Excerpt from Michelangelo by Miles J. Unger, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

In addition to the arrival of three younger brothers—Buonarroto (1477), Giovansimone (1479), and Gismondo (1481)—the first event of note in the life of young Michelangelo was the death, when he was only six, of his mother, Francesca. Not surprisingly, the impact of this early bereavement has given rise to much forensic psychoanalysis. The mother-and-child motif is the single most common theme in all of Michelangelo's art, from his earliest known work, the Madonna of the Stairs, to his last, the so-called Rondanini Pietà, left incomplete in his studio at the time of his death. Could it be that his almost obsessive engagement with the theme reflects a grown man's response to a childhood loss? While Michelangelo was certainly preoccupied with the intense, psychologically fraught maternal bond, it would be simplistic to attribute his fascination primarily to this experience. Not only is the mother-and-child a universal theme, but it was particularly popular in the Renaissance when the Virgin Mary and her son—shown either as an infant, or after his descent from the Cross—was perhaps the most common subject of religious art. Indeed, while it is tantalizing to speculate about the effect of such a loss on a young, impressionable boy, there is no indication that Michelangelo was permanently scarred by his mother's early death.

A more critical factor in Michelangelo's development was the Oedipal struggle with his father over his decision to become an artist. In 1485, the same year that Lodovico remarried (to Lucrezia Ubaldini), he sent Michelangelo to the grammar school of Francesco da Urbino, where he was expected to acquire a facility with reading and writing in his native Italian before moving on to master Latin letters, essential for any Florentine who wished to pursue a respectable career. At the same time, Michelangelo struck up a friendship with the sixteen-year-old Francesco Granacci, an apprentice in the studio of the painters Domenico and Davide Ghirlandaio, one of the busiest and most successful shops in all of Florence. Michelangelo was bored by the instruction he received at Master Francesco's school, though he later regretted his lack of Latin and was embarrassed when contracts had to be translated so that he could read them. It was his friendship with Granacci that would prove more consequential, for it was this amiable youth—the sort of good-natured, unambitious man the always competitive Michelangelo preferred to surround himself with—who introduced Michelangelo to the delights of drawing and painting and to the studio where he was to take his first steps toward becoming an artist himself.

Michelangelo's decision to become an artist was clearly the fulfillment of a deep-seated compulsion. "[T]he heavens and his nature," Condivi wrote, "both difficult to withstand, drew him towards the study of painting, so that he could not resist, whenever he could steal the time, drawing now here, now there, and seeking the company of painters." Late in life, Michelangelo still vividly recalled what happened when he was discovered neglecting his studies to spend his time in the studio: "[H]is father and his uncles, who held the art in contempt, were much displeased, and often beat him severely for it," Condivi recorded; "they were so ignorant of the excellence and nobility of art that they thought shame to have her in the house." This tale, in which the idealistic young man defies his parents to pursue his dream of becoming an artist, has a familiar ring; it's been a staple of the mythology since at least the time of the Renaissance. But in Michelangelo's case the story is particularly powerful since the artist himself shared some of his father's doubts about his chosen career, a conflicted attitude that spurred his ambition and compelled him to raise the status of his profession to new heights. Indeed, eradicating the taint of manual labor became something of an obsession on his part. Condivi explained that "he has always desired to cultivate the arts in persons of nobility, as was the manner of the ancients, and not in plebeians." All the pride his father invested in the family name, Michelangelo hoped to recoup through his immortal fame, demonstrating that art could be a noble pursuit proudly pursued by noble men.

Excerpted from Michelangelo by Miles J Unger. Copyright © 2014 by Miles J Unger. Excerpted by permission of Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.