Little new in this portrait

MICHELANGELO di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni is one of only a handful of artists whose achievements one might well describe as immortal.

Today, he is as celebrated for his statue of David as for his murals on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. In his own time, he was so well-regarded that he was the subject of two biographies before his death at 88, in 1564, the first Western artist to be so honoured.

Michelangelo has since been the subject of so many treatises and books that it is difficult to see why another might be necessary. Antonio Forcellino obviously feels otherwise.