Customer Reviews

Michelangelo: A Biography

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a very good biography of Michelangelo that ranks along with Irving Stone's "The Agony and the Ecstasy" (fictional bio). Bull includes numerous letters to and from Michelangelo that involve friends and family. One is left with a good overall picture of Michelangelo and his times. I would have given it 5 stars if Bull was a little more inquisitve about painting and how painters of the time went about their work (including Michelangelo).

I'll keep reading but I think I'm too uninformed about the Renaissance for this book to hold my attention much longer. It's nothing to jump from the year 1518 to 1513 to 1509 and back to 1519 in the space of 2 pages. And it's DRY. There are a few excerpts from various letters but they seem so vague to me. I'm not understanding the ramifications when a contract has been broken and money has already changed hands (it's happened a LOT)...I'm not understanding where the assistants come from, how many were needed, what their duties were and how they interacted with the artist, except to learn some didn't work out. I'm not understanding anything about the people he socialized with or even knew very well. I'm losing interest fast!

It is the first book I've read about Michelangelo, although I have read 3 books about the Sistine ceiling. Well, I found this book very interested despite the many details. There are so many letters of Michelangelo, but I don't know if that is helpful. One can learn a lot about his life, his family ,his friends and acquaintances. In fact, there are so many persons that one may be confused in some way. He doesn't speak about Michelangelo's art identically, but he gives a quite extensive reference for his best pictures. There are also enough historical background and a lot about his patrons. I think the historical background may be useful for anyone who wants to have a better understanding and a better knowledge if he or she wants to realise his mind, his thought,his wit, his mentality etc.
There are many pages for his family affairs and I don't think that is very helpful.In fact, it is rather tiresome, uninterested. There are also so many assistants of Michelangelo that finally I got confused.
Michelangelo's longevity,genious and searching practical intellect made him the divine, the incomparable, the insuperable painter and sculpture he was and still remains. Whoever wants something more he or she must visit Rome and Florence as well.
PS: As for his poems I am not the one who can judge them although they seem sometimes passionate and quite lyric.
About his sculptures, there aren't enough information except the Pieta in Saint Peter's and his David, although he used to call himself as a sculpure than a painter.

I spent a week in Florence on my own and took this book with me. This book added so much to my trip. I would read this book while sipping coffee or having dinner...then I'd walk to the places it mentions in the book and lement about the stories I had just read. I finished the book close to the end of my trip. The book tells how Michelangelo's life ends...a visit to the Santa Maria where he is buried only seemed right.