Michealangelo Buonarroti

Michelangelo Buonarroti, is a famous painter in the Early Renaissance era. Michelangelo was born in 1475-1564. Born on March 6, 1475, at Caprese in Tuscany. His fathers name was Ludovico di Leonardo di Buinarotto Simoni and mother Francesca Neri. Michelangelo’s mother died young when the child was only six years old. But even before then, Michealangelo’s childhood had been grim and lacking in affection, and he was always touchy and quick to respond with fierce words. He kept to himself mostly out of shyness, according to some. But the others believed he didn’t trust his fellow citizens of Caprese. I suppose the reason for his emotions toward his neighbors was because he was denied to be an artist by his father when he was young.

When Neri, his mother, couldn’t feed Michelangelo, she had a stone cutter wet nurse to feed Michelangelo. And from her he, “sucked in the craft of hammer and chisel with my foster mother’s milk. When I told my father that I wish to be an artist, he flew into a rage, ‘artists are laborers, no better than shoemakers.’” But his father did see a side of Michelangelo that no one else seen. The boy, at a young age, was very intelligent. Buinarotto wanted Michelangelo to learn to read and write and sent him to the school of a master, Francesco Galeota from Urbino who in that time taught grammar. Michelangelo studied Latin and made friends with a student, Francesco Granacci who was only six years older than himself, and was learning the art of painting in Ghirlandaio’s studio and told Michelangelo to do the same.

Michelangelo’s father was an official Florentine and he wanted to preserve what was left of the Medici family and was obsessed with his intentions. With a few properties and monies remaining Ludovico wanted Michelangelo to become a merchant or a businessman, thereby preserving the Buonarroti position in society.

However, when Michelangelo was 13 years old, told his father that he would continue his studies but in a different area. Wanting to be a painter, decided to become an apprentice of Domenico Ghiraldaio, Freancesco Galeota’s master and teacher. After about a year in fresco, Michelangelo started studying sculpture in the Medici gardens and a little afterwards, was invited to Lorenzo de’Medici, the Magnificent. There had been an opportunity to converse with the younger Medici, both became popes (Leo X and Clement VII). He also became acquainted with humanists like Marsilo Ficino and the poet Angelo Poliziano, frequent visitors of the Medici court.

Studies of Anatomy

During his years in the gardens of San Marco, Michelangelo was interested in human anatomy. Thus, his deeper studies of anatomy with human cadavers. Which, by the way, was strictly forbidden by the church. That’s why Victor Frankenstein was a mad man. Anyway, Michelangelo made a crucifix to the church of Santo Spirito, Niccoló.

By the time Michelangelo was 16 years old he had created two sculptures. The Battle of Centuars, and Madonna of the Stairs, both made between 1489-1492.

With the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent, Michelangelo continued with his studies. Lorenzo died in Italy in 1492. But within his time of being a famous person, he created a garden into a school, supporter of Marsilio Ficino and his Neoplatonic Academy with the philosophy teachings of Plato brought back to life.

By then Michelangelo was a successful artist and sculturer. Out of all his art work, The Creation of Adam, and Pieta are my all time fav’s.

Other things that some people don’t know about our dear Michelangelo was his outstanding temper, kinda like a talented Nepolean (Hee hee, ^_^’). People who know about his temper say it was proverbial. Pope Julius II even accompanied the thoughts of others about his temper. He told Sebastiano del Piombio that he, “is Terrible, as you see, you can do nothing with him.” Kind of wrong for a Pope to say don’t you think? Well, none of the less, it was true. Michelangelo was tipped over the smallest thing and make the biggest fusses over it. Spilt paint, ruined paintings (hey, I don’t blame the guy, I’m an artist my self, I have ruined paintings by your sib’s. >.< evil little twats!) Though painting was a great opportunity to show his ‘sensitive’ side, The Battle of Canscina, destined for the Sala dei Cinquecento of the Palazzo Cecchio, opposite of Leonardo’s battle of Anghiari, agreed to the temperamental man’s artistic talents.

In April 1508, Michelangelo started his mission on the Sistine Chapel. Julius II called him back to Rome to start his new project. The Sistene church was soon to be painted and Michelangelo wondered what parts of the bible he should use. He felt, Justice, Pain and anguish of the followers of the Dark Lord Lucifer. No? He thought some more, Justice would fit nicely in the church, the creation of man would be good to, the connection of the Omnipotent Father and Adam. Yes, they were all used in the Church ceiling. In the creation time of the church it took Michelangelo five years to completely accomplish ever 300 figures alone, that didn’t account for the amount of time to paint additional scenes, backgrounds and forging of an illusion of pillar forming into a wall. He was good at that. Starting from 1508 to 1512, the Sistine chapel was the only thing in Michelangelo’s life that mattered to him then. Of course he ate and slept, but barely.

Michelangelo was famous all around Italy and most of the world. Michelangelo’s style of painting can be seen in St. Ignatius’ Catholic Church, a wonderful Historic site.

