Active and contemplative life michelangelo biography

Michelangelo

Michelangelo was one of the most inspired creators in the history of art and, with Da Vinci, the most potent force in the Italian High Renaissance. As a sculptor, architect, painter, and poet, he exerted a tremendous influence on his contemporaries and on subsequent Western art in general.

A Florentine-although born March 6, 1475, in the small village of Caprese near Arezzo-Michelangelo continued to have a deep attachment to his city, its art, and its culture throughout his long life.

He spent the greater part of his adulthood in Rome, employed by the popes; characteristically, however, he left instructions that he be buried in Florence, and his body was placed there in a fine monument in the church of Santa Croce.

Early Life in Florence

Michelangelo's father, a Florentine official named Ludovico Buonarrotiwith connections to the ruling Medici family, placed his 13-year-old son in the workshop of the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio.

After about two years,