Michelangelo (1475-1564), Italian artist, one of the most inspired creators in the history of art and, with Leonardo da Vinci, the most potent force in the Italian High Renaissance. As a sculptor, architect, painter, and poet, he exerted a tremendous influence on his contemporaries and on subsequent Western art.

Born in Caprese, Michelangelo is most associated with the city of Florence. His father, a Florentine official who had connections to the ruling Medici family, placed his 13-year-old son in the workshop of Florentine painter Domenico Ghirlandaio. Later, after studying at the sculpture school in the Medici gardens, Michelangelo was invited into the household of Lorenzo de' Medici. His patron died in 1492; two years later Michelangelo fled Florence when the Medici were temporarily expelled.

After some time in Bologna, Michelangelo went to Rome, where he soon produced his first large-scale sculpture, Bacchus (1496-1498, Bargello, Florence). Around the same time, he also did the marble Pietà (1498-1500), still in its original place in Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. The famous Pietà was probably finished before Michelangelo was 25 years old, and it is the only work he ever signed. After returning to Florence, Michelangelo produced his most famous sculpture, the gigantic (4.34 m/14.24 ft) marble David (Accademia, Florence). Created between 1501 and 1504, David became the symbol of Florence.

In 1505 Michelangelo was recalled to Rome by Pope Julius II for two commissions. The most important was for the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Between 1508 and 1512, working high above the floor while lying on his back on scaffolding, Michelangelo painted some of the finest pictorial images ever, including such scenes as God Separating Light from Darkness and the Creation of Adam. These images, demonstrating his masterly understanding of human anatomy and movement, changed the course of Western painting.

Michelangelo also had been commissioned by Julius II to produce his tomb, which was to be located in the new Saint Peter's Basilica, then under construction. Michelangelo made some of his finest sculpture for the Julius Tomb. These demonstrate his approach to carving: He believed that the figure was imprisoned in the block of stone, and that by removing the excess stone, he released the form.

Michelangelo's activity as an architect began in 1519, but his plan for the facade of Florence's Church of San Lorenzo was never executed. In the 1520s he designed the Laurentian Library and its elegant entrance hall adjoining San Lorenzo, although these were not finished until decades later. Between 1519 and 1534 Michelangelo also undertook the commission of the Medici Tombs for the New Sacristy of San Lorenzo. Work on the tombs continued long after Michelangelo went back to Rome in 1534.

From 1536 to 1541 Michelangelo worked on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel, creating Last Judgment, the largest fresco of the Renaissance. He was also commissioned to paint the Pauline Chapel in the 1540s, but he directed his main energies toward architecture. Although his program was not finished until the 17th century, Michelangelo designed the remodeling of the buildings surrounding the Campidoglio on the Capitoline Hill (Monte Capitoline), the civic and political heart of Rome. His crowning achievement as an architect was his work at Saint Peter's Basilica, where he was made chief architect in 1546. The building was constructed according to plans by Italian architect Donato Bramante, but Michelangelo ultimately became responsible for the exterior altar end of the building and for the dome's final form.