The Agony and the Ecstasy: A Novel of Michelangelo

844 pp. 8vo. Original red full leather, gilt titles and decorations, all edges gilt, silk moire endpapers, ribbon marker bound in. Illustrations by Bruce Waldman. "The Agony and the Ecstasy (1961) is a biographical novel of Michelangelo Buonarroti written by American author Irving Stone. Stone lived in Italy for years visiting many of the locations in Rome and Florence, worked in marble quarries, and apprenticed himself to a marble sculptor. A primary source for the novel is Michelangelo's correspondence, all 495 letters of which Stone had translated from Italian by Charles Speroni, published in 1962 as I, Michelangelo, Sculptor. The Italian government lauded Stone with several honorary awards for his cultural achievements highlighting Italian history."