The Story of Michelangelo Buonarroti.
Michelangelo Buonarroti, was born in Caprese, Italy, on March 6, 1475, was the second of 5 children of Ludovico di Leonardo Buonarroti Di Simoni and Francesca di Neri of the Miniato di Siena, which died when Michelangelo was 6 years old.
It was the time of the Renaissance, people were between two currents of thought, the classical and the religious and both intuited in the small Michelangelo who was sent to study grammar in Florence with the teacher Francesco da Urbino.
Michelangelo's family did not have the economic bonanza that he once had but they were still a moderately important family in Florence, so when the future artist told his father of his desire to dedicate himself to art, he became enraged, eventually accepting the wishes of his son, which shows us the stubborn character of Michelangelo. When he was 12 years old he entered the workshop of the Ghirlandaios as an apprentice. He was there for a year and in his spare time he went to the garden of the Medici, the lords of Florence.
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One afternoon Lorenzo de Medici the "Magnificent" saw that Michelangelo borrowed a hammer and a chisel from some masons and worked with a small block of marble, a few days later he made the head of a faun and Lorenzo approached him and told him that the mouth was too perfect and he left ... Miguel Angel remodeled the creation and Lorenzo invited him to live in the palace, "Il Magnífico" was very generous with him and with other talents of the time who also invited to share the table with him and with several renowned personalities of that time.
Michelangelo had a mocking personality, in addition to causing the envy of other young artists, one of them was Pietro Torrigiano who in a fight gave a punch to Michelangelo, breaking his nose. (in all the portraits of the artist his deviated nose is appreciated). The acid character of Michelangelo did not stop in that fight on the contrary, he remained a rebel, but we will get to that.
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At that time he made his first notable works as "The Battle of the Centaurs" and "The Virgin of the Steps."
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But it all ended when, after almost two years of living in Lorenzo's palace, he died leaving Michelangelo without a patron.
He thought that if he wanted to continue being an artist he had to overcome himself and do something to learn more.
Sad left the palace, he was barely 17 years old and to overcome the uncertainty he felt, he sought to perfect his technique, with the help of a prelate of a local church who got him a permit to dissect corpses, began to study the human body meticulously, understood how everything was united, how the muscles tensed, how the bones and flesh were held together, how the human body worked, and that was a great impact for him, as well as the speeches of the religious leader of the city, Cardinal Girolamo Savonarola.
Michelangelo came to declare in his last days that he even remembered the sound of the voice of the cardinal, whose life is very interesting but I will tell you about him in another post, although I tell you that he was an ultra conservative and intolerant man.
With all that anatomical and religious knowledge was ready to restart his career but the French invaded Florence in 1494 and Michelangelo fled to Bologna and then to Rome where he was commissioned to perform one of the most beautiful works that have been made in history; "Piety" is the scene where the Virgin Mary cradles the body of Christ, the vision of Michelangelo and his studies of anatomy made people be amazed to see her, and that the relaxed figure of Jesus' lifeless body is extremely realistic.
The muscles, the veins, the angles, everything is perfect and contrasts with the thin and undulating figures of a virgin Mary full of life.
Michelangelo went to see what the public said about his work and was furious to hear what they said ... And not because it was bad, on the contrary, it was so perfect that it was attributed to some older and more renowned artist that the young Michelangelo who at that time was 24 years old.
Furious because he doubted his talent and abilities, he slipped into the night where it was exhibited and vandalized it.
Until today you can read in the ribbon that crosses the chest of the virgin "Michelangelo Buonarroti, Florentine, he did it".
Michelangelo was a genius, but his youth played against him in that outburst.
And is that despite his fame, he was not very happy, especially because he carried the weight of his father, a man who constantly asked his talented son for money. Michelangelo lived as poor to send money to his abusive father and his brothers, although he helped and maintained them very willingly and not morally.
After his success in Rome he returned to his beloved Florence where he was commissioned the biggest challenge of his young career
There they wanted to decorate the cathedral with 12 statues dedicated to 12 characters from the old testament, 35 years before they had tried to sculpt something in a huge block of marble they called "The giant" but the two artists who worked it ruined the stone without achieving anything .
Michelangelo had the mystical belief that within the stones lived the characters he sculpted, he did not work with anyone, he analyzed their fissures and veins to discover where the character was sleeping
So he insulated himself with the stone and analyzed it as was his custom.
Only his assistants saw his advances, and after 4 years of work he revealed his work, he chose as character to King David, posing naked with his sling about to kill the giant Goliath, David's face is intimidating and good after piety, after David, the fame he achieved would have positioned Michelangelo as the greatest artist of the time had it not been for a certain Leonardo Da Vinci, an open man, whose works were more natural, more serene and calm than those that emerged from the mind of tormented Michelangelo, both artists had nothing in common except a big ego.
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Da Vinci feeling threatened by Michelangelo wrote that
"Being a sculptor is like being a baker, hitting the stone dust and dirtied them and came to their houses covered and sweaty, instead, the painting was a clean and refined art."
And then fate wanted both giants to face each other, the government of Florence wanted to make two large murals, one in front of another and reserved a space for Michelangelo and another for Leonardo.
The confrontation caused so much expectation that they even insulted each other when they met with one another on the street.
Well, although the confrontation did not happen, years later Michelangelo would share roof with Rafael, but that comes later, for the moment both murals were only sketches and are impressive because motivated by the rivalry between them, they took the best of themselves.
