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The 2014 Josephine Waters Bennett Lecture: “Certain of Death”: Michelangelo’s Late Life and Art*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

William E. Wallace
William E. Wallace*
Affiliation:
Washington University in St. Louis
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Abstract

This essay is a preliminary sketch for a book that examines Michelangelo Buonarroti’s final eighteen years, from his appointment as architect of St. Peter’s until his death in 1564, that is, from age seventy-one to a few weeks shy of eighty-nine. This period represents nearly a quarter of his approximately seventy-five-year artistic career, yet it remains the least familiar segment of Michelangelo’s long life. It is paradoxical that in the final phase of his career, Michelangelo remained prodigiously creative and influential without being prolific — as he had been earlier in his career. His late life was concerned less with making things than with finding the courage and devotion to continue tasks that he knew he would never see to fruition, and this despite the loss of his closest friends, greatest patron, and his entire family.

Type
Studies
Information
Renaissance Quarterly , Volume 68 , Issue 1 , Spring 2015 , pp. 1 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © Renaissance Society of America 2015

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Footnotes

I am pleased and honored to have this opportunity to expand upon some ideas that were first presented at a stimulating panel monitored by Elizabeth Cropper, dean of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA), at the annual meeting of the Renaissance Society of America in Montreal in March 2011. The panel — organized by Deborah Parker — included scholars who had recently published books on Michelangelo, including myself, Leonard Barkan, Deborah Parker, and Paul Barolsky. It was clear that, despite Benedict Nicholson’s complaint a generation ago that we had “milked the bull,” Michelangelo scholarship was alive and well. I have been especially impressed by the current generation of scholars who are making important contributions, including, among others, Joost Keizer, Maria Ruvoldt, Cammy Brothers, Christian Kleinbub, Anna Hetherington, Tamara Smithers, Emily Fenichel, Erin Sutherland, Eric Hupe, and for the poetry, Oscar Schiavone, Antonio Corsaro, Sarah Rolfe Prodan, Ida Campeggiani, and Fionnán O’Connor. As Howard Hibbard emphasized to me when I embarked — not without trepidation — on a Michelangelo dissertation: “There is no such thing as a definitive work of scholarship. Every generation has new questions, new perspectives, and something new to offer to our understanding of great art and great artists.” I am happy to be in such vibrant company.

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