Was born in the house of the podesta of Caprese, a small village located between two mountains in the high valley of the Tiber on 6 March 1475. His father was Ludovico, a modest state officer and a man of little capacity. Michelangelo`s ambition was to improve the luck of the Buonarrotti Simoni family of old Florentine ancestry that at one time had belonged to the nobility but since 1506 had started to buy land and deposit savings for that objective. His mother Francesca died when he was only 6 years old and this event probably influenced his melancholy nature and his way of representing the Virgin without that feminine sweetness which he himself had lacked in his youth. He was a bourgeois from the Florence of the palaces and towers, of the hills with their small cypress and olive trees; the elegant Florence, busy and proud, a prey to all types of fanaticisms, and of all the religious and social hysterias where freedom and tyranny coexisted, where Leonardo`s spiritual freedom had no outlet and where Buonarrotti finished in the mysticism of Scottish puritanism, where Savonarola made the monks dance round the bonfire while he burnt works of art which he considered sacrilegious and where three years later, he himself would end up being burnt at the stake by the Inquisition. Michelangelo`s first impulse was to study literature but nevertheless, and against all the desires of his family who considered it a lowly profession, he dedicated himself to art. When he was 13 years old he entered the workshop of Ghirlandaio as an apprentice and remained there for 3 years. Ghirlandaio was highly impressed with his talent and recommended him to Lorenzo the Magnificent. A year later found him frequenting the gardens of San Marcos of Lorenze with its magnificent antique statues, surrounded by family and intellectuals. There he got in contact with Pico della Mirandola and for a time was a student of the sculptor Bertoldo, a disciple of Donatello.
From this period came two sculptures that are still preserved today: “The Virgin on the Stairs” and “The Battle of the Centaurs”. In reference to his study drawings, he copied the works of all the great Florentine artists who had come before him, including Giotto and Masaccio, although this protected young man already showed a more abstractly ideal and powerful vision than his predecessors. After the Magnificent died, Michelangelo returned to his father`s house. As a Florentine, he was more proud of his blood and lineage than of his art and commented: “art should only come forth from the noble and not the plebeians”. He had an almost religious concept of the family and would have sold himself as a slave if that would have improved their situation. This was not because he loved them but rather the contrary, for he despised a few members of his family although he did respect them for their long lineage. He suffered all the superstitions and fanatic ways of this hard and strong race that made up his personality and from which sprung forth the purifying fire of his art. The predicament of Savonarola which warned him of sin and the need for a renovation of the church was fixed in him as a dominating idea, as can be seen in the figure of the wooden Cross, for the Holy Spirit, where the human form responds more to the anatomical sensitivity than to a spiritual dramatization. It is more the figure based exclusively on the delicate forms of its body. In the face of political insecurity in 1494, he abandoned the Garden of the Medici and marched to Venice and later on to Bologna where he became the guest of the gentleman Aldrovandi, to whom he read the poems of Dante, Petrarca and Boccaccio and through which he sculpted the young and serene “Angel” for Noah`s Ark in Santo Domingo. He also finished some works that had been left incomplete on the death of Nicolo dell� Arco. After this he went to Rome and in this first stage sculpted “Young Bacchus” (National Museum of Florence). At the end of the following year he returned to Florence. When he was leaving this city (Florence) he was overtaken by a strong sense of nostalgia and for the rest of his life he would always struggle to return there. He managed to stay there for six months and then continued on to Rome where he stayed until 1501. There he was the guest of the banker, Jacopo Galloi, who bought from him the painting “Young Bacchus”, which had been commissioned by Cardinal S.
