The Young Michelangelo

Making and Meaning: The Young Michelangelo is the fullest account ever made of Michelangelo's early work - as a painter as well as a sculptor - during the period of his first stay in Rome. This was a crucial five years in the artist's life when he created, among other works, the marble Bacchus now in the Bargello, Florence, and the celebrated Pieta in St Peter's, Rome, and, as Hirst shows, also began his painting of the Entombment now in the National Gallery, London. It was during these years in Rome, Hirst argues, that he probably painted another work in the National Gallery Collection, the Madonna and Child with Saint John and Angels, better known for the last 150 years as the Manchester Madonna, which Hirst concludes is entirely the work of Michelangelo and not, as has been thought, of an associate.