Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, known mononymously as Michelangelo, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. Born in the Republic of Florence, his work was inspired by models from classical antiquity and had a lasting influence on Western art. Michelangelo's creative abilities and mastery in a range of artistic arenas define him as an archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival and elder contemporary, Leonardo da Vinci. Given the sheer volume of surviving correspondence, sketches, and reminiscences, Michelangelo is one of the best-documented artists of the 16th century. He was lauded by contemporary biographers as the most accomplished artist of his era.
David is a masterpiece of Italian Renaissance sculpture, created from 1501 to 1504 by Michelangelo. With a height of 5.17 metres, the David was the first colossal marble statue made in the early modern period following classical antiquity, a precedent for the 16th century and beyond. David was originally commissioned as one of a series of statues of twelve prophets to be positioned along the roofline of the east end of Florence Cathedral, but was instead placed in the public square in front of the Palazzo della Signoria, the seat of civic government in Florence, where it was unveiled on 8 September 1504. In 1873, the statue was moved to the Galleria dell'Accademia, Florence, and in 1910 replaced at the original location by a replica.
The Madonna della Pietà, informally known as La Pietà, is a marble sculpture of Jesus and Mary at Mount Golgotha representing the "Sixth Sorrow" of the Blessed Virgin Mary by Michelangelo Buonarroti, now in Saint Peter's Basilica, Vatican City. It is a key work of Italian Renaissance sculpture and often taken as the start of the High Renaissance.
Marble has been the preferred material for stone monumental sculpture since ancient times, with several advantages over its more common geological "parent" limestone, in particular the ability to absorb light a small distance into the surface before refracting it in subsurface scattering. This gives an attractive soft appearance that is especially good for representing human skin, which can also be polished.
David is the title of two statues of the biblical hero by the Italian Early Renaissance sculptor Donatello. They consist of an early work in marble of a clothed figure (1408–09), and a far more famous bronze figure that is nude except for helmet and boots, and dates to the 1440s or later. Both are now in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence. The first was Donatello's most important commission up to that point, and had a religious context, placed on Florence Cathedral. The bronze remains his most famous work, and was made for a secular context, commissioned by the Medici family.
The Galleria dell'Accademia di Firenze, or "Gallery of the Academy of Florence", is an art museum in Florence, Italy. It is best known as the home of Michelangelo's sculpture David. It also has other sculptures by Michelangelo and a large collection of paintings by Florentine artists, mostly from the period 1300–1600. It is smaller and more specialized than the Uffizi, the main art museum in Florence. It adjoins the Accademia di Belle Arti or academy of fine arts of Florence, but despite the name has no other connection with it.
The Rondanini Pietà is a marble sculpture that Michelangelo worked on from 1552 until the last days of his life, in 1564. Several sources indicate that there were actually three versions, with this one being the last. The name Rondanini refers to the fact that the sculpture stood for centuries in the courtyard at the Palazzo Rondanini in Rome. Certain sources point out that biographer Giorgio Vasari had referred to this Pietà in 1550, suggesting that the first version may already have been underway at that time. The work is now in the Museo della Pietà Rondanini that was inaugurated in 2015 at Sforza Castle in Milan.
Edgar Wind was a British interdisciplinary art historian, specializing in iconology in the Renaissance era. He was a member of the school of art historians associated with Aby Warburg and the Warburg Institute as well as the first Professor of art history at Oxford University.
The Entombment is an unfinished oil-on-panel painting of the burial of Jesus, now generally attributed to the Italian Renaissance master Michelangelo Buonarroti and dated to around 1500 or 1501. It is in the National Gallery in London, which purchased the work in 1868 from Robert Macpherson, a Scottish photographer resident in Rome, who, according to various conflicting accounts, had acquired the painting there some 20 years earlier. It is one of a handful of paintings attributed to Michelangelo, alongside the Manchester Madonna, the Doni Tondo, and possibly, The Torment of Saint Anthony.
Pope Julius II, commissioned a series of highly influential art and architecture projects in the Vatican. The painting of the Sistine Chapel ceiling by Michelangelo and of various rooms by Raphael in the Apostolic Palace are considered among the masterworks that mark the High Renaissance in Rome. His decision to rebuild St Peter's led to the construction of the present basilica.
