Michelangelo's Gifts tells the story of the artist's most intimate relationships and his deepest political commitments in the last decades of his life. The first study in over forty years of his relationship with his beloved, Tommaso de' Cavalieri, and the first in English, it is also the first comprehensive investigation of Michelangelo's gift-giving practices. Maria Ruvoldt here examines the evolution of Michelangelo's gift-giving strategies and their meanings from 1532, when Michelangelo's introduction to Cavalieri initiated his most extensive cycle of gifts of drawings and poetry, to the artist's death in 1564, which was preceded by a series of politically motivated gifts, including large-scale sculptures. Ruvoldt argues that Michelangelo's gift-giving was a response to the forces that shaped his career. She demonstrates that we can locate the origins of contemporary ideas about artistic autonomy, celebrity, and what constitutes an authentic work of art through the history of the creation and reception of Michelangelo's gifts.

‘A brilliant look into Michelangelo's innermost circle of friends and his gifts of highly finished drawings circulating among them. When this ‘bubble of privacy’ becomes public, shark-like collectors begin to circle. Ruvoldt expertly narrates Michelangelo’s struggle to fend off the rapacious desires of Dukes and Cardinals, and control dissemination of his most precious creations. A magisterial panorama of Michelangelo’s private / public life.’

Willliam E. Wallace - Washington University in St. Louis