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.

The Shepherdess of Siena by Linda Lafferty

The Shepherdess of Siena:  A Novel of Renaissance Tuscany is actually a saga of Renaissance Tuscany.  This epic saga of nearly 600 pages recounts the popular and scandalizing stories linked to the de' Medici royal family, the Grand Dukes of Tuscany at the beginning of their royal-ness, and how they affect their subjects, with much about one particular subject, a young shepherdess from Siena, in Tuscany. 

 

The de' Medici banking family was raised to royal status over the Tuscany Dutchy under military powerhouse Cosimo de' Medici in the 1500s.  Fictionalized versions of his children are the focus of this book, along with their interactions with artists and subjects under their reign, most importantly with Virginia, a shepherdess with many hidden talents.  Virginia is based on an historical figure, too.  Her story in this book is half fact and half fiction, as the author admits in the Author's Notes.

The de' Medici have long been favorites of historical gossips, many of whom have put the salacious inventions linked to the family down in print, giving them an authority they do not always have in historical fact.  The author makes use of these juicy stories for her novel.  And much historical research has also gone into the development of the story, which will surely please fans of historical epic novels.

There are 102 chapters divided among seven parts in The Shepherdess of Siena:

1. A de' Medici Princess and the Little Shepherdess - 1569-1574
2. The Death of Cosimo de' Medici - 1574-1576
3. Murder in Tuscany - 1576-1578
4. The Heroine of Siena - 1579-1581
5. Ferrara - 1581-1582
6. The Art of Death 1582-1586
7. The Reign of Granduca Ferdinando - 1586-1591

This sweeping saga covers romance, politics, gossip, power, patronage, crime, religion, sports, patriotism, royals, adventure, pathos...  The voice is sometimes first-person, and at other times third-person.  The text is sprinkled with Italian words.   The English is excellent and the editing expert.   

This is one for historical novel fans, those who love to be immersed in another time and place.  Italophiles with a love of Italian history should enjoy the time they can spend in Renaissance Tuscany, hobnobbing with the exciting de' Medici family.

From the book's description:

Raised by her aunt and uncle amidst the rolling hills of the Tuscan countryside, young orphan Virginia Tacci has always harbored a deep love for horses—though she knows she may never have the chance to ride. As a shepherdess in sixteenth-century Italy, Virginia’s possibilities are doubly limited by her peasant class and her gender.

Yet while she tends her flock, Virginia is captivated by the daring equestrian feats of the high-spirited Isabella de’ Medici, who rides with the strength and courage of any man, much to the horror of her brother, the tyrannical Gran Duca Francesco de’ Medici.

Inspired, the young shepherdess keeps one dream close to her heart:  to race in Siena’s Palio. Twenty-six years after Florence captured Siena, Virginia’s defiance will rally the broken spirit of the Senese people and threaten the pernicious reign of the Gran Duca.

Bringing alive the rich history of one of Tuscany’s most famed cities, this lush, captivating saga draws an illuminating portrait of one girl with an unbreakable spirit.

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

If you enjoy her historical epic style, you are in luck:  she has more novels out, each set in a different era.  Here is a link to a lovely article in The Aspen Times newspaper about their local author.

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.

Rome The Biography of a City by Christopher Hibbert

This book attempts to cover 3000 years of history in 400 pages, so you can't blame this writer for suffering a sort-of history-whiplash.   Hundreds of years are compressed into a single page, over and over again.  Tidbits and trivia are sprinkled throughout to try to keep the reader's interest, and to differentiate the book from a Wikipedia entry on The History of Rome, Italy.  I'm not sure the trivia actually works.

The author works hard to focus his story on the city of Rome, but that is difficult since the city was once the capital of an empire, and is now the capital of a country, and it is the capital of a religious faith.  Take any name, date or event mentioned in this compressed history book, and you will find dozens of books in print about it.  The history of Rome and her citizens and invaders is so rich that this books sometimes feels more like an Index than a book.

