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Michelangelo

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{{otheruses}} '''Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni''' (March 6, 1475 – February 18, 1564), commonly known as '''Michelangelo''', was a Renaissance artist, sculptor, and poet. Image:Michelangelo_Buonarroti.jpg Marcello Venusti.html" title="Meaning of thumb thumb|right|250px|Michelangelo Buonarroti, by [[Marcello Venusti..html" title="Meaning of right|250px|Michelangelo Buonarroti, by [[Marcello Venusti">thumb|right|250px|Michelangelo Buonarroti, by [[Marcello Venusti.">right|250px|Michelangelo Buonarroti, by [[Marcello Venusti">thumb|right|250px|Michelangelo Buonarroti, by [[Marcello Venusti. {{commons|Category:Michelangelo Buonarroti|Michelangelo}} Michelangelo is famous for creating the fresco Sistine Chapel ceiling ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, as well as the ''Last Judgment'' over the altar, and ''The Martyrdom of St. Peter'' and ''The Conversion of St. Paul'' in the Vatican City Vatican's Cappella Paolina; among his many sculptures are those of ''David (Michelangelo) David'' and the ''PietÃ (Michelangelo) PietÃ '', as well as the ''Doni Tondo Doni Virgin'', ''Bacchus (Michelangelo) Bacchus'', ''Moses (Michelangelo) Moses'', Medici Chapel Rachel, Leah, and members of the Medici family; he also designed the dome of St. Peter's Basilica.

Biography

Overview
Michelangelo stayed in several places in Italy during his lifetime including several periods staying in Florence, Bologna and Rome. An overview of his locations and sketchy resumes of the main works produced follows: *Florence (until 1494) *Venice and Bologna (1494–1496) *Rome (arrives 25 June 1496, stays until 1501) contract for the ''Pieta'' in St. Peter's Basilica *Florence (1501–1505) marble ''David'', the ''Twelve Apostles'' *Rome (1505–1506) — Commissioned to execute Pope Julius II's tomb *Florence (secretly returned to Florence in 1506) *Bologna (1506–1509) — Summoned by Julius IIto make a bronze statue of him *Rome (1508–1516) — Sistine Chapel ceiling *Florence (1516–1532) *Rome (1532–1534) *Florence (1534) — Last stay in Florence *Rome (1534–1564) — ''Last Judgement'', completion of Julius II' tomb, design of the dome for St Peter's.

