The author of the bestselling Brunelleschi's Dome brings to life the creation of a masterpiece amid the upheaval of Renaissance Italy.

In 1508, despite strong advice to the contrary, the powerful Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo Buonarroti to paint the ceiling of the newly restored Sistine Chapel in Rome. Four years earlier, at the age of twenty-nine, Michelangelo had unveiled his masterful statue of David in Florence; however, he had little experience as a painter, even less working in the delicate medium of fresco, and none with the curved surface of vaults, which dominated the chapel's ceiling. The temperamental Michelangelo was himself reluctant, and he stormed away from Rome, risking Julius's wrath, only to be persuaded to eventually begin.

Michelangelo would spend the next four years laboring over the vast ceiling. He executed hundreds of drawings, many of which are masterpieces in their own right. Contrary to legend, he and his assistants worked standing rather than on their backs, and after his years on the scaffold, Michelangelo suffered a bizarre form of eyestrain that made it impossible for him to read letters unless he held them at arm's length. Nonetheless, he produced one of the greatest masterpieces of all time, about which Giorgio Vasari, in his Lives of the Artists, wrote, 'There is no other work to compare with this for excellence, nor could there be.'

Ross King's fascinating new book tells the story of those four extraordinary years. Battling against ill health, financial difficulties, domestic problems, inadequate knowledge of the art of fresco, and the pope's impatience, Michelangelo created figures?depicting the Creation, the Fall, and the Flood?so beautiful that, when they were unveiled in 1512, they stunned his onlookers. Modern anatomy has yet to find names for some of the muscles on his nudes, they are painted in such detail. While he worked, Rome teemed around him, its politics and rivalries with other city-states and with France at fever pitch, often intruding on his work. From Michelangelo's experiments with the composition of pigment and plaster to his bitter competition with the famed painter Raphael, who was working on the neighboring Papal Apartments, Ross King presents a magnificent tapestry of day-to-day life on the ingenious Sistine scaffolding and outside in the upheaval of early-sixteenth-century Rome.

King tells how Michelangelo Buonarroti, known as a sculptor not as a painter, spent four years painting the ceiling of the newly restored Sistine Chapel for Pope Julius II while power politics and personal rivalries swirled around him. He was 33 when he was summoned back to Rome, from which he had fled vowing never to return.
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"Ross King expertly wipes away the smudges from the story of this great painting, only to uncover a truth even more exciting and impossible." John Freeman, San Francisco Chronicle

"A legend-busting, richly detailed account of the four-year making of the Sistine Chapel frescos....King supplies a righly nuanced view of Michelangelo and company's day-to-day life....[A] pleasure." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)

"[King] demythologizes and dramatizes without hectoring or debasing....King makes the familiar fresh." Publishers Weekly

"[An] exciting account....King chronicles Michelangelo's aesthetic decisions and clarion triumphs over myriad forms of adversity with expertise and contagious enthusiasm." Donna Seaman, Booklist (Starred Review)

"Scrupulously researched, written with wit and panache, Ross King's Michelangelo & The Pope's Ceiling is a sublime peek into a remarkable era." Larry Goldstone, The Miami Herald

Writer King, who made a splash with Brunelleschi's Dome, here brings to readers the human dimension, the day-by-day details, and the political and social contexts of Michelangelo's creation of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.

In 1508, despite strong advice to the contrary, the powerful Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the newly restored Sistine Chapel. With little experience as a painter (though famed for his sculpture David), Michelangelo was reluctant to begin the massive project.

Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling recounts the four extraordinary years Michelangelo spent laboring over the vast ceiling while the power politics and personal rivalries that abounded in Rome swirled around him. Battling against ill health, financial difficulties, domestic problems, the pope's impatience, and a bitter rivalry with the brilliant young painter Raphael, Michelangelo created scenes so beautiful that they are considered one of the greatest masterpieces of all time. A panorama of illustrious figures converged around the creation of this great work-from the great Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus to the young Martin Luther-and Ross King skillfully weaves them through his compelling historical narrative, offering uncommon insight into the intersection of art and history.

Ross King is the bestselling author of Brunelleschi's Dome and the novels Ex-Libris and Domino.