany posing as a buyer for a Santa Fe gallery and flush out traffickers in priceless burial urns.

But, before sunset on his first day in Volterra, the challenge intensifies. Rick has one quick conversation with a gallery employee who dies minutes later in a brutal fall from a high cliff. Has the trade in fraudulent artifacts upgraded to murder? Are the traffickers already on to Rick?

The local Commissario and his team consider Rick an amateur, and worse, a foreigner. Plus Rick is a suspect in what proves to be the dead man’s murder. While the Volterra squad pursues its leads, Rick and the Volterra museum director continue to interview his list: a top gallery owner, a low-profile import/export businessman and his enterprising color-coordinated assistant, a sensuous heiress with a private art specialty and clientele. When Rick’s lover Erica, an art history professor, arrives from Rome to visit him, she rekindles a friendship with an alluring, maybe dangerous, heiress. Has Rick’s role made him the target of both cops and criminals?

Death in the Dolomites - Book 2

Rick Montoya is looking forward to a break from his translation business in Rome—a week of skiing in the Italian Alps with old college buddy Flavio. But Rick’s success helping the Italian police with a murder in Tuscany sends the Campiglio cops his way.

An American banker working in Milano is missing. The man’s sister, an attractive and spoiled divorcée, has no idea where he could be, nor do the locals who saw him on his way to the slopes. With the discovery of a body, Rick and Inspector Albani widen their list of suspects. Picturesque resort Campiglio harbors old rivalries, citizens on the make, and a cut-throat political campaign. Why would these local issues, any of them, connect to the missing banker?

The investigation doesn't keep Rick and Flavio from enjoying perfect ski conditions in the Dolomites and glorious after-ski wines and bowls of fresh pasta. As for women—Rick has to wonder if the banker’s sister is just hitting him up for information. The action heats up, testing laid-back Rick whose uncle, a Roman cop, keeps urging him to make the police his career.
As in Cold Tuscan Stone, Death in the Dolomites immerses us in the sights, smells and tastes of Italy, this time in a picture-perfect Alpine town with a surprising negative side.

Murder Most Unfortunate - Book 3

Winding up an interpreter job in Bassano del Grappa at a conference on artist Jacopo da Bassano, a famous native son, Rick Montoya looks forward to exploring the town.  And it would be fun to look into the history of two long-missing paintings by the master, a topic that caused the only dust-up among the normally staid group of international scholars attending the seminar.

Bassano has much to offer to Rick the tourist, starting with its famous covered bridge, an ancient castle, and several picturesque walled towns within striking distance.  He also plans to savor a local cuisine that combines the best of Venice with dishes from the Po Valley and the surrounding mountains.  These plans come to a sudden halt when one of the seminar's professors turns up dead.

Rick is once again drawn into a murder investigation, this time with a pair of local cops who personify the best and the worst of the Italian police force.  At the same time he's willingly pulled into a relationship with Betta Innocenti, the daughter of a local gallery owner, who is equally intrigued by the lost paintings.  They quickly realize that the very people who might know the story are also the main suspects in the murder—and that someone not above resorting to violence is watching their every move.

Here is a direct link to Murder Most Unfortunate's page at Amazon.com:

Please visit the author's website where he blogs and provides information on the locations in the books and their regional dishes.  Visit the Poison Pen Press page for the Rick Montoya series.

Lost in the City of Flowers (History of Idan Series) by Maria C. Trujillo

Lost in the City of Flowers is one of those modern young-adult novels in which the only thing young-adult in it is the protagonist.  The writing is complex, and the themes and events are quite grown-up.  The teenaged female protagonist is transported back 544 years to Renaissance Florence, Italy, when young girls were sexual toys for men.

The writing in Lost in the City of Flowers is lyrical and prosaic, but not really convincing as a first person narration by the fourteen-year-old Violet.  The reader just needs to suspend their disbelief and go with it:

With the help of curiosity, clumsiness, and a tunnel, I had lost myself in Italy and in time.

