Michelangelo & Titian: A Tale of Titans

Professor Wallace will introduce his new book which relates the compelling story of a forty-year rivalry between the two most celebrated artists of their time: Michelangelo and Titian. This is the story about the entwined lives of two artists who were more attentive and admiring of one another than either would ever admit. While Michelangelo served popes in Rome, from Venice, Titian immortalized the rulers of their time. The two met twice, shared more than a dozen of the same patrons, and lived in a small world of overlapping colleagues, friends, and acquaintances. They grew up, grew famous, and grew old, learning about and from one another, challenging and inspiring one another. Friendly but not friends, Titian and Michelangelo constantly regarded the other and engaged in a longtime competition of one-upmanship. They are the Picasso/Matisse rivalry of their time.

William E. Wallace is the Barbara Murphy Bryant Distinguished Professor in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Washington University in St. Louis. In addition to being an extremely popular teacher, Professor Wallace is an internationally recognized authority on the Renaissance artist, architect and poet, Michelangelo Buonarroti. He was one of a select group of scholars from around the world invited to confer with the Vatican about the conservation of Michelangelo’s frescos in the Sistine Chapel.

Professor Wallace has published more than one hundred articles and essays, and is the author or editor of eight different books on Michelangelo, including the award winning, Michelangelo: The Complete Sculpture, Painting and Architecture (Rizzoli 1998); Michelangelo at San Lorenzo: The Genius as Entrepreneur (Cambridge, 1994); and a biography of the artist, Michelangelo: The Artist, the Man and his Times (Cambridge, 2010), issued in paperback (2011). His most recent book, Michelangelo, God’s Architect (Princeton 2019, paperback 2021) focuses on Michelangelo from age 70 to 89, when the still busy artist realized his greatest masterpiece, the basilica of St. Peter’s in Rome.

He is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including terms spent at Villa I Tatti, Harvard University’s Center for Renaissance Studies in Florence and a year at the American Academy in Rome. He has been a principal consultant for four BBC and CBC television programs on Michelangelo, and has taped a 36-lecture audio-visual course, “The Genius of Michelangelo” for “The Great Courses.”