Michelangelo

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Stanley, Diane. 2000. MICHELANGELO. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 0-688-15086-1.

PLOT SUMMARY
Michelangelo, artist, sculptor, poet, and architect, was born into genteel poverty in Caprese, Italy in 1475. From infancy, he was left in the care of a stonecutter's wife until he was ten years old. This experience ignited his passion for the art of sculpture. For the next seventy-nine years, Michelangelo lived the life of a true Renaissance man. At the behest of popes and wealthy noblemen, he created enduring works of art until his death at age eighty-nine in 1564.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Diane Stanley's award-winning style is evident in the Orbis Pictus Honor Book, Michelangelo. She traces the long, incredible life of the Renaissance artist from his humble birth to his death in a very readable way. Stanley includes interesting pieces of information about Michelangelo's personality that make him human and accessible. For example, he was prideful, quick-tempered, and did not make friends easily until his later years.

Stanley illustrates her biography in an innovative way. She uses the Adobe Photoshop program to insert actual photos of Michelangelo's sculptures into her own watercolor scenes of the Maestro at work. This creates an almost 3D effect in the illustrations. Another visual access feature of the book is a colorful rendition of a map of Italy in Michelangelo's time. This is accompanied by the author's note that provides background material on the Italian Renaissance at the end of the Middle Ages. At the conclusion of the book is a brief bibliography and photo credits. Stanley's attention to detail in her illustrations, for example the dress and architecture of the time, is historically accurate and lends authenticity to her biography of the Renaissance Maestro, Michelangelo.

AWARDS
School Library Journal Best Books of the Year 2000
ABC Children's Booksellers Choices Awards 2001

REVIEW EXCERPTS
Publishers Weekly: "There is no one like Stanley (Leonardo da Vinci; Joan of Arc) for picture-book biography as she brings to the genre an uncanny ability to clarify and compress dense and tricky historical matter, scrupulous attention to visual and verbal nuances, and a self-fulfilling faith in her readers' intelligence. "

Booklist: "Stanley continues her series of outstanding biographies, but this time she puts a new twist on some venerable art by using computer images."

CONNECTIONS
>Read Complete Poems and Selected Letters of Michelangelo translated by Creighton Gilbert and edited by Robert N. Linscott to learn about the other passions in Michelangelo's life.
>Read Diane Stanley's biography of Leonardo da Vinci. Compare his life, artistic and personal, to that of Michelangelo.