Early years
Michelangelo was born in 1475 near Arezzo, in Caprese Michelangelo Caprese, Tuscany. His father, Lodovico di Leonardo di Buonarotti di Simoni, was the resident magistrate in Caprese and podestÃ of Chiusi. His mother was Francesca di Neri del Miniato di Siena. As genealogies of the day indicated that the Buonarroti descended from Countess Matilda of Tuscany, the family being considered minor nobility. However, Michelangelo was raised in Florence, Italy Florence and later lived with a sculptor and his wife in the town of Settignano where his father owned a marble quarry and a small farm. Michelangelo once said to the biographer of artists Giorgio Vasari, "What good I have comes from the pure air of your native Arezzo, and also because I sucked in chisels and hammers with my mother's milk." Image:Michelangelo Buonarotti.jpg Uffizi.html" title="Meaning of thumb thumb|right|225px|Statue of Michelangelo outside [[Uffizi, Florence..html" title="Meaning of right|225px|Statue of Michelangelo outside [[Uffizi">thumb|right|225px|Statue of Michelangelo outside [[Uffizi, Florence.">right|225px|Statue of Michelangelo outside [[Uffizi">thumb|right|225px|Statue of Michelangelo outside [[Uffizi, Florence. Against his father's wishes (in fact to persuade him to take up a more honorable profession, his father would beat him), after a period of Grammar grammatics studies with the Humanism humanist Francesco d'Urbino Michelangelo chose to continue his apprenticeship in painting with Domenico Ghirlandaio and in sculpture with Bertoldo di Giovanni: on June 28 1488 he signed with an already famous painter a contract for three years starting in 1488. Amazingly enough, Michelangelo's father was able to get Ghirlandaio to pay the young artist, which was unheard of at the time. In fact, most apprentices paid their masters for the education. Impressed, Domenico recommended him to the ruler of the city, Lorenzo de' Medici, and Michelangelo left his workshop in 1489. From 1490 to 1492, Michelangelo attended Lorenzo's school and was influenced by many prominent people who modified and expanded his ideas on art, following the dominant Platonism Platonic view of that age, and even his feelings about sexuality. It was during this period that Michelangelo met literary personalities like Pico della Mirandola, Angelo Poliziano and Marsilio Ficino. In this period Michelangelo finished ''Madonna of the Steps'' (1490–1492) and ''Battle of the Centaurs'' (1491–1492). The latter was based on a theme suggested by Poliziano and was commissioned by Lorenzo de Medici. Image:Michelangelo01.jpg thumb|left|225px|Michelangelo by G.F. Rodwell (1877) After the death of Lorenzo on April 8, 1492, for whom Michelangelo had become a kind of son, Michelangelo quit the Medici court. In the following months he produced a ''Crucifix (Michelangelo) Wooden crucifix'' (1493), as a thanksgiving gift to the prior of the church of Santa Maria del Santo Spirito who had permitted him some studies of anatomy on the corpses of the church's Hospital. Between 1493 and 1494 he bought the marble for a larger than life statue of Hercules, which was sent to France and disappeared sometime in the 1700s. He could enter again the court after on January 20, 1494, Piero de Medici commissioned a snow statue from him. But that year the Medici were expelled from Florence after the Savonarola rise, and Michelangelo also left the city before the end of the political upheaval, moving to Venice and then to Bologna. He did stay in Florence for awhile hiding in a small room underneath San Lorenzo that can still be visited to this day, if you know how to ask the guides. In this room there are charcoal sketches still on the walls of various images that Michelangelo drew from his memory. Here he was commissioned to finish the carving of the last small figures of the tomb and shrine of St. Dominic, in the church with the same name. He returned to Florence at the end of 1494, but soon he fled again, scared by the turmoils and by the menace of the French invasion. He was again in his city between the end of 1495 and the June of 1496: if Leonardo considered Savonarola a fanatic and left the city, Michelangelo was touched by the friar's preaching, by the associated moral severity and by the hope of renovation of the Roman Church. In that year a marble ''Cupid (Michelangelo) Cupid'' by Michelangelo was treacherously sold to Cardinal Raffaele Riario as an ancient piece: the prelate discovered the cheat, but was so impressed by the quality of the sculpture that he invited the artist to Rome, where he arrived on June 26 1496. On July 4 Michelangelo started to carve an over-life-size statue of the Roman god of wine, ''Bacchus (Michelangelo) Bacchus'', commissioned by the banker Jacopo Galli for his garden. Subsequently, in November of 1497, France French ambassador in the Holy See commissioned one of his most famous works, the ''PietÃ (Michelangelo) PietÃ ''. The contract was stipulated in the August of the following year. Though he devoted himself only to sculpture, during his first stay in Rome Michelangelo never stopped his daily practice of drawing. In Rome Michelangelo lived near the church of Santa Maria di Loreto (Roma) Santa Maria di Loreto: here, according to the legends, he fell in love (probably a Platonic love) with Vittoria Colonna, marquise of Pescara and poet. His house was demolished in 1874, and the remaining architectural elements saved by new proprietors were destroyed in 1930. Today a modern reconstruction of Michelangelo's house can be seen on the Gianicolo hill. Image:Michelangelo Petersdom Pieta.JPG PietÃ (Michelangelo) thumb|250px|Michelangelo's ''[[PietÃ (Michelangelo)|PietÃ '', one of the absolute masterworks of sculptures of all times, was carved in 1499, when the sculptor was 24 years old..html" title="Meaning of PietÃ .html" title="Meaning of thumb|250px|Michelangelo's ''[[PietÃ (Michelangelo)|PietÃ ">thumb|250px|Michelangelo's ''[[PietÃ (Michelangelo)|PietÃ '', one of the absolute masterworks of sculptures of all times, was carved in 1499, when the sculptor was 24 years old.">PietÃ .html" title="Meaning of thumb|250px|Michelangelo's ''[[PietÃ (Michelangelo)|PietÃ ">thumb|250px|Michelangelo's ''[[PietÃ (Michelangelo)|PietÃ '', one of the absolute masterworks of sculptures of all times, was carved in 1499, when the sculptor was 24 years old. Michelangelo returned to Florence in 1499–1501. Things were changing in the city after the fall of Savonarola and the rise of the ''gonfaloniere'' Pier Soderini. He was proposed by the consuls of the Guild of Wool of the city to complete a project started 40 years before by Agostino di Duccio and never materialized: a colossal statue portraying David as a symbol of the Florentine freedom, to be placed in the Piazza della Signoria, in front of the Palazzo Vecchio. Michelangelo replied finishing in 1504 arguably his most famous work, the marble Michelangelo's ''David (Michelangelo) David''. This masterwork definitively established his fame as sculptor for his extraordinary technical skill and the strength of his symbolical imagination. While a pupil he worked on a Virgin and Child with the young Saint John the Baptist and Angels, 1497, now in the National Gallery, London. He also painted the ''Holy Family of the Tribune'', also known as ''Tondo Doni'': it was commissioned for the marriage of Angelo Doni and Maddalena Strozzi, and still followed 15th century's

