The Agony and the Ecstasy Author:Irving Stone Book Club Edition....The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone begins when Michelangelo, against his family's ambitions, became apprenticed at the age of thirteen to the painter Ghirlandaio. Shortly after he moved into the fabulous palace of the Medici as Lorenzo's protege. There, as an intimate of the circle of humanist scholars, and future p... more »opes, he studied and fell in love with Lornezo's frail daughter, Contessina, a love that endured a lifetime. Howeverm his greatest passion, overriding his spiritual love for Contessina, his carnal love for the fair-haired Clarissa, or the mature love for Vittoria Colonna, was his life lang, titanic struggle to release the forms and beauty imprisoned in pure white marble. He fought with cardinals, princes,and popes for his precious commissions, made lifelong friends and lifelong enemies, and became known for his frightening "terrbilita". He spent four years on his back above the floor of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, painting the ceiling for Pope Julius II to earn the right to carve marble. No body or wok was ever created against a more formidable array of prejudice, jealousy, greed, and blind hostility. But Michelangelo was "God's own child." His personal life story, told here as a novel, constitutes as forceful a tale of conflict and dedication as his staggering creativity; for he was a universal man, robust in his appetites as well as in his humor, achieving the transition from the terror of the dark ages into the glorious modern era of the Golden Renaissance.....« less