Michelangelo Buonarroti

Posted October 2, 2007, 10:25 pm by Growing Bolder


Michelangelo
Born: March 6, 1475 Died: Feb 18, 1564
 
Michelangelo Buonarroti was an Italian sculptor, architect, painter and poet in the period known as the High Renaissance. His great works were almost entirely in the service of the Catholic Church and include a huge statue of the Biblical hero David in Florence, sculpted between 1501 and 1504, and the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican in Rome, painted between 1508 and 1512.

After the Age of Sixty

Michelangelo lived through the reigns of 13 popes, and worked for nine of them.
Between the ages of 59 and 66, he painted The Last Judgement on the alter of the Sistine Chapel.

Michelangelo welcomed his 70s by painting two frescos for Paul III in his chapel at the Cappella Paolina from from 1542 to 1550.

In 1546, at age 71, he was appointed chief architect of St. Peters Basilica in the Vatican.

In his last years he wrote poetry, made drawings of the crucifixion and carved the Peietra and the Rondanini Pietra.

In 1555, the artist became an octogenarian, almost unheard of in the Renaissance, when the average age was approximately half that. Yet, his creative powers scarcely flagged.



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