Staff Picks: Books Staff-recommended reading from the I have
been familiar with many of Michelangelo's works since college
when I took a class titled "The Arts and Letters of
Michelangelo". A wonderful class, the professor greatly
elaborated upon the Neoplatonic views that were circulating at
this time among philosophers such as Marsilio Ficino, and how
Michelangelo incorporated these views into his artwork. I was
happy to find that this book does the same thing, as well as,
discusses the political and cultural climate of Italy in the
late 15th to early 16th centuries. The author John Spike seems
to have a keen insight and understanding into the artist. Young
Michelangelo tells us about Michelangelo's upbringing including
his beginning as an artist under the direction of Domenico
Ghirlandaio and in the garden of Lorenzo de' Medici. We are
introduced to Michelangelo's first works, the Madonna of the
Stairs and the Battle of the Centaurs, as well as sketches he
did after frescoes by Masaccio and Ghirlandaio. Th