Violet encounters historical personages:  

• Leonardo da Vinci
• Giuliano de' (annoyingly minus the necessary de') Medici
• Lorenzo de' Medici
• Botticelli
• Verrocchio
• Salai (out of his real time)
• Perugino
• Lippi

There is much in the book for fans of historical fiction.  The era's philosophy, geography, politics, customs, fashions, food come to life.  For fans of art history there are references to well-known stories relating to famous Italian Renaissance artists. 

The book is divided into three parts, each part charting a major event for Violet.  As the danger for Violet grows, she gives into temptations of ego and comes face to face with powerful people in the past.  Powerful people wish to control and dominate, and Violet's exciting adventures come because of them.

There are some punctuation and editing errors, but not many.  The map is too small, and does not accurately depict Medieval Florence.  The Prologue, while attention-grabbing, is not about the protagonist, and feels, with hindsight, a writer's trick. 

The first person narration by Violet, is written with some hindsight, when she returns to New York City, after her adventure is over.  This ruins the major suspenseful element in the story:  will Violet be able to return to her time?  We know that she does, from the start, because of the narrative form, so an omniscient narrator or third-person limited might have been a better choice.

Violet encounters romance and adventure in the past.  She also makes friends and experiences great sadness and some trauma.  The ending comes too quickly, so we cannot explore how her experiences have changed her, or how they have helped her grow up.  For a coming-of-age novel, that is strange.  The stage is set at the end for more time-traveling adventures in what the author calls the History of Idan Series, so perhaps we will see Violet's growth in the next book?  I hope so.

From the book's description:

Viola has always felt like she doesn’t belong.  With her mother halfway around the world, her sister away at school, and her father as her only friend, she keeps to herself and only dreams of becoming an artist.  The last thing a lonely fourteen-year-old girl wants for her birthday is to spend time with an old woman she doesn’t even know.  And she certainly doesn’t want to travel 544 years back in time to a place she’s only read about in books.

Armed with Idan, a mysterious pocket watch, she must navigate the perilous city to find a way home before she falls victim to the threats of Lorenzo the Magnificent.  For a girl that has a hard time meeting people, Viola manages to befriend the famous artist Leonardo da Vinci and gain the affections of the handsome Giuliano de' Medici.

To get back home Viola must find her voice and tap into her artistic abilities while she works in an artist’s workshop and encounters the enchanting work of some of the Renaissance’s most amazing artists.

This PBS documentary about the birth of the Italian Renaissance under the Medici family is a bit violet at times, but is an interesting recreation of the era in Lost in the City of Flowers.

Here are direct links to the book at Amazon.com:

Please visit the author's website which includes her blog.

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

Botticelli's Bastard by Stephen Maitland-Lewis

The novel Botticelli's Bastard is hard to categorize.  It is part farce, historical novel, paranormal novel, love story, mystery, and drama.  All the parts somehow come together to create a satisfying whole.  The whole is the story of Giovanni Fabrizzi, an Anglo-Italian art restorer living in London, who inherits a talking Italian Renaissance portrait painting.  What the man in the painting has to tell Giovanni is often disturbing.

Giovanni's behavior had changed dramatically since he had opened that crate.  He felt haunted.

The changes that the painting makes in Giovanni's life are, at first, mainly comic, with a fun jaunt through history.  But halfway through the book, the story takes a decidedly darker turn, leading to a bittersweet but satisfying ending.

On this page, I show many portraits by Sandro Botticelli.

The second half of the book deals with event that happened in Europe during the Second World War in relation to the robbing and killing of Jews.  Giovanni follows up on what the man painting tells him, and discovers upsetting things about the previous owners of the painting.

It was one thing to see the worn, black and white footage on a television program...But touching the paper, confirming the Meyerstein's transfer to Auschwitz, and knowing the gruesome manner in which the good people had perished...it put an echo of that terror into his heart and mind that would not leave him, ever, from that day forward.

