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Quick Facts
- NAME: Michelangelo
- OCCUPATION: Architect, Painter, Sculptor, Poet
- BIRTH DATE: March 06, 1475
- DEATH DATE: February 18, 1564
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Caprese (Republic of Florence), Italy
- PLACE OF DEATH: Rome, Italy
- Full Name: Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni
- AKA: Michelangelo Buonarroti
- Nickname: "Father and Master of All the Arts"
- AKA: Michelangelo
Best Known For
Michelangelo is widely regarded as the most famous artist of the Italian Renaissance. Among his works are the David and Pieta statues and the Sistine Chapel frescoes.
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A short biography of Michelangelo, one of the greatest artistic geniuses who ever lived. His works are numerous, and include The David, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and the Pieta.
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Play NowMichelangelo. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 04:38, Jun 20, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/michelangelo-9407628.
Michelangelo. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/michelangelo-9407628 [Accessed 20 Jun 2013].
"Michelangelo." 2013. The Biography Channel website. Jun 20 2013, 04:38 http://www.biography.com/people/michelangelo-9407628.
"Michelangelo," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/michelangelo-9407628 [accessed Jun 20, 2013].
"Michelangelo," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/michelangelo-9407628 (accessed Jun 20, 2013).
Michelangelo [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 Jun 20] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/michelangelo-9407628.
Michelangelo, http://www.biography.com/people/michelangelo-9407628 (last visited Jun 20, 2013).
Michelangelo. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/michelangelo-9407628. Accessed Jun 20, 2013.
Synopsis
Michelangelo was born on March 6, 1475, in Caprese, Italy. Born to a family of moderate means in the banking business, Michelangelo became an apprentice to a painter before studying in the sculpture gardens of the powerful Medici family. What followed was a remarkable career as an artist in the Italian Renaissance, recognized in his own time for his artistic virtuosity. His works include the David and Pieta statues and the ceiling paintings of Rome's Sistine Chapel,
Contents
Quotes
"Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I accomplish."
"If you knew how much work went into it, you wouldn't call it genius."
"I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free."
"I am here in great distress and with great physical strain, and have no friends of any kind, nor do I want them; and I do not have enough time to eat as much as I need; my joy and my sorrow/my repose are these discomforts."
"With my wet-nurse's milk, I sucked in the hammer and chisels I use for my statues."
including the Last Judgment. Although he always considered himself a Florentine, Michelangelo lived most of his life in Rome, where he died in 1564, at age 88.
Early Life
Painter, sculptor, architect and poet Michelangelo, one of the most famous artists of the Italian Renaissance, was born Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni on March 6, 1475, in Caprese, Italy. Michelangelo's father, Leonardo di Buonarrota Simoni, was briefly serving as a magistrate in the small village when he recorded the birth of his second of five sons with his wife, Francesca Neri, but they returned to Florence when Michelangelo was still an infant. Due to his mother's illness, however, Michelangelo was placed with a family of stonecutters, where he later jested, "With my wet-nurse's milk, I sucked in the hammer and chisels I use for my statues."
Indeed, Michelangelo was less interested in schooling than watching the painters at nearby churches, and drawing what he saw there, according to his earliest biographers (Vasari, Condivi and Varchi). It may have been his grammar school friend, Francesco Granacci, six years his senior, who introduced Michelangelo to painter Domenico Ghirlandaio. Michelangelo's father realized early on that his son had no interest in the family financial business, so agreed to apprentice him, at the age of 13, to the fashionable Florentine painter's workshop. There, Michelangelo was exposed to the technique of fresco.
Michelangelo had spent only a year at the workshop when an extraordinary opportunity opened to him: At the recommendation of Ghirlandaio, he moved into the palace of Florentine ruler Lorenzo the Magnificent, of the powerful Medici family, to study classical sculpture in the Medici gardens. This was a fertile time for Michelangelo; his years with the Medici family, 1489 to 1492, permitted him access to the social elite of Florence -- allowing him to study under the respected sculptor Bertoldo di Giovanni and exposing him to prominent poets, scholars and learned Humanists. He also obtained special permission from the Catholic Church to study cadavers for insight into anatomy, though exposure to corpses had an adverse effect on his health.
These combined influences laid the groundwork for what would become Michelangelo’s distinctive style: a muscular precision and reality combined with an almost lyrical beauty. Two relief sculptures that survive, Battle of the Centaurs and Madonna Seated on a Step, are testaments to his unique talent at the tender age of 16.
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