Michelangelo Buonarroti

Posted October 2, 2007, 10:25 pm
Credit 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. Michelangelo lived through the reigns of 13 popes, and worked for nine of them.

• At Age 59-66, he painted The Last Judgement on the alter of the Sistine Chapel.

After the Age of Seventy

• At Age 67-75, he painted two frescos for Paul III in his chapel at the Cappella Paolina from from 1542 to 1550.
• At Age 71, he was appointed chief architect of St. Peters Basilica in the Vatican.
• In 1555, he became an octogenarian, almost unheard of in the Renaissance, when the average age was approximately half that. Yet, his creative powers scarcely flagged.
• At Age 89, we was still wroting poetry and makng drawings of the crucifixion and carving the Peietra and the Rondanini Pietra.

Quotes

• "The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting    our aim too low, and achieving our mark."
  
• "There is no greater harm than that of time wasted."
  
• "Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it. "
• "I am a poor man and of little worth, who is laboring in that art that God has given me in order to        extend my life as long as possible."
• "I hope that I may always desire more than I can accomplish."
• "If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all."
  

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