Michelangelo's Letters

In “The Role of Letters in Biographies of Michelangelo”, Deborah Parker examines the role that Michelangelo’s letters have played in the biographies of the artist. Her examination focuses on the Renaissance Period and also the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In Michelangelo’s case, there is an exceptionally rich archive of personal letters. It is seen in this article that personal letters have grave importance in the composition of biographies. As the principal source of information on Michelangelo’s life, these letters provide considerable information on his multi-faceted character, complicated business affairs, his family trials, his anxieties, etc. As biographers seek to unveil the man that is Michelangelo, it is evident that they all have a variety of interests. The object of the study is to uncover these investments in order to show particular concerns and different social and material conditions have affected the way in which biographers used the letters. This will also uncover information about the life of Michelangelo.

In many of the Renaissance biographies, the information presented about his life is not an accurate representation of the views of Michelangelo. Vasari was one writer who admired Michelangelo but did not provide the most accurate information using the letters of Michelangelo.

During the ninteenth and twentieth centuries, more letters became avaliable although the process of retrieving them was extremely slow and fitful. The writers of this time that constructed biographies of Michelangelo were Hartford, Grimm, Gotti, Symonds, and Papini. They all wrote in the wake of positivism.