This is a meticulously produced monograph on a model of a small stucco that Hartt, a noted authority on Michelangelo, argues is the original model made by the artist for his colossal marble David of 1501-1504 in Florence. The case is not airtight but strong; Hartt draws on a lifetime of looking at Italian art, focusing his knowledge and the indefinable essence of connoisseurship on the 6-inch fragment in a personal, readable text. The photographs of the object by David Finn are excellent, as are the comparative plates. A book about Michelangelo, but also about seeing itself.
M. di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni Book order (chronological)
