The Lost Battles: Leonardo, Michelangelo, and the Artistic Duel That Defined the Renaissance

By Jonathan Jones

Book Overview

From one of Britain's most respected art historians, art critic of The Guardian --the galvanizing story of a sixteenth-century clash of titans, the two greatest minds of the Renaissance, working side by side in the same room in a fierce competition. In 1504, the informal rivalry between two of the most celebrated artists in Florence became a direct contest. Michelangelo was commissioned to paint a scene from the ancient battle of Cascina on a wall of the Palazzo Vecchio--in the same room where Leonardo da Vinci had already been commissioned to paint a scene from another great Florentine victory, the battle of Anghiari. As the paintings progressed, Michelangelo set out to prove that his work, not Leonardo's, embodied the future of art--but in fact, the influence of both would become visible in the works of subsequent generations of artists. The Lost Battles is a riveting look at one of history's most resonant exchanges of ideas and offers a whole new understanding of an age and those at its center.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0307741788
• ISBN13: 9780307741783
• Release Date: August 2013
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.7" x 8.4"