Michelangelo: The Ingredients of Greatness.

Abstract

Michelangelo Buonarrotti (1475–1564) was born in Caprese, Tuscany. In 1488, he was apprenticed to painter Domenico Ghirlandaio (1448–94) with whom he spent a year (1–4). Ghirlandaio, at the time, ran the largest workshop in Florence (5). Then, recognizing his precocious talent, Lorenzo de' Medici (Lorenzo the Magnificent), effectively the leader of the Florentine Republic, took Michelangelo into his household, where the boy was exposed to the company of leading humanists such as Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and Poliziano. He was also taught by the artist Bertoldo di Giovanni, a pupil of Donatello. Michelangelo had the opportunity to draw classical statues from the collection owned by the Medicis. As a very young man, Michelangelo was invited to Rome by Cardinal Raffaele Riario, where he spent 5 years. At the age of 24 he created the Pieta , which can be seen today at St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. Michelangelo returned to Florence in 1501, and in the next few years completed the statue of David, which became the civic symbol of the city (6). Pope Julius II, one of the great patrons of art during the Italian Renaissance, commissioned him to design his monumental tomb, which was to include 40 statues. The commission was later withdrawn, to Michelangelo's frustration, because funds were needed to build the new Basilica of St Peter. However, Julius II later recalled Michelangelo to Rome, asking him to paint the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel in the Apostolic Palace (7). As the story goes, …