Biography of Michelangelo Buonarroti

Universal in the arts, like his judgment

6 March 1475
18 February 1564
Born on 6 March 1475 at Caprese, a small town in Tuscany, near Arezzo, Michelangelo Buonarroti still in diapers is taken by the family in Florence. Son of Ludovico Buonarroti Simoni and Francesca di Neri, is initiated by the father to the Humanities under the guidance of Francesco da Urbino, although he soon proves this inclination to drawing that, in contrast to paternal projects goes to the school already celebrated Florentine master Ghirlandaio. The master remains amazed at seeing the designs made by 13-year-old Michelangelo. Possess a strong personality and an iron will and since his youth, Michelangelo had to actually stay, by contract, at least three years apprenticed by Ghirlandaio, but within a year leaves the comfortable accommodation, also because of the wide passion for sculpture that he had to go to in the garden of San Marco, a free school of sculpture and ancient copy that Lorenzo de ' Medici had just set up in the gardens of San Marco (where among other things the doctors had already gathered an impressive collection of classical statuary) by wrapping the sculptor Bertoldo, follower of Donatello.
Noticed by Lorenzo the magnificent, Michelangelo he received at his palace where, in contact with the great humanist thinkers (including Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, Poliziano), he was able to enrich its own culture. At the Court of the Medici he performs his first sculptures, the "battle of the Centaurs" and the "Madonna della Scala". In 1494, frightened by rumors of an upcoming fall of doctors (in November of that year Charles VIII was entered in Florence), Michelangelo runs away to Bologna where, admired the relief by Jacopo della Quercia, carves a bas-relief for the Duomo di San Petronio. After a quick trip to Venice, he returned to Bologna and stay for about a year host of Manmadan Aldrovandi, devoting himself to literary studies and the sculptural composition of arca di San Domenico.
Back in Florence in 1495 and-at the same time that Savonarola thunders against luxury and Paganism art-create your drunken Bacchus (Bargello). He heads to Rome where it carves the famous "Pietà". Between 1501 and 1505 is back in Florence, undergoes some suggestion of Leonardo and produces a series of masterpieces: "Doni Tondo" (Uffizi), the "Pitti Tondo" (Museo del Bargello), the lost cartoon for the fresco of the "battle of Cascina" and the famous David of marble, placed at the entrance of the Palazzo Vecchio as a symbol of the second Republic but also as the apex of the Renaissance ideal of the free man and master of his fate. In March of 1505, Pope Julius II called him to Rome to Commission the Tomb, thus giving rise to a story of contrasts with the Pontiff and his heirs, that will end only in 1545 with the realization of a project rather than the Grand initial plan: failure to carry out this work was very painful for Michelangelo, who talked about it as a "tragedy of burial". Meanwhile, the constant force commitments to continuous movement between Florence, Rome, Carrara and Pietrasanta, where takes care personally of the cava dei marmi for his sculptures. In may 1508, after a sensational breakup and reconciliation with Pope Julius II, signed the contract for the decoration of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which awaits continuously since the summer of that year until 1512.
Five hundred square meters decorated by one man in four years of relentless work and representing the full expression of the artistic ideals of the Renaissance relied on a platonic interpretation of Genesis. Julius II died in 1513 and again the problem of the Tomb: this second term we remain on Moses and the two Slaves kept at the Louvre, although in fact the grave complete will be completed until 1545, with a final version, largely entrusted to aid. Michelangelo anyway also works on projects for the façade of San Lorenzo, and those for the Medici tombs, the Christ for Santa Maria sopra Minerva. In the fall of the Medici pope, Clement VII 1524, starts the artist works for the Laurentian library and go to the grave, in 1521, will be finalised only principiate in 1534, when Michelangelo he settled permanently in Rome. Towards September 1534 are the first negotiations for final judgment, which was to cover the part of the altar of the Sistine Chapel; This work which was to arouse so much success and much fanfare, is terminated by the artist in 1541. Personal events of this period have an echo on Michelangelo's art, especially his friendship with Tommaso de ' Cavalieri, who dedicated poems and drawings, and love for the poet Vittoria Colonna, Marchioness of Pescara, which brings him closer to the problems of reform and the ideas circulating in the environment of Valdes. Between 1542 and 1550 the artist waits on the frescoes for the cappella Paolina, always in the Vatican, is dedicated to architectural firms, as the fulfillment of the Farnese Palace, the Capitol, and especially jobs for San Rodrigo, whose factory is in charge by Paul III in 1547, and completed several sculptures, dalla pietà del duomo di Firenze to which work in the Rondanini Pietà 1555, extreme unfinished.
Michelangelo already by contemporaries was acclaimed as the greatest artist of all time, and influenced greatly on the whole art of the century. Admired unconditionally by some, hated by others, honored by the popes, emperors, Princes and poets, Michelangelo Buonarroti died on 18 February 1564.
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.