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Michelangelo and the Salvageability of Desire
Among the hundreds of poems written by Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), a substantial proportion are given to amorous topics. To whom Michelangelo addressed his love and his verses, however, has resisted definitive consensus despite attracting commentary for nearly five centuries. This talk redirects the question of identifying the object of Michelangelo’s love to how his creative output makes this knowable to history. By analyzing an array of archival and literary sources alongside a subset of Michelangelo’s drawings, it becomes apparent how his poetry functioned in tandem with his art to convey desire. In its mutability, desire can be difficult to define. Is it recoverable through material traces that survive in ink and chalk? Such inquiry must navigate the dense social networks in which Michelangelo operated, but as this talk will argue, the impulse to recoup this story also responds to a promise of reclamation at the heart of his work.
Date:
25 October 2022, 16:30
Venue:
St Edmund Hall, Queen's Lane OX1 4AR
Venue Details:
Old Dining Hall
Speaker:
Raymond Carlson (Oxford)
Organiser contact email address:
earlymodernitaly@history.ox.ac.uk
Part of:
Early Modern Italian World Seminar
Booking required?:
Not required
Audience:
Public
Editors:
Laura Spence,
Belinda Clark
