James Hall
Painter & Decorator
Of all the Old Masters, Leonardo and Caravaggio are the main media darlings, subject to a ceaseless tide of speculative claim and counterclaim. But that grumpy old man-mountain Michelangelo (1475–1564) continues to hold his own. Big scholarly tomes and popular biographies tumble with metronomic regularity off the presses, and the latest discoveries and theories remain newsworthy: he was a fat cat who embezzled Pope Julius II’s heirs; The Last Judgement was inspired by visits to Roman steam baths; this is a lost early painting or that is a forgotten sculpture.
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