Rome and the Papacy of Julius II

Michelangelo

Reading Assignments

Vasari, Lives of the Artists, vol. I: Life of Michelangelo (L)(R)

Wolfflin, Classic Art, chapter III: Michelangelo (2. "The Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel," 3. "The Julius Monument") (L)(R)

Charles Seymour, Jr., ed., Michelangelo: The Sistine Chapel Ceiling, pp. 102151: "Backgrounds and Sources" (R)

Erwin Panofsky, Studies in Iconology, chapter V: "The Neoplatonic Movement and Michelangelo" (L)(R)


Suggested Reading

John Shearman, "The Functions of Michelangelo's Color," in Carlo Pietrangeli et al., The Sistine Chapel: A Glorious Restoration, ed. Pierluigi de Vecchi (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1994), pp. 80-89: the entire volume offers illustrations of the frescoes after cleaning (R) (cf. also for illustrations Michael Hirst et al., La Cappella Sistina: la volta restaurata [Novara: Istituto Geografico de Agostini, 19921 [R])


Further Suggestions

Ascanio Condivi, The Life of Michelangelo (1553), trans. Alice Sedgwick Wohl (Oxford: Phaidon, 1976): a response and corrective to the first edition of Vasari's life of M. (1550), written by an assistant to the master and reflecting M.'s own views of himself and his art

Johannes Wilde, "The Decoration of the Sistine Chapel," in George Holmes, ed., Art and Politics in Renaissance Italy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 241-261

Edgar Wind, "Michelangelo's Prophets and Sibyls," in Holmes, ed., Art and Politics in Renaissance Italy, p. 263-300

Charles de Tolnay, The Art and Thought of Michelangelo (New York: Pantheon Books, 1964): lectures by one of the grand scholars ion the field on politics, philosophy, religion, and artistic convictions (Tolnay's five-volume monograph on Michelangelo is the richest publication on the artist)

James M. Saslow, The Poetry of Michelangelo: An Annotated Translation (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1991): facing page translations with excellent introduction

David Summers, Michelangelo and the Language of Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981): a resonant, at times difficult, discussion of Michelangelo's ideas within the context of Renaissance artistic culture

Robert S. Liebert, Michelangelo: A Psychoanalytic Study of His Life and Images (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1983): for those wishing to explore further


Two fine general monographs:

Herbert von Einem, Michelangelo,.trans. Ronald Taylor (London: Methuen & Co., 1973)

Howard Hibbard, Michelangelo (New York: Harper & Row, 1974)


*(L) = book available at Labyrinth Books (R) = book on reserve in Avery Library