Michelangelo Buonarroti (Michelangiolo di Lodovico
Buonarroti-Simoni) (1475–1564) Italian sculptor, painter,
architect, and poet
For VASARI Michelangelo, who was his friend in later
years, was the “perfect exemplar” of the arts of disegno,
representing the culmination of the previous two cen-
turies of progress and accomplishment in Italian art.
Against his father’s wishes, the young Michelangelo,
who was born in Caprese, decided on a career in art and
was apprenticed to the Florentine workshop of Domenico
GHIRLANDAIOin 1488. Among his initial drawings are
sketches after paintings by earlier masters of Italian art, in-
cluding Giotto and Masaccio. Michelangelo also made,
as an exercise in fantasia, a copy of Martin SCHONGAUER’s
engraving, The Temptation of St. Anthony. A year later
Michelangelo was training under Bertoldo di Giovanni, a
student of DONATELLO, who was curator of the Medici
sculpture collection (whether the Medici garden was actu-
ally a school is debated by scholars). Catching the eye of
Lorenzo de’ Medici, Michelangelo was invited to live in
the Medici palace (c. 1490–91). There he came to know
the proponents of NEOPLATONISM, the philosophy that
would guide many of his creative endeavors. An early re-
lief, the Battle of the Centaurs (c. 1491; Casa Buonarroti,
Florence), demonstrates his precocious talent and under-
standing of antique art; the Battle relief also established his
penchant for the human figure, the nobility of which, for
Michelangelo, must always be viewed within its symbolic
significance as a microcosm, reflecting the perceived order
of the universe. Continually assimilating the experience of
past masters, Michelangelo carved a schiacciato relief, The
Madonna of the Stairs (c. 1491; Casa Buonarroti) in the
manner of Donatello.
As the French army threatened Florence, Michel-
angelo traveled to Bologna and Venice (1494–95). In
Bologna he completed three statuettes for the tomb of St.
Dominic and had the opportunity to view the expressive
furor of Jacopo della QUERCIA’s sculpted figures. Between
1496 and 1501 Michelangelo was in Rome; two surviving
works from this period are the Bacchus (c. 1496–98;
Bargello, Florence), which treats an antique theme with a
new and revealing interpretation, and a Pietà (1498–99;
St. Peter’s, Rome), which displays his consummate mas-
tery in communicating both the anatomical and psycho-
logical expression of the human form. Michelangelo
returned to Florence in 1501 where, until 1504, he was
engaged in carving the colossal David (Accademia, Flo-
rence) from a block of marble quarried in 1464 and left
“misshapen” (Vasari) after earlier attempts to carve a fig-
ure from it had failed. David’s intense scowl reflects the
terribilità of his psychological state, while the heroically
accomplished sculpture reveals the terribilità of Michelan-
gelo’s creative prowess. The David, originally conceived as
part of the cathedral prophet series program, was placed at
the entrance of the Palazzo Vecchio, symbolizing the
virtue of Florentine republicanism, defiant against the
Medici. During this time Michelangelo also worked on a
cartoon (now lost) for a fresco intended as a pendant for
Leonardo’s Battle of Anghiari in the Palazzo Vecchio; this
Battle of Cascina was never painted. With the unfinished
St. Matthew (1504–08; Accademia, Florence) Michelan-
gelo explored the energetic counterpositioned movement
of the figura serpentinata (serpentine figure) which would
dramatically characterize his later figurative art.
In 1505 Michelangelo was summoned to Rome by
Pope JULIUS II, who then commissioned the sculptor to
fashion the pope’s tomb; work on the Moses (San Pietro in
Vincoli, Rome) may have begun in 1506 or later around- (The tomb project, which Ascanio Condivi,
Michelangelo’s biographer in 1553, called the “tragedy of
the tomb,” proved very burdensome for Michelangelo. It
was completed, four contracts later, in 1542, in a much re-
duced version of the original scheme.) From 1508 to 1512
Michelangelo, again contracted by Julius II, painted the
vaulted ceiling of the SISTINE CHAPELwith the story of Cre-
ation, exalting the human figure throughout the composi-
tion (see Plate IX). Following the completion of the
ceiling, work resumed on the tomb project; two figures,
the Dying Slave and the Rebellious Slave (c. 1514; Louvre,
Paris) were begun. In 1516 Michelangelo, again in Flo-
rence, was occupied with numerous commissions. Work
on the Julius II tomb continued, the triumphant Victory
(c. 1527; Palazzo Vecchio) was carved, but the progress
was slowed by Medici contracts, including the Medici
Chapel (begun 1519) and the Bibliotheca LAURENZIANA
(1523). The Medici Chapel combines Michelangelo’s or-
ganically expressive architecture with herculean figures
bearing allegorical conceits. In the vestibule of the Lau-
renziana Michelangelo’s unique license of architectural in-
vention is on display; here, the classical vocabulary of
architecture has been refashioned to an imaginative, yet
judicious aesthetic.
Late in 1533 Michelangelo settled in Rome. From
1534 to 1541 he painted a Last Judgment on the altar wall
of the Sistine Chapel; considering the copious variety of
figural positions, displayed with dramatic foreshortenings,
Condivi rightly observed, “Michelangelo expressed all
that the art of painting can do with the human figure, leav-
ing out no attitude or gesture whatever.” During this time
Michelangelo’s friendship with Vittoria COLONNA and
Tommaso de’ Cavalieri inspired many of his finest poems;
his status as an artist rose to that of a cult figure. Two fres-
coes in the Pauline Chapel, The Conversion of Paul and The
Crucifixion of Peter, were completed by 1550. Throughout
this period Michelangelo was continually absorbed in ar-
chitectural projects in Rome, including work on the Capi-
toline Hill, the Palazzo Farnese, and St. Peter’s, of which
he was chief architect from 1546. A second Pietà (Museo
dell’ Opera del Duomo, Florence) intended for his own
tomb was begun before 1550; one night about 1556
33116 6 MMiicchheellaannggeelloo BBuuoonnaarrrroottii