Botticelli's favorite muse, Simonetta Vespucci

Wealthy Giovanni is not the most sympathetic of characters, and I found his troubles with his thirty-year-younger second-wife more icky than interesting, with a very unrealistic, or delusional, ending, in my opinion.  But the life of a first generation Anglo-Italian in London was enough to keep me reading (it was enough for me to request a review-copy).  True to his cultural upbringing, Giovanni seeks out human contact and a sense of community, as well as treats from Italy, like good food, coffee and gossipy news.

The title of the book, Botticelli's Bastard, is a description the man in the painting gives to himself.  He is a vain and arrogant minor de' Medici (annoyingly, the book spells de' Medici without the necessary contraction comma).  The man claims his portrait was painted by Sandro Botticelli during the Italian Renaissance in Florence, Italy. 

Giuliano de' Medici

Most of the humor in the story comes from the interaction between Giovanni and the man in the painting, a painting Giovanni inherited from his father.  The family connection is key to the story, and if you want to really enjoy the story, I would suggest you avoid reading the official book description, since it contains many spoilers.

The author's prose is straight-forward, clear and a pleasure to read.  The book is well-edited (except for the de' Medici error!).  The narration is third-person limited, letting us into Giovanni's head.  Botticelli's Bastard is an enjoyable mystery about a amateur detective who, with the help of the supernatural, discovers some dark secrets about his own family.  

The following book description, which comes from Amazon.com, oddly omits to mention the paranormal aspect in the novel:  the speaking portrait painting (is it just me, or does the portrait made for the book cover look like the author in Renaissance costume?). 

From the book's description (many spoilers):

Art restorer Giovanni Fabrizzi is haunted by an unsigned renaissance portrait.  Obsessed to learn the truth of its origin, he becomes increasingly convinced the painting could be the work of one of history's greatest artists, which if true, would catapult its value to the stratosphere.  

But in learning of the painting's past, he is faced with a dilemma.  He believes the portrait was stolen during the greatest art heist in history -- the Nazi plunder of European artwork.  If true and a surviving relative of the painting's rightful owner were still alive, Giovanni, in all good conscience, would have to give up the potential masterpiece.

His obsession with the portrait puts a strain on his new marriage, and his son thinks his father has lost his mind for believing an unremarkable, unsigned painting could be worth anyone's attention.  Regardless, Giovanni persists in his quest of discovery and exposes far more truth than he ever wanted to know.

A portrait of Botticelli's brother, a goldsmith, the man who probably made the medallion of Cosino de' Medici that he is holding.  Notice the cleft in the chin?  It is a Botticelli family trait (and a Lippi one which has caused some to suggest Sandro and perhaps his brother were illegitimate children of the randy priest, Fra Filippo Lippi).

Botticelli's Bastard is published by Glyd-Evans Press.

Direct link to the book at GEP

Here are direct links to the book at Amazon.com:

 

Please visit the book's Twitter and Facebook pages.

Here are some links to books about the Italian Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli at Amazon.com:

Here is an interview with the author about Botticelli's Bastard at YouTube:

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

Michelangelo, A Life in Six Masterpieces by Miles J. Unger

In Michelangelo, A Life in Six Masterpieces the reader is treated to 400+ pages about the life and work of the Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo Buonarotti.  The author sketches the long life of the painter-sculptor-architect, but zeros in on six masterpieces created by Michelangelo, to share with the reader vast amounts of details about how the pieces came into existence.

The book proceeds chronologically, beginning with the early life of Michelangelo.  Along the way to the six masterpieces, the minor works by the artist are discussed briefly.  And all the people who were important in Michelangelo's life are included in this book which is for real Michelangelo fanatics.

Mary with dead Jesus in St. Peter's Cathedral 1498

These are the chapters in the book, but they are deceptive, as they are really only time dividers in the long life of Michelangelo.

