Michelangelo And The Pope'S Ceiling

Description: In 1508, Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The thirty-three-year-old Michelangelo had very little experience of the physically and technically taxing art of fresco; and, at twelve thousand square feet, the ceiling represented one of the largest such projects ever attempted. Nevertheless, for the next four years, he and a hand-picked team of assistants laboured over the vast ceiling, making thousands of drawings and spending back-breaking hours on a scaffold fifty feet above the floor. The result was one of the greatest masterpieces of all time. This fascinating book tells the story of those four extraordinary years and paints a magnificent picture of day-to-day life on the Sistine scaffolding - and outside, in the upheaval of early sixteenth-century Rome. Review: '* 'Ross King deftly stitches modern Michelangelo scholarship into his fluent and gripping narrative. The result is a delightful book that overturns many legends.' - Independent * 'A fascinating and carefully researched account of day-to-day life atop the Sistine scaffolding.' - The Times * 'A narrative that never falls back on exaggeration or deviates from the facts.' - Frank Whitford, Sunday Times * 'We learn an enormous amount by reading this book; King's grasp of and research into the period seem all-encompassing.' - Spectator' Author Biography: Ross King is the author of Brunelleschi's Dome, a highly praised account of how the Renaissance architect Brunelleschi constructed the dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence (voted Non-Fiction Book of the Year by American Independent Booksellers in 2001). He has also written two novels, Domino and Ex Libris. He lives in Oxford.