Michelangelo biography

 Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, known as Michelangelo, is an Italian artist (painter, sculptor, architect and poet) of the Renaissance.

Childhood, training and beginnings

He was born on March 6, 1645 in Tuscany. When his mother died in 1481, his father entrusted him to the wife of a stonemason until he was 10 years old. He then met the grammarian Francesco Da Urbino. Against the advice of his father, he became the apprentice of Domenico Ghirlandaio, a great Florentine painter, for three years. His talent is such (he attracts, among other things, the wrath of a sculptor that it will cost him a broken nose, marking his face for life) that he is noticed by Laurent de Médicis known as Laurent the Magnificent, a man of the state of Florence which opened the doors of its sculpture school to him and in which he created his first works. At the same time, he studies the human body and frequents the humanist environment. On the death of Lorenzo de' Medici, Michelangelo settled in Bologna for 3 years then in 1496, he was called to Rome where he created two statues: Drunken Bacchus and La Pieta in Saint Peter's Basilica.

Four years later, in 1501, he returned to Florence and sculpted his famous David (1504), a masterpiece of Renaissance sculpture. It represents David, sculpted from a block of Carrara marble, a sling (leather strap used as a slingshot) in his hand, just before his fight against the giant Goliath. The original is on display in the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence.

Now famous, Michelangelo was entrusted with a fresco, The Battle of Cascina, which was to be the counterpart of that created by Leonardo da Vinci, The Battle of Anghiari in the Grand Council room at the Palazzo Vecchio.

The tomb of Julius II and the Sistine ceiling

In 1505, the new Pope Julius II requested him from Rome because he commissioned him to create the sculptures for his tomb, a grandiose mausoleum in Saint Peter's Basilica which was to include 42 statues. In 1545, the final version only included 7 statues. At the same time, Julius II asked him to cover the entire ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. It will take 4 years to complete this masterpiece: the building measures 40 meters long by 13 meters wide and the vault peaks at 21 meters. The whole dramatizes the history of humanity based on the main episodes of Genesis, from Creation to the Flood.

In 1513, Pope Julius II died and Leo X, a Medici, succeeded him. He asked Michelangelo to finish the exterior facade of the San Lorenzo church in Florence, but the project did not come to fruition. Until 1534, he worked mainly on architectural projects (Laurentian Library, fortifications of Florence, etc.).

The final installation in Rome

Michelangelo wishes to resume work on the tomb of Julius II but the new pope, Paul III, opposes this and appoints him painter, sculptor and architect of the Vatican.

In 1535, he met Tommaso dei Cavalieri with whom he had a “loving friendship” as his poems reveal (Michelangelo dedicated 30 poems out of 300 to him).

From 1537 to 1541, he created a new fresco in the Sistine Chapel, The Last Judgment (13.70 meters high, 12.20 meters wide) which provoked strong criticism with more than 400 characters, all naked (they were even “dressed” in 1556). ) then in 1542 until 1500, two large frescoes in the Paolina Chapel of the Vatican, The Conversion of Saint Paul and The Martyrdom of Saint Peter.

Michelangelo pieta

This sculptural group was commissioned by the French cardinal Jean Bilhères de Lagraulas, also known as Jean Villiers de la Groslaye, abbot of the Saint-Denis basilica, cardinal and French ambassador to the pope. It is done through the interlude of Michelangelo's Roman patron and protector, the banker Jacopo Galli. The contract dates from August 27, 1498 and stipulates a remuneration of 450 gold ducats in pontifical currency. The sculpture is intended to adorn the funerary monument in memory of the late King Charles VIII, who died on April 7, 1498, in the Santa Petronilla chapel, known as “of the kings of France '' of the old Saint Peter's Basilica. The sculptor chose to make it in Carrara marble extracted from the Polpaccio quarry, which he selected for its cream color evoking flesh. To meet the deadline of the contract scheduled for August 1499, Michelangelo worked some twenty hours a day on a single block of marble. Working with a chisel and sculpting hammer, he polished the marble with pumice for weeks so that it shined in the dark chapel. Having to be displayed from the front, it leaves the back unfinished1. It was finally completed in the spring of 1499.

Commissioned by a man from the North, the subject is related to the French and German devotional themes of the suffering Christ which had been popular there since the Middle Ages. Michelangelo was able to see the German carved Pietà which was kept in the Basilica of San Petronio in Bologna in 1494-14952.

The Pietà is a work signed by the artist (mention “MICHAEL A[N]ANGELUS BONAROTUS FLOREN[TINUS] FACIEBA[T]” located on the headband of the Virgin).

When it was exhibited in the basilica, Vasari exclaimed: “How could the hand of an artisan be able to so divinely accomplish, in such a short time, such an admirable work?This is a marvel: that an ill defined rock has accomplished a flawlessness, for example, nature just so seldom models in the flesh"3.

Detail of the statue mutilated in 1972.

On May 21, 1972, the day of Pentecost, an insane person named Laszlo Toth mutilated the sculpture by hitting it with fifteen blows with a hammer, notably breaking the Virgin's nose and part of her arm. The artwork has since been restored. It is now protected behind armored glass.