Michelangelo: the Renaissance polymath who transformed Western art

So revered was he in his lifetime that he became known as ‘Il Divino’ (The Divine One).

What was Michelangelo’s early life like?

Michelangelo was born on 6 March 1475 in the small town of Caprese, Italy, not too far from Florence.

He had quite a turbulent childhood. “His mother died when he was six,” says Renaissance historian Catherine Fletcher, who was speaking to HistoryExtra on this episode of our Life of the Week podcast series. “He spent some of his early life in the care of a nanny living near a marble quarry that his father owned.”

Far from setting the young boy back, however, Fletcher suggests this upbringing in the town of Settignano may have been one of the factors that contributed to his later success. “Michelangelo went on to become a great sculptor in marble, having grown up seeing stone being cut and dug every day. It was a great start to his future life.”

What are Michelangelo’s most famous works?

• Pietà, a marble sculpture of the grieving Virgin Mary holding the body of Jesus Christ, now in Saint Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City. It is the only piece that Michelangelo ever signed
• The statue of David, sculpted between 1501 and 1504 and depicting the Biblical figure of David. More than five metres tall, it is the centrepiece of the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence
• The Sistine Chapel ceiling, a monumental artwork of scenes from the Book of Genesis – most famously, The Creation of Adam – created in the Vatican chapel between 1508 and 1512
• The Laurentian Library in Florence, commissioned in 1523 to hold the Medici family’s private collection. Construction began two years later, but the library would not be opened until 1571, after Michelangelo’s death
• The Last Judgment, an enormous fresco covering the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel. The scenes of the Second Coming of Christ and God’s eternal judgement were added to accompany the ceiling between 1536 and 1541
• The Crucifixion of Saint Peter, created in the pope’s official residence in Vatican City in the late 1540s. Showing the saint and first bishop of Rome being raised on to the cross, it is Michelangelo’s final fresco

How did Michelangelo become an artist?

As a boy, Michelangelo had the fortune of being sent to live in Florence, the heart of the Italian Renaissance. At 13, he was apprenticed to the leading Florentine painter Domenico Ghirlandaio, who was already involved in painting the walls of the Sistine Chapel in Vatican City.

“Michelangelo came to prominence very quickly within Ghirlandaio's workshop,” says Fletcher. “In fact, unusually for an apprentice, he started getting paid.”

By the age of 15, a clearly gifted Michelangelo had been selected to attend an academy run by the city’s ruling Medici family. A prominent member was Lorenzo de' Medici, known as ‘the Magnificent’. This gave him access to the enviable Medici art collection, as well as a powerful patron.

• Read more | “They were on a level with today’s billionaires” – your guide to the Medici: bankers to the Pope, rulers of Florence, patrons of the Renaissance

“Lorenzo wasn't officially the lord or the duke of the city,” Fletcher notes. “This is an important detail, because the relationship with the Medici became a matter of contention later on in Michelangelo's career. But the Medici were massive patrons of art, and really important in creating Florence’s cultural environment.”

While studying philosophy and the humanities at the Platonic Academy, Michelangelo also began sculpting. It was there that he created two stunning marble panels that demonstrated his skill even at an early age.

Michelangelo went on to become a great sculptor in marble, having grown up seeing stone being cut and dug every day

Shortly afterwards, however, Lorenzo’s death in 1492 signalled a turning point in Michelangelo’s life. Amid the political upheavals of the coming years, he headed first to Venice and then Bologna, intermittently returning to Florence.

In June 1496, he travelled to Rome and took a commission from a cardinal for a statue of the ancient Roman god of wine, Bacchus.

This was followed by his Pietà, which he had finished by the age of 24. Hailed as a masterpiece, but Michelangelo supposedly heard someone credit another artist with the piece, and so added his name to the sash running across Mary’s chest.

How did Michelangelo create the statue of David?

Having relocated to Florence in 1499 now a famous artist, Michelangelo was approached to complete a huge statue of the Biblical figure David. It had originally been commissioned 40 years earlier as part of a series of statues intended for the Florence Cathedral, but had gone through a number of sculptors without much progress.

“At this point, a huge block of marble had been lying around and worked on a bit, but [was mostly] sitting there… trying to find somebody to do something with it,” says Fletcher. “Michelangelo had made his reputation with the incredible Pietà statue, so he got the job.”

Created between 1501 and 1504. Michelangelo’s David is considered a Renaissance masterpiece. He did a huge amount of preparation to sculpt the statue out of the colossal block of marble, known as ‘the giant’, and the work required an enormous scaffold. “The way he worked was very precise,” Fletcher says.

