Michelangelo Biography

longgggggg....done for school my 7th grade year.......

Michelangelo Buonarroti was born March 6, 1475, at Caprese, in Tuscany, to Ludovico di Leonardo di Buonarroti Simoni and Francesca Neri. The same day, his father noted down: "Today March 6, 1475, a child of the male sex has been born to me and I have named him Michelangelo. He was born on Monday between 4 and 5 in the morning, at Caprese, where I am the Podestà." Although born in the small village of Caprese, Michelangelo always considered himself a "son of Florence," as did his father, "a Citizen of Florence." Michelangelo’s mother, Francesca Neri, was too sick and frail to nurse Michelangelo, so he was placed with a wet nurse, in a family of stone cutters, where he, “sucked in the craft hammer and chisel with my foster mother’s milk. When I told my father that I wished to be an artist, he flew into a rage, ‘artists are laborers, no better than shoemakers.” Buonarroti’s mother died young, when the child was only six years old. But even before then, Michelangelo's childhood had been grim and lacking in affection, and he was always to retain a taciturn disposition. Touchy and quick to respond with fierce words, he tended to keep to himself, out of shyness according to some but also, according to others, a lack of trust in fellows. His father soon recognized the boy’s intelligence and “anxious for him to learn his letters, sent him to the school of a master, Francesco Galeota from Urbino, who in that time caught grammar.”  While he studied the principles of Latin, Michelangelo made friends with a student, Francesco Granacci six years older than him, who was learning the art of painting in Ghirlandaio’s studio and who encouraged Michelangelo to follow his artistic vocation. Michelangelo's father, now a minor Florentine official with connections to the ruling Medici family, was a man obsessed with preserving what little remained of the Buonarroti fortunes. With few properties and monies remaining Ludovico hoped that with his studies, Michelangelo could become a successful merchant or businessman, thereby preserving the Buonarroti position in society. When Michelangelo turned 13-years old, he shocked and enraged his father when told that he agreed to apprentice in the workshop of the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio. After about one year of learning the art of fresco, Michelangelo went on to study at the sculpture school in the Medici gardens and shortly thereafter was invited in to the household of  Lorenzo de’ Medici, the Magnificent. There he had an opportunity to converse with the younger Medici, two of them who later became popes (Leo X and Clement VII). He also became acquainted with such humanists as Marsilo Ficino and the poet Angelo Poliziano, frequent visitors to the Medici court. During the years he spent in the garden of San Marco, Michelangelo began to study human anatomy.  In exchange for permission to study corpses (which was strictly forbidden by The Church) the prior of the church of Santo Spirito, Niccol�™ Bichiellini, received a wooden crucifix from Michelangelo. But his contact with the dead bodies caused problems with his health, obliging him to interrupt his activities periodically. Michelangelo produced at least two relief sculptures by the time he was 16 years old, the Battle of the Centaurs and the Madonna of the Stairs (both 1489-92, Casa Buonarroti, Florence), which show that he had achieved a personal style at a precocious age. In Michelangelo's personal diary he recounts his first two works: "My first work was a small bas-relief, The Madonna of the Stairs. Mary, Mother of God, sits on the rock of the church. The child curls back into her body. She foresees his death, and his return on the stairway to heaven. "My second work, another small relief. My tutor read me the myth of the battle of the Lapiths against the Centaurs. The wild forces of Life, locked in heroic combat. "Already at 16, my mind was a battlefield: my love of pagan beauty, the male nude, at war with my religious faith. A polarity of themes and forms...one spiritual, the other earthly, I've kept these carvings on the walls of my studio to this very day." After the death of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and under Savonarola's influence, the Florentines were divided into several rival factions. The "arribiati" (enraged) wanted to reestablish an oligarchic republic dominated by the powerful financial bourgeoisie and by the traditional aristocracy, but without the dictatorship of the Medici. The "piagnoni" (weepers), led by Savonarola and his followers, were recruited from all levels of society and fought fanatically for a purely religious state. They wanted an ascetic and puritanical government, free from the influence of the Vatican, of big money and of the nobility. Last, the Paleschi were the official defenders of the Medici, and