Leonor De Recondo is a french violinist and writer and Pietra Viva her third book published in 2013 has nothing to do with music, but it does have a lot to do with the spark of creativity that makes for a great artist. She has chosen to write about Michelangelo and imagines him travelling from Rome to the mountains of Carrera where he has previously sought the best blocs of marble for his work. Michelangelo has been commissioned by Pope Julius II to create for him a mausoleum and Michelangelo has been well funded to find the best stone that he can. It is a project that will take him most of the summer to complete.

The book opens with Michelangelo in the spring of 1505 staying at a monastery where the brothers have brought him a body for dissection. Michelangelo is horrified to find it is the body of Andrea a young monk whose body proportions were almost perfect and was a friend to the sculpture. Michelangelo in some distress must travel on to Carrera to purchase the marble but he cannot get Brother Andrea out of his thoughts especially as he is ignorant of how he died. Michelangelo knows the stone masons and quarriers that work the marble mountainside and they know him and are used to his pride and irascibility. He rents a room in a stone masons house and as usual keeps himself to himself content to read the poetry of Petrarch and the bible given to him by brother Andrea. When the stone mason's wife dies, Michelangelo feels inconvenienced by the funeral arrangements and is short tempered with the family. The story follows the long summer of Michelangelo's stay and his gradual change in character towards other people, he softens, becomes more human and this leads him to enhance his creativity as an artist.

The book's strengths are in the description of the mountains of Carrera, the dangerous work in the quarries and the life in the nearby town where Michelangelo stays. It also provides a character sketch of an artist haunted by his past and a recent event that has shaken him to his foundations. I enjoyed the writing of Léonor De Recondo who mixes in some poetry to the narrative with good effect. The writing is sensitive as it searches for the essential nature, which makes up the character of a great artist. I think it largely succeeds. It is told in short chapters and captures well the feel of life in the early 16th century. A four star read for me and an author that I would not hesitate to read again. ( )