Dionigi. The French Cardinal Jean V. de Lagraulas requested him in 1498 to do the “Pieta” (today San Pedro) and with this Galli said that he would respond to the seriousness of the artist. The date set for delivery was one year: It was to be the only sculpture of that period and the only one that he signed, no doubt as a mark of his satisfaction. Again we see the duality between the sacred and the profane, Bacchus and the Pieta, as before had been The Centaurs and the Virgin of the Stairs. Between 1501 and 1504 he returned to Florence where he met Leonardo and stimulated by this encounter, began his most monumental period. He painted the Tondo Doni, with the Sacred family (Uffizi), two sculptures of the Virgin (Bargallo and Royal Academy of London). A bronze David, which is lost and the other famous “David”, made from a unique piece of marble, whose fiery gestures is so similar to his temperament and that at one time it was consisdered the emblem of the city of Florence. It symbolizes fortitude, which is manifested in the static position of the right part of the body while the left leg is extended and the arm that is holding the sling is contracted. His anger is clearly depicted in his vigilant and determined face. Whoever does not believe in any genius has only to look at Michelangelo, as he did not conquer it but rather genius flung itself over the artist, devouring him and throwing him into a frenetic way of life; “I can think of nothing else but to work day and night” he would repeat. This compulsive need to create made him accept more work than he could complete. In 1505 Julius II called him to Rome recommended by the Vatican architect Giuliano Sangallo to commission him to make his own magnificent sepulchre. This work of art took over 40 years to complete, an event which brought about an irritating relationship with the Pope. It was to be a three-storey high monument with more than 40 figures but it turned out to be the one in “San Pietro in Vincoli” in Rome in which the majestic figure of Moses is sitting, with a holy woman also sitting on each side of him.
To make this work of art, Michelangelo went to Carrara where he stayed 8 months; whenever he was commissioned to do a work he would spend months at the quarries, choosing the blocks he needed to work with and then constructed the paths that these blocks were to be transported on. He wanted to be everything: engineer, worker, sculptor, constructor of palaces and churches. He would constantly repeat in his letters “…I barely have time to eat…”, “for many years now the fatigue that I feel has been killing me…”, “I am lacking the bare necessities…”, and he would complain of his misery. But we must be aware that this misery was imaginary for he was very rich despite living as a slave eating only bread and wine.
His father who had been opposed to his becoming a sculptor and exploited him all his life, wrote to him saying that economy is good but misery, when one has no need of suffering, is an offence to God. His father also gave him advice about his health and the good care of his head and recommended him most especially never to bathe but rather be cleaned. He also warned his son that that style of life would take its toll in his old age. Yet he never persuaded Michelangelo to treat himself in a more human way. On his trip to Carrara, Michelangelo pondered the desire to sculpt a huge figure on the mountain, that from afar could be seen by the sailors.
Some years before, he had made a statue for Julio II and while he was doing it he slept, completely dressed and with his boots on, in a bed next to his helpers. He continued to sleep this way until his legs became so swollen that they had to cut his boots off as well as a bit of his flesh.
Undoubtedly this lifestyle led him to being quite sick.
According to his letters, he suffered more than 14 serious illnesses. He had problems with his eyes, teeth, head, and heart, and he had such a bad neuralgia that he could not sleep at night, so that to sleep was more of a torture for him. He became an old man at a young age, and at age 48, he would say that if he worked one day he needed to rest for four. In 1506 he fled from Florence, having been offended by the Pope – in fact he had been persecuted by some papal envoys but managed to get the Pope`s pardon before the end of the year. The Pope had already been thinking of commissioning him with the decoration of the frescoes of the vault of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo had never painted frescoes before, except in his youth under the guidance of Ghirlandaio, but he soon learned the techniques of the young Florentines. Moved after reading the Genesis in the Bible, he pleasantly depicted his conception of the Creation of Man where Eternity, through his extended arm, gives life to Adam. Then Julius suddenly died and the sepulchre that the enemies of Buonarrotti had made to stop saying that it was a bad omen, was again brought out into the open and the contract was signed to proceed.
Between 1513 and 1516 he sculpted the “Two Slaves” (Louvre) as symbols of the captured arts because of the death of the Pope. To these figures made on the sepulchre, a figure of Moses, great and terrible as the Prophets of the Sistine must be added. Later on in 1532, continuing with this work which he never seemed to finish, he made the “Four Slaves” ( today in the Academy) and “Victory” (Old Palace ) which consists of two figures with the victorious youth placing a knee upon the defeated rival as a demonstration of his triumph, yet his look is melancholic and his face is full of anguish as he is conscious of fate and the vanity of life.
