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Feb 25, 2011

Chrissie rated it:

Finished: I am giving this 4 out of 5 stars. I learned a lot and this book will push me on to reading more about Italy in the 1500s, more about the Medici, more about the Borgia family, more about the Popes, more about Charles V,the Holy Roman Emperor. History was made VERY interesting. It was not difficult to keep track of the numerous people. It isn't necessary to keep a list of friends, foes, family and Medicis. The reader learns a lot about the internecine religious battles of the times. And More...

61 comments like (6 people liked it)

Oct 18, 2007

Debbie rated it:

Goodreads crashed on me - I didn't realize the five stars were posted but not my review. You may be wondering why I rated this book so highly.

The book made Michelangelo and his times really come alive for me. I feel like I personally know, like and respect Michelangelo as a person. He was so recognizably human with family issues, rivalries, loyal friends, treacherous friends and, above all this fierce driving passion for his art, especially sculpture. He was born with a gift and More...

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

Jun 27, 2011

Ericka rated it:

Oh good lord. No wonder I'm reading this book so slowly. I have to keep putting it down and fanning myself. Here's the young Michelangelo carving marble for the first time:

"He had removed the outer shell. Now he dug into the mass, entered in the biblical sense."

Really? He's fucking the marble? Apparently, yes...

"In this act of creation there was needed the thrust, the penetration, the beating and pulsating upward to a mighty climax, the total possession. It was not merely a More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Mar 13, 2009

Emily rated it:

Even with Art History 101 under my belt, I was shocked to learn of his monumental contributions to sculpture, paint, architecture and even politics. But I was even more inspired by the incredible challenges he overcame throughout all of his 90 years of life. Nothing came easy. What an inspiration! Here is a quote from his death bed:

"Life has been good. God did not create me to abandon me. I have loved marble, yes, and paint too. I have loved architecture, and poetry too. I have More...

3 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 07, 2007

Mary rated it:

In the wake of The Da Vinci Code, the field of art history has had a curious relationship with pop culture, especially mainstream literature. These books remain infinitely more accessible to readers than scholarly writings, and are marketed as if they carry the same amount of factual evidence, but with an enticing story so no one gets bored (overlooking the fact that the subjects were real people, and even as geniuses, were inherently boring).

The result is a public that feels inform More...

7 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 29, 2008

Solveig rated it:

This is a book I got in Florence after having admired the works of Michelangelo. A wonderful reading experience - I found myself reading slower and slower towards the end, because I did not want to finish reading the book! Every time I opened it and started reading, it was like entering a secret gate to 16th century Italy.

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jun 27, 2008

angelle rated it:

The Agony and the Ecstasy (1961) is a biographical novel of Michelangelo Buonarroti written by one of my favorite American authors -- Irving Stone. I am always amazed at how he does his research. For this book he lived in Italy for years visiting many of the locations in Rome and Florence, worked in marble quarries, and apprenticed himself to a marble sculptor. I read that a "primary source for the novel is Michelangelo's correspondence, all 495 letters of which Stone had translated from I More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Dec 31, 2008

Jaccalyn rated it:

This is probably one of my All time favorite books that i have read, the thing is a beast and took me quite awhile to finish, but was well worth it.
I would love to own it, the copy i read was my Mothers, and she is pretty clingy with her books

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 14, 2010

Tyler rated it:

(My wife loved this book). I found the insights into the Medici family and into the culture of Italy at that time to be very interesting. But I found the details of Michelangolo's life to be a bit overworked. I don't think Mr. Stone really had to give insight for the reader into EVERY significant work of his life. After a while we come to understand the emotional process that he went through with each work without having to experience it over and over.

I was also rather disturbed b More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jul 29, 2008

Brooke rated it:

I LOVED it. I am beginning to realize that I really enjoy books about peoples lives, historical and contempory. I really liked Manhunt and a couple others that I had read before I started reviewing, like The Glass Castle and Issac's Storm.
This book had great character development, and flowed well. I felt the author devoted enough time to each event in Michelangelo's life to give it meaning and purpose, but was sure to move on when it was time--it wasn't boring. There was so much to learn More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jun 06, 2008

Mister Jones rated it:

I was thinking about this book a few days ago, and how much I enjoyed reading it years ago.