as such they sought to perpetuate the status quo. Ultimately, Piero Medici was not capable of governing Florence with the skill and diplomacy of his father, Lorenzo, and he was forced to flee the city. One week after Piero fled, The French King Charles VIII, with his 20,000 armed men, took Florence without firing a single shot. His occupation was short-lived and he soon left with his army. But the wheels of the city-state had come to a grinding halt. The government machinery had been dominated for so long by the Medici that it could not function without a strong executive power. Around mid-December, Savonarola intervened in the crisis with a series of sermons. His ideas concerning the elected Council were the following: only real estate would be taxable, every Florentine citizen would have the right to vote, any man over the age of twenty-nine and who had paid his taxes would be eligible to seat on the Great Council. Savonarola became the political as well as religious leader of Florence. His victory over the Medici was complete. The preacher led a direct assault on contemporary painting and its abuses. Carnival was now considered by Savonarola as a feast of penitence. Dressed in similar white habits, and bearing olive branches and little red crosses, Savonarola's sacred army of inquisitor children were responsible for watching over the purity of Florence. They would go from house to house and from palace to palace confiscating all works of art which were incompatible with the faith and which were to be burned. Savonarola was responsible for organizing several "Bonfire of the Vanities" in which he burnt many rare books, manuscripts and other works of art. Michelangelo then went to Rome, where he was able to examine many newly unearthed classical statues and ruins. He soon produced his first large-scale sculpture, the over-life-size Bacchus (1496-98, Bargello, Florence). One of the few works of pagan rather than Christian subject matter made by the master, it rivaled ancient statuary, the highest mark of admiration in Renaissance Rome. At about the same time, Michelangelo also did the marble Pietà (1498-1500), still in its original place in Saint Peter's Basilica. One of the most famous works of art, the Pieta was probably finished before Michelangelo was 25 years old. The youthful Mary is shown seated majestically, holding the dead Christ across her lap, a theme borrowed from northern European art. Instead of revealing extreme grief, Mary is restrained, and her expression is one of resignation. Just days after it was placed in Saint Peter's, Michelangelo overheard a pilgrim remark that the work was done by Christoforo Solari, a compatriot from Lombard. That night in a fit of rage, Michelangelo took hammer and chisel and placed the following inscription on the sash running across Mary's breast in lapidary letters: MICHEL ANGELUS BONAROTUS FLORENT FACIBAT  (Michelangelo Buonarroti, Florentine, made this). This is the only work that Michelangelo ever signed. Michelangelo later regretted his passionate outburst of pride and determined to never again sign a work of his hands. The Pietà, which many regard as the greatest work of sculpture ever created, inspired Giorgio Vasari to comment: "It would be impossible for any craftsman or sculptor no matter how brilliant ever to surpass the grace or design of this work, or try to cut and polish the marble with the skill that Michelangelo displayed. For the Pieta was a revelation of all the potentialities and force of the art of sculpture. Among the many beautiful features (including the inspired draperies) this is notably demonstrated by the body of Christ itself. It would be impossible to find a body showing greater mastery of art and possessing more beautiful members, or a nude with more detail in the muscles, veins, and nerves stretched over their framework of bones, or a more deathly corpse. The lovely expression of the head, the harmony in the joints and attachments of the arms, legs, and trunk, and the fine tracery of the veins are all so wonderful that it is hard to believe that the hand of an artist could have executed this inspired and admirable work so perfectly and in so short a time. It is certainly a miracle that a formless block of stone could ever have been reduced to a perfection that nature is scarcely able to create in the flesh." Giorgio Vasari, Lives of the Artists, first published 1550, 2nd edition 1558. On August 4th, 1501, after several years of political confusion, a republic was once again proclaimed in Florence. The order established over the following four years received the unconditional support of Michelangelo. Also, during the same period, the artist clearly expressed his own political orientation, unlike in later work. Twelve days after the proclamation of the republic, the Arte Della Lana or Wool Guild, the wealthy corporation responsible for the maintenance and