Other editions of book The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti

The artistic genius of Michelangelo (1475-1564) is beyond question. One the most important figures in the history of art, his monumental paintings in the Sistine Chapel, his sculpture David in Florence, and his Pietà at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome are among the greatest human achievements of all time and remain the most visited and admired works of art in the world. Michelangelo's life has been the subject of many biographies over the centuries, but it was not until the appearance of John Addington Symonds's The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti, in 1893, that a biographer had complete access to the artist's family archives.The Buonarroti archives were to be available to the public with the passing of the last family member, but even when that event occurred, in 1858, material from the archives remained closely guarded and only fragments emerged through the hands of family friends. The Italian government, predisposed to Symonds for his impeccable scholarship of Renaissance art, gave Symonds full access to the Buonarroti archives in the 1880s, the first independent scholar so honored.With the ability to consult the massive amount of material in the archives, Symonds produced the first documented, and considered by many still to be the best, biography of Michelangelo. Symonds's expertise as a historian and critic gives added depth to this biography, and it is here that the public first learned that translations of Michelangelo's poetry had been altered to opaque the artist's sexuality. Yet this great work, the last of Symonds's life, has largely been forgotten by students of Michelangelo. In this new edition, the first in more than fifty years, preeminent art historian Creighton E. Gilbert reintroduces Symonds's masterful study of Michelangelo to a new audience through a discussion of the historical context in which the biography appeared, a biographical sketch of Symonds, an openly gay man who worked rigorously to evaluate and promote the contributions of gay artists and scholars to mainstream life, and concludes with an appreciation of The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti, for its scholarly and literary merits, as an account of the most brilliant painter and sculptor of the Italian Renaissance.

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by John Addington Symonds is in the English language, and may not include graphics or images from the original edition. If you enjoy the works of John Addington Symonds then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection.

According to a vague tradition, the Simoni drew their blood from the high and puissant Counts of Canossa. Michelangelo himself believed in this pedigree, for which there is, however, no foundation in fact, and no heraldic corroboration. According to his friend and biographer Condivi, the sculptor’s first Florentine ancestor was a Messer Simone dei Conti di Canossa, who came in 1250 as Podesta to Florence.

John Addington Symonds, the Younger (1840-1893) was an English poet and literary critic. He was an early advocate of the validity of male love which included for him pederastic as well as egalitarian relationships, and which he would refer to as l'amour de l'impossible. At Oxford, Symonds began to reveal his academic ability. In 1860 he took a first in "Mods" and won the Newdigate prize with a poem on The Escorial and in 1862 he obtained a first in Literae Humaniores and in the following year was winner of the Chancellor's English Essay. His major work, Renaissance in Italy, appeared in seven volumes at intervals between 1875 and 1886. Amongst his other works are Percy Bysshe Shelley (1879), The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti (1893) and Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece (1898).