Like Levi Strauss and denim, Michelangelo and the Carrara quarries go together. As early as 1497, the Italian sculptor traveled there to acquire blocks of stunning white marble, thought to be the purest in the world, and over the next two decades he made several more trips, staying for as long as eight months at a time. From this marble, Michelangelo wrought the Pietá
, David
, Moses
and the statuary of Pope Julius II's tomb. Scigliano's book is a sort of retrace-the-footsteps-of-Michelangelo journey through the Carrara quarries, present and past. Sprawling and garrulous, the book covers every little detail of both Michelangelo's history with the marble and Scigliano's own connection to it (his great-great-grandfather was a Carrara quarryman). Scigliano squeezes in presentations of marble arcana, conversations with today's cavatori
, readings of Michelangelo's poems, mini-lessons in geology and language, accounts of the Sistine Chapel cleaning and the Vermont granite workers' strikes, and analysis of the impact of WWII on Tuscany—but his narrative isn't strong enough to hold the mix together convincingly. Clearly a labor of love, and perhaps of filial piety as well, the volume is exhaustive —an upward climb for the reader. (Sept.)
