David

Wednesday

Martin Gayford

How a single year in Florence changed art forever

The story goes that one day early in the 16th century Leonardo da Vinci was strolling through Florence with a friend. Near the Ponte Santa Trinita they came across a group of gentlemen disputing a point in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Seeing Leonardo, they asked him to explain the passage. At that same moment, Michelangelo Buonarroti also happened to hurry by, and Leonardo beckoned the sculptor over to interpret it for them. But Michelangelo, feeling he was being mocked, rounded on Leonardo: ‘Explain it yourself, you who tried to cast a horse in bronze, and couldn’t do it, and had to abandon the project in shame!’ With that he turned on

Thursday

Robert Alter

Roberto Calasso’s retelling of the Hebrew Bible is both exasperating and beguiling

The Italian writer Roberto Calasso, who died in July at the age of 80, was an anomalous and fascinating figure on the international literary scene. In his early twenties he began working for the prestigious publishers Adelfi Edizioni and stayed with them his whole life, eventually becoming editorial director and, when the firm was threatened with a takeover, purchasing it. In his thirties he began writing a series of idiosyncratic books. The second of these, The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony, established his reputation and was translated into many languages. Something should be said about it because the project it enacts is related to this last of his books. The