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Friday, April 15, 2016

MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI


Let me add this great artist of the Italian Renaissance, right after Leonardo Da Vinci.  In 1488 the young Michelangelo began attending the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio, but the activity did not correspond to his character, so much so that he was often working in solitude. And it’s in this period that the artist Michelangelo is formed and mature their own artistic creativity through the study of fifteenth-century Florentine culture. In Florence he lived and worked for the Medici family.
In this youthful period he realizes the Battle of the Centaurs and the Madonna della Scala (1490-92, Casa Buonarroti, Florence).
In 1495 when Florence Savonarola fighting art, Michelangelo moved to Rome where he sculpted the famous Vatican Pietà (Pietas).
She then returned to Florence where he produced a series of works that today still are masterpieces. The Doni Tondo (Uffizi Gallery, Florence), the Pitti Tondo (Museo del Bargello, Florence) and in 1501 he created his most famous sculpture David (Accademia Museum, Florence). The work was placed at the entrance of the Palazzo Vecchio, then moved inside the Museum (currently outside the Palazzo Vecchio is a copy).
Spostatosi again in Rome to the dependence of Pope Julius II, where he worked for about forty years. Begins with the design of his tomb, Michelangelo but neglected by the pope is not in tune with the Pope. Then ironed out their differences, Julius II in 1508 commissioned him to fresco the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (I saw it in person when a teenager). An immense task that requires four years of intense work, where we find the Creation of Adam and represents the full expression of the artistic ideals of the Renaissance.
On the death of Pope Julius II (in 1513) Michelangelo works to his grave and realizes the Moses and the two Slaves (Louvre Museum, Paris). Michelangelo returned to Florence and back to work for the Medici made the Basilica of San Lorenzo with the project for the decoration of the facade and the building of the New Sacristy (1520-34).
In San Lorenzo also creates the project for the Laurentian Library (which dots will be realized only after the middle of 1500 together with Ammannati).
After 1530 he resumed work at the tomb of Julius II and sculpts the four unfinished Prisoners but even these do not go to adorn the tomb of the great pontiff (= Pope).
After the death of his father Lodovico, in 1534 Michelangelo moved permanently to Rome and worked for Pope Clement VII. In this stage of life he frescoed the altar of the Sistine Chapel with the Last Judgment (1536-41).
Michelangelo also works on architecture and after 1550 he completed the construction of the Laurentian Library in Florence (stunningly beautiful) and designs and manufactures Piazza del Campidoglio in Rome and then devoted himself to the construction of the dome of St. Peter in Rome (cubic WOW). This work he was appointed in 1547 by Pope Paul III and the artist intervened in the apse. Michelangelo died in Rome on February 18, 1564 at his home at the Forum of Trajan at the age of 90 years. The works of St. Peter finished later with the construction of the dome he had designed with minor modifications. After his death the city of Florence claims the remains of their fellow citizen that his nephew steals from Rome. Today the tomb of the Renaissance genius lies in the Church of Santa Croce(I dedicate this to you, my dear treasures, not only because I know that you come here to read my posts, but very much too because we'll go to Italy together to see these beauties that represent the roots of today's culture and timeless sense of beauty).


  1.  http://www.italian-renaissance-art.com/Michelangelo.html
  2. http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96mar/michelangelo.html
  3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelangelo

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