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Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling
Ross King

Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling

A New York Times bestseller, Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling tells how Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo Buonarroti to paint the ceiling of the newly restored Sistine Chapel in Rome. Four years earlier, at the age of twenty-nine, Michelangelo had unveiled his masterful statue of David in Florence; however, he had little experience as a painter, even less working in the delicate medium of fresco, and none with the curved surface of vaults, which dominated the chapel’s ceiling. The temperamental Michelangelo was reluctant, and he stormed away from Rome, risking Julius’s wrath, only to be persuaded to eventually begin.

Michelangelo would spend the next four years labouring over the vast ceiling. Ross King tells the story of those four extraordinary years. From Michelangelo’s experiments with composition of pigment and plaster to his bitter competition with Raphael, who was working on the neighbouring Papal Apartments, he presents a magnificent tapestry of day-to-day life on the ingenious Sistine scaffolding and outside in the upheaval of early-sixteenth-century Rome.

Book Details:

  • Author: Ross King
  • Published Year: 2006
  • Rights Sold
    • UK: Pimlico
    • US: Bloomsbury
Ross King

Ross King

Ross King is the bestselling author of books on Italian, French and Canadian art and history. Among his books are Brunelleschi’s Dome (2000), Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling (2002), The Judgment of Paris (Governor General’s Award, 2006), Leonardo and The Last Supper (Governor General’s Award, 2012), and Mad Enchantment: Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies (Charles Taylor Prize, 2017). He has also published two novels (Domino and Ex-Libris), a biography of Niccolò Machiavelli, an...
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Book Reviews

  • "‘Ross King deftly stitches modern Michelangelo scholarship into his fluent and gripping narrative. The result is a delightful book that overturns many legends."
    The Independent
  • "‘Scrupulously researched, written with panache, Ross King’s Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling is a sublime peek into a remarkable era"
    The Miami Herald
  • "A fascinating and carefully researched account."
    The Times
  • "A narrative that never falls back on exaggeration or deviates from the facts."
    The Sunday Times
  • "Ross King expertly wipes away such smudges from the story of this great painting, only to uncover a truth even exciting and improbable … Now that art lovers can see the painting as it was originally conceived, this fabulous and eminently readable history will help them appreciate that it was no immaculate conception."
    San Francisco Chronicle
  • "‘Demythologises and dramatises without hectoring or debasing … King makes the familiar fresh."
    Publishers Weekly
  • "A feast."
    The Tablet
  • "We learn an enormous amount by reading this book; King's grasp of and research into the period seem all-encompassing."
    Spectator
  • "This amazing book transports the listener back to Italy in the early 16th century. King is able to describe the intricacies of fresco painting while also portraying the day-to-day life of that era . . . Highly recommended."
    Library Journal
  • "A legend-busting, richly detailed account of the four-year making of the Sistine Chapel frescos . . . Readers looking for the lite version of this tale may still want to fire up the VCR and watch Charlton Heston chew the scenery. Those seeking a richer understanding of Renaissance art-making will find this a pleasure."
    Kirkus
  • "[An] exciting account. . . King chronicles Michelangelo's aesthetic decisions and clarion triumphs over myriad forms of adversity with expertise and contagious enthusiasm."
    Booklist, starred review