JOHN T. SPIKEYOUNG M

ICHELANGELO

VENDOME

YOUNG MICHELANGELO

A BIOGRAPHYJOHN T. SPIKE

THE PATH TO THE SISTINE

BY THE AUTHOR OF THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED CARAVAGGIO

Young Michelangelo: The Path to the Sistine is the most important biography of Michelangelo to appear in modern times, a long-awaited and authoritative reinterpretation of the early life and career of arguably the greatest artist in history. Author John T. Spike surveys Michelangelo’s early life from birth to his early thirties, probing the thinking, artistic evolution, and yearnings of a young man thoroughly convinced of his own exceptional talent. Spike’s biography covers the full range of Michelangelo’s early years and explores the overwhelming influence that his charismatic personality had upon his contemporaries and followers. Spike traces Michelangelo’s development into a master sculptor — the creator at a very young age of the Pietà and the David — probes his involvement in the most troubling controversies of his age, and recreates Florence and Rome with vivid sketches of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Leonardo, Julius II, and Machiavelli, for Michelangelo knew them all.

Over the arc of his artistic development, from 1475 to 1508, Michelangelo was an eyewitness to the bonfire of the vanities, the Rome of the Borgias, the siege of Florence, and the burning of Savonarola at the stake. Against an uncertain background of intermittent warfare and mercurial artistic patrons, Michelangelo’s unrelenting ambition and exceptional talent drove him to create marble and painted masterpieces that are synonymous with the highest achievements of the Italian Renaissance. Now, from the author of landmark books on Masaccio and Caravaggio comes Young

, a prodigiously informative and compelling account that will fulfill the need for a major Michelangelo biography for this generation and many to come.

US $27.95 CAN $34.00

“ John T. Spike proves himself, yet again, as one of our most astute and readable authorities on the Italian Renaissance. In Young Michelangelo he approaches the artist through a compelling blend of solid scholarship, animated storytelling, and shrewd insight — and in the process he makes Michelangelo more fascinating than ever.” — Ross King Author of Brunelleschi’s Dome and Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling

“ Tense and agile as an early sculpture, Young Michelangelo is a compelling portrait of the artist as a young man in a dangerous time.” — Peter Robb Author of M: The Man Who Became Caravaggio

“ Making the most of Michelangelo’s ample correspondence and the recently published records of his extensive banking transactions, John T. Spike has drawn an astonishingly vivid portrait of the artist’s first 33 years. It’s the best life of Michelangelo I’ve read, and it leaves one wishing the author would complete Michelangelo’s life with his wonderful grasp of the artist’s tenacious personality and Herculean achievement.” — Everett Fahy John Pope-Hennessy Chairman of the Department of European Paintings at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

“ This erudite [and] immensely readable account is essential for anyone who desires to know more about Michelangelo’s formation.” — David Alan Brown Curator of Italian Painting, National Gallery of Art

“ Spike creates a rich narrative that promises more intrigue than the best adventure novel.” — Publishers Weekly

JOHN T. SPIKE, critic, curator, and art historian, is the author of more than twenty culturally significant books on Renaissance, Baroque, and contemporary art. Born in New York City, he earned a B.A. at Wesleyan University and a Ph.D. at Harvard University. His thesis was the first comprehensive study of the important Caravaggist painter Mattia Preti (1613–1699). Among his many books on Preti is the Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings (1999). As a result of this work, Dr. Spike was named an honorary citizen of Taverna, the city of Preti’s birth. Among the books that Dr. Spike has published on the Italian Renaissance are Masaccio (1996) and Fra Angelico (1997). The highly praised Caravaggio, a monograph with a catalogue raisonné of the paintings, was published in 2001. The second revised edition of Caravaggio was published in 2010 in conjunction with celebrations for the 400th anniversary of the artist’s death in 1610.

During his career Dr. Spike has organized exhibitions and given lectures at many of the world’s most important museums. He has also lectured at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Oxford. In 2007 Dr. Spike was appointed to the faculty of the Masters in Sacred Architecture, Arts and Liturgy organized by the European University of Rome and the Pontifical Athenaeum, “Regina Apostolorum.”

Since 1989 Dr. Spike has lived in Florence, Italy, with his wife, Michèle Kahn Spike, a lawyer and biographer of Matilda of Canossa. They have one son, Nicholas. Dr. Spike’s Web site is www.johntspike.com.

Front cover: Michelangelo Buonarroti. David, detail, 1501–4. Grant Faint / Getty ImagesBack cover: David, detail. Scala / Art Resource, NY

Jacket design by Gerard Mullin, Miko McGinty Inc.Printed in the United States of America

PHOTOGRAPH BY JAMES O ’MARA

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