Under Pope Julius II in Rome: the Sistine Chapel ceiling
{{main|Sistine Chapel ceiling}} Image:Sistine.chapel.entire.500pix.jpg Sistine Chapel.html" title="Meaning of thumb thumb|left|Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the [[Sistine Chapel..html" title="Meaning of left|Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the [[Sistine Chapel">thumb|left|Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the [[Sistine Chapel.">left|Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the [[Sistine Chapel">thumb|left|Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the [[Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo was summoned back to the great city of Rome (in 1503) by the newly appointed Pope Julius II and was commissioned to build the Pope's tomb. However, under the patronage of Julius II, Michelangelo had to constantly stop work on the tomb in order to accomplish numerous other tasks; due to such interruptions, Michelangelo worked on the tomb for 40 years without ever finishing it. One such interrupting task was the painting twelve figures of apostles and some decorations on the ceiling of the Vatican's Sistine Chapel which took four years to complete (1508 – 1512). The request of the Pope is believed to have something to do with an attempt to damage the reputation of Michelangelo by Raphael because Michelangelo was his open rival, and because he had not previously painted frescos Raphael thought Michelangelo would fail. However the painting became one of the most famous of his monumental works. Michelangelo was employed to paint only the 12 Apostles, but when the work was completed there were more than 300 figures from the bible. His figures showed the Creation (theology) creation, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and the Deluge (mythology) Great Flood. On the lowest part of the Sistine ceiling he painted the ancestors of Christ. Above this he alternated male and female prophets, with Jonah over the altar. On the highest section Michelangelo painted nine stories from the Genesis Book of Genesis. To be able to reach the chapel's ceiling, Michelangelo designed his own scaffold; a flat wooden platform on brackets built out from holes in the wall, high up near the top of the windows. He stood on this scaffolding while he painted. When the first layer of plaster began to grow mold because it was too wet, Michelangelo had to remove it and start again. He then tried a new mixture of plaster, called wiktionary:intonaco intonaco, created by one of his assistants, Jacopo l'Indaco. This one not only resisted mold, but also entered the Italian building tradition (and is still now in use). Michelangelo used bright colors, easily visible from the floor.

Under Medici Popes in Florence
Image:MichaelangeloMoses20020315.jpg Moses (Michelangelo) thumb|Michelangelo's ''[[Moses (Michelangelo)|Moses''..html" title="Meaning of Moses.html" title="Meaning of thumb|Michelangelo's ''[[Moses (Michelangelo)|Moses">thumb|Michelangelo's ''[[Moses (Michelangelo)|Moses''.">Moses.html" title="Meaning of thumb|Michelangelo's ''[[Moses (Michelangelo)|Moses">thumb|Michelangelo's ''[[Moses (Michelangelo)|Moses''. In 1513 Pope Julius II died and his successor Pope Leo X, a Medici, commissioned Michelangelo to reconstruct the faÃ§ade of the Basilica di San Lorenzo di Firenze basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence and to adorn it with sculptures. Michelangelo agreed reluctantly. The three years he spent in creating drawings and models for the facade, as well as attempting to open a new marble quarry at Pietrasanta specifically for the project, were among the most frustrating in his career, as work was abruptly cancelled by his financially-strapped patrons before any real progress had been made. Apparently not the least embarrassed by this turnabout, the Medici later came back to Michelangelo with another grand proposal, this time for a family funerary chapel in the Basilica di San Lorenzo di Firenze basilica of San Lorenzo. Fortunately for posterity, this project, occupying the artist for much of the 1520s and 1530s, was more fully realized. Though still incomplete, it is the best example we have of the integration of the artist's sculptural and architectural vision, since Michelangelo created both the major sculptures as well as the interior plan. Ironically the most prominent tombs are those of two rather obscure Medici who died young, a son and grandson of Lorenzo. Lorenzo de' Medici Il Magnifico himself is buried in an obscure corner of the chapel, not given a free-standing monument, as originally intended. Image:Last judgement.jpg Saint Bartholomew.html" title="Meaning of thumbnail thumbnail|left|200px|Michelangelo's ''The Last Judgement''. [[Saint Bartholomew is shown holding the knife of his martyrdom and his flayed skin. The face of the skin is recognizable as Michelangelo..html" title="Meaning of left|200px|Michelangelo's ''The Last Judgement''. [[Saint Bartholomew">thumbnail|left|200px|Michelangelo's ''The Last Judgement''. [[Saint Bartholomew is shown holding the knife of his martyrdom and his flayed skin. The face of the skin is recognizable as Michelangelo.">left|200px|Michelangelo's ''The Last Judgement''. [[Saint Bartholomew">thumbnail|left|200px|Michelangelo's ''The Last Judgement''. [[Saint Bartholomew is shown holding the knife of his martyrdom and his flayed skin. The face of the skin is recognizable as Michelangelo. In 1527, the Florentine citizens, encouraged by the sack of Rome (1527) sack of Rome, threw out the Medici and restored the republic. A siege of the city ensued, and Michelangelo went to the aid of his beloved Florence by working on the city's fortifications from 1528 to 1529. The city fell in 1530 and the Medici were restored to power. Completely out of sympathy with the repressive reign of the ducal Medici, Michelangelo left Florence for good in the mid-1530s, leaving assistants to complete the Medici chapel. Years later his body was brought back from Rome for interment, fulfilling the maestro's last request to be buried in his beloved Tuscany. Image:Petersdom von Engelsburg gesehen.jpg St. Peter's Basilica.html" title="Meaning of thumb thumb|Michelangelo designed the dome of [[St. Peter's Basilica, although it was unfinished when he died..html" title="Meaning of Michelangelo designed the dome of [[St. Peter's Basilica">thumb|Michelangelo designed the dome of [[St. Peter's Basilica, although it was unfinished when he died.">Michelangelo designed the dome of [[St. Peter's Basilica">thumb|Michelangelo designed the dome of [[St. Peter's Basilica, although it was unfinished when he died.

