Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475-1564) was an artist of all trades, a sculptor, an architect, a poet and an engineer. You can't talk about art without mentioning Michelangelo. He was born in Tuscany, Italy to a family of small scale bankers. He was sent to study under the humanist Francesco da Urbino but showed more interest in copying church paintings and drawing. At thirteen he was apprenticed to a painter for proper instruction. He learned much about architecture and designed the Laurentian Library among many other structures. At the age of 21 he started taking large projects such as a life size statue of the Roman Wine God, which ended with being rejected by the Cardinal of the time. One of his most famous pieces, the Pieta was commissioned in 1497 by the French Ambassador. He was asked to finish a work that had been in the undertaking for some forty years and this is how the Statue of David transpired. He was known as an architect and had two biographies written about him while he was still alive, a very unique fact to say the least. He designed the dome for St. Peter's Basilica and it was still in the works when he passed away. Rome garnered much of Michelangelo's attention. He spent forty years off and on working on the Pope's tomb and was said to never have completed it to his satisfaction. It was during this period he took the commission for the Sistine Chapel ceiling. While most people speculate it took a large number of years to create, it was just four years in the works. Michelangelo triggered the next major art movement of the time, Mannerism.