The book boasts a detailed Notes and Index section.  In fact, the Notes section feels like a book in its own right.  Perhaps the book that the author should have written?  I don't know, but in the Preface the author states that the book is intended for those who may tour Rome.  The book hopes to offer some historical background to what visitors to modern Rome may see.  The Notes section points out just what bits and pieces are still to be seen, and includes some teasing information about them.

Sadly, modern Rome is like ancient and medieval Rome after they have been put through a blender and mashed with a potato masher and then buried in your back garden.  There is not much left where it originally stood, or in its original condition.  Tourists to Rome have to deal with traffic, pollution, filth and graffiti, lines and crowding, to see collections and buildings that are like jigsaw-puzzles made up of bits and pieces, or missing bits and pieces.

I cringed right at the beginning of this book when I read the author thank his wife solely for her Index-making skills.  Ouch.  Cold.  The male-of-a-certain age feeling remained throughout the reading of the book, especially when mentions of women resorting to prostitution in order to survive were treated as moments of amusement or curiosity. 

Wouldn't the readers find it so amusing to hear Samuel Johnson's Boswell's precise words about how he abused Roman women resulting in his infamous venereal disease?  No, this reader did not find it amusing, as I suspect no female readers found it amusing, and perhaps many men did not find it very nice either.  The diary quotes were not uninteresting per se, but they seemed too many and too much of another era to be entertaining.  Actually, some things about that other era provoked my envy:  Rome was open, inexpensive and often free for well-educated tourists.

The author has a fluid prose style and a command of his subject matter, although he his fond of historical gossip and probable invented innuendo.  He also has an academic's studied disdain for religion, which will annoy if not offend those of faith.  That was an odd thing to indulge when writing a book that would surely interest religious pilgrims to the home of Catholicism and the Christian faiths, and to the sites of so many religious martyrs, including two apostles of Jesus.  

The author keeps the 3000 years moving along at a quick pace.  We retrace Rome's long history of bloodshed and sadism, ruinous ambition, rampant misogyny, aristocratic destructive narcissism, invasion by thugs, looting by everyone and anyone.  It does become tiresome after a while.

The overall feeling from reading the book, for me, was this is too much history in too short a book.  3000 years in 400 pages; do the math and that is an average of 7.5 years per page.  That would be the history of Fascist Italy on one page.  You see what I mean?  Actually, the author allows a chapter to cover Royals and Fascists, but that means some pages cover hundreds of years of history.  All of post WWII Rome is summed up in the Epilogue.

The book chapters briefly cover:

• Romulus and Kings
• Roman Republic and Empire
• Christians
• Anarchy and the Fall of Rome
• Papal Rome, Charlemagne, Aristocrats
• Renaissance Excess
• Sack and Recovery
• Baroque and 1700s
• Napoleon
• Unification
• Royals and Fascists
• Today

From the book's description:

This beautifully written, informative study is a portrait, a history and a superb guide book, capturing fully the seductive beauty and the many layered past of the Eternal City.  It covers 3,000 years of history from the city's quasi-mythical origins, through the Etruscan kings, the opulent glory of classical Rome, the decadence and decay of the Middle Ages and the beauty and corruption of the Renaissance, to its time at the heart of Mussolini's fascist Italy.  Exploring the city's streets and buildings, peopled with popes, gladiators, emperors, noblemen and peasants, this volume details the turbulent and dramatic history of Rome in all its depravity and grandeur.

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

The author has several books in print about Italy.  Here are links his other books at Amazon.com:

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.

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.

Stargazers by Allan Chapman

The subtitle of Stargazers is Galileo, Copernicus, the Telescope and the Church, but that is a bit deceptive, since the book is really a history of astronomy itself.  The author spends the most time, however, discussing the "Astronomical Renaissance" from the year 1500 to 1700.  I requested a review-copy because of the large section of the book us devoted to Galileo Galilei, the famous Italian astronomer. 

