Michelangelo S David

Michelangelos classic David is one of the worlds most recogniseable sculptures. In this book this timeless work is presented in an intriguing new light with breathtakingly original photographs and an insightful text which revisits the biblical story to rediscover Davids personality, while reconstructing the milestones that marked Michelangelos creation of this magnificent work.

About the author. A. Victor Coonin is James F. Ruffin Chair of Art at Rhodes College. He has received fellowships and grants from the Mellon, Kress, and Fullbright foundations and has served on committees for the Fullbright, National Endowment for the Humanities, and College Art Association. Author of numerous articles and editor of 2 books, this is his first monograph. -- Publisher's website.

In March, 1987, art historian Frederick Hartt announced the discovery of a small stucco torso which he believed to be Michelangelo's model for his famous "David." Hartt, the eminent Italian Renaissance scholar, recounts the commissioning of the David, Vasari's description of the model and Michelangelo's methods, and the inventorying of the model in the Medici apartments in the Palazzo Vecchio from the early sixteenth century until 1690, when a terrible fire swept the building. He reconstructs the probable chain of events the occurred after the fire, when the model, severely damaged, fell into the rubble and was lost for the next two centuries. This masterpiece of detection and deduction reads like a thriller.

Stunning photos of the ultimate symbol of Renaissance art - Michelangelo's David.

This book takes a new look at the interpretations of, and the historical information surrounding, Michelangelo's David. New documentary materials discovered by Rolf Bagemihl add to the early history of the stone block that became the David and provide an identity for the painted terracotta colossus that stood on the cathedral buttresses for which Michelangelo's statue was to be a companion. The David, with its placement at the Palazzo della Signoria, was deeply implicated in the civic history of Florence, where public nakedness played a ritual role in the military and in the political lives of its people. This book, then, places the David not only within the artistic history of Florence and its monuments but also within the popular culture of the period as well.

As a colossal statue takes shape in Renaissance Florence, the lives of a master sculptor and a struggling painter become stunningly intertwined. Florence, 1500. Fresco painter Jacopo Torni longs to make his mark in the world. But while his peers enjoy prestigious commissions, his meager painting jobs are all earmarked to pay down gambling debts. When Jacopo hears of a competition to create Florence's greatest sculpture, he pins all his hopes on a collaboration with his boyhood companion, Michelangelo Buonarroti. But will the frustrated artist ever emerge from the shadow of his singularly gifted friend? From the author of THE PAINTER'S APPRENTICE and THE GONDOLA MAKER comes a gorgeously crafted, immersive tale of Renaissance Italy. Based on a true story.