Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475–1564)

Italian sculptor, fresco painter, architect, and poet, whose works have become popular and world-renowned examples of Renaissance art. Born in the town of Caprese, near Florence, he was the son of Ludovico de Buonarroti, podesta of the town of Caprese,

and Francesca Neri. His father sent him to study with Francesco Galeota, a scholar of Urbino. At a young age Michelangelo took an interest in painting, and at thirteen he joined the studio of Domenico Ghirlandaio. His ambition to be an artist, however, was opposed by his father, who saw painters and sculptors as lowly craftsmen and wanted his son to become a merchant and civic leader. Michelangelo's talent earned him an invitation from Lorenzo de' Medici, a distant cousin to his father, to join the Medici court, then a center of Renaissance learning and art. Medici had organized a school of sculpture in the Garden of San Marco, near the San Lorenzo church, where Michelangelo studied classical statues to create his first works, Sleeping Cupid, The Madonna of the Stairs, and Battle of the Lapiths and Centaurs.

In 1492 Lorenzo died and several factions began a violent struggle for control of Florence. The weakened state was defeated by the French army under Charles VIII. Girolamo Savonarola's campaign to rid the city of art and frivolity goaded Michelangelo into leaving Florence for Rome, where he made an intense study of classical ruins and created the sculpture Bacchus, a commission from a wealthy banker who next commissioned a Pietà, a sculpture of the Virgin Mary holding the body of a crucified Christ. This work, completed in 1498, still stands in the original place intended for it in Rome's Saint Peter's Basilica. After overhearing a bystander remark that the Pietà was the work of Christoforo Solari, a rival artist, Michelangelo

flew into a rage and carved his name into the sash running across the figure of Mary, making the Pietà the only work of art that he signed. The Pietà, a vivid evocation in marble of death and resignation, displays both great strength and tender sadness.

After the overthrow of Savonarola and the proclamation of the Florentine republic, Michelangelo returned to what he always considered his home town. The city's Wool Guild, responsible for decorating and furnishing the Florence cathedral, commissioned a stone statue of David, which Michelangelo began in 1501. Over a period of three years, the statue emerged from a block of marble 19 feet (5.8m) long. The finished work stood 14 feet (4.2m) in height; the figure of David represents Florence itself, strong in youthful vigor and spirit and ready to defy any and all tyrants and foreigners seeking to challenge it. At Michelangelo's insistence, the sculpture was carefully moved to the large square in front of the Palazzo Vecchio, the town hall of Florence; later the statue was moved to the gallery of the Accademia, and replaced with a copy.

By the time of the completion of David, Michelangelo's reputation as an artist of genius had spread throughout Italy. In 1505 Pope Julius II invited Michelangelo and many other important artists to glorify the city of Rome and the papacy with original works of arts. From Michelangelo he commissioned sculptures for his own tomb, which was intended to display several dozen life-size statues. Michelangelo's painstaking work in the marble quarries of Carrara ended in a dispute with the pope over the costs of the project, and the artists fled Rome in disgust in 1506. Julius and Michelangelo soon reconciled, however, and the artist was then asked to suspend work on the tomb and take up the painting of twelve apostles on the ceiling and walls of the Sistine Chapel. The idea for this project was relayed to the pope by Michelangelo's own rivals, who believed him an inferior painter, incapable of carrying out the task, and likely to run into trouble with the pope and lose his commission for the papal tomb. In the meantime, the tomb project was proving so costly to Julius II that he ordered it stopped.

At first reluctant to undertake the Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michelangelo finally accepted the commission and began work in 1508. He introduced a new concept in fresco painting by rendering complete dramatic scenes on an overhead space, something no other artist had ever attempted. By the time he completed the ceiling, in 1512, he had rendered nine scenes from the Bible's book of Genesis, including the creation of man, the temptation of Adam and Eve, and the biblical flood, with more than four hundred larger-than-life figures, all while lying on his back on top of a wooden scaffold. The Sistine Chapel ceiling was a magnificent achievement that left the artist emotionally drained and physically weakened. He then completed the tomb for Julius II that included the dour figure of Moses, a sculpture created from a lump of marble so poorly proportioned and misshapen that several artists had already refused to work with it. Also as part of this tomb were to be two important sculptures, Bound Slave and Dying Slave, which he left unfinished at the death of the pope in 1513.

After completing the Sistine Chapel ceiling, Michelangelo returned to Florence. He took on architectural projects, including the design of the Laurentian Library. In 1526 the Medici were again driven out of Florence, while Pope Clement VII ordered German mercenaries to surround the city and prepare for an assault. The city of Florence asked Michelangelo to design a series of fortifications. He joined the army defending Florence but then fled the city for Venice when it appeared the mercenaries would actually invade. The artist was exiled for this act but later was allowed to return.

In 1519 the artist was commissioned to design two tombs for Lorenzo and Giuliano de' Medici, to be built in the sacristy of Florence's San Lorenzo Church. The tombs were designed with symbolic representations of dawn, dusk, day, and night. The figures are shown crying in grief at the passage of time and the inevitability of death. The artist left them incomplete when he returned to Rome in 1534. Pope Clement VII commissioned him to paint The Last Judgment fresco in the Sistine Chapel. A huge painting, the largest fresco painting of its time, The Last Judgment was completed in 1541. The painting caused a scandal because of its depiction of nude figures on the wall of a sacred chapel, and for a time after its completion the figures were covered with cloth drapery for the sake of modesty.

In the meantime, Michelangelo had met Vittoria Colonna, a poet dedicated to the reform of the church. The two became close friends, a relationship that inspired the artist to write fine lyric poetry, sonnets, and madrigals in her honor. At this time he was commissioned to design buildings on the Campidoglio, the ancient Capitoline Hill of Rome. The construction of the buildings was not begun until the late 1550s and not completed for another century. The bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius was placed in the center of the square.

In 1546, Michelangelo was appointed chief architect of Saint Peter's Basilica. Donato Bramante, who had died in 1514, had designed the structure but had left it unfinished; it was now left to Michelangelo to design the dome.

Late in life Michelangelo designed the Rondanini Pietà for his own tomb, but unsatisfied with the material or the design he constantly altered it and ultimately damaged it. At his death Michelangelo was honored by the citizens of Florence, who recognized him as the greatest artist their city had produced. He was known as “The Divine One” during his lifetime, and since that time his works have been widely regarded as the highest achievements of the Renaissance in Italy or any other country.

See Also: Julius II; Leonardo da Vinci; Medici, Lorenzo de'; painting; sculpture