Michelangelo: Life, Works, and Artistic Legacy

Introduction: A Renaissance Genius Without Equal

Michelangelo was the greatest sculptor of the sixteenth century and one of the greatest of all history. Incredibly, considering the number of years required to master a craft, he was also one of the greatest painters, architects, and poets. There have been few artists who have been as prolific, and fewer still who created enduring masterpieces in so many different media. Michelangelo would have secured his place in history had he only carved the David, or painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, or erected St. Peter's—each a central achievement in the history of human endeavor. Yet he accomplished all three, and thus his creative genius remains unmatched in ancient or modern times.

During the period from 1500 to 1508, Michelangelo accepted eighteen different commissions, ranging from a bronze dagger to a tomb for Pope Julius II, from statuettes for the Piccolomini altar in Siena to the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Completed works include nine marble sculptures—among them the colossal David, the Bruges Madonna, and St. Matthew—two marble tondi, four figures for the Piccolomini altar, three works in bronze (all since lost), at least one painting (the Doni Tondo), and the cartoon for the Battle of Cascina.

With each successive pope, Michelangelo's position as architect of St. Peter's was confirmed, while he continued to accept additional responsibilities from popes and select patrons. During the reign of Pius IV, he designed the Porta Pia, transformed the Baths of Diocletian into the Christian church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, and designed the Sforza Chapel in Santa Maria Maggiore. Throughout this period, Michelangelo continued to privately explore his personal faith through poetry, drawings, and sculpture, while also building a considerable personal fortune through shrewd investments and management. He completed just three sculptures during the last thirty years of his life—the Rachel and Leah for the tomb of Julius II, and the bust of Brutus—as architecture now dominated his time and perhaps became his most influential legacy.

Early Life, Training, and the Medici Circle

Born on March 6, 1475, in Caprese, a small town in rural Tuscany, Michelangelo was the son of Ludovico Buonarroti, a minor official and local governor. After Ludovico's six-month term was over, he moved the family to a large farm in the village of Settignano overlooking Florence, where the hills were dotted with quarries and gave the young Michelangelo his first exposure to stone carving. Ludovico expected his son to enter the world of finance, considering art a manual craft of lowly occupation. However, after a battle of wills, Michelangelo was allowed to apprentice with Domenico Ghirlandaio, who ran an impressive workshop in Florence. This is where Michelangelo learned drawing and painting in both tempera and fresco.

He was soon placed with the Medici family, the de facto rulers of Florence and the greatest art patrons of the Renaissance. Here, among writers, musicians, scholars, artists, and the most learned men of the century, he gained a proper education and made invaluable contacts. While carving, Michelangelo evidently thought a great deal about poetry as well—poems were found scribbled on sheets in his workshop, demonstrating how easily he moved between the two media: "the rhythmic strokes of the hammer suggested verse, his verse retained elements of its lapidary origins," creating an exalted vision that "drove the sculptor's arm, and a spiritual meaning lay beyond the sweat."