• Michelangelo, the Myth and the Man (Life up to the creation of the Pieta)
• Pieta (Mary with dead Jesus in St. Peter's Cathedral 1498)
• The Giant (statue of David symbolizing Florence 1501)
• Creation (Sistine Chapel ceiling 1510-1511)
• The Dead (Medici Tomb 1520-34)
• The End of Time (Last Judgment in Sistine Chapel 1536-1541)
• The Basilica (St. Peter's Cathedral, the Dome, in Vatican Rome 1547-1567)
• Appendix: A guide to viewing Michelangelo's art in Florence and Rome
• Notes
• Bibliography (a very impressive bibliography, a treasure trove for Michelangelo fanatics)

Statue of the biblical David symbolizing Florence 1501

The author points out that the Italian Renaissance was an attempt to reclaim the glories of the past, glories that had declined during the Middle Ages, and that were at risk of disappearing altogether.  These glories included the collections of ancient manuscripts, copying them, translating them, and disseminating their contents. 

Renewing the arts of painting, sculpture, metalworking, and architecture were another part of the Italian Renaissance.  Michelangelo profited from these efforts directly under the patronage of the Medici.

Lorenzo Il Magnifico de' Medici was one of the fathers of the Italian Renaissance, funding the finding of manuscripts, their copying and translation, and the study of the liberal arts.  So, necessarily, this book is also a minor history of the Medici.

Detail from the Sistine Chapel ceiling 1510-1511

Part of the fun of reading about Michelangelo is that we have many contemporary accounts of the man, even his contracts for work!  And we have writings by Michelangelo himself, which include poetry and letters.  We get an immediate impression of him from his own words, and this impression is fleshed out by the words of his contemporaries. 

The author makes good use of these resources.  (I provide links below to some free e-book editions of these works.)  Because Michelangelo was famous in his own lifetime, people kept anything relating to him for posterity and for profit.  So we have even seemingly minor details saved for history. 

Part of the Medici Tomb 1520-34

But foremost among the artist's accomplishments, according to the author, was Michelangelo's creation of himself.

...Michelangelo transformed both the practice of art and our conception of the artist's role in society.

Michelangelo's talent and long life earned him a status other artists could only dream of.  Popes, patrons and princes treated Michelangelo with respect.  They conceded, as Michelangelo demanded, to be given a free hand to create the art the patron had requested, without their interference.  Proud Michelangelo made it very clear that he was was an artist not an artisan.   

Last Judgment in Sistine Chapel 1536-1541

This is a book for real, die-hard Michelangelo fans who desire more detail about the creation of his most famous works of art.  Lots of detail.  It is for fans to savor and to live vicariously with the artistic genius. 

Michelangelo the man is presented to us.  We learn of his failings, his vanity, his feckless family, his desires, his sins, his regrets, his passions, and his old-man's search for a legacy.  What was Michelangelo like, as a person?  Well, the man was well known to be:

"driven, passionate, mercurial, irascible"

All is presented with a lovely prose style that is easy to read.  We are allowed to follow the stories of how world-famous works of art were created, as if we were a fly on the wall.  But again, the level of detail is something that will stun and pleasure die-hard fans, but might repel the casual art lover.

Section of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican from Drawing by Michelangelo

St. Peter's Cathedral, the Dome, in Vatican Rome 1547-1567

From the book's description:

The life of one of the most revolutionary artists in history, told through the story of six of his greatest masterpieces.

Among the immortals—Leonardo, Rembrandt, Picasso—Michelangelo stands alone as a master of painting, sculpture, and architecture.  He was not only the greatest artist in an age of giants, but a man who reinvented the practice of art itself.  Throughout his long career he clashed with patrons by insisting that he had no master but his own demanding muse and promoting the novel idea that it was the artist, rather than the lord who paid for it, who was creative force behind the work.

Miles Unger narrates the astonishing life of this driven and difficult man through six of his greatest masterpieces.  Each work expanded the expressive range of the medium, from the Pietà Michelangelo carved as a brash young man, to the apocalyptic Last Judgment, the work of an old man tested by personal trials.

