'Michelangelo, God's Architect' (Revised Book Review)

Michelangelo, God's Architect

The Story of His Final Years & His Greatest Masterpiece

by

William E. Wallace



I

THE LIFE AND WORK of Michelangelo are extraordinary and breathtaking, both in the range of his work, and the sheer tenacity of this man for whom it is surely right to quietly refer as a man of genius.

The author emphasises this afresh in this current work that tells us of the life of Michelangelo during his last 40 years ~ 1524-1564, and because of his age, thereby emphasising his incredible skills and expertise, and in so many areas. Michelangelo was born on 6 March 1475 and died one month short of his 89th birthday on 18 February 1564.

I find Professor Wallace’s method of writing is one of enlightenment resting upon both, in his minute attention to detail, and also in his ability to convey to the reader the timeline of history.

It has the precision and detail of an architect’s hand and mindset. It has the eye of the master viewing the canvas.

In his hands, year dates become measurable, finite, present-day, and which he deftly conveys to the reader.

This is no obvious qualification, for many speak of the dullness of dates and thus their dislike for history which, with a little delving, I find often stems from the hands of teachers or lecturers who could not enter into the mood of the period about which they taught. This inability, children and teenagers interpreted as ‘boredom’, and so, they too, would yawn at even the mention of history.

II

I was fortunate in having a history teacher at school who did have that natural ability.

Even so, I am still pulled up short when I am asked to consider dates 400, 500 and more years past.

But take, for example, Professor Wallace’s description of a period of 62 years viewed from the perspective of Michelangelo. The author writes:

Earlier in his life, Michelangelo had fled Florence twice - in 1494, after the exile of the Medici, and again in 1529, during the turbulent Last Florentine Republic (1527-30). He experienced three other significant disruptions to his artistic career: the reinstatement of the Medici in 1512, the collapse of the Last Florentine Republic in 1530, and his self-exile to Rome in 1534.

The Flight from Rome in 1556, therefore, was the sixth time in his life that political turmoil completely disrupted Michelangelo's artistic endeavours, forcing him to confront an extremely uncertain future. These repeated ruptures drove home the painful fact that he was not master of his own fate and that art was of little consequence in the face of war, politics, uncertain financing, and fickle patrons. As ancient wisdom expressed it: In arma silent artes. "During war, the arts fall silent." At eighty-one, Michelangelo had good reason to assume that his artistic career was finished.

Extract from Michelangelo : God’s Architect by William E. Wallace.

III

I come face to face with 62 years of civil and military disruption. That pulled me up. It caused me to reread, but this time he moved me along six milestones on that timeline: 1494, 1512, 1527, 1530, 1534 and 1556.

I tend to equate year dates to the same years within my own lifetime.

If I view 1994 and 2012 in this manner I am pulled up by the bootlaces as I thus vividly capture 1494 and 1512. It takes little imagination to then see the years 2027-2030 imminently ahead, and then, the years of the Last Florentine Republic (1527-1530) are suddenly very real, now only recently out of view.

IV

I look back and see the great historical figures of the day in the manner in which they are now remembered.

The author, however, takes me way beyond this by involving me with the minutiae of Michelangelo’s life. His correspondence with his nephew, his friendships, and removing the stain that earlier, and sometimes, envious peer writers reinforced, in their recording of Michelangelo’s achievements.

I am brought firmly into view that the artist-sculptor-architect was also a deeply religious man, his faith shining through and delivering to us the splendour of his achievements that all of us, today, take for granted in the Basilica.

V

Examining history helps me to widen my understanding of the present, as well as providing me with hitherto unseen perspectives. All of us, in the present, look to the past, and thereby fix our compass bearings and make more assured, our hoped-for future.

It is remarkable that St Peter’s Basilica in Rome was Michelangelo’s most famous achievement when one considers his age.

I take for granted that people live into their eighties and nineties and beyond.

When I commenced practising law in probate and succession, the sight of a death certificate marking a century was still something that brought people from adjoining offices to take a peek; not to mention the question ‘is the Queen’s Telegram in the papers by any chance?’

Forty years on, I now read of people twenty years into the century following their own century. In Michelangelo’s day, a person had done well to reach sixty, and most, even forty.

I will not have time to visit Rome or Florence personally but, goodness me, William Wallace enables me to do so in another way. This, for me, gives a measure of the power of this book. I am left very firmly aware that regardless of the standing of any Papacy in the eyes of the people and the wider world in every century, every papacy rests firmly upon fallibility.

1 June 2024
All Rights Reserved



LIVERPOOL

© 2024 Kenneth Thomas Webb

Digital Artwork by KTW | IBM unless otherwise credited

The Gallery is merely a representation of Artificial Intelligence. I used the parameter
Depict a young man in the stance and style of Michelangelo's David,
and as if the young man is sculpted beautifully by Michelangelo himself,
depict gentle facial features and warm eyes and overall beauty
use marble and display
using 75mm Lens,
studio lighting

These images were produced in less than a minute via Midjourney. I had not expected the penultimate portrait, purportedly of a real person;
but it caused me to reflect upon the role of the Model in Art, and it enables me to appreciate even more
the real David by Michelangelo.

KTW

Written 5 July 2021 and last published 9 April 2023