Michelangelo

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer of the Renaissance. Michelangelo was born on 6 March 1475 in Caprese near Arezzo.

As a young boy, Michelangelo was sent to Florence to study grammar under the Humanist Francesco da Urbino. The young artist, however, showed no interest in his schooling, preferring to copy paintings from churches and seek the company of painters. 

In 1488, at the age of 13, Michelangelo was apprenticed to Ghirlandaio. The next year, his father persuaded Ghirlandaio to pay Michelangelo as an artist, which was rare for someone of fourteen. 

From 1490 to 1492, Michelangelo attended the Humanist academy which the Medicci's had founded, where Michelangelo's outlook and his art were subject to the influence of many of the most prominent philosophers and writers of the day. 

Between 1493 and 1494 he bought a block of marble, and carved a larger than life statue of Hercules, which was sent to France and subsequently disappeared sometime. In the same year, the Medicci's were expelled from Florence as the result of the rise of Savonarola. Michelangelo left the city before the end of the political upheaval, moving to Venice and then to Bologna.

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 he had to include forty statues and it had to be finished in five years. Under the patronage of the Pope, Michelangelo experienced constant interruptions to his work on the tomb in order to do other tasks. Although Michelangelo worked on the tomb for 40 years, it was never finished to his satisfaction. During this period, Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which took approximately four years to complete it.

The most famous works of Michelangelo are: David, Pietà, The last judgement, St. Peter´s Basilica and The creation of Adan

By: Celia Cuesta Pérez 2ºB