When Michelangelo was in his sixties, he returned to the Sistine Chapel to paint his other great fresco, this time on the altar wall of the chapel. This is the story of that painting, from Michelangelo's participation in the Florentine rebellion against the Medici, to his struggle with two popes who insisted that he drop everything and work on the Sistine Chapel, how he lost that struggle and took up fresco painting once again. The project nearly destroyed his health. Moreover, people from all around Europe condemned the fresco as obscene. "Too many naked bodies," they said, and had it not been for Michelangelo's great reputation, subsequent popes would have had the entire fresco painted over.
Publisher's Weekly
Michelangelo did not want to create the Last Judgment (1537–1541), yet, argues Connor (Pascal's Wager), it was his clearest expression of the terror at the bottom of his psyche, a terror stemming largely from the conflict between his probable homosexual desires and his religious faith. Connor traces the creation of the Last Judgment and Michelangelo's struggle to reconcile his innate religious zeal with his love for nobleman Tommaso de Cavalieri. Connor's narrative is compelling, his writing vivid and evocative. An English professor and former Jesuit priest, he superbly places the Last Judgment in the context of Copernicus's heliocentric universe and of the Catholic reforms of Savonarola and the Council of Trent. Yet the Council condemned the work for its nudity and unconventional portraits of religious figures; a chapter on the fresco's censorship is one of the book's most fascinating. The monumental painting was ultimately driven less by Michelangelo's artistic impulses than by his desire for salvation. Connor presents an indispensable perspective for the general reader as well as fresh insights for the specialist. (July)
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Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Praise for the Last Judgment
Connor gives a full and fascinating account of the history and personalities involved in the creation of one of the world's most forbidding and beautiful frescoes. The Last Judgment is also readable and succinct, and it offers intriguing insights into a culture hastening towards its own destruction.' - Ross King, bestselling author of Brunelleschi's Dome and Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling.
James Connor clarifies the dizzying Renaissance swirl of science, politics, art and war with language as vivid and colorful as a newly cleaned fresco.' - Mary Doria Russell, bestselling author of The Sparrow and A Thread of Grace Praise