My heart is always lifted when a book begins with a map; it is like getting on a plane, we are about to go on an adventure. The first image in this generously illustrated work is a map of Italy 400 years ago; it shows a loose collection of independent nation states which, at that time, stood in the middle of the world.
Having, in his book Brunelleschi’s Dome, successfully conjured up Florence in the 15th century, Ross King now moves to 16th-century Rome and Michelangelo’s astonishing Sistine chapel ceiling; an artistic achievement so stunning that, according to Goethe, we cannot understand what one man is capable of without visiting the chapel. King, however, informs us that Goethe was wrong; the fresco is the result of many men’s labour; Michelangelo worked with a team of expert assistants. In this book hardly a chapter passes without a myth being exploded. He was forced to lie on his back in order to paint the ceiling? No, we see his own scaffold design which allowed him to stand. Julius II was an interfering patron? Quite the reverse, most of the artist’s problems were caused by the Pope’s absences due to military campaigns or illness. Michelangelo was homosexual? Unlikely: we learn that he had been an ardent follower of Savonarola who proposed that sodomites should be burned in the same fire as such ‘vanities’ as playing- cards, perfumes and mirrors. For those of us whose thoughts of Michelangelo Buonarroti do not wander far from the image of Charlton Heston in the Agony and the Ecstasy this book offers a comprehensive re-education.
Our journey begins in Florence, Michelangelo refusing the Pope’s entreaties, which became demands, to return to Rome (he was brooding over being ignored by His Holiness when trying to collect an unpaid bill).
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