The story behind the timeless Renaissance revealed.

Michelangelo's frescoes on the Vatican's Sistine Chapel ceiling are arguably one of the greatest masterpieces of western art. The text and color images in this volume together explore central themes concerning this extraordinary fresco style, bringing information into focus for the general reader and for the tens of thousands of people who visit this masterpiece yearly. 36 color plates.

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.

Describes events leading up to the creation of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, with information about the life of Michelangelo, as a man and an artist; and includes discussion of the controversial restoration project of the 1980s, with before and after photographs.

The art of the Sistine Chapel, decorated by artists who competed with one another and commissioned by popes who were equally competitive, is a complex fabric of thematic, chronological, and artistic references. Four main campaigns were undertaken to decorate the chapel between 1481 and 1541, and with each new addition, fundamental themes found increasingly concrete expression. One overarching theme plays a central role in the chapel: the legitimization of papal authority, as symbolized by two keys—one silver, one gold—to the kingdom of heaven. The Sistine Chapel: Paradise in Rome is a concise, informative account of the Sistine Chapel. In unpacking this complex history, Ulrich Pfisterer reveals the remarkable unity of the images in relation to theology, politics, and the intentions of the artists themselves, who included such household names as Botticelli, Michelangelo, and Raphael. Through a study of the main campaigns to adorn the Sistine Chapel, Pfisterer argues that the art transformed the chapel into a pathway to the kingdom of God, legitimizing the absolute authority of the popes. First published in German, the prose comes to life in English in the deft hands of translator David Dollenmayer.

Located in the Villa Belvedere in the Vatican and completed 1n 1574 by the great Renaissance architect, Donato Bramante, with extraordinarily ingenious architecture, Bramante's staircase, then referred to as "lumacha," or "snail," still garners the greatest wonder and admiration. It has survived--almost completely, in its original form. The book shows beautiful and detailed photographs and includes extensive pictorial documentation on the Vatican and its environs in the 16th and 17th century.

Januszczak (literary editor, art critic, and now arts editor for the Brit's Channel 4) has written his impressions of the restoration of Christianity's greatest masterpiece. Witty, deeply-informed, biased, and, at spots, murky with allusion, it is a lively and charming, if very personal, commentary. No bibliography. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR