The Role of Letters in Biographies of Michelangelo*

Abstract

This study examines the role that Michelangelo’s letters have played in biographies of the artist. It focuses on two periods — the Renaissance and the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the latter witnessing an outpouring of biographies on Michelangelo. The first section of the study examines the way in which Giorgio Vasari edited the letters he received from Michelangelo in his 1568 vita of the sculptor. In the second section I analyze how the availability of the letters, through a long and fitful process, influenced the way in which biographers from John S. Harford to Giovanni Papini characterize Michelangelo and his world.