designed the structure but had left it un-
finished; it was now left to Michelangelo
to design the dome.
Late in life Michelangelo designed the
Rondanini Pietàfor his own tomb, but un-
satisfied with the material or the design he
constantly altered it and ultimately dam-
aged it. At his death Michelangelo was
honored by the citizens of Florence, who
recognized him as the greatest artist their
city had produced. He was known as “The
Divine One” during his lifetime, and since
that time his works have been widely re-
garded as the highest achievements of the
Renaissance in Italy or any other country.
SEEALSO: Julius II; Leonardo da Vinci;
Medici, Lorenzo de’; painting; sculpture
Milton, John ...................................
(1608–1674)
Essayist and poet whoseParadise Lostis
widely considered the greatest epic of the
English language. The son of a prosperous
scrivener, he was born in London and edu-
cated in the classics at Saint Paul’s, one of
the city’s finest private schools. He was
educated at Christ’s College, Cambridge,
where he began studies at the age of fif-
teen and prepared for a career as a minis-
ter in the Church of England. He wrote
epigrams, eulogies, and poems in Latin, as
well as short epics on English history. He
first gained notice with his poemOn the
Morning of Christ’s Nativity. He turned
away from Latin and Italian and began
writing English verse, which he used for
his essay “On Shakespeare,” written in 1632
for a book about the playwright, whose
reputation was gaining in the generation
after his death. In 1634 one of his mas-
ques—a combination of music, dance, and
poetry—was performed on a stage at the
castle of Ludlow. This work,Comus, deals
with the themes of purity and temptation,
and was a precursor to subjects Milton
would take up in his most famous work.
Milton lived on his family’s country
estate after leaving Cambridge. He spent a
year in Italy and, in 1639, returned to En-
gland, where he wrote in support of re-
form of the Church of England. He be-
came an ardent supporter of Oliver
Cromwell during the English Civil War,
which pitted Cromwell’s anti-royalist
forces against defenders of the monarchy.
Milton wrote in support of the new En-
glish commonwealth that Cromwell estab-
lished and in favor of the execution of
King Charles I. His essay “Areopagitica”
stoutly defended the principle of freedom
of speech and debate, and the right to
publish without censorship by the church
or government. Historians believe this
stance had a lasting effect in the American
colonies, where its principle was officially
adopted in the U.S. Constitution. “The
Tenure of Kings and Magistrates,” pub-
lished in 1649, was a defense of controls
on the power of kings, arguing that the
people have a right to rise up and end the
service of incompetent or corrupt mon-
archs. He was rewarded for his anti-royalist
stance with an appointment in 1649 as a
foreign secretary in Cromwell’s govern-
ment, a position in which he wrote in sup-
port of the government and translated its
official documents into Latin. Although he
was imprisoned at the restoration of the
monarchy in 1660, and his books were
publicly burned, he was eventually granted
a pardon.
By this time he was blind, and forced
to dictate his letters and poetry to a secre-
tary. In this way he completedParadise
Lost, which describes the revolt of Satan
and the story of Adam and Eve and their
expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Mil-
ton wrote the epic in ten books of blank
verse, describing Satan’s war against God,Milton, John