I received an advance review copy through Edelweiss. This does not affect my rating or opinions.

This is a really detailed account, with clear passion and reverence for art and for Michelangelo's mastery of the craft; I loved all the studies (and Pascuzzi's own copies) that were included, since the subject matter is so visual.

That said, the author's ego — which I don't mean in a derogatory sense, but I couldn't come up with a better way to phrase it — was a little too prominent for me to enjoy this as much as I wanted to. Perhaps I should've expected it, given that it's a highly personal account and thus as much (or even more so) about the author than Michelangelo, but I wasn't quite prepared. Some of the offhand comments and pure conjecture could have been omitted, as well as generalizations about the Artistic Experience that I found myself disagreeing with. For example:

But ultimately the making of art is not a science to be objectively studied and analyzed; it is a passion that, to be understood, must be felt and experienced from the inside.

I'll spare you the rant on STEAM / how science and art are not mutually exclusive and, in fact, can (should) have a mutualistic relationship, because I do respect that art is a very subjective experience and there are some things that science can not (yet) quantify. But again, I don't agree with this statement, nor with a lot of the other sweeping statements that are made in this book.

So it's kind of a shame, because the concept is fascinating.