Throughout the course of his career he explored the full range of human possibility. In the gargantuan David he depicts Man in the glory of his youth, while in the tombs he carved for the Medici he offers a sustained meditation on death and the afterlife. In the Sistine Chapel ceiling he tells the epic story of Creation, from the perfection of God’s initial procreative act to the corruption introduced by His imperfect children. In the final decades of his life, his hands too unsteady to wield the brush and chisel, he exercised his mind by raising the soaring vaults and dome of St. Peter’s in a final tribute to his God.

A work of deep artistic understanding, Miles Unger’s Michelangelo brings to life the irascible, egotistical, and undeniably brilliant man whose artistry continues to amaze and inspire us after 500 years.

Portrait of Michelangelo, circa 1535

Michelangelo is published by Simon & Schuster.

Simon & Schuster is a major force in today’s consumer publishing industry, dedicated to bringing an extensive cross section of first class information and entertainment in all printed, digital and audio formats to a worldwide audience of readers. 

 

Direct link to the book at S&S

Here are direct links to the book, and two other books of interest to Italophiles, at Amazon.com:

There are various e-book formats of a translation into English of sonnets written by Michelangelo, available via Project Gutenberg, the grand-daddy of internet free e-book sites.

Link to Michelangelo's Poetry E-book Page

Vasari includes his biography of Michelangelo in Book 9 of his series Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors & Architects, from which the author Miles J. Unger quotes many times.  It is available for free from Project Gutenberg in various e-book formats.

Book 9

From Michelangelo to the Flemings, roughly 1474-1564

Includes Michelangelo (Michelagnolo) and Sansovino

Direct link to Book 9 e-books at PG

I have a concise history of the Medici dynasty on my website:  Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site.

Direct link to the first page of the illustrated de' Medici story

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.

Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors & Architects by Giorgio Vasari

The ten volumes of this book were written in roughly the year 1568, during the Italian Renaissance, by an Italian artist about Italian artists.  The books contain biographies and descriptions of the artists' major works, ordered by style, which is not exactly chronological.  The biographies are written in a gossipy, first-hand style, that revels in namedropping, making the books a Who's Who of the Italian Renaissance (the Name Indices at the back of each book are an amazing collection of Renaissance artists!).

...writing down the lives, the works, the manners, and the circumstances of all those who, finding the arts already dead, first revived them, then step by step nourished and adorned them, and finally brought them to that height of beauty and majesty whereon they stand at the present day.

 An original frontispiece to the first two-volume edition

Look closely at the beginning of the books and you will see the Papal permission (Pius V) for publication that was required for all books a the time, and were issued by the Offiicii sanctissimae Inquisitionis Florentinae, the same office of the inquisition who refused publication rights to Galileo's writings and had him jailed.

The books are all AVAILABLE FOR FREE download as e-books, in various formats, from Project Gutenberg, the grand-daddy of free e-book sites on the Internet.  The edition at Project Gutenberg is the 1912-1914 edition published by MacMillan and Co. Ltd. Together with The Medici Society, and it is a translation from the Tuscan to English by Gaston Du C. De Vere.  Hundreds of photographs accompany the text.

Project Gutenberg was the first group to put public domain texts online for free download.  Others have taken their free texts and packaged them as to-purchase books.  Don't be fooled!  They are all free via Project Gutenberg in various e-book formats, and many are available for free via Amazon.com as Kindle e-books.

Vasari's moody portrait of Lorenzo de' Medici painted long after the man had died, but which is said to be truer to life than those painted during the man's life

Giorgio Vasari was an artist, and in the Florentine tradition, also an architect, but he modestly calls himself "a painter of Arezzo".  He lived from 1511 to 1574.  Most of his commissions were for the Ducal family of Florence, the de' Medici, to whom he dedicates the biographies.  Reading the biographies, you will notice that most commissions for art and buildings came from the Catholic Church, royal families, and wealthy aristocrats.

Most tourists who have visited Florence will recognize Vasari's name as linked to the corridor that connects the old government buildings in the center of Florence, to the Pitti Palace, the last de' Medici palace on the opposite side of the Arno River.  The corridor, designed by Vasari, runs above the shops on Florence's famous Ponte Vecchio.  Actually, the corridor and bridge are the backdrop to this blog.

