Poems and Letters: Selections, with the 1550 Vasari Life (Penguin Classics)

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) is universally celebrated as one of the greatest artists of all time, yet iconic Renaissance creator was also a prolific and gifted poet. The verses collected here are primarily devoted to love and religion. Intense and passionate, the love poems focus on two figures: Tommaso de Cavalieri and Vittoria Colonna; with the sonnets and madrigals dedicated to de Cavalieri revealing a highly charged, homoerotic fervour - previously obscured in the original versions. Michelangelo's later religious poetry moves away from his earlier wordly concerns, while his letters provide a fasicnating insight into his fanily relations and day-to-day life as a working artist. The result is a revealing picture of one of the towering figures of the Renaissance.