\paperw19995 \margr0\margl0 \plain \fs20 \f1 Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet.\par
The young Michelangelo, descendant of an old Florentine family, initially studied
the humanities but soon began to display an extraordinary bent for art. He finally chose to serve an apprenticeship in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio. He became part of the intellectual circle around Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence, giving him the
opportunity to study the princeÆs collection of ancient statuary. The drawings he made after Giotto and Masaccio, along with his early works of sculpture (\i Madonna della Scala\i0 and \i Battle of the Centaurs\i0 , Florence, Casa Buonarroti) reveal the
interests of the young artist. Michelangelo left Florence in 1494, moving first to Bologna and then, in 1496, to Rome. During the first decade of his activity in Rome he established a reputation, though not even thirty years old, as one of the greatest
artists of his time. Along with the \i Pietα\i0 carved for St. PeterÆs, the works from this period include the \i Taddei Tondo\i0 (London, Royal Academy), the \i Madonna and Child\i0 that was sent to Bruges, and the \i David\i0 (Florence, Gallerie de
llÆAccademia). In 1505 the artist received the commission to make a grandiose sepulchral monument for Julius II û a project that, after almost forty years of work and argument, was never completed. In 1506, after a series of disputes with Julius II over
this tomb, he left Rome, and was then obliged to go to Bologna to meet the pope, where he executed a statue of him that was destroyed a few years later. In 1508 the contract was signed for the decoration of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatica
n. Here Michelangelo created a painted architectural structure on a vast scale, inspired by the actual shape of the vault, in which he set figures of \i Prophets\i0 and \i Sibyls\i0 , arranged around nine \i Scenes from Genesis\i0 in the central strip.
In 1513, after Julius IIÆs death, the artist signed a second contract for the popeÆs tomb. He carved two figures of \i Slaves\i0 (Paris, Louvre) and one of \i Moses\i0 for the monument, of which a smaller version was to be set up in the church of San
Pietro in Vincoli at Rome. In the 1520s he was at work on the Florentine church of San Lorenzo; in addition to the designs for the incomplete facade, he built both the New Sacristy as a counterpart to the one by Filippo Brunelleschi and the Biblioteca La
urenziana. In the sacristy he carved the Medici Tombs, in which the heroic representation of Giuliano and Lorenzo de' Medici reached new heights of formal composure and reflection on human dignity. After the sack of Rome in 1527 and the expulsion of the
Medici family from Florence, the artist played an important role in the government of the Florentine Republic. In 1530, on the return of the ruling family, he received a pardon from Clement VII, who called him back to Rome. From 1536 onward, in fact, he
was engaged in the grandiose task of painting the \i Last Judgment\i0 and took responsibility for continuing the work on St. PeterÆs Basilica, where his decisive contribution is most evident in the dome. The sculptures of his last years, such as the \i
Rondanini Pietα\i0 , are penetrating meditations on human destiny, in which Michelangelo abandoned any attempt to achieve beauty of form in order to concentrate on his yearning for liberation. In fact the artistÆs figurative work was precisely mirrored i
n his philosophical reflections and poetry. His intense and multifaceted personality represents a synthesis of the grand sweep of the Renaissance.
