Michaelangelo was commissioned by Pope Julius II to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
Michaelangelo was one of five sons of a Tuscan merchant. His father wanted him to join the family business, but he followed his dream and became an artist. Michaelangelo was a painter, a sculptor, an architect and a poet. He created pieces commissioned by the Medici family and several Popes amid the upheaval of 16th century Italian politics.
Childhood
Michaelangelo Buonarroti was born in 1475 in the Tuscan village of Caprese. He spent his first three years living with a family of stone cutters because his mother was too weak to nurse him. He was sent to grammar school at age 6 because his father thought school would make him a better merchant. At 13, he defied his dad and apprenticed himself to Domenico Ghirlandaio, a famous Florentine painter, to learn the art of fresco.
Medici Family
Micaelangelo learned paint frescos at the age of 13.
At the age of 14, Michaelangelo began studying sculpture at the Garden of San Marco, which belonged to the Medici family. He was soon invited into the household of Lorenzo de Medici, the ruler of Florence. While there, Michaelangelo was granted special privileges to study anatomy by viewing corpses, a practice outlawed by the Catholic church. Handling the corpses made him sick, so he had to interrupt his studies periodically in order to recover.
David
Michaelangelo depicted David before battle.
In 1501, Michaelangelo was commissioned by the Wool Guild, a wealthy Florentine company, to sculpt "David" out of a 19-foot block of marble. He worked for three years on the colossal statue, and insisted that it stand in front of the Town Hall as a symbol of the new republic of Florence. It took 45 men five days to move the statue from Michaelangelo's workshop to the Palazzo Vecchio.
The Tombs
Michaelangelo designed the tomb of Pope Julius II in Rome, which includes a sculpture of Moses with horns. This was a misinterpretation of the Hebrew word for "rays of light," which translated to "horns" in Italian. Michaelangelo also designed tombs for Lorenzo de Medici and Giuliano de' Medici in Florence. He used a minimalist approach by only carving one statue per sarcophagus. Both are flanked by figures that represent night and day.
The Soldier
In 1529 Michaelangelo joined the Nove della Milizia, a nine-person counsel that led Florence's military against a surrounding German army. He designed battle plans to defend the city's infrastructure and managed to protect part of a church by covering it in mattresses. He fled to Venice before the actual invasion and was exiled as a traitor. He was later pardoned by Pope Clement VII, a member of the Medici family.
The Temper
Michaelangelo had a famously short temper, and was considered rude, difficult and hard to work with. He and Leonardo da Vinci hated each other. Michaelangelo did have one significant friendship later in his life with the poet Vittoria Colonna. The two wrote letters and poems to each other, but the friendship was never a romance. It lasted only a few years until her death in 1547. Michaelangelo died in 1564.
Tags: Medici family, each other, Lorenzo Medici, Michaelangelo commissioned, Pope Julius, three years