Detail from: Pieta MICHELANGELO c. 1498

Michelangelo Buonarroti was born in Caprese, 1475 and died in Rome 1564. After a brief apprenticeship with the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio, he entered Bertoldo's sculpture school. In 1496 Michelangelo was in Rome, where he remained until 1501 where he executed The Pieta, for Saint Peter's Basilica. He returned to Florence but Pope Julius II, who in 1505 had commissioned his funeral monument from Michelangelo [completed  1545], called him back to Rome in 1508 to decorate the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, an assignment finished four years later. In the following years, Michelangelo was engaged in sculpture and architectural projects. In 1534 Pope Clement VII engaged him to fresco the Walls of the choir of the Sistine Chapel with The Last judgment, accomplished by 1541. Pope Paul III assigned him the decoration of the Pauline Chapel in the Vatican, where he frescoed The Conversion of Saint Paul and The Crucifixion of Saint Peter-----works that illustrate the evolution of an increasingly dramatic conception of the relationship between man and God. From 1546 on, Michelangelo was superintendent of works at Saint Peter's, and until his death, he concentrated on sculpture and some sketches. This is his most famous sculpture and most probably his finest.

VIEW THE FULL PIETA AGAINST MARBLE AS IT IS IN ST. PETER'S




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