Michelangelo was approached to complete a huge statue of the Biblical figure David. It had originally been commissioned 40 years earlier as part of a series of statues intended for the Florence Cathedral, but had gone through a number of sculptors without much progress

“This wasn’t something you could just dive in and sculpt directly: there was a lot of drawing and planning with models in advance. Eventually, Michelangelo was so keen to get it right that he [began] making his own tools. He wasn’t going to go into a shop and buy a chisel; he was going to sort out his own tools to do the sculpting.”

The finished David stood at 5.18 metres (17ft) tall. “Of course, it was too heavy to go on the roof where it was meant to go, so there was then an argument about where they were going to put it.”

It was eventually decided that David should stand in Florence’s main square, outside the Palazzo della Signoria (now known as Palazzo Vecchio), which was the headquarters of the ruling body of the Republic of Florence.

Did Michelangelo’s David suggest dislike of the Medici family?

The subject of Michelangelo’s marble statue was the Biblical figure of David, who as a young Israelite shepherd defeated a giant named Goliath in single combat, using nothing but a sling and a stone.

“The statue was very important in the iconography of Florence at the time: it represented the city’s liberty,” says Fletcher. “In the political context, you can see that it was actually a critique of the Medici and their foreign backers, because they were the tyrants who wanted to come and take over the city.”

From the beginning, David was a symbol of freedom and liberty, and for the Florentine Republic. “And, as lots of other countries around the world fought for freedom and liberty and for their own republics against the monarchy, this example of Florence and its fight against the Medici had real political importance,” Fletcher adds.

Were Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci rivals?

The two great artists first encountered each other in 1504, when Leonardo da Vinci was asked to join the committee tasked with deciding where Michelangelo’s David should be placed. Despite being from different generations, a rivalry flourished between them.

Over the years, Michelangelo and Leonard continued to be aware of each other’s work. When Michelangelo was asked in 1549 about the long-standing debate about the ranking of the various arts, he wrote: “As to that man [Leonardo] who wrote saying that painting was more noble than sculpture, if he had known as much about the other subjects on which he has written, why my serving maid could have written better!”.

• Read more | Leonardo & Michelangelo: rivalry and inspiration

Yet beyond the rivalry, the two men had a more complex relationship, and they would influence and push each other throughout their careers.

What did Michelangelo paint in the Sistine Chapel?

Following the success of David, Michelangelo was increasingly called upon to work on large-scale projects. Pope Julius II invited the artist to Rome to create 40 life-sized statues for his elaborate tomb. Commissioned in 1505, the project dragged on for four decades as Michelangelo regularly turned his attention to other works.

The most significant of these would undoubtedly be the two frescoes created for the Sistine Chapel: on the ceiling, between 1508 and 1512, and The Last Judgment, from 1536 to 1541.

The Sistine Chapel ceiling, especially, is one of the most iconic works of Renaissance art. It includes the instantly recognisable image of God reaching out to touch Adam, which is in the centre of eight other scenes from the Book of Genesis and figures from classical mythology.

Following the success of David, Michelangelo was increasingly called upon to work on large-scale projects. The most significant of these would undoubtedly be the two frescoes created for the Sistine Chapel: on the ceiling, between 1508 and 1512, and The Last Judgment, from 1536 to 1541

It was a mammoth undertaking. “It does seem to have been a very, very tough piece of work to do,” says Fletcher. “Michelangelo himself describes coming out of it being bent like a bow.”

Fletcher addresses the debate about the degree to which Michelangelo had assistance. “In one of the documents [from the period], we get the sense that he did hire 12 assistants. But then there's a question of what he actually allowed [them to do], because he was a bit of a micromanager.”

What do we know about Michelangelo’s sexuality and personal life?

Since Michelangelo’s life was largely solitary, it remains difficult to confirm his sexuality, admits Fletcher. “He didn't have anyone with whom he was at all romantically connected until quite a lot later in his life.”

It was then that we know he wrote an extensive sequence of sonnets to a much younger man, an Italian noble named Tommaso dei Cavalieri. “As with any historic same-sex relationship, people always ask whether they were actually a couple or just friends,” says Fletcher. “In this case you have to decide whether the sense of attraction in the sonnets was enough to outweigh the religious belief that sodomy was a sin.”

But Fletcher does argue that the erotic nature of the sonnets that Michelangelo wrote does suggest that he was sexually attracted to men.

How did Michelangelo die?

Michelangelo died following a brief illness in Rome on 18 February 1564, at the age of 88. He had been working on a sculpture, the Rondanini Pietà, just six days earlier.

In his last two decades, he had focussed more on architecture, most notably working to complete St Peter’s Basilica.

Where is Michelangelo buried?

Rather than being buried in Rome, Michelangelo was laid to rest in the Basilica di Santa Croce in Florence. This holds a pantheon of famous Florentine and Italian people, big monuments for Machiavelli and, later, Galileo Galilei.

“And there was Michelangelo, back in his home city of Florence,” says Fletcher. “I think this says something about his attachment to it, even though he didn’t live there for much of his later life.”