Meanwhile in Florence, in 1522 a new Medici became Pope Leon X and commissioned Michelangelo to make the facade of the temple of San Lorenzo, but this was never carried out. Instead he worked on the sepulchres of Giuliano and Lorenzo de Medici, the brother and nephew of the Pope. This funerary chapel was made in the “new sacristy” of San Lorenzo which had also been constructed according to Michelangelo`s blueprints. He then expressed the desire for the remains of Dantre Alighieri to be transported there and offered to make the monumental sarcophagus. Upon the death of Leon X, Adrian VII became the next Pope but he was to last only one year – the year in which Buonarrotti worked on the sepulchre of Julius II. After Adrian came Clement VII who also commissioned Buonarrotti, in 1523, to construct a rich and spacious library in Florence within San Lorenzo. In this place “La Laurenciana”, all the bibliographic treasures were placed, including those collected by Cosmo the Elder, Pedro and Lorenzo the Magnificent. Michelangelo began to design and make the blueprints of this building but Vasari completed it.
In 1527 Rome was looted and the Medici fell from power. In Florence, Clement VII was held as a prisoner in the Castillo of Sant�Angelo and thus, all the power returned to the Old Republic. Michelangelo had always been a republican at heart and so he assumed the direction of the fortress with a view to the defence of the city. That summer he was sent to Ferrara to study these fortresses. Upon request of Duke Alphonso he prepared the cartons for a Leda (now disappeared). When his orders for the defence of the city were not carried out and afraid that he would be betrayed, he escaped from the safety of Duke Alphonso and found refuge in Venice where the Florentines went to look for him. He was a pessimist by nature and trusted no-one, claiming that he had to sleep with one eye open. He did not trust his brothers, friends or enemies nor did he trust his adopted son, because they were all impatiently awaiting his death. He lived on the brink of madness and melancholy. Since he had suffered greatly, he began to enjoy this way of life, finding within his suffering a sort of happiness, “and I seem to enjoy much more that which harms me…” In 1534 he was called again to Rome by Clement VII who wished to finish the paintings in the Sistine Chapel with the ceiling and the Final Judgement and Fall of the Rebellious Angels (a work of art undertaken under Pope Paul III, who had truly appreciated Michelangelo and placed him within the best circles of Florentine society). There he had met the young and beautiful Tomas Cavalieri for whom he felt a true passion. And again, when he was 60, a passionate admiration towards Vittoria Colonna (widow of the Marquis of Pescara) stirred within him. She was the inspiration of many of his poems of Petrarcan style. In 1546 he received many commissions to complete the Farnesio palace. In the same year he redesigned the Capitolio Square and in 1547 the Pope appointed him the Director of the works of Saint Peter, a commission which he accepted due to his great love of God and his reverence to Christ, and for which he charged nothing in exchange. The churches where he had not been able to place the sepulchre of Julio were now in his hands. He was a man made to suffer, and this was the most important thing for him in the universe.
He detached himself from others and gave himself to his work with devastating energy. He lived alone, hating everyone, yet towards the end he managed to inspire a certain respect which was almost religious. He dominated the century in which he lived and managed to calm his spirit whenever he looked upon the world from above, whereas the other men looked at it from below. While one Pope succeeded another, Michelangelo in his loneliness lived a very sober life waiting for his death, which had already been anticipated in his painting on the top of the ladder but that was yet to come. He had started to suffer from an illness much earlier: stone sickness. Under Pope Paul IV, the counter-reform was stricter and the Inquisition was more threatening. In the “Final Judgement” painted in the Sistine Chapel, he had all the paintings depicting nude figures covered as he was under suspicion of being a Lutheran. Under Pope Pious IV, a great patron of the arts, he was entrusted with carrying out various architectural works: the reconstruction of the gates of Rome – of which he was able to do only one; “The Gate of Pia”; and the Sforza chapel, among many others. Michelangelo would wake up at dawn to go and see his works of art and continue to work on them during the night. He would sculpt using the light of a candle placed upon a paper hat on his head. When he was 81 he wrote to Vasari that during all the 24 hours of the day his thoughts were about death and that he could not return to Florence as he did not want to abandon the construction of Saint Peter`s as there were many other artists waiting to take over his job. “Many say that I am an old, lunatic man”, he wrote. On 14 February, 1564, when he was almost 90 years old he became very ill and died on the 18th. Tomas Cavalieri, Daniel Volterra and two doctors were present. His body was taken to Florence on 10 April and received amid great acclaim. On 14 July the Drawing Academy carried out his solemn funeral at San Lorenzo, the church of the Medici. In 1570, his monumental tomb, which had been designed by Vasari and constructed by other artists, was completed at the church of the Santa Cruz.