ornamentation of the Cathedral, commissioned him to sculpt a statue of David. Michelangelo chose to represent David as an athletic, manly character, very concentrated and ready to fight. The extreme tension is evident in his worried look and in his right hand, holding a stone. The meaning of this David becomes fully clear if we take into consideration the historical circumstances of its creation. Michelangelo was devoted to the Republic, and wanted each citizen to become aware of his responsibilities and commit himself to accomplishing his duty. Michelangelo wrote in his diaries: "When I returned to Florence, I found myself famous. The City Council asked me to carve a colossal David from a nineteen-foot block of marble -- and damaged to boot! I locked myself away in a workshop behind the cathedral, hammered and chiseled at the towering block for three long years. In spite of the opposition of a committee of fellow artists, I insisted that the figure should stand before the Palazzo Vecchio, as a symbol of our Republic. I had my way. Archways were torn down, narrow streets widened...it took forty men five days to move it. Once in place, all Florence was astounded. A civic hero, he was a warning...whoever governed Florence should govern justly and defend it bravely. Eyes watchful...the neck of a bull...hands of a killer...the body, a reservoir of energy. He stands poised to strike."  With this statue Michelangelo proved to his contemporaries that he not only surpassed all modern artists, but also the Greeks and Romans, by infusing formal beauty with powerful expressiveness and meaning. When Giuliano Della Rovere was elected to the papal seat in 1503, he was already an old man. Consequently, everyone expected a pontificate of passage. But Julius II (this was the name he chose) nursed an ambitious plan and did everything he could to realize it, demonstrating an extraordinary vitality in this. He understood the role of the pope in extremely authoritative terms, and conducted himself according to this ideal, trying to restore the papal state to greatness. His papacy saw not only intense political, social, and military activity, but also some major artistic commissions, which directly affected the urban fabric of Rome. In his role as a patron, Julius II showed an extraordinary audacity and assurance in the choice of the artistic talents to whom he turned: Bramante and Michelangelo, Raphael and the Sangallos, Peruzzi and Bramantino, Sodoma and Lorenzo Lotto were among the many artists who worked for him. Michelangelo's temper was proverbial. It seems that Pope Julius II had told Sebastiano Del Piombo that he "is Terrible, as you see, you can do nothing with him." In fact all the sources refer to his brusque and rude manners, his difficult character, his touchiness and intransigence, and the difficulties that he often had in his relations with others. He had no pupils, nor constant collaborators, and always used boys from the workshop as his assistants. The enmity between him and Leonardo da Vinci is famous. There were over twenty years of difference in age between them and Leonardo, on his return to Florence at the age of fifty, was confident of regaining the position due to him in the artistic world of the city. And he was in fact received with great honors, but had to reckon with the fame of Michelangelo, the rising star whose name was on everyone's lips and who had already received the commission for the David from the Republic. The friction between the two is related by the Anonymous Magliabechian Author, who tells of an amusing episode that took place in Florence. One day, Michelangelo ran into Leonardo on the Santa Trinità Bridge. The latter, accompanied by a group of friends, refused a request to recite a passage from Dante. Leonardo then turned to Michelangelo, asking him to recite the passage, but Buonarroti scornfully replied that he should do it, seeing that when he was unable to do something he was in the habit of running away, as he had done in Milan with the equestrian monument for Ludovico il Moro. While still occupied with the David, Michelangelo was given an opportunity to demonstrate his ability as a painter with the commission of a mural, the Battle of Cascina, destined for the Sala dei Cinquecento of the Palazzo Vecchio, opposite Leonardo's Battle of Anghiari. Neither artist carried his assignment beyond the stage of a cartoon, a full-scale preparatory drawing. Michelangelo created a series of nude and clothed figures in a wide variety of poses and positions that are a prelude to his next major project, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican. From these years date the Bruges Madonna (Notre Dame, Bruges) and the painted tondo of the Holy Family (Uffizi). In April 1508, Michelangelo was summoned back to Rome by Julius II, but he was still not able to start on the papal tomb. In fact Julius II had a new job for