Michelangelo Buonarroti

Birth

Mar 6, 1475

Michelangelo was born on 6 March 1475 in Caprese near Arezzo, Tuscany.

life

Period: Mar 6, 1475 to Feb 18, 1564

Young Artist

Jan 1, 1490

From 1490 to 1492, Michelangelo attended the Humanist academy which the Medici had founded along Neo Platonic lines.

His return

Sep 3, 1495

He came back from the academy he attended to begin working as a sculptor.

The Pieta and the David

Jun 3, 1498

Not long after Michelangelo's relocation to Rome in 1498, his fledgling career was bolstered by another cardinal, Jean Bilhères de Lagraulas, a representative of the French King Charles VIII to the pope. Michelangelo's "Pieta," a sculpture of Mary holding the dead Jesus across her lap, was finished in less than one year, and was erected in the church of the cardinal's tomb. At six feet wide and nearly as tall, the statue has been moved five times since, to its present place of prominence St. Pet

Sistine Chapel

Oct 31, 1512

Michelangelo fired all of his assistants, whom he deemed inept, and completed the 65-foot ceiling alone, spending endless hours on his back and guarding the project jealously until revealing the finished work, on October 31, 1512.

New Tombs

Aug 6, 1519

While residing in Florence for this extended period, Michelangelo also undertook-between 1519 and 1534-the commission of the Medici Tombs for the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo. His design called for two large wall tombs facing each other across the high, domed room. One was intended for Lorenzo de' Medici (d. 1519) , duke of Urbino; the other for Giuliano de' Medici (1479-1516), duke of Nemours.

Farewell to Florence

Sep 23, 1534

In 1534, Michelangelo left Florence forever. His decision never to return was certainly influenced by the open hostility of Duke Alessandro de Medici and the misunderstandings with his fellow citizens that had arisen during the siege, which led him to say: "I never knew a people more ungrateful and arrogant than the Florentines."

The Comission

Sep 25, 1534

After the pope's death, on September 25, 1534, and only two days after Michelangelo's arrival in Rome, his successor, Paul III Farnese confirmed the commission to Michelangelo, and in April 1535 scaffolding was put up in front of the altar wall.

St. Peter's Basilica

Feb 1, 1550

While still working on the Last Judgement, Michelangelo received yet another commission for the Vatican. This was for the painting of two large frescos in the Cappella Paolina depicting significant events in the lives of the two most important saints of Rome, the Conversion of Saint Paul and the Crucifixion of Saint Peter. Like the Last Judgement, these two works are complex compositions containing a great number of figures.[51] They were completed in 1550. In the same year.

Death

Feb 18, 1564

He died in 1564 at the age of 89