Renaissance Man: The Essential Michelangelo Facts

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simon (1475-1564) considered to be one of the greatest artists who ever lived. He earned this reputation not just through this work—which was extraordinary, of course—but also through his lifelong refusal to be pigeonholed on this quest for greatness. Michelangelo facts that are best known today tend to focus on his work as a sculptor or a painter; however, in his lifetime he explored and mastered a number of art forms, including architecture and poetry. In fact, it is through these other mediums that contemporary scholars are able to form a clearer picture of the man behind the Pietà and the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

Early Life

Michelangelo was born and raised in Florence. He identified strongly as Florentine throughout his life, despite spending a large amount of his time in Rome working on commissions. An interesting Michelangelo fact is that by pursuing his chosen career, the young artist was going against the wishes of his father (who wanted his son to enter into the traditional family business of banking). Michelangelo’s teenage rebellion was cemented when he began an artist apprenticeship at thirteen. Barely two years after this, he was taken under the wealthy and frighteningly influential wing of Lorenzo de Medici, who sponsored the talented young man through his first forays into marble sculpture. Michelangelo did not let Medici’s patronage go to waste; by the time he was sixteen, he had already developed a distinctive style in both his paintings and his sculptures, and was not far off from creating some of his most celebrated surviving works.

The Painter and Sculptor

 When the powerful Medici family was overthrown in 1494 following the invasion of Charles VIII of France, Michelangelo relocated to Bologna until the political dust settled. He forged a solid reputation as a sculptor during his few years there—so much so that he was invited to Rome by Raffaele Riario in 1496. It was here that Michelangelo sculpted what many consider to be his masterpiece, at only twenty-two years old. His Pietà, which shows the Virgin Mary cradling her son after the crucifixion, is thought to be one of the most flawlessly-executed marble sculptures ever created. Michelangelo returned to his hometown in 1501 and created his other famous sculpture, the imposing David, which became a Florentine landmark almost instantly. Though the original David is safe in a museum, a duplicate of the statue still overlooks the main square of the city.

 Rome called again in 1505, when Pope Julius II requested Michelangelo’s work for the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. One of the lesser-known Michelangelo facts is that the choice to portray scenes from Genesis was his own; the Pope’s commission had originally called for depictions of the twelve apostles. The ceiling took four years, between 1508 and 1512, and comprises some of the finest frescoes of the Renaissance period. In 1541, Michelangelo left his mark again on the Sistine Chapel when he completed the Last Judgment, a huge and fascinating fresco on the chapel’s alter wall.

The Architect

Just as Albert Einstein’s contributions cannot be confined to any one genre or discipline, Michelangelo’s legacy extends past sculptures and frescoes and into the dynamic world of Renaissance architecture. He was a driving force of Early Mannerism, an artistic philosophy which eventually replaced the High Renaissance ideals of balance and natural settings with a more personalized, stylistic approach. This is apparent in his design of the Laurentian Library, which rejects the classical forms in favor of embellishment and personal expression.

Michelangelo’s most prominent architectural achievement might be St. Peter’s Basilica, in Vatican City. After the original architect died, the Pope commissioned Michelangelo to finish the Basilica according to the existing design. Of course, he added his own embellishments, including the dome at the top—one of the most beautiful and distinctive characteristics of the structure.

The Poet

Michelangelo was reportedly dismissive of his poems. However, they are invaluable today as artistic criticism of the most intimate kind. His Mannerist philosophy comes through strongly in this translation of a sonnet fragment: “As I draw my soul, which sees through the eyes, closer to beauty as I first saw it, the image therein grows, and the other recedes as though unworthily and without any value” (Clements 326). When he created his marble forms, Michelangelo sought to depict not the physical particulars of a human body, but rather the divine beauty that was organically revealed to him in the process. His poems suggest that the “truth” of this beauty trumps measurable reality, which explains why some of his works display unrealistic human proportions for greater artistic effect (330). Michelangelo writes about seeing inside of things—past how they would appear to the untrained eye and straight into what they ought to be, in a more beautiful world.

Sources & Links:

Beck, James H., Ph.D. “Michelangelo.” Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia.

Clements, Robert J. “Eye, Mind, and Hand in Michelangelo’s Poetry.” PMLA 69.1 (1954): 324-36.

Lerner, Adrienne Wilmoth. "Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni." Science and

Its Times. Ed. Neil Schlager and Josh Lauer. Vol. 3: 1450 to 1699. Detroit: Gale, 2001. 473-475.

Michelangelo Facts, http://www.educategreatness.com/blog/michelangelo-facts.html