Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564)
One of the greatest artists of all time, Michelangelo Buonarroti was born in Caprese, Italy in 1475. His father was governor of the village where he was born. Michelangelo's mother died when he was very little, so his father sent him to live in the home of a stonecutter. Michelangelo lived with the stonecutters until he was ten years old. Then his father sent for him so he could live at home with his four brothers and study the academic subjects which gentlemen were expected to know.

Michelangelo disliked his school work, especially Latin. He wanted to be a great artist. His father disapproved and told him that becoming an artist was not something gentlemen should do. But his father could not stop Michelangelo from drawing and in 1488, when Michelangelo was 13 years old, he was sent to begin his apprenticeship in the studio of a well-known artist named Ghirlanaio.

After just one year of apprenticeship, Michelangelo was invited by Lorenzo de Medici, ruler of Florence, to study and work in the school of sculpture, which had been founded in the palace gardens. It was in the palace that Michelangelo met and studied with many famous artists of the time.

Lorenzo di Medici died when Michelangelo was 17 and from that day on Michelangelo worked independently for many of the rulers and religious rulers of Rome, Florence and Bologna. It was his sculpture of the Madonna and Jesus, called "Pieta", which Michelangelo created when he was 24 years old, that first made him famous.

Another one of his famous sculptures is called "Moses." This sculpture was carved from a huge, solid piece of marble and took four years to be completed. While he is most remembered for his frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome and his sculpture of David, he was also an architect, a poet and a painter. His physical appearance was not appealing and this made Michelangelo very self-conscious. He was known to have a temper and had a reputation of being difficult to work with, complaining that people harassed him and did not appreciate his genius.

One of his paintings, the "Last Judgement," shocked many people because the subjects were not clothed. Michelangelo refused to cover the people in his painting, so another artist was hired to paint clothes on his subjects. Years of painting, especially while working on the ceiling frescoes while lying on his back (very uncomfortable and awkward physical conditions), was hard on Michelangelo's body. He was often in pain. Michelangelo died in Rome in 1564 at the age of 89.

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