From the acclaimed author of Brunelleschi's Dome and Leonardo and the Last Supper, the riveting story of how Michelangelo, against all odds, created the masterpiece that has ever since adorned the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. In 1508, despite strong advice to the contrary, the powerful Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo Buonarroti to paint the ceiling of the newly restored Sistine Chapel in Rome. Despite having completed his masterful statue David four years earlier, he had little experience as a painter, even less working in the delicate medium of fresco, and none with challenging curved surfaces such as the Sistine ceiling's vaults. The temperamental Michelangelo was himself reluctant: He stormed away from Rome, incurring Julius's wrath, before he was eventually persuaded to begin. Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling recounts the fascinating story of the four extraordinary years he spent laboring over the twelve thousand square feet of the vast ceiling, while war and the power politics and personal rivalries that abounded in Rome swirled around him. A panorama of illustrious figures intersected during this time-the brilliant young painter Raphael, with whom Michelangelo formed a rivalry; the fiery preacher Girolamo Savonarola and the great Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus; a youthful Martin Luther, who made his only trip to Rome at this time and was disgusted by the corruption all around him. Ross King blends these figures into a magnificent tapestry of day-to-day life on the ingenious Sistine scaffolding and outside in the upheaval of early-sixteenth-century Italy, while also offering uncommon insight into the connection between art and history.

The author of Queer in America offers “brilliant advice” for safeguarding the future of gay rights (The Advocate). Marriage equality is the law of the land. Closet doors have burst open in business, entertainment, and even major league sports. But as Michelangelo Signorile argues in his most provocative book yet, the excitement of such breathless change makes this moment more dangerous than ever. Signorile marshals stinging evidence that an age-old hatred, homophobia, is still a basic fact of American life. He exposes the bigotry of the brewing religious conservative backlash against LGBT rights and challenges the complacency and hypocrisy of supposed allies in Washington, the media, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood. Just as racism did not disappear with the end of Jim Crow laws or the election of Barack Obama, discrimination and hostility toward gay Americans hasn’t vanished simply by virtue of a Supreme Court decision. Not just a wake-up call, It’s Not Over is also a battle plan for the fights to come in the march toward equality. Signorile tells the stories of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans who have refused to be merely tolerated and are demanding full acceptance. He documents signs of hope in schools and communities finding new ways to combat ignorance, bullying, and fear. Urgent and empowering, It’s Not Over is a necessary book from “one of America’s most incisive critics and influential activists in the movement for gay equality” (The Intercept).

A Journey into Michelangelo's Rome follows Michelangelo from his arrival in Rome in 1496 to his death in the city almost seventy years later. It tells the story of Michelangelo's meteoric rise and artistic breakthroughs, of his tempestuous relations with powerful patrons, and of his austere but passionate private life. Each chapter focuses on a particular work that stunned his contemporaries and continues to impress today's visitors. From the tender sorrow of his sculpted Piet, to the civic elegance of his restoration of Capitoline Hill, to the grandeur of his dome atop St. Peter's, Michelangelo's work adorns the city in numerous ways.

Among the immortals--Leonardo, Rembrandt, Picasso--Michelangelo stands alone as a master of painting, sculpture, and architecture. He was not only the greatest artist in an age of giants, but a man who reinvented the practice of art itself. Throughout his long career he clashed with patrons by insisting that he had no master but his own demanding muse and promoting the novel idea that it was the artist, rather than the lord who paid for it, who was creative force behind the work. This is the life of perhaps the most famous, most revolutionary artist in history, told through the stories of six of his magnificent masterpieces.

A renowned British public intellectual illustrates how our unique ability to point the index finger has shaped our amazing evolutionary pathway as humansIn this startlingly original and persuasive book, Raymond Tallis shows that it is easy to underestimate the influence of small things in determining what manner of creatures humans are. He argues that the independent movement of the human index finger is one such easily overlooked factor. Indeed, not for nothing is the index finger called the “forefinger.” It is the finger we most naturally deploy when we want to pry objects out of small spaces, but it plays a far more significant role in an action unique to us among primates: pointing.Tallis argues that it is through pointing that the index finger made a significant contribution to the development of humans and to the creation of a human world separate from the rest of the natural world. Observing the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the hugely familiar and awkward encounter between Michelangelo’s God and Man through their index fingers, Tallis identifies the artist’s intuitive awareness of the central role of the index finger in making us unique. Just as the reaching index fingers of God and Man are here made central to the creation of our kind, so Tallis believes that the seemingly simple act of pointing, which is used in a wide variety of ways, is central to our extraordinary evolution.

Michelangelo: A Reference Guide to His Life and Works cover the life and works of Michelangelo Buonarroti. Michelangelo is considered to be one of the greatest masters in history and he produced some of the most notable icons of civilization, including the Sistine Ceiling frescoes, the Moses, and the Pietà at St. Peter’s. Includes a detailed chronology of Michelangelo’s life, family, and work. The A to Z section includes the major events, places, and people in Michelangelo’s life and the complete works of his sculptures, paintings, architectural designs, drawings, and poetry. The bibliography includes a list of publications concerning his life and work. The index thoroughly cross-references the chronological and encyclopedic entries.