About this title: A classic historical novel honoring the five hundredth anniversary of the artist's famed David sculpture dramatizes the life of the Renaissance artistic genius Michelangelo, recalls his love affairs, his disputes with cardinals and popes, and his years of working on the Sistine Chapel. Reprint.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Mass-market paperback
Publisher: Signet Book
Date Published: 1961
ISBN-13:9780451110107ISBN:0451110102
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Signed by previous owner. Mass market (rack) paperback. Glued binding. Audience: General/trade. Used but a great reading copy. read more
Description: Good. 0451110102 Mass market paperback, previously read used book in good condition, varying degrees of shelf wear, some spine creases, m..._ read more
Description: Good. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
"Possibly one of the best-ever bio 'fiction' accounts I've ever read. Stone succeeds in recreating Michelangelo's world with such realistic passion that the reader is captivated, believing that, indeed, such a time and place just may have been amazing enough to produce a genius of this caliber. In the end, my overall feeling (and I was an art student in a NYC art school at the time, so i had a special interest) is that undoubtedly art and genius ARE all about 'agony' and 'ecstasy' but also that, fundamentally, Michelangelo's own particular brand of genius was ahead of his time while also a reflection of it and that in this vein, perhaps, his own agony and ecstasy resulted from this dichotomy."
"If you are any sort of historical fiction fan, I think you would like this.
It was a little long winded at times, and about half-way through I was wondering if I was ever going to finish it, but I'm so glad I stuck it out.
The descriptions were wonderful, especially of Florence and Rome. And it's so neat knowing that all the Renaissance Masters fed off each other and actually knew each other. I don't know, even though they weren't ever friends or anything, I just think it's cool that Michaelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci knew each other! I'm not sure that's it's super accurate about Michelangelo's life, I know that Stone used lots of his personal letters and journals to write this book, but I'm sure he had to take a lot of liberties to make get 776 pages out of that...
I would recommend having either an art history book or a computer handy when you read this. I didn't and I kept trying to look up Michelangelo's art on my blackberry...not really the same. And I'm very excited that I'll be traveling to Europe some next year and I really want to make it to Italy and see some of these great works of art in person!"
"It was the spring of 1973. Revelations into the behind-the-scene antics of the Nixon White House in a scandal known by one word "Watergate" had made cynics of us all. I needed something nobler to think about, a story about someone that pursued more than his own self interest, i.e a higher calling.
Set 500 years earlier, "The Agony and the Ecstasy," Irving Stone's historical novel about Michelangelo, master from the Italian Renaissance, fit the bill. Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was one of the greatest geniuses our species has ever produced. The modest man born in Florence was a painter, poet, architect and engineer. But in his heart, he was first and foremost, a sculptor of marble. That was his true calling.
The part that I've retained all these years, although it took me awhile to find it once again regards his thoughts on being a sculptor.
"White marble was the heart of the universe, the purest substance created by God; not merely a symbol of God but a portrait, God's way of manifesting himself," wrote Stone of Michelangelo's belief. "Only a divine hand could create such noble beauty. He felt himself a part of the white purity before him, felt its integrity as though it were his own."
"Sculpture is an art which, by removing all that is superfluous from the material under treatment, reduces it to that form designed in he artist's mind.
"Was it not equally true that the sculptor could never force any design on the marble which was not indigenous to its own nature? He had the impression that, no matter how honestly a sculptor designed, it would come to nothing if it did not agree with the basic nature of the block. In this sense a sculptor could never be completely master of his fate, as a painter could be. Paint was fluid; it could bend around corners. Marble was solidity itself. The marble sculptor had to accept the rigorous discipline of a partnership. The marble and he were one. They spoke to each other. And for him, the feel of marble was the supreme sensation. No gratification of any other sense, taste, sight, sound, smell, could approach it."
For me, knowing that the then 24-year-old Michelangelo could feel a block of solid marble and with hammer and chisel free the "Pietà" that was trapped inside is nothing short of a divine miracle.
"It was slow going for the first 100 pages or so. I actually started it, quit and read another book, and then went back to it with determination. I had to get used to the language (lots of Italian), the setting, the characters, and the author's writing style. The author took a while to warm up to his task. The writing is very detailed, formal and careful in the beginning, one could almost say boring. But it pays to stay with this book. I started to find it interesting about the time that Savanarola starts preaching the destruction of Rome for its sins and has his "bonfires of the vanities". I could have cried for all that lost art but it amazed me to see this Italian taliban in action (not a new idea, just another craze of destruction). The Popes are also just a wonder; they are so full of themselves, pursuing wars, pleasures, the destruction of their enemies, and (where Michelangelo comes in) the building of fantastic edifices for their glorification. Michelangelo is at the mercy of the whims and orders of the Popes. They change their minds about what they want, one dies and cancels the commissions of the previous, then he dies and cancels the commissions etc. Wars intervene, a lot. Michelangelo is not only involved in marble carving, his passion, but he paints the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel under order of one of the Popes. He builds defense walls for Florence, his home town, when they are under attack. (I love his mattress defense). Most amazing to me: He is ordered to quarry marble from a mountain where it has never been quarried because of the difficulties involved. He is given no help with this, and remember this is the early 1500's. He has no mechanical help except what he invents on the spot. This quarry project involves cutting through tons of rock and building a road to get the marble to the beach. They lower huge blocks of marble by a system of log and rope pulleys! All because the Pope said he had to have marble from this mountain! Can you guess what happens next? Michelangelo lives a long time, to age 90, despite wars, plagues, Popes and enemies. He has a terribilita, and a gift from G-d that he uses every ounce of his human strength to realize in marble, paint and architecture. I'm so glad that I read this book."
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