April 11, 2004
MarkBernstein.org
 

Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling

A fairly lively, pleasant account of the painting of the Sistine chapel, this is ultimately a tour guide expanded to book length. There's interesting material on the art, the biography, and the milieu of Rome under Julius II, but in the end there's not enough history to carry complete conviction, and not enough art history to keep you from feeling like a tourist.