Michelangelo & the Popes Ceiling

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.

"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? is a gifted, judicious, compelling narrator, who tells a complex story clearly . Along the way he debunks a number of myths? he characterises Michelangelo as a driven genius who somehow overcame his own deficiencies, in terms of personality and expertise, to create one of the wonders of the Renaissance." Alan Taylor, Sunday Herald

"Ross King has a knack for explaining complicated processes in a manner that is not only lucid but downright intriguing." Los Angeles Times

"A story as irresistible as this deserves another telling. In fact, Ross King deftly stitches modern Michelangelo scholarship into his fluent and gripping narrative. The result is a delightful book that overturns many legends? His story never flags, although this always engrossing book often takes the greatness of its art as read." Boyd Tonkin, The Independent

"Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling is straight nonfiction, continuing in the mode of King's previous book, Brunelleschi's Dome. In that book, King focused particularly on the challenges of designing, planning, and constructing what was then the world's largest dome.

In this new book, his focus widens. Not only does he describe the complicated process of fresco painting, but he also provides details of Michelangelo's family problems and Pope Julius's military campaigns. The result is a lively depiction of a tumultuous era, with cameo portraits of some of its key figures, including Luther, Erasmus, Machiavelli, the epic poet Ariosto, Leonardo da Vinci, and Raphael Santi, who was busy painting panels in the papal apartments while Michelangelo was working on the larger, more public area of the chapel ceiling." Ron Charles, The Christian Science Monitor (read the entire CSM review)

Writer King, who made a splash with 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. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

The extraordinary story behind Michelangelo's masterpiece in the Sistine Chapel from the author of the acclaimed Brunelleschi's Dome. King paints a magnificent picture of day-to-day life on the Sistine scaffolding and outside in the upheaval of early 16th century Rome. 46 illustrations.

Includes bibliographical references (p. [347]-356) and index.

Ross King was born in Canada in 1962 and presently lives near Oxford, England. He is also the author of two internationally acclaimed books, the novel Domino and Brunelleschi's Dome.