Sublime

Michelangelo was asked by the pope about the secret of his genius, particularly how he carved the statue of David, largely considered the masterpiece of all masterpieces. His answer was: “It’s simple. I just remove everything that is not David.”

Soon after his return to Florence, Michelangelo was commissioned to turn a hulking and imperfect piece of white marble into a statue of the biblical Goliath-slayer, David. Working with his usual secrecy, by early 1504 he had produced the most famous statue ever carved (fig. 97). Seventeen feet high and dazzlingly bright, it instantly eclipsed all p

church of Santa Maria del Fiore. It had once been a magnificent piece of raw stone, but an unskillful sculptor had mistakenly bored a hole through it where there should have been a figure’s legs, generally mutilating it. Piero Soderini, Florence’s mayor, had contemplated trying to save the block by commissioning Leonardo da Vinci to work on it, or

In trying to complete this painting and make it stick to the wall that summer of 1505, Leonardo could feel the presence of a younger man looking over his shoulder, both literally and figuratively. Preparing to paint a competing mural in the room was the rising star of Florence’s art world, Michelangelo Buonarroti.

Michelangelo’s insistence that the priest call him by his last name was a power play. He was not just another hired hand; he was an artist, a title he spent his life redefining. So the clergyman’s condescending request made the artist set the record straight. Michelangelo was more than a manual laborer, and the priest’s refusal to acknowledge this

This is exactly what made Michelangelo succeed as the architect of St Peter’s – not being just the designer but also the builder. Learning to supervise everything was the secret behind the construction of the great basilica. Michelangelo implemented a system to have food and water brought to stone masons high up on the scaffolding. He took up the c

When Leonardo left Florence for Milan in 1482, Michelangelo was only seven years old. His father was a member of Florence’s minor nobility who subsisted on small public appointments, his mother had died, and he was living in the countryside with the family of a stonecutter. During the seventeen years that Leonardo was away in Milan, Michelangelo be