The section on Galileo begins about 29% into the book and goes to about 43% of the book.  The whole book covers:

• Aristotle's universe
• Copernicus's revolution
• Tycho Brahe's earth-sun-centric universe
• Kepler's laws of motion
• Galileo Galilei's telescope and visual proof
• The Jesuits missionaries' telescope based astronomy around the world
• Protestants and science
• Francis Bacon and natural philosophy
• The Royal Society and the International Fellowship of Science
• The heavenly clockwork and the power of the scientific method

There are Notes, Further Reading suggestions, a full Index and illustrations throughout the text.

The spread of the study of astronomy was thanks to the Jesuit schools set up to educate young men in thinking critically, and knowing how to argue and defend a proposition.  They were educated in the seven liberal arts, one of which was astronomy. 

But those teachers would have had nothing to teach without the ancient texts that were preserved by religious monastic societies throughout the middle ages:  the ancient scientists provided many instruments, astronomical tables, calculations and observations.

Galileo's drawings of the phases of the moon

And the ancient texts would not have been available to the teachers and students without the printing press, which from 1500 onward provided affordable texts throughout Europe of books that previously were the domain of mainly churches and princes.

It is the printing of the new ideas of the learned that made the astronomical renaissance possible.  Ideas built upon ideas, observations stimulated more theories, which pushed thinkers to desire proof, which lead to more instruments...

Galileo comes alive through the details provided by the author about Galileo's life, upbringing, his world and his public record of arrogance and cruelty.  The Italian was:

...unmystical, hard-headed, argumentative, and possessed of a powerful personality that did not take easily to being contradicted.

There has been much myth-building surrounding Galileo, many stories that may not be true, lots of anecdotes to show the man's greatness, but few reveal his nastiness. 

Frontispiece of Opere Di Galileo Galilei, Published in Bologna in 1656

Traveling around Venice, Padua and other important Italian city-states, the centers of learning during the Renaissance, the author looks at the advancement of astronomical mathematics, engineering, and astronomical tools that Galileo had a hand in.

Galileo was a mathematician and theoretician who used his applied mathematics and engineering skills to create a refracting telescope with special lenses that allowed him to observe the objects in the sky better than anyone before him, and he wrote about his observations of Jupiter, the moon, Saturn's rings, Venus's transit of the sun, and the milky way's stars.

One of the myth-making stories of Galileo experimenting with gravity from the top of the leaning Bell Tower of Pisa

You have to be something of an astronomy fanatic, or a beginning student of astronomy, to read this book.  It is rich with detail, but since it covers such a long period of time some sections are rather cursory.  The curious reader will want to check out the Further Reading suggestions to flesh out the story of astronomy.  But this is an excellent introductory text!

From the book's description:

Stargazers presents a comprehensive history of how leading astronomers, such as Galileo and Copernicus, mapped the stars from 1500AD to around 1700AD.  Building on the work of the Greek and Arabian astrologers before him, church lawyer Nicholas Copernicus proposed the idea of a sun-centred universe.  It was later popularized by Galileo – a brilliant debater whose abrasive style won him many enemies – who presented new evidence, which suggested that the earth moved.  

This thorough examination of the work of both men explores both their achievements and influences. It then traces the impact of their ideas on those who followed them, including Sir Francis Bacon, Dr John Wilkins, Dr Robert Hooke, Sir Isaac Newton and Reverend Dr James Bradley.  

Chapman investigates the Church’s role and its intriguing relationship with the astronomers of the day, many of whom were churchgoers.  He rebuts the popular view that the Church was opposed to the study of astronomy.  In reality, it led the search to discover more.  In 1728, Copernicus’s theory of the moving earth was finally proven by the young Reverend Dr James Bradley.

Frontispiece of Galileo's 'De Systemate Mundi' Depicting Aristotle, Ptolomy, Copernicus, 1635

Here are direct links to Stargazers at Amazon.com:

This is a sanitized version of Galileo's life and work:

Visit the author's page at Gresham College.

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.