Michelangelo

Michelangelo Buonarroti was born in a village in Tuscany and grew up in Florence, where he trained as a painter and sculptor and lived for a time in the household of Lorenzo de’ Medici. (His dates are given in the Julian calendar.)

Before he was 30 he had created two of the most famous sculptures in the world: the Pietà in Rome and the David in Florence. He painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and later the Last Judgment on its altar wall, and as an architect he designed the dome of St Peter’s Basilica. His art celebrated the male body with an intensity that still fascinates.

Michelangelo never married. In 1532, at the age of 57, he met the young Roman nobleman Tommaso de’ Cavalieri and fell passionately in love with him. He wrote him dozens of sonnets and letters and gave him elaborate drawings. Their friendship lasted until Michelangelo’s death. When his poems were first published in 1623, his grandnephew changed the male pronouns to female ones; only in the 19th century were the originals restored.

Michelangelo died in Rome in 1564, aged 88, still at work.