Michelangelo
Michelangelo Michelangelo is a name that is recognized throughout the educated world today, as it has been since his death in1564. ... Michelangelo Buonarroti was born in Florence, Italy in 1475 to a family of seven. Being the second of five brothers, his father noted down: “Today March 6th 1475, a child of the male sex has been born to me and I have named him Michelangelo” (McDonald 33). His mother was said to be a frail woman who died when Michelangelo was only six years old. ... Originally Michelangelo was trained as a fresco painter, but almost all of his early work was sculptural. ... Michelangelo had such a passion for the human body, that he was said to study corpses until he became sick! But his studies paid off, and Michelangelo’s first two reliefs, the Battle of the Centaurs and The Madonna of the Stairs, were completed by the age of 16. ... Even in these very early pieces Michelangelo’s individual style was starting to develop. The first really magnificent and well known sculpture that Michelangelo completed was the Pieta. It was done for the French Cardinal Jean Bilheres de Lagraulas, and was Michelangelo’s second major Roman commission. ... Michelangelo’s love of beauty clearly showed through with the youthful glow of Mary, who looked scarcely older than her son. ... Interestingly enough the Pieta was the only work that Michelangelo ever signed. It was said that when they put the piece on display, he heard a man say that it was done by Christiforo Solari, and in a fit of rage Michelangelo inscribed the following into Mary’s breast: Michelangelo Buonarroti, Florentine, made this (Blunt 109). Another characteristic of Michelangelo’s sculptures were that they were rarely realistic in size or proportion.