Michelangelo

Michelangelo (Michelangelo Buonarroti; 1475–1564), Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet. As a child he was apprenticed to the Florentine painter Ghirlandaio; in adolescence he was a protégé of Lorenzo de Medici. He went to Rome in 1496, where his marble Pietà in Saint Peter's (1498–99) established him as the foremost living sculptor. In Florence Michelangelo sculpted the magnificent David (1501–04). In 1505 he returned to Rome to work on a sepulchral monument tomb for Pope Julius II. There he painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (1508–12), one of the most influential works in the history of art. After living in Florence (1515–34) and building the Medici Chapel and Laurentian Library for the Medici family and assisting as engineer in the defense of Florence, Michelangelo moved permanently to Rome. He painted the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel (1536–41) and was chief architect of Saint Peter's Basilica (1546–64). His architectural designs were influential throughout Italy and in France and England.

See also: Renaissance.