him: painting twelve figures of apostles and some decorations on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Buonarroti, who had always regarded himself as a sculptor, would now have to perfect the art of fresco. It seems that the pope had been advised to make this move by Bramante and other artists working at his court, who did not take kindly to Michelangelo's presence: "And this thing they did with malice, to distract the pope from matters of sculpture; and since they were sure that he, either by not accepting this undertaking, would turn the pope against him, or by accepting it would do much less creditable work than Raphael of Urbino, to whom, out of hatred for Michelangelo, they gave every support." At first, Buonarroti tried to turn down the commission, but in vain. And then, during the realization of the work, that mysterious liking that the artist and the pope had, at bottom, for one another yielded its fruit. Julius II let himself be swayed by Michelangelo's creative frenzy, and both were carried away by their enthusiasm over more and more ambitious plans. So, Michelangelo was given carte blanche: by October 31st, 1512, he had painted over 300 figures on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. In May 1508, Michelangelo began to make the preparatory designs for the Sistine ceiling. It was not until the fall that he started the actual painting, calling on the assistance of Giuliano Bugiardini, Aristotele da Sangallo, and his old friend Francesco Granacci, along with a number of laborers. However the work did not proceed as the master wished, and he soon fired all of his assistants, removed what had already been painted and, between the end of 1508 and January 1509, recommenced the whole demanding enterprise on his own. Condivi recalls that "as a result of having painted for so long a time, keeping his eyes fixed on the ceiling, he saw little when he looked down; if he had to read a letter or some other small thing, he was obliged to hold it above his head." Extremely jealous of his work, he refused to show it to anyone but the pope, though the latter was always insisting that he finish it quickly, and often climbed the scaffolding to see how the fresco was proceeding. The pressure on the artist was such that he uncovered it in August 1511, even before it was finished. The sight of these highly original paintings made a great impression on the artists of the time. Raphael, who was painting the nearby Stanze, was so influenced by them that his own style altered as a result, becoming more plastic and sculptural as the decoration proceeded. The project was physically and emotionally torturous for Michelangelo.   Michelangelo recounts its effect on him with these words: "After four tortured years, more than 400 over life-sized figures, I felt as old and as weary as Jeremiah. I was only 37, yet friends did not recognize the old man I had become." Working high above the chapel floor, on scaffolding, Michelangelo painted, between 1508 and 1512, some of the finest pictorial images of all time. On the vault of the papal chapel, he devised an intricate system of decoration that included nine scenes from the Book of Genesis, beginning with God Separating Light from Darkness and including the Creation of Adam and Eve, the Temptation and Fall of Adam and Eve, and the Flood. These centrally located narratives are surrounded by alternating images of prophets and sibyls (Libyan, Erythraean) on marble thrones, by other Old Testament subjects, and by the ancestors of Christ. In order to prepare for this enormous work, Michelangelo drew numerous figure studies and cartoons, devising scores of figure types and poses. These awesome, mighty images, demonstrating Michelangelo's masterly understanding of human anatomy and movement, changed the course of painting in the West. 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. The project for the Julius Tomb required architectural planning, but Michelangelo's activity as an architect only began in earnest in 1519, with the plan for the facade (never executed) of the Church of San Lorenzo in Florence, where he had once again taken up residence. In the 1520s he also designed the Laurentian Library and its elegant entrance hall adjoining San Lorenzo, although these structures were finished only decades later. Michelangelo took as a starting point the wall articulation of his Florentine predecessors, but he infused it with the same surging energy that characterizes his sculpture and painting. Instead of being obedient to classical Greek and Roman practices, Michelangelo used motifs-columns, pediments, and brackets-for a personal and expressive purpose. 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. 