Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

When Michelangelo left Florence for Rome in 1534, the Medici tombs were unfinished, but there was no question of another sculptor being brought in to complete them. They were already icons of artistic perfection, which it would be sacrilege for anyone else to touch. That eminence they retain to this day. The two seated Medici Dukes and the reclining figures of Night, Day, Dawn and Dusk are among the most famous sculptures in the world, endlessly copied and universally recognisable.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Unlike the recent cleaning of Michelangelo's other masterworks, the restoration of his Medici chapel has engendered little controversy and has not required a profound rethinking of its essential character. Nevertheless, Amendola's excellent corpus of more than 200 black-and-white photographs of the refreshened structure and its sculptural contents are an appreciable contribution to our better apprehension of this masterpiece. Particularly noteworthy is the photographer's ability to conjoin the documentary requirements of his task with the imaginative perspective of an artist. Beck provides a sound but summary overview of the project's history and an agnostic aperçu of the problem of its iconographic program. And Bruno Santi succinctly articulates the more purely formal aspects of the structure and its contents. Recommended for collections serving an informed art-loving public.-Robert Cahn, Fashion Inst. of Technology, New York (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

CHOICE Review

The heart of this book is a corpus of more than 160 of Aurelio Amendola's black-and-white photographs of Michelangelo's Medici Chapel, the New Sacristy of the Church of San Lorenzo in Florence. Essays making up the textual matter include "Photographing Michelangelo" by Antonio Paolucci (four pages); one on Michelangelo's sculptures by Columbia University's James Beck, a noted authority on Italian Renaissance art (nine pages); one on Michelangelo's architecture and sculpture in the chapel by Bruno Santi (seven pages); and "The Restoration of the Chapel" by Agnese Parronchi and Francesco Panichi (five pages). With no bibliography, no plan of the chapel, limited notes, no index, and no genealogical chart of the various generations of the Medici family that were involved in the building of San Lorenzo and the sacristy, the book does not seem to meet the needs of general readers. Specialists, on the other hand, will be grateful for the photographs and the essay on the chapel's restoration, but will probably find little else of interest. Only universities with graduate programs in art history will need to acquire this book. E. Van Schaack; Colgate University