The 2014 Josephine Waters Bennett Lecture: "Certain of Death": Michelangelo's Late Life and Art*. (20th November 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Wallace, William E.
• Is Part Of: Renaissance Quarterly. Volume 68:Number 1(2015)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 32
• Publication Date: 2015-11-20
• Subjects: European literature -- Renaissance, 1450-1600 -- Periodicals; Renaissance -- Periodicals; 809.31
• DOI: 10.1086/681307
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0034-4338

Abstract

Abstract: This essay is a preliminary sketch for a book that examines Michelangelo Buonarroti's final eighteen years, from his appointment as architect of St. Peter's until his death in 1564, that is, from age seventy-one to a few weeks shy of eighty-nine. This period represents nearly a quarter of his approximately seventy-five-year artistic career, yet it remains the least familiar segment of Michelangelo's long life. It is paradoxical that in the final phase of his career, Michelangelo remained prodigiously creative and influential without being prolific — as he had been earlier in his career. His late life was concerned less with making things than with finding the courage and devotion to continue tasks that he knew he would never see to fruition, and this despite the loss of his closest friends, greatest patron, and his entire family.