About the Book
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 procrea-tive 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.
About the Author
Miles J. Unger is an art historian and journalist. Formerly the man-aging editor of Art New England, he served for many years as a contributing writer to The New York Times. In addition to Michel-angelo: A Life in Six Masterpieces, he is the author of The Water-colors of Winslow Homer, Magnifico: The Brilliant Life and Vio-lent Times of Lorenzo de’ Medici, and Machiavelli: A Biography.