I.

Introduction

Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564), Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet, one of the most ambitious and influential artists of the Renaissance. Together with Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael, he dominated the High Renaissance of the early 16th century, and his later work played a vital role in the development of Mannerism. His work exerted tremendous influence on his contemporaries and on subsequent Western art in general. He was also one of the greatest Italian poets of his time. Although he was accomplished in a number of different art forms, he regarded himself as primarily a sculptor in marble.

Michelangelo was born on March 6, 1475, in the small village of Caprese, near Sansepolcro, but was essentially a Florentine, maintaining a deep attachment to Florence, its art, and its culture throughout his long life. He spent the greater part of his adulthood in Rome, in the employment of the popes; however, he left instructions that he be buried in Florence, and his body was placed there in the church of Santa Croce. The tomb erected there was designed by his biographer Giorgio Vasari; it features allegories of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture mourning Michelangelo’s death.