Tag Archives: Michelangelo

8 Prizes: Bella Italy Giveaway

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We have a GREAT Bella Italia Giveaway coming up.  All you have to do is comment starting today and all during the month of September, and when I return from France I will round up your comments, run them through random.org and declare 8 winners. It will be particularly fun for you because I will have guest bloggers throughout the month and you will meet a lot of new voices.( The posts during the month will not ALL be about Italy–that might be just too much of a good thing.)

Rules: Continue reading 8 Prizes: Bella Italy Giveaway

Michelangelo Faces Death

The Last Judgment

Destination: Rome, Italy

Book: The Last Judgment: Michelangelo and the Death of the Renaissance by James A. Connor (NEW Paperback Edition August, 2010 from Palgrave MacMillan)

Like Michelangelo and The Pope’s Ceiling by Ross King, this book concentrates on one major work of the maestro. Unlike King’s book, The Last Judgment by James A. (Jim) Connor delves more deeply into the religious philosophy of Michelangelo and his time than into the personal life of the painter. Continue reading Michelangelo Faces Death

Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel

Destination: Rome

 

Book: Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling by Ross King

A Journey into Michelangelo’s Rome by Angela K. Nickerson

Number one on my Italian travel agenda: Rome. Number one in Rome: The Sistine Chapel.

After a lifetime of seeing pictures of those outstretched index fingers, I wanted to see the rest. Not a bad painting for a guy who thought he was a sculptor.What a delight to find a book that unveils all the religious, political and artistic mechanics behind one of the world’s greatest masterpieces. Michelangelo, to put it mildly, was a complex human being, and the book, Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling captures the complexity of this genius along with the age in which he lived.  The book’s 384 pages may have more details about, say, the mixing of colors, than some readers can tolerate, but I loved every fussy, gossipy moment of it. I went to Rome fully prepared to see the Sistine Chapel with an educated eye, thanks to this addition to my travel library. And on the morning I had scheduled to go to the Vatican, I fell ill. Oh well, there is always next time. I hope.

And next time, I will expand beyond the Pope’s ceiling by reading A. K. Nickerson’s A Journey into  Michaelangelo’s Rome (2008), which was published after my last trip to Italy. See her video on You Tube.

Have you seen the Ceiling? What impressions did you carry away?

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