Recensione a Leo Steinberg, Michelangelo’s Sculpture. Selected essays

We are approaching the centenary of Leo Steinberg’s birth (1920-2011). Cosmopolitan art historian with a wide range of interests he is well known in Italy for The Sexualilty of Christ in Renaissance Art, which explored the oblivion of this iconography in the modern era (1983/1996; Italian ed. Milan, 1986). Steinberg’s work received renewed attention at the international congress “Leo Steinberg Now”, held in Rome in 2017. An eclectic scholar, heretical to some, he left a significant mark on the history of art due to the acumen of his thinking. Michelangelo’s Sculpture: Selected Essays, published in 2018 (University of Chicago Press), is the first of five planned volumes of his writings and lectures. Steinberg was a relentless analyst of artwork, and in the pages of this splendidly illustrated book his eyes guide us to innovative interpretations of Michelangelo’s work. The return of Leo Steinberg’s eye, and mind, are now more necessary than ever.