Talking of Michelangelo – The Poet

Radio 4, 11.30am

The poet Andrew Mcmillan investigates the poems of Michelangelo, which are largely overshadowed by his other significant contributions to culture. But it’s not just his artistic talent that eclipses his literary work: as Mcmillan explores, Michelango’s sequence of love sonnets, written when he was 57, was addressed to 23-year-old Tommaso dei Cavalieri. When his grandnephew published his poems for the first time in 1623, he changed the pronouns to the feminine. What can the study of these poems today tell us about the literary history of art and homosexual love?