II.

Early Life in Florence

Michelangelo’s father was a Florentine official named Ludovico Buonarroti, with connections to the ruling Medici family; owing to the lowly status of artists at that time, Michelangelo’s family was opposed to his artistic ambitions. However, in 1488, when Michelangelo was 13, his father placed him in the workshop of the Florentine painter Domenico Ghirlandaio, where he probably learnt the art of fresco painting. After about two years, he was studying at the academy of art set up by Lorenzo de’ Medici. There he had an opportunity to converse with the younger Medici, two of whom later became popes (Leo X and Clement VII). He also became acquainted with such humanists as Marsilio Ficino and the poet Angelo Poliziano, who were frequent visitors. By the age of about 16, he was working under the sculptor Bertoldo di Giovanni in the sculpture garden of the Palazzo Medici, and for Lorenzo de’ Medici he began at least two relief sculptures, the Battle of the Centaurs (c. 1492, Bargello, Florence) and the Madonna of the Stairs (c. 1492, Casa Buonarroti, Florence).

His patron Lorenzo died in 1492; two years later, Michelangelo fled Florence, when the Medici were temporarily expelled following the rise of the fanatical Dominican friar Savonarola. He settled for a time in Bologna, where in 1494 and 1495 he produced three marble figures for the shrine of St Dominic in the church of San Domenico.