Why Michelangelo Was In A Class Of His Own

Michelangelo: His Epic Life. By Martin Gayford. Fig Tree; 662 pages. LORENZO DE’ MEDICI, ruler of the Florentine Republic, was so taken by a statue carved by an adolescent that he proposed to make the sculptor a member of his household. The boy’s father was not impressed. He told Lorenzo that his family would be demeaned if his son were to become a stonemason. But the youth believed that he had been born to carve stone, and so the father relented. In the Medici court the young sculptor was g...