Florentine painting or the Florentine School refers to artists in, from, or influenced by the naturalistic style developed in Florence in the 14th century, largely through the efforts of Giotto di Bondone, and in the 15th century the leading school of Western painting. Some of the best known painters of the earlier Florentine School are Fra Angelico, Botticelli, Filippo Lippi, the Ghirlandaio family, Masolino, and Masaccio.
The Madonna and Child with St John and Angels (c. 1497), also known as The Manchester Madonna, is an unfinished painting in the National Gallery, London, attributed to Michelangelo. It is one of three surviving panel paintings attributed to the artist and has been dated to his first period in Rome. The work first came to public attention in the Art Treasures Exhibition in Manchester in 1857, hence the title the "Manchester Madonna". Attribution of the painting to Michelangelo was in doubt for much of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but now most scholars are in agreement.
Battle of the Centaurs is a relief sculpture by the Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo, created around 1492. It was the last work Michelangelo created while under the patronage of Lorenzo de' Medici, who died shortly after its completion. Inspired by a classical relief created by Bertoldo di Giovanni, the marble sculpture represents the mythic battle between the Lapiths and the Centaurs. A popular subject of art in ancient Greece, the story was suggested to Michelangelo by the classical scholar and poet Poliziano. The sculpture is exhibited in the Casa Buonarroti in Florence, Italy.
Crouching Boy is a sculpture of the Renaissance Italian painter and sculptor Michelangelo, preserved today at the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg. It is the only work by Michelangelo in the Hermitage. Sculpted between 1530 and 1533, it was originally intended for the tomb of the Medici family in Florence. Consistent with Michelangelo's use of the human figure in his memorials, scholars have speculated that the crouched boy might have served as an allegory of mourning or eternal youth.
The Taddei Tondo or The Virgin and Child with the Infant St. John is an unfinished marble relief tondo of the Madonna and Child and the infant Saint John the Baptist, by the Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo Buonarroti. It is in the permanent collection of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The tondo is the only marble sculpture by Michelangelo in Great Britain. A "perfect demonstration" of his carving technique, the work delivers a "powerful emotional and narrative punch".
The Tomb of Pope Julius II is a sculptural and architectural ensemble by Michelangelo and his assistants, originally commissioned in 1505 but not completed until 1545 on a much reduced scale. Originally intended for St. Peter's Basilica, the structure was instead placed in the church of San Pietro in Vincoli on the Esquiline in Rome after the pope's death. This church was patronized by the Della Rovere family from which Julius came, and he had been titular cardinal there. Julius II, however, is buried next to his uncle Sixtus IV in St. Peter's Basilica, so the final structure does not actually function as a tomb.
The Atlas Slave is a 2.77m high marble statue by Michelangelo, dated to 1525–1530. It is one of the 'Prisoners', the series of unfinished sculptures for the tomb of Pope Julius II. It is now held in the Galleria dell'Accademia in Florence.
The Brunelleschi Crucifix is a polychrome painted wooden sculpture by the Italian artist Filippo Brunelleschi, made from pearwood around 1410-1415, and displayed since 1572 in the Gondi Chapel at the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence. This idealised depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus measures around 170 cm × 170 cm. It is the only surviving wooden sculpture by Brunelleschi: the only other known example, a wooden sculpture of Mary Magdalene at the church of Santo Spirito, was destroyed in a fire in 1471. In his 2002 book, Masaccio e le origini del Rinascimento, the art historian Luciano Bellosi described Brunelleschi's crucifix as "probably the first Renaissance work in the history of art", representing a definitive turn away from the stylised postures of Gothic sculpture and a return to the naturalism of classical sculpture.
Italian Renaissance sculpture was an important part of the art of the Italian Renaissance, in the early stages arguably representing the leading edge. The example of Ancient Roman sculpture hung very heavily over it, both in terms of style and the uses to which sculpture was put. In complete contrast to painting, there were many surviving Roman sculptures around Italy, above all in Rome, and new ones were being excavated all the time, and keenly collected. Apart from a handful of major figures, especially Michelangelo and Donatello, it is today less well-known than Italian Renaissance painting, but this was not the case at the time.
The Sagrestia Nuova, also known as the New Sacristy and the Medici Chapel, is a mausoleum that stands as a testament to the grandeur and artistic vision of the Medici family. Constructed in 1520, the mausoleum was designed by the Italian artist Michelangelo. Situated adjacent to the Basilica di San Lorenzo in Florence, Italy, the Sagrestia Nuova forms an integral part of the museum complex known as the Medici Chapels.
