Volume 46, Number 11 · June 24, 1999
In Lorenzo's Garden
By Charles Hope
Three Worlds of Michelangelo
by James H. Beck
Norton, 269 pp., $25.95
When the future Philip II, on his first journey outside his native Spain, made his ceremonial entry into Antwerp in 1549, a series of triumphal arches was erected in his honor, including one financed by the local community of Florentine merchants. As one might expect, its purpose was both to celebrate the young prince and to advertise the wealth, culture, and antiquity of Florence, most obviously in a series of statues of famous Florentine worthies. These included not just the usual selection of warriors and writers, but also Giotto and Michelangelo. The presence of artists in this kind of setting seems to have been unprecedented; the fact that one of them was still alive was even more unusual. But it demonstrates that among the Florentines Michelangelo had already acquired an almost mythic status even before the publication of the first edition of Vasari's Lives of the Artists in 1550.
Review, 4461 words
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