Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti
Simoni (6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), commonly known
as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor,
architect, poet, and engineer. Despite making few forays beyond
the arts, his versatility in the disciplines he took up was
of such a high order that he is often considered a contender
for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with
his rival and fellow Italian Leonardo da Vinci.
Michelangelo's output in every
field during his long life was prodigious; when the sheer volume
of correspondence, sketches, and reminiscences that survive
is also taken into account, he is the best-documented artist
of the 16th century. Two of his best-known works, the Pietà
and David, were sculpted before he turned thirty. Despite his
low opinion of painting, Michelangelo also created two of the
most influential works in fresco in the history of Western art:
the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling and The Last Judgment
on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. As an architect,
Michelangelo pioneered the Mannerist style at the Laurentian
Library. At 74 he succeeded Antonio da Sangallo the Younger
as the architect of Saint Peter's Basilica. Michelangelo transformed
the plan, the western end being finished to Michelangelo's design,
the dome being completed after his death with some modification.
In a demonstration of Michelangelo's
unique standing, he was the first Western artist whose biography
was published while he was alive. Two biographies were published
of him during his lifetime; one of them, by Giorgio Vasari,
proposed that he was the pinnacle of all artistic achievement
since the beginning of the Renaissance, a viewpoint that continued
to have currency in art history for centuries. In his lifetime
he was also often called Il Divino ("the divine one").One
of the qualities most admired by his contemporaries was his
terribilità, a sense of awe-inspiring grandeur, and it
was the attempts of subsequent artists to imitate Michelangelo's
impassioned and highly personal style that resulted in Mannerism,
the next major movement in Western art after the High Renaissance.
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Michelangelo Buonarroti (Caprese Michelangelo,
6 marzo 1475 – Roma, 18 febbraio 1564) è stato
uno scultore, pittore, architetto e poeta italiano. Protagonista
del Rinascimento italiano, fu riconosciuto già al suo
tempo come uno dei più grandi artisti di sempre.
Intese fare della sua attività un'incessante
ricerca dell'ideale di bellezza. Fu nell'insieme un artista
tanto geniale quanto irrequieto. Il suo nome è collegato
a una serie di opere che lo hanno consegnato alla storia dell'arte,
alcune delle quali sono conosciute in tutto il mondo e considerate
fra i più importanti lavori dell'arte occidentale:
il David, la Pietà o il ciclo di affreschi nella Cappella
Sistina sono considerati traguardi irraggiungibili dell'ingegno
creativo.
Michelangelo fu ammirato enormemente
anche dai suoi contemporanei: lo studio delle sue opere segnò
le generazioni successive, dando vita, con altri modelli,
a una scuola che fece arte "alla maniera" sua e
che va sotto il nome di manierismo.
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