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A True Renaissance Man
The gifted men of the Renaissance period sought to develop skills in areas such as art, science, physical development, math and social accomplishment. To describe a person as a "Renaissance man" is to say that person is well educated, or excels, in a wide variety of subjects or fields. Michelangelo, based on his accomplishments, can be considered the perfect example of a true Renaissance man.

Full Name: Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni; commonly known as Michelangelo Buonarroti
Time Period: Italian Renaissance
Occupation: primarily a painter and sculptor; also an architect, poet and engineer
Birth: March 6, 1475 in Caprese (near Arezzo, Tuscany)
Childhood: raised in Florence



Trivia
- Michelangelo's father sent him to study grammar with the humanist Francesco da Urbino in Florence as a young boy. He showed no interest in school, however, preferring instead to copy paintings from churches and spend time with painters.
- Michelangelo was apprenticed in painting with Domenico Ghirlandaio and in sculpture with Bertoldo di Giovanni. Michelangelo's father managed to persuade Ghirlandaio to pay the 14-year-old artist, which was highly unusual at the time
- In 1489, Florence's ruler Lorenzo de' Medici asked Ghirlandaio for his two best pupils to attend his school; Ghirlandaio sent Michelangelo and Francesco Granacci.
- the first Western artist whose biography was published while he was alive
- two of his best-known works, the Pietà and the David, were sculpted before he turned thirty
- while alive, he was also often called Il Divino ("the divine one")
- Michelangelo was able to study the human anatomy by studying corpses at the Church's hospital. Although this was strictly forbidden, Michelangelo was permitted to do so when he created a Wooden crucifix and gave it as a gift to the prior of the church of Santa Maria del Santo Spirito.

Famous Works

La Pietà
Pietà means pity in Italian. This was NOT the first Pietà, but perhaps the most famous. The Pietà depicts the Virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus after his Cruxification, and has been produced numerous times in art. Michelangelo's interpretation is different from most earlier pietà statues, which were usually small and made of wood. The Virgin is also more youthful-looking than usual.

The sculpture was carved from one single block of marble stone and was made by Michelangelo was only 24 years old (the year 1499).

This image and title has been used many times in movies, paintings, sculptures and other forms of art and culture. For example: the first officially recorded victim of the September 11th terrorist attacks was Father Mychal F. Judge, a Roman Catholic priest and Chaplain of New York's Fire Department. This image was called the American Pietà. The body of Father Mychal being carried out of the rubble by a policeman and four firefighters was captured in a photograph. This image, seen below, was dubbed the American Pietà.

Statue of David
Michelangelo was asked to carve a large statue portraying David as a symbol of Florentine freedom. This too, was also created from a single block of marble stone, that had been worked on before by an earlier hand. It was completed in 1504. It is 5.17 metres, or 17 feet long. It portrays the Biblical King David in the nude, at the moment that he decides to battle with Goliath.

David is based on the artistic discipline of disegno, which is built on knowledge of the male human form. It is regarded as a symbol both of strength and youthful human beauty.

Michelangelo carved David in contrapposto style. Contrapposto is an Italian term meaning "counterpoise", used in the visual arts to describe a human figure standing with most of its weight on one foot so that its shoulders and arms twist off-axis from the hips and legs.

The Sistine Chapel ceiling
Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling, a Chapel located in Vatican City. The painting technique employed was fresco, in which the paint is applied to damp plaster. Under the patronage of Pope Julius II, Michelangelo painted 12,000 square feet (1,100 m²) of the ceiling between 1508 and 1512. He resented the commission, belieiving his work only served the Pope's need for grandeur. However, today the ceiling is widely believed to be Michelangelo's crowning achievement.

Michelangelo created 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 to reach the ceiling.

St. Peter's Basilica

In 1546, Michelangelo was appointed chief architect for the reconstruction of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, Italy. St. Peter's Basilica is where the Pope currently resides in Vatican City. This is an example of Michelangelo's exceptional architectural skill. Michelangelo died in 1624, two years before the completion of the dome.

Image Credits
Wikipedia