The tension between a chronicle and a history is an old one. Nowhere is this more evident than in Michael Hirst’s Michelangelo: The Achievement of Fame. This formidable account draws extensively on the artist’s letters, ricordi, and other documentary evidence, assaying — often with great ingenuity — the status of every fact. But these pains result in a strangely lifeless biography. Hirst has assayed every fact, every document but has not reassembled them into an engaging story of the life or the art.

Hirst’s preference for evaluation over narrative is apparent from his first sentence: “In his later years, one of Michelangelo’s most active concerns was to emphasize the noble origins of his family.” Over the next four pages Hirst refers to no fewer than twelve documents to weigh this claim to aristocratic rank. He records the vicissitudes of the family’s fortunes at length through a painstaking evaluation of letters, catasto, and tax records, but these lucubrations offer no perspective on the artist’s lifelong interest in affirming his patrician status. What we want to know is what Michelangelo’s fervid pursuit of rank meant, either to the man or to his work. What we are given is a quasi-judicial proceeding that rejects the claim. Thus begins the vast muster of an army of facts, on conspicuous display but inert.

The effects of such an approach are most evident when Hirst addresses the artist’s works. From the Sleeping Cupid to the Sistine Ceiling, the reader is presented with an array of information on the quarrying of marbles; the artist’s many patrons, assistants, detractors, and friends; and problems hampering the completion of projects. These are all matters of scholarly concern, but not as an end in themselves and not when relayed in extenso. In discussing the Vatican Pietá, Hirst mentions Michelangelo’s disenchantment with Piero de’ Medici, an earlier patron, the funeral of Jean de Bilhère (who commissioned the Pietá), the search for an appropriate block of marble, and even the color of the artist’s horse: a dappled grey. When we arrive at the discussion of the work itself, however, none of this seems to matter. We are reminded of the Virgin’s youthful aspect and the artist’s signature on the work. Similarly, in his treatment of David, Hirst relays the history of the marble block before it was assigned to Michelangelo, when the sculpture was initiated and completed, and deliberations over its eventual site. The description of the sculpture is limited to mention of David’s famously large hands. At times, Hirst refers tantalizingly to compelling features of a work: to the “astonishing invention” of the Manchester Madonna, the figure of Haman on the Sistine Ceiling as a “paradigm of foreshortening,” and the “virtuosity of technique” employed to render the ancestors of Christ. But what exactly makes these achievements astonishing — something general readers would wish to know — is never addressed. Hirst contextualizes everything but the art itself. The effect of this monumental effort is to reduce every fact, every document to a fine dust. This pulverizing rhetoric, which is only varied by the occasional correction of other scholars, leaves the reader informed but unenlightened.

In weighing painstakingly the facts of Michelangelo’s life, Hirst makes ample use of the artist’s abundant correspondence. As many students of the letters have noted, Michelangelo expressed his views with an unusual vivacity. Michelangelo’s letters prove fascinating because of their uncommon passion, wit, and grace. Hirst, however, rarely cites passages from the letters, preferring to summarize briefly the detail that best serves the matter under consideration. Little attention is also accorded the artist’s significant body of poetry. Just as the obsession with detail scants the art, so does the disregard for the poetry and the lively language of the letters deprive us of any understanding of Michelangelo’s creativity as a writer.

Hirst is superbly informed. One takes up his book with high expectations. But one expects such microscopic consideration to lead to some richer account of the artist — or, better yet, his art. Hirst has sifted the evidence but not let it fall into a coherent pattern. A biography should turn us back to the life or the works — or, better still, both — with a refreshed eye. This is a careful and reliable account of documentary evidence, but, in its lack of any vision of Michelangelo’s art or life, more a duty than a pleasure to read.