Michelangelo's Lasting Imprint Upon Florence

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was born in Tuscany in 1475, and was raised, from a very early age, in Florence. The son of minor bankers, he was raised by estate holders who managed a marble quarry his father owned in Capezza after the death of his mother. A student at the Humanist Academy of Florence established by Lorenzo di Medici, he did commissions for the Medici court in the 1490s, and most of his early works were commissioned and established there.

Among them are the Battle of the Centaurs (Battle of the Centaurs, a breathtaking marble relief, commissioned by Piero de Medici, and installed at Casa Buonarroti. It was carved when the artist was 23, and even then, showed his ability to work with his chosen medium, marble. From the same general era is the Crucifix, finished in 1492. Located on the high altar of the church of Santa Maria del Santo Spirito, the figure is unusual in that it depicts Christ in the nude. It is periodically restored to keep its colors intact.

Michelangelo was more than a sculptor. His contributions to painting ,even before the Sistine Chapel ceiling, were great advances on the humanist trends of the Renaissance. Some of his earliest works, like Di Tondo, a painting of the Holy Family with an infant of St. John the Baptist, and the sketch of Cleopatra, both in display in Florence, are examples of his early work in this arena.

Michelangelo's freestanding sculptures are what gave him lasting fame, from the classically themed series about Captive Atlas, to the Awakening Slave, his ability to pull the limned forms of men out of marble, and to convey their emotional import led him to the commission that was his most famous sculpture: taking over the failed sculpture of David, which has widely been considered the finest Renaissance sculpture ever made.

Michelangelo's primary temporal patrons were the Medici family, and when they fell from power, he left for Rome. However, at the end of his career, he was commissioned to make their family tomb; this project took nearly forty years with all the interruptions, but is one of the most widely trafficked examples of his work in Florence. The Medicis also commissioned several pieces based on Greek and Roman mythology, as did their associates. Later in life the Medicis bought much of Michelangelo's other sculptures.

While Michelangelo's other patron was the Church, not all of his pieces on Biblical themes are in Rome; a number of them still show in Florence, along with many of his architectural innovations, most notably his tomb. Michelangelo was renowned enough to be the first artist to ever have a biography published while he was alive; there were in fact, two of them, and his contributions to both have made him one of the most well documented Renaissance artists of the 16th century.