Reviews

Michelangelo's renown as a sculptor and painter is well known, but the extent of his abilities as a poet is less familiar--though it is equally important in understanding his life and thought. Saslow has done a great service in providing a bilingual edition of Michelangelo's complete Rime , some 300 sonnets, madrigals, and other poems and fragments. Saslow does not try to capture the rhyme and ambiguous grammar of the original, aiming instead for clarity, and discussing textual difficulties and variant readings in his thorough notes. He also includes a lucid and balanced discussion of Michelangelo's life and art, especially his homosexuality, as well as the central themes and literary features of his poetry.-- T.L. Cooksey, Armstrong State Coll., Savannah, Ga.