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Summary
Summary
Painted on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel, 28 years after Michelangelo completed the glorious and hopeful ceiling, The Last Judgment is full of stark images depicting the End of Days. James Connor uses the famous fresco as the lens through which to view the end of the Renaissance, arguing that Michelangelo's imagery and composition provide clues to understand the religious and political upheavals of the time.
Uncovering the secrets behind the fresco, Connor details the engrossing stories of conspiring kings, plotting popes, and murderous rivalries between noble families like the Medicis and the della Roveres -- all who were vying for control over Michelangelo and his art. The Last Judgment combines enchanting storytelling with incisive historical detective work, demonstrating how Michelangelo was inspired by Copernicus and how the Counter-Reformation arose from the ashes of the Renaissance.
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
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) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Library Journal Review
Connor (Pascal's Wager: The Man Who Played Dice with God) delivers a fresh examination of the historical, social, religious, and biographical contexts in which Michelangelo created The Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel. Using the famous fresco, which was painted amid widespread disenchantment with the excesses of Roman Catholicism, to consider the end of the Renaissance, Connor argues that Michelangelo's masterpiece reflects not only the shifts in the Church's religious ideologies and roles but also the artist's profound religious faith and his personal desires for reform. Connor covers the painter's time in Florence in the house of the Medici family during the 1490s to his death in 1564. Connor seems sometimes to digress and upstage the artist's masterpiece with historical details and anecdotal sidebars. The four double-paged, black-and-white photographs of the masterpiece at the end of the text are insufficient. Verdict This is an enlightening, noteworthy book intended for European history professors and art historians as well as general readers; however, some art historians may have reservations about using this as a text for their courses, as it reads more like a scholarly essay than a monograph.-Cheryl Ann Lajos, Free Lib. of Philadelphia (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Acknowledgments | p. vi |
| Prologue: Standing in the Sistine | p. vii |
| Introduction: The Dying Pope | p. 1 |
| 1 The Great Commission | p. 17 |
| 2 Clement's Brainstorm | p. 31 |
| 3 Pope Julius's Tomb | p. 41 |
| 4 The Altar Wall | p. 65 |
| 5 Colors | p. 79 |
| 6 The Children of Savonarola | p. 97 |
| 7 Vittoria Colonna | p. 113 |
| 8 Sol Invictus | p. 133 |
| 9 Saints, Martyrs, and Angels | p. 145 |
| 10 The Outer Orbit: The Naked and the Dead | p. 163 |
| 11 The Damned | p. 173 |
| 12 The Censorship of the End of the World | p. 185 |
| 13 The Last Days of Michelangelo Buonarroti | p. 201 |
| Further Reading | p. 211 |
| Notes | p. 215 |
| Index | p. 227 |