Michelangelo - 1475 - 1564

Born: 6 March 1475
Birthplace: Caprese, Italy
Died: 18 February 1564
Best Known As: Master sculptor of The David

Name at birth: Michelangelo Buonarroti

Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet. He served a brief apprenticeship with Domenico Ghirlandaio in Florence before beginning the first of several sculptures for Lorenzo de'Medici. After Lorenzo's death in 1492, he left for Bologna and then for Rome. There his Bacchus (1496 – 97) established his fame and led to a commission for the Pietà (now in St. Peter's Basilica), the masterpiece of his early years, in which he demonstrated his unique ability to extract two distinct figures from one marble block. His David (1501 – 04), commissioned for the cathedral of Florence, is still considered the prime example of the Renaissance ideal of perfect humanity. On the side, he produced several Madonnas for private patrons and his only universally accepted easel painting, The Holy Family (known as the Doni Tondo). Attracted to ambitious sculptural projects, which he did not always complete, he reluctantly agreed to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508 – 12). The first scenes, depicting the story of Noah, are relatively stable and on a small scale, but his confidence grew as he proceeded, and the later scenes evince boldness and complexity. His figures for the tombs in Florence's Medici Chapel (1519 – 33), which he designed, are among his most accomplished creations. He devoted his last 30 years largely to the Last Judgment fresco in the Sistine Chapel, to writing poetry (he left more than 300 sonnets and madrigals), and to architecture. He was commissioned to complete St. Peter's Basilica, begun in 1506 and little advanced since 1514. Though it was not quite finished at Michelangelo's death, its exterior owes more to him than to any other architect. He is regarded today as among the most exalted of artists.(from Britannica.com)



Michelangelo famous masterpieces :-








Some of the quatoation from Michelangelo:

*A beautiful thing never gives so much pain as does failing to hear and see it.
*A man paints with his brains and not with his hands.
*Death and love are the two wings that bear the good man to heaven.
*Every beauty which is seen here by persons of perception resembles more than anything else that celestial source from which we all are come.
*Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.