Last works in Rome
The fresco of ''The Last Judgment'' on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel was commissioned by Pope Paul III, and Michelangelo labored on the project from 1534 to October 1541. Once completed, the depictions of nakedness in the papal chapel was considered obscene and sacrilegeous, and Cardinal Carafa and Monsignor Sernini (Mantua Mantua's ambassador) campaigned to have the fresco removed or censored, but the Pope resisted. After Michelangelo's death, it was decided to obscure the genitals (''"Pictura in Cappella Ap.ca coopriantur"''). So Daniele da Volterra, an apprentice of Michelangelo, was commimssioned to cover with sort of perizomas (briefs) the genitals, leaving unaltered the complex of bodies (see details[http://www.kfki.hu/~arthp/art/m/michelan/3sistina/lastjudg/0lastjud.jpg]). When the work was restored in 1993, the restorers chose not to remove all the perizomas of Daniele, leaving some of them as a historical document. A faithful uncensored copy of the original, by Marcello Venusti, can be seen at the Museo di Capodimonte Capodimonte Museum of Naples. Censorship always followed Michelangelo, once described as "inventor delle porcherie" ("inventor of obscenities", in the original Italian language referring to "pork things"). The infamous "fig-leaf campaign" of the Counter-Reformation, aiming to cover all representations of human genitals in paintings and sculptures, started with Michelangelo's works. To give two examples, the bronze [actually, marble] statue of ''Cristo della Minerva'' (church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome) was covered by a pan, as it remains today, and the statue of the naked child Jesus in ''Madonna of Bruges'' (The Church of Our Lady in Bruges, Belgium) remained covered for several decades. In 1546, Michelangelo was appointed architect of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, and designed its dome. As St. Peter's was progressing there was concern that Michelangelo would pass away before the dome was finished. Once they started building the lower part of the dome, the supporting ring, they knew that the whole design would rise as there would be no way to turn back.

Michelangelo the architect

Laurentian Library
Around 1530 Michelangelo designed the Laurentian Library in Florence, attached to the church of San Lorenzo. He produced new styles such as pilasters tapering thinner at the bottom, and a staircase with contrasting rectangular and curving forms.

Medici Chapel
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Palazzo Farnese, Rome Palazzo Farnese
Work on the Palazzo Farnese was begun by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, who was commissioned by Pope Paul III Farnese. Michelangelo took over the works in 1546 after the death of Sangallo. After the death of Julius II building was halted. His successor, Pope Paul III, appointed Michelangelo as chief architect following the death of Antonio de Sangallo in 1546. Michelangelo actually razed some sections of the church designed by Sangallo in keeping with the original design by St Peter's first architect, Donato Bramante (1444–1514). However the only elements built according to Michelangelo's designs are sections of the rear facade and the magnificent dome. After his death his student Giacomo della Porta continued with the unfinished portions of the church.

