BOOKS
BOOKS
Michelangelo at Midlife
and Rick Steves books & TV
Travel, history, music, poetry, the arts, personal life events, humor, and the shared universe of Big Ideas… all find expression in Gene Openshaw’s work.
His most recent book, which combines them all, is…
MICHELANGELO AT MIDLIFE: CHASING THE TOMB OF JULIUS II
A traveler’s quest for Michelangelo’s most troubled masterpiece.
FROM FLORENCE TO PARIS TO ROME, a man crisscrosses Europe in search of Michelangelo’s most notorious work: the Tomb of Pope Julius II. Along the way, he teams up with an intriguing Italian woman who opens his eyes to the artist’s troubled inner life and the personal struggle they all share—an acute midlife crisis…
Michelangelo at Midlife is typical of Gene’s work: ambitious, operatic, and hard to classify. It’s a hybrid, weaving two stories together, one fictional, one nonfiction. “Michelangelo’s story wrapped in a 21st century novel,” as one reviewer put it. At your local bookstore, you may find it variously shelved under “Biography,” “Art,” “Travel Literature,” or just plain “Fiction.”
The core of the book is Michelangelo’s story—his 40-year struggle to complete what he hoped would be his magnum opus. Incredibly, this is the only non-scholarly book (that is, “readable”) about the much-talked-about but little-known Tomb of Julius II.
But that’s just the start. Gene himself described how the book evolved as he wrote it: “It began as a purely nonfiction account. But I wanted it to have a sense of ‘place,’ so I added a modern traveler following in Michelangelo’s actual footsteps. Next, that traveler became fictional, to add a dramatic layer. Then I realized the traveler—though highly fictionalized—was kind of like me, and, suddenly, whoa! this is my story!”
The book kept growing. An array of colorful graphics (by Dave Hoerlein) and elegant design (by Sandra Hundacker) transformed the book from a story of words to one also told visually. Taken together, all those elements aim for an emotional impact that’s greater than the sum of the parts. With its evocative travelogue, colorful images, and history detective story, Michelangelo at Midlife is a fast read for lovers of the arts with a romantic streak.
“This is an entertaining treat, especially for art lovers and wanderlust-afflicted travelers looking for a breezy read.” -- Kirkus Reviews
“Like a trip to Italy: edifying, informative, and unpredictable.” -- BookLife Reviews
Michelangelo at Midlife is available wherever you get your books—in print, e-book, or audiobook. Consider supporting your local brick-and-mortar bookstore (rather than Amazon) by ordering it directly from them.
RICK STEVES BOOKS
Gene and travel guru Rick Steves met in 7th grade and have been collaborating off and on ever since.
Together they’ve written numerous books and TV shows, with Gene specializing in making Europe’s history, art, and culture accessible to the traveler. Their guidebooks (to Paris, Rome, London, etc.) are some of the best-selling in the English language. The full-color art book “Europe’s Top 100 Masterpieces” is a breezy overview of Western art with full-color, full-page illustrations. “Europe 101: History and Art for the Traveler” is still going strong after four decades.
For PBS TV, Rick and Gene have co-authored a number of specials, such as “Fascism in Europe,” and the ambitious six-hour documentary covering the entire history of the “Art of Europe.” Gene has also produced dozens of audio tours, where Rick guides travelers through historic sites.
The adventures of Rick and Gene traveling across Asia are documented in Rick’s published journal, “On the Hippie Trail.” With Gene as the editor, the book was a New York Times Bestseller and a 2025 honoree by the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation.
M@M NEWS (Sept 14-21)
The grand hall of the Palazzo Vecchio, where Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci went mano y mano.
In mid-September, 1504, Michelangelo was hard at work on an exciting new project.
He’d just finished David to universal acclaim. Now the master sculptor was asked to put down his chisel and pick up a paintbrush.
He was commissioned to paint a mural in the Palazzo Vecchio’s cavernous Great Council Hall.
This put him in a kind of contest against none other than his fellow genius, Leonardo da Vinci, who was to paint a mural on the opposite wall.
Michelangelo and Leonardo reportedly disliked each other. The sophisticated Leonardo considered his younger rival to be rude, crude, and socially awkward. Michelangelo thought Leonardo snooty and capricious, often leaving works unfinished.
(One might also suspect they were both jealous of the other’s enormous talent.)
For this battle of heavyweights, Leonardo would paint the Battle of Anghiari and Michelangelo the Battle of Cascina. Michelangelo’s mural was to be enormous—some 1200 square feet, done in fresco. He began by sketching a cluster of buck-naked, lumpy-muscled, torquing warriors, in pen and chalk. He completed a full-size “cartoon”—the drawing to be copied on the wall in paint. The cartoon was so astonishing that it was displayed to an awestruck public in Florence’s Santa Maria Novella.
So whatever happened with the murals?
Leonardo finished his, but the fresco began deteriorating immediately and was eventually painted over by Giorgio Vasari with the bombastic battle scenes we see today.
Michelangelo’s mural was never begun. His celebrated cartoon is lost to history, though pieces were copied by adoring art students.
Why didn’t Michelangelo finish? Because, within months of taking on this enormously ambitious project, he got an even bigger offer.
For the best sculptor in the world, it was the ultimate challenge. A project where he could set his greatest ambitions in stone for all eternity.
So in the early spring of 1505, Michelangelo saddled up and rode south to Rome, to start work on… the Tomb of Julius II.