Michelangelo Buonarroti
(Italian, 1475–1564)
Place ActiveFlorence, Italy, Europe
SchoolRoman High Renaissance
BiographyUnequaled as architect, painter, and sculptor, Michelangelo both inspired and daunted his contemporaries, who could neither surpass his achievements nor evade their challenge. His early training as a sculptor is clouded in myth, but the examples of Pollaiuolo, Verrocchio, and Bertoldo were surely significant to his formation. Noted for works in marble — projects ambitious in scale, such as the David, the tomb for Pope Julius II, and the Medici tombs in S. Lorenzo — Michelangelo himself never produced bronze statuettes. But countless small reproductions after his celebrated works were made in bronze, marble, and terracotta, and they are still manufactured today. Source: Art in The Frick Collection: Paintings, Sculpture, Decorative Arts, New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996.