The Tomb of Julius II

Before the assignment of the Sistine Ceiling in 1505, Michelangelo had been commissioned by Julius II to produce his tomb, which was planned to be the most magnificent of Christian times. It was to be located in the new Basilica of St. Peter's, then under construction. Michelangelo enthusiastically went ahead with the challenging project, which was to include more than 40 figures, spending months in the quarries to obtain the necessary Carrara marble. Due to a mounting shortage of money, however, the pope ordered him to put aside the tomb project in favor of painting the Sistine ceiling.

When Michelangelo went back to work on the tomb, he redesigned it on a much more modest scale. Nevertheless, Michelangelo made some of his finest sculpture for the Julius Tomb, including the Moses (c. 1515), the central figure in the much-reduced monument now located in Rome's church of San Pietro in Vincoli. The muscular patriarch sits alertly in a shallow niche, holding the tablets of the Ten Commandments, his long beard entwined in his powerful hands. He looks off into the distance as if communicating with God.

Two other superb statues, the Bound Slave and the Dying Slave (both c. 1510-13), Louvre, Paris), demonstrate Michelangelo's approach to carving. He conceived of the figure as being imprisoned in the block (Third Captive). By removing the excess stone, the form was released. Here, as is frequently the case with his sculpture, Michelangelo left the statues unfinished (non-finito), either because he was satisfied with them as is, or because he no longer planned to use them.

In the Service of the New Republic

With the Medici driven out in 1526, Florence proclaimed itself a republic for the last time. However, Clement VII ordered the city to be surrounded by the same terrible German mercenary soldiers who had put the city of Rome to fire and sword in 1527.

Michelangelo was forced to stop working on all the projects he had under way. Then, in 1528, the new government asked him to prepare plans for defense against the assault and on January 10th, 1529, he became a member of the Nove della Milizia, the nine-man body in charge of the city's forces, in the capacity of an expert on fortifications. He prepared the plans for the defense of the hill of San Miniato and succeeded in protecting the campanile of the Romanesque church by the ingenious device of covering it completely with mattresses.

Believing that invasion by the troops that had surrounded Florence was imminent, Michelangelo decided to flee to Venice. Exiled at first by the republic as a traitor, he was later allowed to reenter to the city. With the return of the Medici, he was granted a pardon by Clement VII and was able to resume work on the Medici Chapel and Laurentian Library.

Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna

In 1538, three years before finishing the Last Judgment, Michelangelo had met Vittoria Colonna, a poetess and highly cultivated woman who was one of the most influential figures in the Viterbo Circle. The members of the Circle called for certain reforms to be made in the church, in the conviction that it was Divine Grace that should play the major role in Christian life, rather than the works of man. 

Between Michelangelo and Vittoria Colonna (he aged sixty-one, she forty-six) a deep friendship developed, one might almost say an absolutely pure love, inspired by poetry and faith, out of which were to emerge some of Michelangelo's finest lyric poems, overflowing with admiration and devotion. The most intense period of their relationship, described in the Dialogues of Francisco de Hollanda, lasted from 1544 until Colonna's death in 1547: years filled with long conversations on how faith should be understood and lived, with passionate exchanges of letters, and with frequent visits to the church of San Silvestro al Quirinale to listen to commentaries on the sacred texts. Art, too, cemented their communion: Michelangelo gave her three drawings (a Crucifixion sent to her in 1536, a Deposition of Christ, and a Mary Magdalen) and together they planned the construction of a monastery on the slopes of the Quirinal.

Poems for Vittoria Colonna

The sonnets and madrigals that Michelangelo wrote for Vittoria Colonna between 1538 and 1547 are characterized by a tranquil Platonism, that is by the attainment of bliss through admiration of a superior woman.
Along with lyric poems of a spiritual and mystical character, Michelangelo composed other poems that were more passionate and more in keeping with the style of the time, inspired by a "cruel and beautiful" woman, seen in these verses as the object of an unattainable desire.

Michelangelo Buonarroti died, giving himself up to God, on February 18th, 1564, after a "slow fever." As Vasari tells us, he made his will in three sentences, in front of his physician and his friends Tommaso Cavalieri and Daniele da Volterra, saying that he left "his soul to God, his body to the earth, and his material possessions to his nearest relations." In reality, there was little left in his house, since some time earlier he had burned much of his artistic material, including, to the great displeasure of Cosimo I, the designs for the facade of San Lorenzo. 

The body of the dead artist was deposited in a sarcophagus in the church of Santi Apostoli, but a few days after the burial his nephew Lionardo Buonarroti, who had arrived in Rome, took possession of his uncle's property and carried off the corpse, concealed in a bale. As soon as they reached Florence, the mortal remains of the "divine artist" were taken to Santa Croce (where Michelangelo himself had wanted to be buried). The inhabitants of Florence turned out in large numbers, venerating the body of their illustrious fellow citizen, "father and master of all the arts," as if it were a sacred relic.

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