Michelangelo Buonarroti

Born Michelangelo de Lodovici Buonarroti Simoni in 1475 in Caprese, he was apprenticed to a prominent painter of the time, Domenico Ghirlandajo, at the age of thirteen. He studied there for three years and was then taken in by the most powerful man in Florence, Lorenzo de Medici. In the Medici Palace he mingled with poets, sculptors and intellectuals of the time. While in Florence he worked beside Renaissance masters Da Vinci and Raphael and in 1503, he completed his marble sculpture of David as commissioned by the Office of Works in the Cathedral of Florence. This masterpiece firmly established his reputation and he was subsequently hired by Pope Julius II to decorate the Sistine Chapel. Due to Michelangelo's great fame in his own time, there is extensive documentation available on his life and times. Of his most famous works are his statues of David, the Pieta, the Rondanini Pieta, several Madonna and Child statues and the Sistine Chapel. A Master of the Italian High Renaissance, Michelangelo was a painter, sculptor, poet and architect, although he considered himself first and foremost a sculptor. Today, his works can be viewed in museum collections throughout the world.

Michelangelo Buonarroti Images:
Creation Of Adam
Creation Of Adam(Detail)
Creation of Man
Delphic Sibyl
Erythrean Sibyl
Head of Adam (Detail from Creation of Man)
Head of God (Detail from Creation of Adam)
Nude I
Nude II
Sistine Chapel-Adam
Sistine Chaple-Eve
Studio di capitelli
Studio di Figure
The Creation of Adam
The Creation Of Adam (detail)
The Hands of God and Man (Detail from Creation of Man)