Agony And Ectacy Essays - Michelangelo, House Of Medici,

Agony and Ectacy THEME: When looking at the life of one of historys greatest men, the lessons we might learn are countless, despite Irving Stones fictional twists. Before we can begin to examine The Agony and the Ecstasy, we must understand Michelangelo and other artists as Stone saw them. Stone considered the artist a creator as well as a part of creation, just as God is seen in many of todays ideologies. Michelangelos life can likewise be paralleled to Genesis. At first Michael is lonely and friendless, he then decides to take up and apprenticeship and create works of art just as the Lord years to love and creates man. His creation however will face the evils of envy and jealousy just as we must in our everyday-lives. Knowing this we can best point out several themes and ideas one of which is the idea that we are always under the Lords watch and that while we may not always notice his deeds he is listening. This idea of God is personified in Bertolodo but may also be seen through Michelangelos life itself. Time and time again he is spared from the anger of unsatisfied customers by the popes (messengers from God). While the popes also seem to cause him troubles however the reality of the matter is that their imposings actually benefit him and when they do not the Pope seems to conveniently pass away. It is because of Guilio that Michelangelo betters himself by becoming an engineer and because of Paul III becomes an architect, finally, through Julius he expands his trade to bronze. Yet another of the many clear themes is the majesty and divinity of art but most importantly its required devotion and incapability with business and social life. SETTING: The Agony and the Ecstasy gives the reader a vivid view into the world of Michelangelo Buonarroti. Detailed descriptions of the people, culture and architecture of Italy actually are vividly portrayed. Cities included are Rome, Florentine, Settigano and Bologna during the 80 years of Michelangelos career in the 13th and 14th centuries. BASIC PLOT: Just as his father, the young Florentine boy examining his reflection in the mirror of his cramped bedroom, while most of Florence slept, was unfortunate enough to have been born at the wrong time. Moreover, just as his father, Michelangelo Buonarroti would inherit a longevity of life during which he would encounter great people, making long-lasting friendships with some of the most famous in Europe, discovering heated rivalries and malices between the most powerful and feared men of over half a century and forge passionate eternal love affairs with the most beautiful women of Italy. For now however Michelangelo would have to attend to more urgent matters in particular his application for apprenticeship under Florences greatest painter of the time, Ghirlandaio. It took little convincing for the great master to discover the talent in Michelangelo that his apprentice and Michelangelos only friend, Granacci, had spoken about. The greatness of this talent was perhaps best exemplified when Ghirlandaio actually decided to pay Michelangelo for his apprenticeship in order to appease the boys extremely frugal yet lazy father Lodovico. Despite his impoverished familys protests, Michelangelo continued his apprenticeship, he was working as an artist, for once in his life he found friendships and a feeling of belonging through the other apprentices; nothing could draw him away from his vocation except of course, the passion and yearning that had drawn him to the apprenticeship. When he first applied to become Ghirlandaios apprentice, he had done so only because his birth had missed the great era of Florentine sculpting by several decades. Since he was a small child living on the family farm in Settigano, near the rock quarries of the Topolinos, Michelangelo yearned to wield the hammer and chisel, to model shapeless and plain marble into models of beauty. His master understood this quiet plainly and thus when Lorenzo Medici, the most richest and most powerful man in Europe after the pope, requested two of his apprentices for his new school of sculpting, Ghirlandaio knew plainly who he must release from his contract. Although greatly disappointed about having to leave Ghirlandaio, with whom he had grown attached, Michelangelo was overwhelmed with joy