Michelangelo at the Campidoglio
Michelangelo's first designs for solving the intractable urbanistic, symbolic, political and propaganda program for the Campidoglio dated from 1536. The commission was from the Farnese Pope Paul III, who wanted a symbol of the new Rome to impress the emperor and King of Spain Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who was expected to visit the city in 1538. The hill was the Capitoline Hill Capitoline, the heart of pagan Rome, though that connection was largely obscured by its other role as the center of the civic government of Rome, revived as a History of Rome commune in the 11th century. The city's government was now to be firmly in papal control, but the Campidoglio was the former scene of many movements of urban resistance, such as the dramatic scenes of Cola di Rienzo's revived republic. Approximately in the middle, not to Michelangelo's liking, now stood the only equestrian bronze to have survived since Antiquity, portrayin emperor Marcus Aurelius. Michelangelo provided an unassuming pedestal for it. It was slow work: little was actually completed in Michelangelo's lifetime, but work continued faithfully to his designs. The Campidoglio was completed in the 17th century, except for the elegant paving design, which was to be finished only three centuries later. Michelangelo effectively turned Romeâ€™s civic center to face in the direction of St. Peters, and the Christian church. He provided new fronts to the two official buildings of Rome's civic government, which very approximately faced each other, the Palazzo dei Conservatori and the Palazzo Senatorio. The latter had been built over the ''Tabularium'' that had once housed the archives of ancient Rome, and which now houses the Capitoline Museums, the oldest museum of antiquities of the world. Michelangelo devised a monumental stair (the ''Cordonata'') to reach the high piazza, so that the Campidoglio resolutely turned its back on the Roman Forum Forum that it had once commanded. He gave the space a new building at the far end, to close the vista, called Palazzo Nuovo, "new palace," and its facade was thought by Michelangelo as an exact copy to that of Palazzo dei Conservatori. It was begun in 1603 and finished in 1654. The ''Cordonata'' is a ramped stair that can be accessed on horseback by the sufficiently great, though it was not in place when Emperor Charles arrived, and the imperial party had to scramble up the slope from the Forum to view the works in progress. The unfolding sequence, ''Cordonata'' piazza and the central palazzo are the first urban introduction of the "cult of the axis" that will occupy Italian garden plans and reach fruition in France (Giedion 1962). The two massive ancient statues of Castor and Pollux which decorate the balaustra are not the same posed by Michelangelo, which now are in front of the Palazzo del Quirinale. The ''Palazzo dei Conservatori'' was the first use of a giant order that spanned two storeys, here with a range of Corinthian order Corinthian pilasters and subsidiary Ionic order Ionic columns flanking the ground-floor loggia openings and the second-floor windows. Another giant order would serve later for the exterior of St Peter's. A balustrade punctuated by sculptures atop the giant pilasters capped the composition, one of the most influential of Michelangelo's designs. The sole arched motif in the entire design is the segmental pediments over the windows, which give a slight spring to the completely angular vertical-horizontal balance of the design. Image:CampidoglioEng.jpg Ã‰tienne DupÃ©rac.html" title="Meaning of thumb thumb|right|250px|Michelangelo's systematizing of the Campidoglio, engraved by [[Ã‰tienne DupÃ©rac, 1568..html" title="Meaning of right|250px|Michelangelo's systematizing of the Campidoglio, engraved by [[Ã‰tienne DupÃ©rac">thumb|right|250px|Michelangelo's systematizing of the Campidoglio, engraved by [[Ã‰tienne DupÃ©rac, 1568.">right|250px|Michelangelo's systematizing of the Campidoglio, engraved by [[Ã‰tienne DupÃ©rac">thumb|right|250px|Michelangelo's systematizing of the Campidoglio, engraved by [[Ã‰tienne DupÃ©rac, 1568. The bird's-eye view of the engraving by Ã‰tienne DupÃ©rac shows Michelangelo's solution to the problems of the space in the ''Campidoglio Piazza del Campidoglio''. Even with their new facades centering them on the new palazzo at the rear, the space was a trapezoid, and the facades did not face each other squarely. Worse than that, the whole site sloped (to the left in the engraving). Michelangelo's solution was radical. Since no "perfect" forms would work, his apparent oval in the paving is actually egg-shaped, narrower at one end. The travertine design set into the paving is perfectly level: around its perimeter, low steps arise and die away into the paving as the slope requires. Its center springs slightly, so that one senses that one is standing on the exposed segment of a gigantic egg all but buried at the center of the city at the center of the world, as Michelangelo's historian Charles de Tolnay pointed out (Charles De Tolnay, 1930). An interlaced twelve-pointed star makes a subtle reference to the constellations, revolving around this space called ''Caput mundi'', the "head of the world." The paving design was never executed by the popes, who may have detected a subtext of less-than-Christian import. Benito Mussolini ordered the paving completed to Michelangelo's design — in 1940.

Michelangelo the man
Image:David.Statue.Perspective.jpg David (Michelangelo) thumb|170px|Michelangelo's ''[[David (Michelangelo)|David'' statue, in Florence..html" title="Meaning of David.html" title="Meaning of thumb|170px|Michelangelo's ''[[David (Michelangelo)|David">thumb|170px|Michelangelo's ''[[David (Michelangelo)|David'' statue, in Florence.">David.html" title="Meaning of thumb|170px|Michelangelo's ''[[David (Michelangelo)|David">thumb|170px|Michelangelo's ''[[David (Michelangelo)|David'' statue, in Florence. Michelangelo, who was often arrogant with others and constantly unsatisfied with himself, thought that art originated from inner inspiration and from culture. In contradiction to the ideas of his rival, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo saw nature as an enemy that had to be overcome. The figures that he created are therefore in forceful movement; each is in its own space apart from the outside world. For Michelangelo, the job of the sculptor is to free the forms that, he believed, were already inside the stone. This can most vividly be seen in his unfinished statuary figures, which to many appear to be struggling to free themselves from the stone. He also instilled into his figures a sense of moral cause for action. A good example of this can be seen in the facial expression of his most famous work, the marble statue ''Michelangelo's David David''. Arguably his second most famous work is the fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel which is a synthesis of architecture, sculpture & painting. His Last Judgement, also in the Sistine Chapel, is a depiction of extreme crisis. Several anecdotes reveal that Michelangelo's skill, especially in sculpture, was deeply appreciated in his own time. It is said that when still a young apprentice, he had made a pastiche of a Roman statue (''Il Putto Dormiente'', the sleeping child) of such beauty and perfection, that it was later sold in Rome as an ancient Roman original. Another better-known anecdote claims that when finishing the Moses (San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome), Michelangelo violently hit the knee of the statue with a hammer, shouting, "Why don't you speak to me?"

