Michelangelo (1475 - 1564)

Michelangelo's full name is Michelangelo Buonarroti. He was born on March 6th, 1475 in Caprese, a small village close to Florence. His parents were reasonably well off and when he was in his early teens he was apprenticed to a Florentine painter, Domenico Ghirlandajo.

Although he started his apprenticeship by painting, it was his other teacher, the sculptor Donatello, who stimulated and inspired Michelangelo's greatest works. Because of his sculptures, Michelangelo is considered as the leader of the Italian Renaissance, even though he was one of the third generation of Renaissance artists. His huge marble statues, such as the David which he sculpted in 1501, give the impression of both greatness and power while maintaining a perfect smoothness and subtlety of form.

Michelangelo lived in Rome for five years (1496 - 1501) and was only twenty three when he sculpted the Pietà. Commissioned in 1497, the statue in blue marble shows Mary holding the body of Jesus on her lap after His crucifixion. This masterpiece can be seen today in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. It is the only work which Michelangelo actually signed. On his return to Florence in 1501, he worked with Leonardo da Vinci, then forty nine years old, to paint the walls of the new Council Hall.

In 1508, Pope Julius II was looking for an artist to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The story goes that when the Pope asked Michelangelo for proof of his talent, the artist replied by drawing a perfect circle, free-hand. By 1515, Michelangelo was back in Florence where he worked for the Medici family for nineteen years. In his later years, he studied architecture, and in 1546, Pope Paul III engaged him as principal architect to supervise the building of St. Peters. Towards the end of his life he became short-sighted although, even in his seventies, Michelangelo continued to widen his interests by studying poetry and music.

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