Michelangelo was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer during the High Renaissance. He showed great versatility in these disciplines and is considered one of the greatest artists of his time along with Leonardo da Vinci. As a young man, Michelangelo was apprenticed to Ghirlandaio and later studied at Lorenzo de' Medici's academy with other prominent philosophers and writers. Some of Michelangelo's most famous works include the Statue of David, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and The Last Judgement. He died in Rome at the age of 88, fulfilling his last wish to be buried in his beloved Florence.
2. Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti SimoniMichelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni
was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect,was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect,
poet, and engineer of the High Renaissance.poet, and engineer of the High Renaissance.
3. His versatility in the disciplines he took up was of
such a high order that he is often considered a
contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance
man, along with his fellow Italian Leonardo da
Vinci.
4. In 1488, at thirteen, Michelangelo was apprenticed
to Ghirlandaio. When he was only fourteen, his
father persuaded Ghirlandaio to pay his apprentice
as an artist, which was highly unusual at the time.
When in 1489, Lorenzo de' Medici, de facto ruler of
Florence, asked Ghirlandaio for his two best pupils,
Ghirlandaio sent Michelangelo and Francesco
Granacci.
5. After this, ,Michelangelo's life was about
to change radically , having the
opportunity to sit at the same table with
the most prominent philosophers and
writers of the day including Pico della
Mirandola, Marsilio Finicio and
Poliziano.
6. Lorenzo de Medici's death on 8 April 1492 brought
a reversal of Michelangelo's circumstances.
Michelangelo left the security of the Medici court
and returned to his father's house. In the following
months he carved a polychrome wooden Crucifix
(1493), as a gift to the prior of the Florentine church
of Santo Spirito, which had allowed him to do some
anatomical studies of the corpses of the church's
hospital.
7. Michelangelo arrived in Rome 25 June 1496 at the
age of 21. On 4 July of the same year, he began
work on a commission for Cardinal Raffaele Riario,
an over-life-size statue of the Roman wine god
Bacchus. Upon completion, the work was rejected
by the cardinal, and subsequently entered the
collection of the banker Jacopo Galli, for his
garden.
8. In November 1497, the French ambassador to the
Holy See, Cardinal Jean de Bilhères-Lagraulas,
commissioned him to carve a Pietà, a sculpture
showing the Virgin Mary grieving over the body of
Jesus.
9. Michelangelo returned to Florence in 1499 .He was
asked by the consuls of the Guild of Wool to
complete an unfinished project begun 40 years
earlier by Agostino di Duccio: a colossal statue of
Carrara marble portraying David as a symbol of
Florentine freedom, to be placed on the gable of
Florence Cathedral.Michelangelo responded by
completing his most famous work, the Statue of
David, in 1504.
10. In 1505, Michelangelo was invited back to Rome by
the newly elected Pope Julius II. He was
commissioned to build the Pope's tomb, which was
to include forty statues and be finished in five years.
11. During the same period, Michelangelo painted
the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which took
approximately four years to complete
(1508–1512).
12. After that he returned in 1534 in Rome to
paint The Last Judgement . This fresco is one
of the most well known paintings all over the
world.
13. In his old age, Michelangelo created a number of
Pietas in which he apparently reflects upon
mortality. They are heralded by the Victory,
perhaps created for the tomb of Pope Julius II but
left unfinished. In this group, the youthful victor
overcomes an older hooded figure, with the features
of Michelangelo.
14. Michelangelo died in Rome in 1564, at the age
of 88 (three weeks before his 89th birthday).
His body was taken from Rome for interment
at the Basilica of Santa Croce, fulfilling the
maestro's last request to be buried in his
beloved Florence.
15. "If there is some good in me, it is because I was
born in the subtle atmosphere of your country of
Arezzo. Along with the milk of my nurse I received
the knack of handling chisel and hammer, with
which I make my figures.''
Michelangelo
