***FORTHCOMING***

Paperback – 145 x 115 mm – 240 pages

Forty-nine illustrations in colour

ISBN 9781843682615

Probably commissioned by Michelangelo himself from his fellow painter Ascanio Condivi, this biography presents an unprecedently intimate view of the life and career of the most influential artist in the history of Western art.

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) remains arguably the most powerful artist in the Western canon, and a touchstone for all artistic endeavour. Painter, sculptor, architect, poet, he redefined not only the possibilities of the imagination, but also of the image of the artist. He was the first artist to be the subject of a biography in his lifetime, with the publication of his life in Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the most excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects in 1550, where Michelangelo is presented as the divinely inspired culmination of the history of art.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps, Michelangelo was dissatisfied with Vasari’s treatment, and encouraged his close friend and fellow-painter Ascanio Condivi to publish a rival biography. Condivi’s Life is an impassioned and intimate portrait of Michelangelo, which gives an unparalleled picture of the master’s life, work and personality. This compelling narrative of genius and its struggles in the treacherous world of Papal politics and Italian wars remains one of the most fascinating and influential texts in art history. This edition reproduces the long unavailable translation by Charles Holroyd, and has 49 pages of illustrations covering the span of Michelangelo’s achievement, as well as an introduction by Charles Robertson.

Ascanio Condivi (c. 1525-1574), from the Marchigian town of Ripatransone, was a moderately talented painter, sculptor and architect, remembered today chiefly for this biography of his friend Michelangelo.

Charles Robertson is the former head of the History of Art Department of Oxford Brookes University and has published a number of studies on Italian Renaissance art and architecture.