Synopses & Reviews
No artist looms so large in Western consciousness and culture as Michelangelo Buonarroti, the most celebrated sculptor of all time. And no place on earth provides a stone so capable of simulating the warmth and vitality of human flesh and incarnating the genius of a Michelangelo as the
statuario of Carrara, the storied marble mecca at Tuscany's northwest corner. It was there, where shadowy Etruscans and Roman slaves once toiled, that Michelangelo risked his life in dozens of harrowing expeditions to secure the precious stone for his
Pietà, Moses, and other masterpieces.
Many books have recounted Michelangelo's achievements in Florence and Rome. Michelangelo's Mountain goes beyond all of them, revealing his escapades and ordeals in the spectacular landscape that was the third pole of his tumultuous career and the third wellspring of his art. Eric Scigliano brings this haunting place and eternally fascinating artist to life in a sweeping tale peopled by popes and poets, mad dukes and mythic monsters, scheming courtiers and rough-hewn quarrymen. In showing how the artist, land, and stone transformed one another, Scigliano brings fresh insight to Michelangelo's most cherished works and illuminates his struggles with the princes and potentates of Carrara, Rome, and Medici Florence, who raised intrigue to a high art. He recounts the saga of the David, the improbable masterpiece that Michelangelo created against all odds, of the twin Hercules that he tried to erect beside it, and of the Salieri-like nemesis who snatched away the commission, turning a sculptural testament to liberty into a bitter symbol of tyranny and giving Florence the colossus it loves to hate.
Scigliano plumbs the Renaissance archives, uncovering previously unpublished and untranslated documents, and trolls the earthy cantinas of Carrara, where old cavatori who wrestled giant blocks from the mountains by hand recount the miseries and glories of a vanishing heroic age. He takes readers along with another sojourner, the exiled poet Dante Alighieri, who drew his visions of Hell and Purgatory partly from the surreal panorama of Carrara's quarries. Interweaving art, architecture, science, politics, folklore, and even quarry cuisine, he traces the mystique of marble and the magic of the stone carver's art from prehistory to the present, and shows how they culminate in the triumph and tragedy of Michelangelo's Pygmalion-like quest to bring life out of stone.
Review
"A lively blend of art history and travelogue....An affectionate, gracefully written portrait of a little-known place that has suffered much pain to bring the world great beauty." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"The book is well-written and does include many nuggets about marble and Michelangelo. But it suffers from the bane of many single-subject books: too much detail slowing down the story." Seattle Times
Review
"This is a terrific book, original in conception and exhilarating in its range and sweep. Eric Scigliano effortlessly marries the vibrant and tumultuous world of quattrocento and cinquecento Tuscan politics, philosophy, and art to his own 21st-century travels in the region. Whether sketching a landscape, exploring the geology of marble, following Michelangelo from commission to commission, waxing lyrical on the curing of pork fat, or talking stonemasonry to elderly quarrymen in a Carrara bar, Scigliano is a deft, eloquent writer; the connections he makes are always surprising and often revelatory. His Michelangelo emerges as a man as much of our time and place as of his own." Jonathan Raban, author of Bad Land and Passage to Juneau
Review
"This is a masterful work, in many respects a new kind of narrative nonfiction. Dancing seamlessly between past and present, Eric Scigliano illuminates Michelangelo through the sculptor's passion for special stone, set against the story of the stone itself and the people who still share that passion today. His strong, polished, yet informal prose reminiscent at times of the marble he describes is the perfect vehicle for this remarkable balancing act." Paul Robert Walker, author of The Feud That Sparked the Renaissance
Synopsis
With vivid writing and characterizations, Scigliano dramatizes Michelangelo's life and times through his obsession with the legendary marble of Carrara and his creation of three incomparable masterpieces the Pieta, David, and Moses.
Synopsis
No artist looms so large in Western consciousness and culture as Michelangelo Buonarroti, the most celebrated sculptor of all time. And no place on earth provides a stone so capable of simulating the warmth and vitality of human flesh and incarnating the genius of a Michelangelo as the statuario of Carrara, the storied marble mecca at Tuscany's northwest corner. It was there, where shadowy Etruscans and Roman slaves once toiled, that Michelangelo risked his life in dozens of harrowing expeditions to secure the precious stone for his
Pietà,
Moses, and other masterpieces.
Many books have recounted Michelangelo's achievements in Florence and Rome. Michelangelo's Mountain goes beyond all of them, revealing his escapades and ordeals in the spectacular landscape that was the third pole of his tumultuous career and the third wellspring of his art. Eric Scigliano brings this haunting place and eternally fascinating artist to life in a sweeping tale peopled by popes and poets, mad dukes and mythic monsters, scheming courtiers and rough-hewn quarrymen. In showing how the artist, land, and stone transformed one another, Scigliano brings fresh insight to Michelangelo's most cherished works and illuminates his struggles with the princes and potentates of Carrara, Rome, and Medici Florence, who raised intrigue to a high art. He recounts the saga of the David, the improbable masterpiece that Michelangelo created against all odds, of the twin Hercules that he tried to erect beside it, and of the Salieri-like nemesis who snatched away the commission, turning a sculptural testament to liberty into a bitter symbol of tyranny and giving Florence the colossus it loves to hate.
Scigliano plumbs the Renaissance archives, uncovering previously unpublished and untranslated documents, and trolls the earthy cantinas of Carrara, where old cavatori who wrestled giant blocks from the mountains by hand recount the miseries and glories of a vanishing heroic age. He takes readers along with another sojourner, the exiled poet Dante Alighieri, who drew his visions of Hell and Purgatory partly from the surreal panorama of Carrara's quarries. Interweaving art, architecture, science, politics, folklore, and even quarry cuisine, he traces the mystique of marble and the magic of the stone carver's art from prehistory to the present, and shows how they culminate in the triumph and tragedy of Michelangelo's Pygmalion-like quest to bring life out of stone.
About the Author
Eric Scigliano's ancestors were quarry-men and stone carvers in Carrara. He is the author of Love, War, and Circuses: The Age-Old Relationship Between Elephants and Humans and two regional books, Seattle from the Air and Puget Sound: Sea Between the Mountains, and the co-translator of Trinh Công So'n's wartime poetry. An award-winning journalist, Scigliano has written for Harper's, Outside, Discover, and many other publications.
Table of Contents
Contents Introduction: Aristide's Trail
Chapter 1 Pietra Viva
Chapter 2 The Sculptor in the Garden
Chapter 3 Cities of Stone
Chapter 4 The Magra's Mouth
Chapter 5 The Cardinal's PietÀ
Chapter 6 David and the Orphan Stone
Chapter 7 The Painter and the Sculptor
Chapter 8 The Tomb of Dreams
Chapter 9 The Brotherhood of Stone
Chapter 10 The Agony of the Bronze
Chapter 11 Painting in Stone, Sculpting with Paint
Chapter 12 The Promised Land
Chapter 13 "The Mirror of All Italy"
Chapter 14 Taming the Mountain
Chapter 15 The Walls Come Tumbling Down
Chapter 16 The Kiss of the Medici
Chapter 17 The Last Blows of the Chisel
epilogue: Another War
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index