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. The tombs of the Medici were of a completely new form. Michelangelo abandoned the use of architecture and arabesques that decorated all Florentine tombs, and that he himself had widely used in his designs for the tomb of Pope Julius II. Here, he wanted no accessory forms, and only the statues were to express the thoughts of his soul. Before Michelangelo, artists had always designed Christian symbols on tombs: angels, the Virgin Mary, Christ, the Apostles and the Virtues. But he renounced Christian traditions in order to portray Humanity to our eyes. He gave names to the statues of the sarcophagi: Dawn, Dusk, Day and Night. In reality, these were just words, for these statues represented nothing but human beings. They are the symbol of suffering mankind. It is because they are crying that they are alive; their suffering gives them all their beauty. Only Michelangelo could find words worthy of being pronounced regarding his work, and in a famous verse, he himself tells us of the dark despair of his soul:
"It is my pleasure to sleep and even more to be stone:
As long as shame and dishonor may last,
My sole desire is to see and to feel no more.
Speak softly; I beg you, do not awaken me."
Work on the Medici Tombs continued long after Michelangelo went back to Rome in 1534, although he never returned to his beloved native city. 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." In Rome, Michelangelo was able to count on the esteem, protection, and affection of Pope Clement VII who, shortly before his death, commissioned him to paint the fresco of the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel. The idea of commissioning an enormous fresco, the largest ever painted in that century, depicting the Last Judgment, was probably suggested to Clement VII by the traumatic events that were undermining the unity of Christians at the time. 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. All that had happened in the church in the years that preceded the Judgment, including the Reformation and the Sack of Rome, had a direct influence on the work's conception: painted on the altar wall, the Last Judgment was to represent humanity face to face with salvation. Even before its official unveiling, the Judgment became the target of violent criticisms of a moral character. Vasari relates that Biagio da Cesena, the Vatican's master of Ceremonies, said that "it was mostly disgraceful that in so sacred a place there should have been depicted all those nude figures, exposing themselves so shamefully, and that it was no work for a papal chapel but rather for the public baths and taverns." Michelangelo was not slow to take his revenge: the poor Biagio was portrayed in hell, in the figure of Minos, "shown with a great serpent curled around his legs, among a heap of devils." Others accused the painter of heresy. This included Pietro Aretino, who, in a famous letter, even called for the fresco's destruction, the Dominican preacher Ambrogio Politi called Caterino, and Giovanni Andrea Gilio, who drew up a long statement of charges against Michelangelo in his Dialoghi. But the nudity of the figures worried neither Paul III nor his successor Julius III. It was not until January 1564 and therefore about a month before Michelangelo's death, that the assembly of the Council of Trent took the decision to "amend" the fresco. The Last Judgment, which Michelangelo finished in 1541 was the  largest fresco of the Renaissance, it depicts Judgment Day. Christ, with a clap of thunder, puts into motion the inevitable separation, with the saved ascending on the left side of the painting and the damned descending on the right into a Dantesque hell. As was his custom, Michelangelo portrayed all the figures nude, but prudish draperies were added by another artist (who was dubbed the "breeches-maker") a decade later, as the cultural climate became more conservative. Michelangelo painted his own image in the flayed skin of St. Bartholomew. Although he was also given another painting commission, the decoration of the Pauline Chapel in the 1540s, his main energies were directed toward architecture during this phase of his life. 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. 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's "unsociableness" has been seen as the typical attitude of what was known in the Renaissance as the vir melanchonicus, or the absorbed and solitary contemplator, wholly wrapped up in his art, for whom involvement in creative activity was transformed into suffering: "I am here in great distress and with great physical strain, and have no friends of any kind, nor do I want them; and I do not have enough time to eat as much as I need; my joy and my sorrow/my repose are these discomforts."  Michelangelo was perhaps one of the artists who paid the greatest price in terms of suffering for the divine gift of his art: "I am a poor man and of little worth, who is laboring in that art that God has given me in order to extend my life as long as possible" (January 29th, 1542).