This view of the Ponte Vecchio gives the best view of Vasari's corridor above the shops.  Vasari describes its construction in Book 10.

Leonardo

The sections that will most interest the casual reader are those about the two most famous artists of the Italian Renaissance:  Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangnolo (that is the Florentine spelling and how the man spelled his own name) Buonarotti.

The biography of Leonardo da Vinci is in Book 4, and it is a very long section, praising the artist as a man and as a scientist and an artist.

"...in supernatural fashion, beauty, grace, and talent are united beyond measure in one single person."

"...to whatever difficulties he turned his mind, he solved them with ease."

A self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, who was known in his lifetime for his extreme beauty

Michelangelo

The biography of Michelangelo is in Book 9, and it is wonderfully gossipy, full of first-hand accounts of the man, who was a friend of Vasari's, and peppered with quotes from private letters of Michelangelo's.  What comes across strongly is the reverence that the de' Medici showed Michelangelo, a longtime friend of the family, and the artist they trusted to make the family tomb in the Church of San Lorenzo in Florence.

A portrait of Michelangelo, who hated having his portrait made, since he was known during his lifetime for his very unattractive looks

Vasari, the perfect artist toward his patron, ends the books with:

"I shall never be weary of confessing the obligation that I feel towards that lord [ed. Cosimo de' Medici] for so many marks of affection."

A portrait of the first Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo de' Medici, in his full battle armor, painted by the official de' Medici portrait artist, Bronzino, who is described in Book 10.

Book 1

From Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi, roughly 1240-1387

Includes Giotto and Pisano

Direct link to Book 1 e-books at PG

Book 2

From Berna to Michelozzi, roughly 1369-1432

Includes Aretino, Della robbia, Masaccio and Brunelleschi

Direct link to Book 2 e-books at PG

Book 3

From Filarete to Mantegna, roughly 1431-1517

Includes Piero della Francesca, Lippi, Gozzoli, Ghirlandajo, Pollaiuolo, Botticelli, and Verrocchio

Direct link to Book 3 e-books at PG

Book 4

From Filippino to Puligo, roughly 1511-1527

Includes Filippino, Perugino, da Vinci and Fra Bartolomeo

Direct link to Book 4 e-books at PG

Book 5

From Andrea da Fiesole to Lorenzo Lotto, roughly 1522-1548

Includes Raffaello, Andrea del Sarto and Sansovino

Direct link to Book 5 e-books at PG

Book 6

From Fra Giocondo to Niccolo Soggi, roughly 1524-1536

Includes San Gallo, del Piombo and Vasari

Direct link to Book 6 e-books at PG

Book 7

From Tibolo to Il Sodoma, roughly 1500-1554

Includes Bandinelli and Pontormo

Direct link to Book 7 e-books at PG

Book 8

From Bastiano to Taddeo Zucchero, roughly 1534-1542

Includes Salviati and Rustici

Direct link to Book 8 e-books at PG

Book 9

From Michelangelo to the Flemings, roughly 1474-1564

Includes Michelangelo (Michelagnolo) and Sansovino

Direct link to Book 9 e-books at PG

Book 10

From Bronzino to Vasari

Includes the descriptions of Bronzino's portraits of the Ducal family, and of the wedding festival for Francesco, Duke Cosimo de' Medici's eldest son and heir, and projects Vasari undertook for the royal family.

Direct link to Book 10 e-books at PG

Would you like a private tour of Vasari's corridor?  Here is one, that includes at the end a bit of the Boboli Gardens and some of Michelangelo's designs at the Church of San Lorenzo.

This review is by Candida Martinelli, of Candida Martinelli's Italophile Site, and the author of the cozy-murder-mystery novel AN EXTRA VIRGIN PRESSING MURDER, and the young-adult/adult mystery novel series THE VIOLET STRANGE MYSTERIES the first book of which is VIOLET'S PROBLEM.