Making and meaning : the Young Michelangelo [videorecording] : sculpture & painting in Florence & London.

"Perhaps the greatest Eruopean artist of all time, Michelangelo (1475-1564) - sculptor, painter, architect and poet liked to shroud his origins in mystery. Recent research, however, has shown that his work was not only deeply embedded within the traditions of Florentine art, but also dependent on his early training in the painting workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio, and in Lorenzo de Medici's sculpture garden under the tutelage of Bertoldo, a master specialising in bronze reliefs and figurines. This video, filmed on location in Florence, and in the marble quarries of Carrara, and from original paintings in London, shows works by Donatello, Verrocchio and Bertoldo, tracing their influence on Michelangelo's youthful monuments, and analyses the changes wrought in his art by his first visit to Rome in 1496. Through close examination of the Manchester Madonna and the Entombment, two unfinished paintings now in the National Gallery, London, and comparison with Michelangelo's known works in fresco - the Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Doni Tondo - and pictures by Ghirlandaio, the video restores to history the 'missing links' in the artist's early career. (back cover).