Michelangelo Buonarroti: life, works, and masterpieces in Florence (and beyond!)

Discovering the masterpieces of the Renaissance genius

The divine artist: this is how one could sum up the life and career of Michelangelo Buonarroti, one of the greatest artists of all time, a true protagonist of the Renaissance

In September 1537, he wrote in a letter to the artist Pietro Aretino, “the world has many kings, and only one Michelangelo.” Already to the great Tuscan artist's contemporaries the perception of the greatness of his genius was clear.

We look back at his life and masterpieces.

Il David di Michelangelo al Museo dell'Accademia

The story of Michelangelo

Michelangelo Buonarroti was born in Caprese, in the province of Arezzo, on March 6, 1475. As a newborn he was taken by his family to Florence. Michelangelo was the son of Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni and Francesca di Neri; he was initiated by his father into humanistic studies under Francesco da Urbino, showing an aptitude for drawing from early on. He attended the Florentine school of master Ghirlandaio's workshop, but within a short time (he was about 13 at the time), he left the workshop to go to the Giardini di San Marco, the free school of sculpture and copying the antique established by Lorenzo de' Medici.

As a young man, Michelangelo showed a very strong personality, and he was noticed by Lorenzo the Magnificent, who welcomed him into his court; here, Michelangelo was able to come into contact with some very great humanist thinkers, such as Marsilio Ficino. At the Medici court he made his first sculptures.

From 1490 onward he began a series of travels around Italy that would be highly formative for his artistic career; in 1494, in fact, he fled the Medici court for fear of their fall after the arrival of Charles VIII in Florence. He went to Bologna where he sculpted the Bas-relief for the Cathedral of San Petronio. In Bologna he also made the sculptural composition for the arch of San Domenico, and in 1495 he returned to Florence. The return to Florence marks the beginning of the period of his most important works. A Cupid sculpted by him that was the object of a swindle at the expense of Cardinal Jacopo Galli, a well-known Roman collector, first brought him to Rome. From then on Roman sojourns would be increasingly frequent, and it was in Rome that Michelangelo died on February 18, 1864, at the age of 89. He will never return to Florence despite repeated invitations from Cosimo I.

Michelangelo's most important works

It is not easy to summarize Michelangelo Buonarroti's experience in a few lines. However, we can attempt to mention his most majestic works, those that cannot go unmentioned. In this beautiful text by Antonio Natali, the art historian and former director of the Uffizi tells us about the most famous ones.

David di Michelangelo

Between 1500 and 1504 he created the David, an emblem of the Renaissance and today a symbol of Italy throughout the world. The work, depicts the biblical hero as he prepares to face Goliath, and is now regarded as the ideal of male beauty in art. The original is currently in the Accademia Gallery. Another copy of the same sculpture is located in Piazza della Signoria, but there are as many as 5 Davids in Florence.

DAVID, GALLERIA DELL'ACCADEMIA

Tondo Doni

Michelangelo painted this Holy Family, one of the Uffizi's immovables, for the wedding of Agnolo Doni to Maddalena Strozzi. Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael were in the city at the same time in those years. These were years of the highest cultural fervor, and Agnolo was thus able to celebrate his noble wedding and the birth of his first-born daughter with some of the greatest expressions of this exceptional flowering: the portraits of the couple painted by Raphael, and Michelangelo's tondo, which is the only certain painting on panel by the master. Michelangelo had recently studied the potential of the circular format, much appreciated in the early Renaissance for domestic devotional furnishings, in the marbles of the Tondo Pitti(Museo Nazionale del Bargello) and the Tondo Taddei(Royal Academy in London): in both cases the Madonna, Child and St. John occupy overwhelmingly the entire surface of the relief. The Tondo Doni is also conceived as a sculpture, in which the pyramidal composition of the group imposes itself over almost the entire height and width of the panel.

Tondo Doni, Michelangelo

La Sagrestia Nuova, Cappelle Medicee

La Sagrestia Nuova, costruita a péndant della Sagrestia Vecchia brunelleschiana , fu ideata nel suo arredo architettonico e scultoreo interno da Michelangelo forse su un precedente impianto progettato da Giuliano da Sangallo. Il lavoro durò quattordici anni, subì numerose interruzioni a causa di importanti vicende storiche - tra cui la fuga e il ritorno dei Medici al potere - e rimase inconcluso nel 1534, per il definitivo trasferimento di Michelangelo a Roma.

Museo delle Cappelle Medicee

Il Dio Fluviale

After centuries of history and numerous relocations, Michelangelo’s life-size model of the River God returns to the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence, where it is displayed in a room specially designed to highlight its artistic and cultural value. Created around 1526–1527 for the Medici tombs in the Sagrestia Nuova of San Lorenzo, this figure was intended to complete the tomb of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, representing an anthropomorphic river god in a reclining pose, a symbol of the flowing of life. Donated to the Academy by Bartolomeo Ammannati in 1583 to support the study of young artists, the model underwent a meticulous restoration between 2015 and 2017 at the Opificio delle Pietre Dure, which consolidated its structure and restored its original materiality. The new installation, designed by architects David Palterer and Norberto Medardi, allows for an intimate and contemplative experience, with seismic protections and a glass parallelepiped evoking the flow of water. The room also houses works by Francesco Granacci and the Sangallo Workshop, creating a dialogue among the great masters of the Renaissance.

Michelangelo, Dio Fluviale (ph. Elena Foresto)

La Pietà Vaticana

The Vatican Pietà is regarded as the artist's first major masterpiece, datable between 1497 and 1499. It is the only one that contains the artist's signature. It was commissioned by the banker Jacopo Galli, during Michelangelo's first stay in Rome. The Virgin Mary the Naked Dead Christ in her arms, and the iconography of the work before this sculpture was usually translated into a fairly rigid scheme. Michelangelo innovates the iconographic tradition by carving a sculpture with an almost pyramidal pattern that seems to convey a moment of intimacy between the two figures.

La Pietà ospitata nella Basilica di San Pietro, Città del Vaticano

The frescoes of the Sistine Chapel

Impossible not to mention, then the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, the main chapel of the Apostolic Palace, known throughout the world for being the place where the Pope's ceremonies are held. Michelangelo's frescoes cover its vault, created when he was 33, in which he painted nine episodes from the Bible's book Genesis, divided into thematic groups of three. This is considered Michelangelo's final masterpiece, completed in 1512.

Cappella Sistina - Volta

The Dome of St. Peter's

Michelangelo Buonarroti worked on the Dome of St. Peter's until the day he died in 1564. The Dome has become a symbol of the city. Its form represents one of the high points of Renaissance architectural language and the transition to the Baroque era is one of the largest masonry roofs ever built. It has mastered the Roman skyline for centuries, and is one of the city's most scenic vantage points.

Galleria dell'Accademia