Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475–1564) was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, he was mostly active in Rome from his thirties onwards. His work drew on classical antiquity and had a lasting influence on Western art. Alongside his elder contemporary Leonardo da Vinci, he is regarded as an archetypal Renaissance man, and he is one of the best-documented artists of the 16th century.
Early life and training
Michelangelo was born in Caprese, near Arezzo, while his family's fortunes were declining. After his mother died when he was six, he was raised in Settignano, where his father owned a marble quarry, and this is where he developed his lifelong attachment to working stone. In Florence he trained under the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio and later studied at the Medici-sponsored Platonic Academy, whose humanist circle shaped his outlook. He also studied and copied the frescoes and sculptures of earlier Florentine masters.
Major works
Michelangelo achieved fame early, and two of his best-known works, the Pietà and David, were completed before he turned 30. Although he did not regard himself primarily as a painter, he produced two of the most influential frescoes in Western art: the scenes from Genesis on the Sistine Chapel ceiling in Rome and The Last Judgment on its altar wall. His design of the Laurentian Library pioneered Mannerist architecture. At 71 he took over as architect of St Peter's Basilica, and the dome was completed to a design that followed his own after his death.
Legacy
Michelangelo was the first Western artist whose biography was published during his lifetime, a work by Giorgio Vasari that presented him as the culmination of the revival of the arts. His contemporaries admired his terribilità, his capacity to inspire awe in viewers. Later artists who imitated the expressive physicality of his style helped give rise to Mannerism, a short-lived movement between the High Renaissance and the Baroque.