Both works were not given because unfortunately Leonardo trying to do something new to the way he applied the paint ruined his progress and Michelangelo was called to Rome because Pope Julius II wanted to commission him something.
Julius II was just as proud as Michelangelo, he had Bramante as architect, Rafael was a painter, and Sculptor wanted Michelangelo, and he wanted him to build a majestic tomb. Michelangelo excitedly accepted and left for Rome where he spent months working .
But the Pope was inconstant, he began to lose interest in the project and Michelangelo, furious at the effort he had devoted to him and which Julius II neglected, returned to Florence.
From that moment he spent half his life fighting with the Pope in turn and the other half working for him.
In 1508 he made another commission, a much more demanding one, to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, but Michelangelo refused, arguing that Rafael was better qualified (he did not really want to paint), but the Pope was infatuated and gave him an advance of 500 ducats
Michelangelo continued to support his father and his brothers despite having enough economic problems and is that for a year the Pope did not pay him and Michelangelo did not want to charge because he felt he was moving at a good place (he was a perfectionist).
Every time he became more desperate, he regretted having accepted the work, he missed re-sculpturing, and the pope would constantly press the artist, "when will the work be ready?" He would ask, and Michelangelo would furiously reply: "When I can."
The Pope one day, fed up by that response, gave a blow to Michelangelo, who felt humiliated and left Rome, but the Pope did something unthinkable.
He asked for forgiveness and asked him to return (He also gave him 500 ducats as compensation)
Michelangelo returned to Rome to finish his work, spent 15 hours standing (not lying as the legend says) on a scaffolding until he managed to finish it.
After 4 years of work, Michelangelo became not only the greatest sculptor of the time but also the best painter.
He was 37 years old and he had overcome again, but two years later Pope Julius II died, Michelangelo was sad despite his differences since the pope's ironclad character demanded him to be better, so he offered to make the centerpiece from the Pope's tomb (again).
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I will try to briefly explain this sculpture that many do not know but Michelangelo himself said that it was his masterpiece, more than David, the piety or the ceiling of the Sistine and now you will see why he represents Moses with the tables of the 10 commandments, but with an idealized image of the Pope, the veins are swollen, the blood is contained, the force is equal, the face is fury, the frown is frowned, the folds of the clothes are seen, the beard in the form of water falling.
When finished her imposing figure impressed Michelangelo, it was simply perfect, so much so that Michelangelo approached her to see her and she seemed so alive that the legend says that she gave him a slight blow to the knee and told him "speak".
(The blow of the hammer can still be seen)
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Now Michelangelo was anything but poor, he continued to support his family but as the most recognized artist of his time money flowed constantly, was the first superstar of art.
Over time he started investing money in properties.
Despite having many assistants, he could not do all the orders they asked for, he refused to say no to any work and for 15 years he worked tirelessly.
In 1532, after the death of his father and brother he felt old and lonely, here he met Tommaso Dei Cavalieri, a young apprentice who became his life partner and many say that he was his lover and one of his great loves.
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By 1534 and almost 60 years old, after unveiling his great work in the tomb of the Medici, he returned to the Vatican because he was commissioned to paint something on the large wall behind the altar of the Sistine Chapel.
At that time he meet his other great love, Vittoria Colonna.
She was a widow who stimulated the religious beliefs of Michelangelo, who believed in life after death did a terrifyingly magnificent work, his work "The final judgment" shows a hard Jesus judging the souls of the earth.
Jesus looks like a judge full of anger, punishing everyone, even the artist, (self-portrait, or rather his skin is held by Bartolomé), it is so awesome and frightening to face the final judgment, that the Pope to see it fell kneeling imploring forgiveness to heaven.
Here is the complete work:
I will tell you in detail what conceals the final judgment in another post, for now I tell you that many popes horrified by the work wanted to destroy it but in reality the only change was made to cover the genitals, because a cardinal called Biagio da Cesena, who went to accuse Michelangelo with the Pope that he was painting the apostles nude, Michelangelo replied that the apostles had no tailor but the Pope ordered them to cover themselves anyway.
Michelangelo would take revenge epically...
He painted the cardinal in hell, put donkey ears and a snake around him and bit him a testicle, when the cardinal saw his face and understood that he would be there forever ridiculed was to accuse Michelangelo again with the Pope.
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After listening to the offended Cardinal who wanted to remove his figure from the work, Paul III told him amused, "If I had sent you to purgatory, I could save you but my power comes up there, from hell, it is impossible for you to get rid of my son".
Michelangelo was already an old man but he also achieved a fame that no artist before or since has reached, instead of retiring to spend his last years in tranquility, he accepted one last great job, finishing the imposing Cathedral of San Pedro. Despite the fact that when Michelangelo was finished he was already dead, the design in the dome of the so-called "divine Michelangelo" is still there
Knowing who he was worked until almost the last of his life, he was almost blind and his hands were shaking but he could still shape the marble.
He was 89 years old when he died, but not leaving the world because he has not left, not while his spirit is still there, not while there are people crying with emotion when they see David for the first time, piety, Moses, the final judgment or any other of his works.
So that your story is an incentive for all, do not leave this world without seeing a work of it, believe me that being in front of their works will understand the meaning of beauty and understand why they called the divine, Propose as a goal to travel and look for Michelangelo.
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