Love life
"The world seems unable to take interest in a man unless it can contrive to discover a love-affair in his career," wrote John Addington Symonds in ''The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti'', (1893): still, fundamental to Michelangelo's art is his love of male beauty which attracted him both aesthetically and emotionally. Such feelings caused him great anguish, and he expressed the struggle between platonic ideals and carnal desire in his sculpture, drawing and his poetry, too, for among his other accomplishments Michelangelo was the great Italian lyric poet of the 16th century. The sculptor loved a great many youths, many of whom posed for him. Some were of high birth, like the sixteen year old Cecchino dei Bracci, a boy of exquisite beauty whose death, only a year after their meeting in 1543, inspired the writing of forty eight funeral wiktionary:epigram epigrams. Others were street wise and took advantage of the sculptor. Febbo di Poggio, in 1532, peddled his charms — in answer to Michelangelo's love poem he asks for money. Earlier, Gherardo Perini, in 1522, had stolen from him shamelessly. His greatest male love was Tommaso dei Cavalieri (c. 1509–1587), who was 23 years old when Michelangelo met him in 1532, at the age of 57. In their first exchange of letters, January 1, 1533, Michelangelo declares: ''Your lordship, only worldly light in this age of ours, you can never be pleased with another man's work for there is no man who resembles you, nor one to equal you… It grieves me greatly that I cannot recapture my past, so as to longer be at your service. As it is, I can only offer you my future, which is short, for I am too old… That is all I have to say. Read my heart for "the quill cannot express good will." '' Cavalieri was open to the older man's affection: ''I swear to return your love. Never have I loved a man more than I love you, never have I wished for a friendship more than I wish for yours.'' Cavalieri remained devoted to Michelangelo till the very end, holding his hand as he drew his last breath. Michelangelo dedicated to him over three hundred sonnets and wiktionary:madrigal madrigals, constituting the largest sequence of poems composed by him. Though some modern commentators assert that the relationship was merely a Platonic affection, the sonnets are the first large sequence of poems in any modern tongue addressed by one man to another, predating Shakespeare's sonnets to his young friend by a good fifty years. :''I feel as lit by fire a cold countenance'' :''That burns me from afar and keeps itself ice-chill;'' :''A strength I feel two shapely arms to fill'' :''Which without motion moves every balance.'' :::— (Michael Sullivan, translation) The homoeroticism of Michelangelo's poetry was obscured when his grand nephew, Michelangelo the Younger, published an edition of the poetry in 1623 with the gender of pronouns changed. John Addington Symonds undid this change by translating the original sonnets into English and writing a two-volume biography, published in 1893. Late in life, he also had a great love for the poet and noble widow Vittoria Colonna, whom he met in Rome in 1536 or 1538. They wrote sonnets for each other and were in regular contact until she died, though many scholars note the intellectualized or spiritual quality of this passion. Image:God2-Sistine Chapel.png Creation of Adam.html" title="Meaning of thumb thumb|350px|The ''[[Creation of Adam'', Michelangelo's most famous painting..html" title="Meaning of 350px|The ''[[Creation of Adam">thumb|350px|The ''[[Creation of Adam'', Michelangelo's most famous painting.">350px|The ''[[Creation of Adam">thumb|350px|The ''[[Creation of Adam'', Michelangelo's most famous painting.