   The Campidoglio
In 1538-39 plans were under way for the remodeling of the buildings surrounding the Campidoglio (Capitol) on the Capitoline Hill, the civic and political heart of the city of Rome. Although Michelangelo's program was not carried out until the late 1550s and not finished until the 17th century, he designed the Campidoglio around an oval shape, with the famous antique bronze equestrian statue of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius in the center. For the Palazzo dei Conservatori he brought a new unity to the public building façade, at the same time that he preserved traditional Roman monumentality.
St. Peter's Basilica
Michelangelo's crowning achievement as an architect was his work at St. Peter's Basilica, where he was made chief architect in 1546. The building was being constructed according to Donato Bramante's plan, but Michelangelo ultimately became responsible for the altar end of the building on the exterior and for the final form of its dome.  Michelangelo was now in his seventies. However he accepted this mighty responsibility, maybe the heaviest he ever had to carry upon his shoulders. The Pope's persistent demands were perhaps not the main reason why he accepted the burden: first of all, he considered it as a duty and a mission entrusted to him by God. He had served popes all his life, and he wished to dedicate his last years to serving God. Thus, he wrote to his nephew Lionardo: "Many believe, -- and I believe -- that I have been designated for this work by God. In spite of my old age, I do not want to give it up; I work out of love for God and I put all my hope in Him." Michelangelo would not accept any payment for this sacred task. He soon had to face his numerous enemies: the "Sangallo clan," construction suppliers and contractors whose fraudulent practices Sangallo had always connived at. So, Michelangelo freed Saint Peter's from thieves and bandits. Since his very first visit to the site, he criticized the model designed by Sangallo, declaring that it had been blinded, devoid of light, that there were too many columns piled up on one on top of each other-- and that with so many projections, pinnacle turrets and various fragments of all kinds, it looked more like a German edifice than a monument inspired by the Antiquity or even by a beautiful modern school. Furthermore, asserted the Master, it was possible to spare fifty years of construction time and save over three hundred thousand ducats of expense. "I spend my days supervising the construction of St. Peter's. The Vatican's financial superintendent keeps harassing me for a progress report. My response: your lordship, I am not obliged to, nor do I intend to, tell you anything. Your job is to keep the money rolling in, and out of the hands of thieves. I will see to the building." The architect Piero Ligorio had just entered Paul IV's service. He began to torment Michelangelo again, repeating everywhere that he was growing senile. His intrigues made the sculptor furious. He wished to return to Florence, and was about to do so, but Giorgio Vasari wrote him again and encouraged him to pursue the building of Saint-Peter's. Of course, Michelangelo felt the burden of old age; he often repeated that he had reached his last hour and that no thought was born in him where death did not figure. Thus, in one of his letters, he wrote: "So, Vasari, God wants me to encumber him for a few more years. I know you will tell me I am a crazy old man to write sonnets -- but since many people say that I have become gaga, I have to live up to my reputation. I can feel through your letter the affection you feel for me. Yes, I would like to move my old bones next to those of my father, as you beseech me to do. But if I left Rome, I would feel guilty of dooming Saint Peter's to failure, and that would be a great shame and a deadly sin. When enough of the construction is done and nothing can be changed to it any more, I hope to follow your advice -- when it is no longer important to frustrate the appetites of those who hope that I will leave soon." Loneliness and sorrow were Michelangelo's companions in the last years of his life. His younger friends, Vittoria Colonna and Luigi del Riccio were already dead, and in 1556 his faithful servant Urbino died too. In this period, he insistently produced studies and drawings of the Crucifixion and the Lament over the Dead Christ. They were also the years of his last sculptures, including the Florentine Pietà, carved for