Michelangelo

Michelangelo's Birth

Mar 6, 1475

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was born on march 6th, 1475 in Caprese, Italy. His father, a mayor, was recalled to florence. This caused the family to move there, only returning a couple years later.

His Mother's Death

1481

When michelangelo reached 6 years of age, in 1481, his mother passed away. She had been sick with a fever for weeks, and eventually it got to her. This is what ultimately lead Michelangelo to be sent to a wet home- with a family of stone cutters. They were, according to the man himself in later years, the one's who fed ideas of sculpting to him.

Apprenticeship

1488

The apprenticeship first began while Michelangelo was 13 years old, in 1488. He followed a man named Domenico Ghirlandaio, who began his own career as a jeweler, only later on calling himself a man of art. After all of this, in his older years, Michelangelo would like to hide or deny that he wasn’t self taught. He believed it made him less talented and belittled him as an artist.

Younger Years

1489

As a boy, and as he grew up, michelangelo was never really into school. Instead of going to it, he skipped out and went to nearby churches to watch painters. When there, he drew what he saw. When he was around 14 years of age, a boy 6 years his senior, Francesco Granacci, is said to have introduced Michelangelo to who he would first apprentice as an artist.

Michelangelo and the Medici Family

1492

Michelangelo, from 1498-1492, was given the opportunity to study classical sculpture in the palace gardens of florentine ruler Lorenzo the Magnificent, of the Medici family. His time here gave him access to the social elite of Florence- it introduced him to poets, and other esteemed people of the fine arts. He even obtained special permission by the church to study cadavers for anatomy, which is rumored to have negatively affected his own body.

The New World

1492

In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed across the Atlantic Ocean, finding the “new world”. This affected everything people of the time knew of the Earth they inhabited. It killed over a million natives, allowing conquerors to come to the new world. Furthermore, it created access to knowledge of what lied across the prior untraveled oceans.

La Pieta

1498

La Pieta, meaning pity, is a carving of The Mother holding Jesus in her arms. It was Michelangelo's first commissioned sculpture, requested to be built by the french cardinal Jean de Bilherescare in Rome. This is the piece that made him famous, at a young 24 years of age. Michelangelo was criticized for making Mother Mary look so young, but he stated it was to show how chastity affected her. It was the only sculpture he is known to have signed.

Vasco De Gama

1498

In 1497, a man by the name of Vasco de Gama traveled from Lisbon, on a mission to find the first sea route to India. He sailed across the Cape of Good Hope and made many stops off the east coast of africa before he finally reached the country, in May of 1498

David

1501

During 1501-1504, Michelangelo took over a commission for the statue of david that two other sculptors had attempted but given up on. The statue was 17 feet tall and made of marble- it became a prized representative of Florence. Originally it was for the cathedral of Florence, but instead, the government placed it in front of the palace Palazzo Vecchio. In modern day, the statue can be seen in Florence's Academia gallery.

Amerigo Vespucci

1501

Amerigo Vespucci is an italian explorer, and the first to recognize the separation of North and South America- them being different continents. He made this discovery while sailing past the southern tip of South America, in 1501. Prior to this discovery, everyone assumed they were one in the same.

The Sistine Chapel

1512

Pope Julius II asked Michelangelo to switch to painting, not really something he wanted to do- only agreeing to do it after being told he could create The Pope's tomb after it's completion. What he was requested to paint were the ceilings of the Sistine Chapel. No matter how he originally didn't like the idea, it fueled his imagination, as originally only 12 apostles were to be portrayed while in the end Michelangelo painted more than 300. (Bio.com)

The Battle of Marignano

1515

The battle of Marignano was fought from September 14th to the 15th in 1515. It took place near 10 miles southeast of the village of Milan, where the french won victory over a Swiss army. It was the first Italian campaign of Francis I.

New Holy Roman Emporer

1519

Charles V, after the death of his grandfather Maximillian in 1519, letting him inherit the Habsburg monarchy. He was also eligible to be crowned Holy Roman Emperor. This is important, as it gave him control of nearly the entirety of Western Europe.

Loneliness

1520

Michelangelo, according to a man named Raphael, (Michelangelo’s apparent rival due to jealousy), was “lonely as a hangman”. Michelangelo was so bitter from Raphael’s success with the painting the Madonna of the Goldfinch, that when Raphael died prematurely at the age of 37 he wrote “All he had of art, he had from me” solely because Raphael was inspired by the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling. (63)

The Peace of Augsburg

1555

The Peace of Augsburg took place in Germany, declared on September 25th, 1555. It ended the endless conflict between those of Lutheranism and Catholicism- even allowing the princess to select either to be the main religion of her domain.

His Death

1564

Michelangelo’s cause of death is uncertain to historians. We do know that in 1549 he was diagnosed with kidney stones, which he had for the rest of his living years. In 1555 he was diagnosed with arthritis, which also plagued him till his death. Some of the speculation of his death must have been right, as he died february 18, 1564 in Rome, Italy.