Works summary

Sculpture
*''Madonna of the Steps Madonna of the Steps (Madonna of the Stairs)'' (c. 1491) — Marble, 55,5 × 40 cm, Casa Buonarroti, Florence *''Battle of the Centaurs'' (c. 1492) — Marble, 84,5 × 90,5 cm, Casa Buonarroti, Florence *''Crucifix (Michelangelo) Crucifix'' (1492) — Polychrome wood, 142 × 135 cm, Santa Maria del Santo Spirito, Florence *''St. Petronius (Michelangelo) St. Petronius'' (1494–1495) — Marble, height 64 cm, San Domenico di Bologna San Domenico, Bologna *''St. Proclus (Michelangelo) St. Proclus'' (1494–1495) — Marble, height 58,5 cm, San Domenico di Bologna San Domenico, Bologna *''Angel (Michelangelo) Angel'' (1494–1495) — Marble, height 51,5 cm, San Domenico di Bologna San Domenico, Bologna *''Bacchus (Michelangelo) Bacchus'' (1496–1497) — Marble, height 203 cm, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence *''PietÃ (Michelangelo) PietÃ '' (1499–1500) Marble, height 174 cm, width at the base 195 cm, St. Peter's Basilica, Rome *''Palestrina PietÃ '' (?) — Marble, height 253 cm, Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence *''Madonna of Bruges Madonna and Child (Madonna of Bruges)'' (1501–1504) — Marble, height 128 cm, Notre-Dame, Bruges Notre-Dame, Bruges *''Michelangelo's works of Siena St. Paul'' (1503–1504) Marble, Duomo di Siena Cathedral, Siena *''Michelangelo's works of Siena St. Peter'' (1503–1504) Marble, Duomo di Siena Cathedral, Siena *''Michelangelo's works of Siena Pius'' (1503–1504) Marble, Duomo di Siena Cathedral, Siena *''Taddei Madonna Madonna and Child with the Infant St. John (Taddei Tondo)'' (c. 1503) — Marbel, diameter 82,5 cm, Royal Academy of Arts, London *''Pitti Madonna Madonna and Child (Tondo Pitti)'' (c. 1503) — 85,8 × 82 cm, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence *''St. Matthew (Michelangelo) St. Matthew'' (c. 1505) — Marble, height 271 cm, Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence *'''The Tomb of Pope Julius II''' (Underwent six different phases, in 1505, 1513, 1516, 1525–1526, 1532 and 1542) **''Moses (Michelangelo) Moses'' (c. 1513–1515) — San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome **''[http://www.people.vcu.edu/-djbromle/portrait04/paul/slavesbymichelangelo.htm Rebellious Slave]'' (1513–1516) — Louvre, Paris **''[http://www.vcu.edu/-djbromle/portrait04/paul/slavesbymichangelo.htm Dying Slave]'' (1513–1516) — Louvre, Paris **''[http://www.mega.it/eng/egui/monu/sristrut.htm The Genius of Victory]'' (c. 1532–1534) — Marble, height 261 cm, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence **''[http://www.people.vcu.edu/-djbromle/portrait04/paul/slavesbymichelangelo.htm Young Slave'', ''Bearded Slave'', ''Atlas Slave'', ''Awakening Slave''], — Accademia, Florence **[http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/m/michelan/1sculptu/giulio_2/index.html''Rachael''] **[http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/m/michelan/1sculptu/giulio_2/index.html''Leah''] *'''The Medici Chapel''' (1520–1534) Basilica di San Lorenzo di Firenze Basilica of San Lorenzo, Florence **Tomb of Giuliano de' Medici, ''Night'' and ''Day'' **Tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici, ''Evening'' and ''Morning'' **''Virgin and Child'' *''David (Michelangelo) David'' (1501-1504) *''Apollo (Michelangelo) Apollo (David)'' (c. 1530) — Marble, height 146 cm, Museo Nazionale del Bargello *''Cristo della Minerva Cristo della Minerva (Christ Carrying the Cross)'' (1519–1520) — Marble, height 205 cm, church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, Rome *''Michelangelo's Brutus Brutus'' (1540) — Marble, height 95 cm, Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence *''The Deposition (Michelangelo) Florentine PietÃ '' (c. 1550) — Marble, height 253 cm, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence *''Rondanini PietÃ '' (unfinished, 1552–1564) — Marble, height 195 cm, Castello Sforzesco, Milan

Painting
*''[http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/m/michelan/4drawing/cascina/cascina1.html The Battle of Cascina]'', an unfinished fresco that was to be painted in competition with Leonardo Da Vinci's ''[http://www.anghiari.it/english/s2/d1D.htm The Battle of Anghiari]'' *''Holy Family of the Tribune Holy Family of the Tribune (Doni Tondo)'' (c. 1503–1506) — Tempera on panel, diameter 120 cm, Uffizi, Florence *''Sistine Chapel Histories of the Genesis, the Ancestors of Christ, Prophets and Sybils (Sistine Chapel Ceiling)'' (1508–1512) Frescoes, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Palace, Rome *''Last Judgment The Last Judgment'' (1534–1541) — Fresco, 1370 × 1220 cm, Sistine Chapel, Vatican Palace, Rome *''The Martyrdom of St. Peter'' (1542–1550) — Fresco, 625 × 662 cm, Cappella Paolina, Vatican Palace, Rome *''The Conversion of St. Paul'' (1542–1550) — Fresco, 625 × 661 cm, Cappella Paolina, Vatican Palace, Rome

See also
*Cappella Paolina *Sistine Chapel ceiling *List of painters *List of Italian painters *List of famous Italians *Historical pederastic relationships

Compare
*Michelangelo (TMNT), a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) character named after him, the turtle with the orange band in most TMNT versions. *3001 Michelangelo Asteroid 3001 Michelangelo, named after the artist

Further reading
{{wikiquote}} *Umberto Baldini, (photography Liberto Perugi), ''The Sculpture of Michelangelo'' (Rizzoli, 1982) is an excellent work with many fine photos, all in black and white. * Michael H. Hart, ''The 100'', Carol Publishing Group, July 1992, paperback, 576 pages, ISBN 0806513500 *Charles De Tolnay, ''Michelangelo: Scultor, Painter, Architect''. Princeton University Press, 1975, page 119. *Charles de Tolnay, "BeitrÃ¤ge zu den spÃ¤ten Architechtonischen Projekten Michwelangelos," in ''Jahrbuch der Preussischen Kunstsammlungen'' 1930, p.26 noted in Siegfried Giedion, ''Space, Time and Architecture'' 1962. *Irving Stone, ''The Agony and the Ecstasy: A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo'' Publisher: Signet Book, paperback: 776 pages, ISBN 0451171357 *James S. Ackerman, ''The Architecture of Michelangelo''. The University of Chicago Press, 1986.

