Renaissance and Reformation Biographies | Michelangelo Buonarroti Biography

March 6, 1475
Caprese, Italy
February 18, 1564
Rome, Italy

Artist

"I'm not in a good place, and I'm no painter."

Michelangelo, on painting the Sistine ceiling as quoted in The Complete Poems of Michelangelo.

Michelangelo Buonarroti (known as Michelangelo) was the greatest sculptor of the Italian Renaissance. He was also one of the greatest painters and architects of the time. In fact, Michelangelo had an exceptionally long career and dominated the Renaissance. The Renaissance was a movement based on the revival of ancient Greek and Roman culture (the classical period). When he died in 1564, at age eighty-nine, he had lived nearly twice the expected life span of the average person in the sixteenth century. His impact on younger artists was immense, but it tended to be crushing. Major artists of the next century, such as Peter Paul Rubens...