Michelangelo, the Genius Artist

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) was possibly the greatest artist that ever lived. Besides his inherent genius, which alone would have paved the road to his greatness, two events helped him rise even higher: to be born during the most fertile period in Western art in the most artistically developed country of the time: Renaissance Italy.

Not only was Michelangelo a sculptor — his preferred art — he was also a supreme fresco painter — The Creation and The Last Judgement, both in the Sistine Chapel are his — as well as an architect and poet.

He began his career in Florence while the city was at its height, under Lorenzo the Magnificent and moved to and fro Rome, soon to reach its apogee under a series of great popes: Julius II and Leon X, the latter a Medici and a Florentine.

Birth and Early Life

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, his full name, was born on 6 March 1475 at Caprese, while his father was still Podestà of Chiusi and Caprese, a charge he fulfilled until 30 March of the same year, after which the family returned to Settignano, not far from Florence. His mother was Francesca di Neri del Miniato del Sera, who died  in 1481, while Michelangelo was still a child.

At last, in 1488, his father gave in and, realising his son’s interest for painting could not be quenched, enrolled him in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio for a period of three years, where, against the normal practice of the times, Michelangelo received a salary.

Apparently it was during this period he began his career as a sculptor. He had access to the collection of Sculptures in the Medici Garden, a connection which eventually drew him into the Medici circle.

After the death of Julius II in 1513, the two Medici popes, Leo X (1513-21) and Clement VII (1523-34) preferred to keep Michelangelo well away from Rome and from the tomb of Julius II, so that he could work on the Medici church of San Lorenzo in Florence. This work was aborted too, although Michelangelo was able to fulfill some of his architectural and sculptural projects in the Laurentian Library and the New Sacristy, or Medici Chapel, of San Lorenzo. The Medici Chapel fell not far short of being completed: two of the Medici tombs intended for the Chapel were installed Tomb of Giuliano de' Medici and Tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici, and for the 3rd Michelangelo had carved his last great Madonna (unfinished) when he left Florence forever in 1534.
 

It was during this period, while he was planning the tombs in the New Sacristy, that the sacking of Rome occurred (1527), and when Florence was besieged shortly after, he helped in fortifying the city, which finally came back into Medici hands in 1530. While the siege was still on, he managed to get away for a while to look after his own property. He incurred the displeasure of Alessandro de Medici, who was murdered by Lorenzino in 1537. This event he commemorated in his bust of Brutus.
 

In September 1534, Michelangelo settled down finally in Rome, and he was to stay there for the rest of his life, despite flattering invitations from Cosimo I Medici at Florence. The new Pope, a Farnese who took the name of Paul III, confirmed the commission that Clement VII had already given him for a large fresco of The Last Judgment over the altar of the Sistine Chapel. Far from being an extension of the ceiling, this was entirely a novel statement. Between 2 projects about 20 years had passed, full of political events and personal sorrows. The mood of The Last Judgment is somber; the vengeful naked Christ is not a figure of consolation, and even the Saved struggle painfully towards Salvation. The work was officially unveiled on 31 October 1541.
 

Michelangelo's last paintings were frescos of the Cappella Paolina just beside the Sistine Chapel, completed in 1550, when he was 75 years old, The Conversion of Paul and The Crucifixion of St. Peter. Michelangelo's crowning achievement, however, was architectural. In 1537-39, he received commission to reshape Campidoglio, the top of Rome's Capitoline Hill, into a squire. Although not completed until long after his death, the project was carried out essentially as he had designed it. In 1546, Michelangelo was appointed architect to St. Peter's. The cathedral was constructed according to Donato Bramante’s plan, but Michelangelo became ultimately responsible for its dome and the altar end of the building on the exterior.
 

He continued in his last years to write poetry, he carved the two extraordinary, haunting and pathetic late Pietas, one of them The Rondanini Pieta in Milan, on which he was working 6 days before his death. He died on 18th of February 1564 at the age of 89 and was buried in Florence according to his wishes.
 

Michelangelo's prestige stands very high nowadays, as it did in his own age. He went out of favor for a time, especially in the 17th century, on account of a general preference for the works of Raphael, Correggio and Titian; but with the early Romantics in England, and the return to the Gothic, he made an impressive return. In the 20th century the unfinished, unresolved creations of the great master evoked especially great interest, maybe because in the 20th century “the aesthetic focus becomes not simply the created art object, but the inextricable relationship of the artist's personality and his work.”