his own tomb. Dissatisfied with his work, Michelangelo attacked the sculpture with a hammer, breaking off a leg and an arm from the figure of Christ and one of the Virgin Mary's hands. Another sculpture the so-called Rondanini Pietà, consisting solely of the figures of the Madonna and Christ, may have been begun by Michelangelo before 1550 but had remained unfinished. Now his friends - we are told by Vasari - had asked him to start work on it again "so that he could continue using his chisel every day." Still perfectly lucid, the almost ninety-year-old Michelangelo created one of his most spiritual images, in which the Mother and Christ almost interpenetrate in an indissoluble union, beyond passion and physical death. Mentioned by Vasari in his first edition in 1550, it was therefore begun before that date. According to Blaise de Vigenre, a French traveler, who saw Michelangelo work on this statue that very year, the sculptor (who was in his seventies and not very robust) chipped off more splinters from a very hard lump of marble, than three young stone-cutters in triple the time. He attacked the stone with such fiery energy that one expected to see the block shattered to pieces. With one blow he sent chips three to four fingers thick flying into the air, and penetrated to a point indicated by a drilling with such precision that he might have destroyed the whole stone, had he cut slightly deeper into it. Thanks to Condivi, we know for sure that he was still working on this group in 1553. In his second edition, Vasari reports: "At this time (1556), Michelangelo was working at it almost every day: it was like a hobby for him. He ended up breaking the block, probably because the latter was full of impurities and so hard that sparks flew from under his chisel; perhaps also because his self-criticism was so ruthless that he was never satisfied with what he had done. Indeed, to tell the truth, he rarely completed the works of his old age when he had reached the peak of maturity in his creative power. The only completely finished sculptures date back to the early period of his career."Here are Michelangelo's last words concerning his final masterpiece: "the course of my life has finally reached In its fragile boat, over stormy seas The common port where we must account For all our past actions. No painting or sculpture can quiet my soul, Now turned to the Divine Love that opens To embrace me in His arms." "For ten years of sleepless nights, I've been designing a Pieta. The body of our Lord was too heavy with death to be held up by his old Mother. His head...too earthy with matter, too real...so I cut away the Lord's head and shoulders, leaving only his arm as a model for a new one, and carved a new head from the Virgin's shoulder. He backs inward to fuse with his Mother's body, as she bends forward to raise him up. Mother and Son, the Living and the Dead, become One - Death becomes a Resurrection." Michelangelo, who could no longer sleep, got up at night to work with his chisel. As he used to do in the past, he had made himself a cardboard helmet upon which he fixed a candle to light up his work and keep his hands free. As he grew old, he wished more and more to be alone. He needed solitude, and when Rome was fast asleep, he sought refuge in nightly labor. Silence was a blessing to him and night was his friend."I live alone and miserable, trapped as marrow under the bark of the tree. My voice is like a wasp caught in a bag of skin and bones. My teeth shake and rattle like the keys of a musical instrument. My face is a scarecrow. My ears never cease to buzz. In one of them, a spider weaves its web, in the other one, a cricket sings all night long. My rattling catarrh won't let me sleep. This is the state where art has led me, after granting me glory. Poor, old, beaten, I will be reduced to nothing, if death does not come swiftly to my rescue. Pains have quartered me, torn me, broken me and death is the only inn awaiting me.” 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.

The Sculpture of Moses was built by Michelangelo/ Michelangelo designed the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica,
in 1513-1515. It is made completely out of marble. /although it was unfinished when he died.

Author's Note

really long..........hahahahaha it was like 4-6 pages long and its a biography LOL

Reviews

[joanofbooke]

this is a very detail biography. great work

[Jong Schrijver]

That's one hell of a project for a 7th grader, good job though