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Few philosophers are more often referred to and more often
misunderstood than Machiavelli. He was truly a product of the
Renaissance, and he was as much a revolutionary in the field of
political philosophy as Leonardo or Michelangelo were in painting
and sculpture. He watched his native Florence lose its independence
to the French, thanks to poor leadership from the Medici successors
to the great Lorenzo (Il Magnifico). Machiavelli was a keen
observer of people, and he spent years studying events and people
before writing his famous books. Descended from minor nobility,
Machiavelli grew up in a household that was run by a vacillating
and incompetent father. He was well educated and smart, and he
entered government service as a clerk. He eventually became an
important figure in the Florentine state but was defeated by the
deposed Medici and Pope Julius II. He was tortured but eventually
freed by the restored Medici. No longer employed, he retired to his
home to write the books for which he is remembered. Machiavelli had
seen the best and the worst of human nature, and he understood how
the world operated. He drew his observations from life, and he was
appropriately cynical in his writing, given what he had personally
experienced. He was an outstanding writer, and his work remains
fascinating nearly 500 years later.
"Magnifico" is a vividly colorful portrait of Lorenzo de' Medici,
the uncrowned ruler of Florence during its golden age. A true
"Renaissance man," Lorenzo dazzled contemporaries with his
prodigious talents and magnetic personality. Known to history as
"Il Magnifico" (the Magnificent), Lorenzo was not only the foremost
patron of his day but also a renowned poet, equally adept at
composing philosophical verses and obscene rhymes to be sung at
Carnival. He befriended the greatest artists and writers of the
time -- Leonardo, Botticelli, Poliziano, and, especially,
Michelangelo, whom he discovered as a young boy and invited to live
at his palace -- turning Florence into the cultural capital of
Europe. He was the leading statesman of the age, the fulcrum of
Italy, but also a cunning and ruthless political operative. Miles
Unger's biography of this complex figure draws on primary research
in Italian sources and on his intimate knowledge of Florence, where
he lived for several years.
Lorenzo's grandfather Cosimo had converted the vast wealth of the
family bank into political power, but from his earliest days
Lorenzo's position was precarious. Bitter rivalries among the
leading Florentine families and competition among the squabbling
Italian states meant that Lorenzo's life was under constant threat.
Those who plotted his death included a pope, a king, and a duke,
but Lorenzo used his legendary charm and diplomatic skill -- as
well as occasional acts of violence -- to navigate the murderous
labyrinth of Italian politics. Against all odds he managed not only
to survive but to preside over one of the great moments in the
history of civilization.
Florence in the age of Lorenzo was a city of contrasts, of
unparalleled artistic brilliance and unimaginable squalor in the
city's crowded tenements; of both pagan excess and the
fire-and-brimstone sermons of the Dominican preacher Savonarola.
Florence gave birpth to both the otherworldly perfection of
Botticelli's "Primavera" and the gritty realism of Machiavelli's
"The Prince." Nowhere was this world of contrasts more perfectly
embodied than in the life and character of the man who ruled this
most fascinating city.
Among the immortals-Leonardo, Rembrandt, Picasso-Michelangelo
stands alone as a master of painting, sculpture, and architecture.
He was not only the greatest artist in an age of giants, but a man
who reinvented the practice of art itself. Throughout his long
career he clashed with patrons by insisting that he had no master
but his own demanding muse and promoting the novel idea that it was
the artist, rather than the lord who paid for it, who was creative
force behind the work. Miles Unger narrates the astonishing life of
this driven and difficult man through six of his greatest
masterpieces. Each work expanded the expressive range of the
medium, from the Pieta Michelangelo carved as a brash young man, to
the apocalyptic Last Judgment, the work of an old man tested by
personal trials. Throughout the course of his career he explored
the full range of human possibility. In the gargantuan David he
depicts Man in the glory of his youth, while in the tombs he carved
for the Medici he offers a sustained meditation on death and the
afterlife. In the Sistine Chapel ceiling he tells the epic story of
Creation, from the perfection of God's initial procreative act to
the corruption introduced by His imperfect children. In the final
decades of his life, his hands too unsteady to wield the brush and
chisel, he exercised his mind by raising the soaring vaults and
dome of St. Peter's in a final tribute to his God. A work of deep
artistic understanding, Miles Unger's Michelangelobrings to life
the irascible, egotistical, and undeniably brilliant man whose
artistry continues to amaze and inspire us after 500 years.
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