In fact, I like this book so much I went on to read other works of historical fiction by Stone, but I think Agony and the Ecstasy was his best.

I came away with a deep appreciation of Michaelangelo, his suffering and vision, his world, and the Medici, and it led me to look up his artistic creations in various art books.

I need to read it again. I need to go to Florence one More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Dec 12, 2011

Carl rated it:

The Agony and the Ecstasy is the "biographical novel" of Michelangelo, but much more than that, it is the story of the Italian Renaissance in all its glory. It is also the story of the conflicts between church and state and more specifically between the Pope and Michelangelo. I read this first when I was in high school (with Michelangelo, of course) a year or two after it was first published, and I fell in love with the book and with the artist, Michelangelo. It is a personal view of More...

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Oct 28, 2011

Ken rated it:

I read this years ago just before a trip to Italy. It is a great book not so much for its treatment of the character of Michaelangelo as for its treatment of his art and his artistic process. If you pick up this book with the expectation of an in depth treatment of the artist's life and sexual orientation, you may be disappointed. While Stone deals with the former and skirts much of the latter, the man Michaelangelo is a secondary character in this book. It is the artist and, more significantly, More...

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May 28, 2011

Sarah rated it:

This book is incredible. I picked it up, having thought I’d heard of it … maybe … somewhere. And I was kind of nonplussed about reading it – especially because of its length and because I have no particular interest in Michelangelo. However, from the first chapters, Stone blew me away with the detail about Michelangelo and the richness of his life. He paints a character who is fully realized and emotionally charged – the portrait of an artist. Stone also examines the motivations behind the sculp More...

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Oct 09, 2010

Debbie rated it:

Oh, how I adore this book.

I had learned in school about Michelangelo's Pieta and David, and of course I knew he painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling, but I knew nothing about him personally, as a man or an artist. After reading this book, I feel like I do know him, and I am completely in awe.

Michelangelo was never satisfied with mediocrity - everything he did had to be the best he could make it, even if it was something he didn't want to do. When he was involved in a project, h More...

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Sep 01, 2010

Randy rated it:

I remember my father reading this book - I was a teenager and into sports and music, but Dad found time to balance work and his love for athletics by reading one or two books a week.

So, after three kids and now two grandchildren, my interest in this historical novel came to fruition with much anticipation. At first, I found it a tough read, although the dialogue was lively and credible; but Stone's passion for history, and obvious adoration for Michelangelo's creativity, rings true More...

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Jul 07, 2009

Stephen rated it:

It was the spring of 1973. Revelations into the behind-the-scene antics of the Nixon White House in a scandal known by one word “Watergate” had made cynics of us all. I needed something nobler to think about, a story about someone that pursued more than his own self interest, i.e a higher calling.

Set 500 years earlier, “The Agony and the Ecstasy,” Irving Stone’s historical novel about Michelangelo, master from the Italian Renaissance, fit the bill. Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti More...

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Dec 25, 2011

Andrea rated it:

Absolutely fascinating! I read this one for book club and was initially not excited to read it. I'll have to admit, for me it was a slow meticulous read. I couldn't speed read it like a twilight or hunger games book... that's not a bad thing though. I know very little about art history and Michelangelo, so I felt like I was back in college taking a fascinating class in art history. During the time I was reading this book I became obsessed with Michelangelo and his art. I would recommend lo More...

1 comment like

Nov 09, 2011

Carol rated it:

This is a historical novel of Michelangelo Buonarroti from when he was a 13 year old seeking an apprenticeship to his death at the age of 89. As a small child, he lived near a stone quarry and was taught as a stonecutter how to use the hammer and chisel. He learned that the stone is the master not the carver. For although Michelangelo is most well known for his Sistine Chapel, it is marble sculpture that he loved. I admired Michelangelo's courage to be different. He loved the beauty of the male More...

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Sep 11, 2011

Jennifer rated it:

Thanks to my dear friend Patty for recommending this to me while we were standing in the Metropolitan Museum of Art! I know this is an older book but I can't believe I have missed out on reading it all these years! Michelangelo and all his Medici buddies/fremenies really came alive for me in this historical piece. I was really caught up in (and sometimes confused by) all the political-religious activity going on during this time period. Thank goodness for Google so I could see each piece aft More...