External links

- Michelangelo Buonarroti's Paintings
- Michelangelo's David in Florence virtual reality movie and pictures
- Photographs of details at the Campidoglio *{{cite web|url=http://michelangelo.com/buonarroti.html| title=Michelangelo Buonarroti Website| work=Neil R. Bonner, ed., 14 December 2001, Michelangelo.COM, Inc.| accessyear=2005|accessdate=March 8}}
- Photo Gallery of Works
- "The Michelangelo Code", suggesting Michelangelo's coded use of his knowledge of anatomy *{{gutenberg author| id=Michelangelo+Buonarroti | name=Michelangelo Buonarroti}}
- A Most Famous Work of ArtMOVIE [http://blip.tv/file/get/ChrisFromCafeSien-aMostFamous594.mov Quicktime ]Or[http://cafesiena.dreamhosters.com/a_most_famous.wmv Windows]
- Kids IQ Test CenterA nice essay on Michalangelo.
- How Filled with Joy, Happy and Well-Informed... A sonnet by Michelangelo. Translated by Gilbert Wesley Purdy.
- To return there where once appeared beforeâ€¦ A sonnet by Michelangelo. Translated by Gilbert Wesley Purdy.
- The Digital Michelangelo Project
- The BP Special Exhibition Michelangelo Drawings - closer to the master Category:Michelangelo *Michelangelo Category:1475 births Category:1564 deaths Category:Natives of Tuscany Category:Italian architects Category:Italian poets Category:Italian sculptors Category:Renaissance architects Category:Renaissance painters Category:Renaissance sculptors Category:Roman Catholic Church art Category:Tuscan painters Category:Gay artists Category:Left-handed people {{Link FA|hu}} {{Link FA|it}} {{Link FA|sk}} {{Link FA|sl}} ar:Ù…Ø§ÙŠÙƒÙ„ Ø¢Ù†Ø¬Ù„Ùˆ bg:ÐœÐ¸ÐºÐµÐ»Ð°Ð½Ð´Ð¶ÐµÐ»Ð¾ Ð‘ÑƒÐ¾Ð½Ð°Ñ€Ð¾Ñ‚Ð¸ ca:Michelangelo Buonarroti da:Michelangelo Buonarroti de:Michelangelo eo:MikelanÄ?elo es:Miguel Ã?ngel et:Michelangelo fi:Michelangelo fr:Michel-Ange gl:Michelangelo he:×ž×™×›×œ×?× ×’'×œ×• ×‘×•×?×•× ×¨×•×˜×™ hu:Michelangelo Buonarroti id:Michelangelo Buonarroti io:Michelangelo it:Michelangelo Buonarroti ja:ãƒŸã‚±ãƒ©ãƒ³ã‚¸ã‚§ãƒãƒ»ãƒ–ã‚ªãƒŠãƒãƒ¼ãƒ†ã‚£ ko:ë¯¸ì¼ˆëž€ì ¤ë¡œ li:Michelangelo Buonarroti lt:MikelandÅ¾elas nl:Michelangelo Buonarroti no:Michelangelo Buonarroti pl:MichaÅ‚ AnioÅ‚ pt:Michelangelo Buonarroti ro:Michelangelo Buonarroti ru:Ð‘ÑƒÐ¾Ð½Ð°Ñ€Ñ€Ð¾Ñ‚Ð¸, ÐœÐ¸ÐºÐµÐ»Ð°Ð½Ð´Ð¶ÐµÐ»Ð¾ simple:Michelangelo Buonarroti sk:Michelangelo Buonarroti sl:Michelangelo sr:ÐœÐ¸ÐºÐµÐ»Ð°Ð½Ñ’ÐµÐ»Ð¾ Ð‘ÑƒÐ¾Ð½Ð°Ñ€Ð¾Ñ‚Ð¸ sv:Michelangelo Buonarroti th:à¸¡à¸µà¹€à¸?à¸¥à¸±à¸™à¹€à¸ˆà¹‚à¸¥ à¸šà¸±à¸§à¸™à¸²à¸£à¹Œà¹‚à¸£à¸•à¸µ tl:Michelangelo Buonarroti tr:Michelangelo Buonarroti uk:ÐœÑ–ÐºÐµÐ»Ð°Ð½Ð´Ð¶ÐµÐ»Ð¾ Ð‘ÑƒÐ¾Ð½Ð°Ñ€Ð¾Ñ‚Ñ‚Ñ– zh:ç±³å¼€æœ—åŸºç½— {{commons|Michelangelo}} :''The main article for this category is '''Michelangelo''''' Category:Italian architects Category:Italian sculptors Category:Tuscan painters Category:Renaissance artists

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