Michelangelo

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564) was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet of the High Renaissance. He is considered the greatest artist of his age and even the greatest of all time. His works of painting, sculpture and architecture rank among the most famous in existence. He sculpted two of his best-known works, the Pietà and David, before the age of thirty.

About Michelangelo in brief

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564) was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet of the High Renaissance. He is considered the greatest artist of his age and even the greatest of all time. His works of painting, sculpture and architecture rank among the most famous in existence. He sculpted two of his best-known works, the Pietà and David, before the age of thirty. He also created two of the most influential frescoes in the history of Western art: the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, and The Last Judgment on its altar wall. His design of the Laurentian Library pioneered Mannerist architecture. He succeeded Antonio da Sangallo the Younger as the architect of St. Peter’s Basilica. He was the first Western artist whose biography was published while he was alive. His contemporaries often admired his terribilità—his ability to instil a sense of awe. Attempts by subsequent artists to imitate Michelangelo’s impassioned, highly personal style resulted in Mannerism, the next major movement in Western art after the High renaissance. He died in Florence in 1564, but was buried in the San Siro in Florence, near his family’s former home in Caprese, near Arezzo, Tuscany. He had a son, David, who was born in 1480. His daughter, Gisele, was married to Countess Mathilde of Canossa, who claimed to be descended from the Countess of Mathilde, a claim that remains unproven, but which Michelangelo believed.

Michelangelo was also known as Michelangelo di Lorenzo Ghiberti, or simply Michelangelo, and was known as Il Divino during his lifetime. He worked as a sculptor for fifty years to create the doors of the Baptistry of Paradise, which he described as the “sanctuary of Paradise” He also worked on the niches of the San Lorenzo Church of San Lorenzo, which embodied the precepts of the Classical precepts, and created two churches, San Lorenzo’s and Santo Spirito. His last work, The Creation of the Earth, was published in 1563. He wrote a biography of Leonardo da Vinci, which was published during his life, and later published two more, including one about the life of Leonardo’s mother, the Duchess of Parma. He spent his last years in Florence. He never married and had no children, but had several illegitimate children. He left Florence to live in Settignano, where he had a marble quarry and a small farm. He lived in Florence with his wife and two children, including a son and a daughter. His art was sponsored by the Signoria, the merchant, and wealthy patrons such as the Medici and their banking associates. The city of Florence was at that time Italy’s greatest centre of the Renaissance, the Medics.

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