1 comment like

Nov 15, 2011

01MirandaH added it

Anything so violently censoured by the school computers, is a book I gotta read. Unfourtunatly, it is only censoured because it has the word ecstasy in the title. I'm on page 300 now, and I don't hate it, but I also don't love it either. Not much has happened yet, but my fingers are crossed because with 400 more pages, something is bound to happen eventually. I'm a fairly good reader, but this book leaves me a little dazed because the italien names confuse me. I never remember who is More...

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Jan 19, 2009

Sarah rated it:

I enjoyed reading it. And yes, I learned all sorts of things about Rome, history, Popes, art, Michelangelo, etc. At times though I thought it was waaaaay to dramatic. I don't know if the guy spent 14 hours next to his marble so he could see "The first light of dawn graze the surface" before he bought the thing. I mean come on! True, there are a lot of interesting ideas in the book. Like man's relationship to marble, etc. However it was very flowery to the point where it was silly. Not More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 28, 2009

Chana rated it:

It was slow going for the first 100 pages or so. I actually started it, quit and read another book, and then went back to it with determination. I had to get used to the language (lots of Italian), the setting, the characters, and the author's writing style. The author took a while to warm up to his task. The writing is very detailed, formal and careful in the beginning, one could almost say boring. But it pays to stay with this book. I started to find it interesting about the time that Sa More...

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Apr 23, 2011

Adam rated it:

The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone
Final Verdict: 4.0 out of 4.0
YTD: 22

Plot/Story:
4 – Plot/Story is interesting/believable and impactful (socially, academically, etc.)

The Agony and the Ecstasy is a biographical novel of the life of Michelangelo. The story begins when Michelangelo is a young apprentice and ends with his death at 89. All in all, the book is put together brilliantly. Michelangelo was tormented throughout his life – never left to satisfy More...

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Apr 06, 2009

Lana rated it:

This is a LONG book, but I enjoyed learning more about Michelangelo and his life. I would have liked to see footnotes telling me what was fiction and what was fact in this "biographical fiction." I also would have liked a center section with pictures of his works to refer to as they came up in the novel. I turned to the internet for both of these.
At age 60, Michelangelo felt like he had failed to accomplish anything meaningful in life, yet little did he realize that More...

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Sep 19, 2010

Mariana rated it:

This book is a perfect example of what it is that makes me love books. It paints so vivid an existence that you can easily climb into it and live. I could smell the marble dust, could hear the chisel hitting the slab, and feel the mud under my boots in the streets of Rome. I felt the passion, the love, the agony, the suffering, but most of all the indignation!

As an artist, the relationship between artists and patrons were specially interesting. The dynamics of creativity on demand/for More...

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Mar 08, 2008

Sara rated it:

Definitly a 5 star book. I read this after a trip to Italy and could not put it down. It is about Michelangelo's life, and journey of his art. If you are going to read this book I would suggest a visit to the library first and take a look at all of his art. It makes it more meaningful.

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Feb 05, 2011

Bob rated it:

Great story. I mean GREAT STORY! What a life Michelangelo lived. Throw in some cameo appearances by Leonardo da Vinci, papal intrigues, the cultural milieu that was Florence in the late 1400s and early 1500s, a couple of love stories, and the passion and life force of one of the greatest artists who ever lived, and you have a can't miss read. My biggest complaint is now a common one in my Goodreads reviews: Too many words. The book is 700+ pages long, and the author has the gift of flowery g More...

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Nov 17, 2008

Elijah rated it:

A wonderful fictional account of Michelangelo and his works. Brings his art to life through literature in a way that gives great insight. I never considered just how large the hands on David were until I read this. How else could a boy slay a giant?

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 13, 2011

Nate rated it:

I know its weird to not finish a book but then rate it highly anyway. But I was reading this while in Italy and it enriched my experience so much that I had to give it some love... I read a bit over half of it (its long, though not slow), and finished shortly after he sculpts the David. The attention to detail here is astounding -- you can almost geek out just as much about Irving Stone's research skills than at Michelangelo's life. Stone translated hundreds of letters, moved to Italy for a few More...

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