65.Michelangelo

To view his work is to visit a dimension of celestial ecstasy. His paintings, murals, and sculptures are doorways to a heightened state of being. They are the very essence of the word masterpiece. It's not only proud Italians who believe that Michelangelo Buonarroti was and is the greatest artist the world has ever known.

Michelangelo was one of the few Renaissance artists to come from a well-to-do family; his father was a city magistrate. Ludovico Buonarroti was none too pleased with his son's desired vocation and tried on numerous occasions to beat some sense into him. Fortunately, Lorenzo "the Magnificent" de' Medici stepped in and convinced the family that art was indeed among the noblest of all professions. As a result of living at the Medici household for a brief period, Michelangelo's artistic talents blossomed. Marsilio Ficino, Giovanne Pico della Mirandola, and Angelo Poliziano, some of the great intellects of the period, congregated there, to think, drink, and perhaps sing a bawdy song or two. It was Poliziano who suggested the mythological theme of one of Michelangelo's first great sculptures, The Battle of the Centaurs, a marble relief whose subject would become an important aspect of many of the artist's later works.

In the late1400s, Michelangelo moved to Rome, where he carved Bacchus, another Roman-influenced sculpture, in 1496. His next piece, the poignant and moving Pietý, would represent the other passion in his art: Christian devotionalism. Here the classic image of a dead Christ lying across his mother's lap is conveyed with touching restraint but great emotion and energy. Michelangelo's feelings about this particular work of art must have been very positive, for it is his only creation that actually bears his signature.

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