The untold story of Michelangelo's final decades-and his transformation into the master architect of St. Peter's Basilica As he entered his seventies, Michelangelo despaired that his productive years were over. Anguished by the death of friends and discouraged by the loss of commissions to younger artists, this supreme Renaissance painter and sculptor began carving his own tomb. It was at this unlikely moment that Michelangelo was given charge of the most ambitious and daunting project of his long creative life-the design and construction of St. Peter's Basilica. In this richly illustrated book, William Wallace tells for the first time the full story of Michelangelo's final two decades-and of how the artist transformed himself into one of the greatest architects of the Renaissance.

The untold story of Michelangelo's final decades-and his transformation into one of the greatest architects of the Italian Renaissance As he entered his seventies, the great Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo despaired that his productive years were past. Anguished by the death of friends and discouraged by the loss of commissions to younger artists, this supreme painter and sculptor began carving his own tomb. It was at this unlikely moment that fate intervened to task Michelangelo with the most ambitious and daunting project of his long creative life. Michelangelo, God's Architect is the first book to tell the full story of Michelangelo's final two decades, when the peerless artist refashioned himself into the master architect of St. Peter's Basilica and other major buildings. When the Pope handed Michelangelo control of the St. Peter's project in 1546, it was a study in architectural mismanagement, plagued by flawed design and faulty engineering. Assessing the situation with his uncompromising eye and razor-sharp intellect, Michelangelo overcame the furious resistance of Church officials to persuade the Pope that it was time to start over. In this richly illustrated book, leading Michelangelo expert William Wallace sheds new light on this least familiar part of Michelangelo's biography, revealing a creative genius who was also a skilled engineer and enterprising businessman. The challenge of building St. Peter's deepened Michelangelo's faith, Wallace shows. Fighting the intrigues of Church politics and his own declining health, Michelangelo became convinced that he was destined to build the largest and most magnificent church ever conceived. And he was determined to live long enough that no other architect could alter his design.

A femme fatale named Janice cooked up Redi-Money, the multi-million dollar robbery of a lightly guarded check-cashing outfit that catered to down-and-outers. On the surface, it sounded like the heist of a lifetime. But then dead bodies began piling up and the only question that remained was: whose lifetime were we talking about? Sometimes the stakes are so high that a crime seems too good to be true. That's the way Redi-Money seemed to Frank when he returned to Oakland from Colorado. Complicating things were the fact that the heist was the brainchild of his best friend's "fiance," a femme fatale who oozed sex from every pore and seemed to be dead set on pitting Frank's crew members against each other. Add a crooked cop to the mix and a payroll from the robbery that was too good to be true and you have the ingredients for disaster. Read "I Wait to Die " a crime novella by William E. Wallace.

Private eye Jack Burial's picture should appear in Funk and Wagnall's next to the entry for "loser: " Burial drives a clapped-out Chevy station wagon, is being divorced by his lawyer wife and has so few clients as an investigator that he's on the verge of eviction. He's so down-and-out that his cell phone has even been cut off. So when Burial gets hired to locate a businessman suspected of embezzling from his business partners, things seem to be looking up. All he has to do is find the fugitive -- while ducking the Mafia, a trigger-happy outlaw motorcycle gang and a federal prosecutor who wants to throw him in prison for interfering with her case. Will Burial succeed in finding the Judas he is tracing or end up betraying his own threadbare code of ethics? Cross is piled on double cross as the body count climbs in The Judas Hunter. "An utterly satisfying crime caper tale that left me wanting more. Buy it; it might encourage the author to pen more Jack Burial stories." Tim Stevens, author of Ratcatcher and Annihilation Myths " 'The Judas Hunter' is an absolute pleasure to read . . . One can only hope that Wallace writes more about Mr. Burial and his splendid misadventures." K. Patrick Conner, author of Dying Words

A war profiteer, a missing girl and a precious antiquity: Mickey Lynch, private eye, is up to his armpits in intrigue and murder in 1947 Oakland, California. While checking the background of a millionaire tapped for a White House job, Lynch, a former U.S. Marine and Honolulu cop, discovers a real estate scam, political corruption, drugs and treason. He crosses paths with a U.S. Marshal, two crooked FBI agents and a mysterious Brazilian who is a martial arts expert. At the same time, he has to disprove allegations he conspired to commit perjury in a "Dear John" homicide case. As his investigation proceeds, he learns one reason why 127,000 Japanese-Americans were rounded up and imprisoned on the U.S. West Coast during the war, and uncovers a plot to wipe out the African-American blues and jazz scene in Bohemian West Oakland. And Lynch discovers that the object that ties all these threads together is a 600-year-old relic of feudal Japan: a funerary urn made of precious gemstone: the Jade Bone Jar

The certification of the absolute molecular mass distribution (MMD) of an n-octyl-initiated, proton-terminated, low mass, atactic polystyrene (PS) by matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) is fully described. This polymer has been designated Standard Reference Material (SRM) 2881. The material constituting SRM 2881 was prepared commercially for the NIST Polymers Division specifically for use as a narrow-distribution polymer standard. Anticipated uses include calibration of mass spectrometers and size exclusion chromatographs (SEC) in accordance with various international standards (described below), as well as any other application where quantitative knowledge of the entire MMD is necessary. The work described here, and in related references, provides a means to create absolute molecular mass distribution standards of any low mass, narrow polydispersity polymer including proprietary materials.

Michelangelo is universally recognized to be one of the greatest artists of all time. In this vividly written biography, William E. Wallace offers a substantially new view of the artist. Not only a supremely gifted sculptor, painter, architect, and poet, Michelangelo was also an aristocrat who firmly believed in the ancient and noble origins of his family. The belief in his patrician status fueled his lifelong ambition to improve his family s financial situation and to raise the social standing of artists. Michelangelo s ambitions are evident in his writing, dress, and comportment, as well as in his ability to befriend, influence, and occasionally say no to popes, kings, and princes. Written from the words of Michelangelo and his contemporaries, this biography not only tells his own stories but also brings to life the culture and society of Renaissance Florence and Rome. Not since Irving Stone s novel The Agony and the Ecstasy has there been such a compelling and human portrayal of this remarkable yet credible human individual.
Subscribe to William Wallace's podcast on individual works of the master Click here
Episodes every week, right from this bookmark or your feed reader.

With an engaging text by renowned Michelangelo scholar William E. Wallace, Michelangelo: The Complete Sculpture, Painting, Architecture brings together in one exquisite volume the powerful sculptures, the awe-inspiring paintings, and the classical architectural works of one of the greatest artists of all time. Including everything from his sculptures Pietàs and David to his beautiful paintings of the Sistine Chapel and the Doni Tondo, the book provides an opportunity to view Michelangelo’s work as never before, and to more fully understand the artist who, through his work, spoke of his life and times. The frescoes are specially printed on onion skin paper to recreate the actual appearance of light reflecting off of the plaster walls. The stunning black-and-white photography of the sculptures is printed in four colors to bring out the rich details of the marble.