Michelangelo Buonarroti: life and works

To celebrate the 550th anniversary of its birth, the Academy Gallery is hosting a year of events

The divine artist: this is how one could sum up the life and career of Michelangelo Buonarroti, one of the greatest artists of all time, a true protagonist of the Renaissance

In September 1537, he wrote in a letter to the artist Pietro Aretino, “the world has many kings, and only one Michelangelo.” Already to the great Tuscan artist's contemporaries the perception of the greatness of his genius was clear.

On the eve of the 550th anniversary of his birth we look back at his life and masterpieces.

The story of Michelangelo

Michelangelo Buonarroti was born in Caprese, in the province of Arezzo, on March 6, 1475. As a newborn he was taken by his family to Florence. Michelangelo was the son of Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni and Francesca di Neri; he was initiated by his father into humanistic studies under Francesco da Urbino, showing an aptitude for drawing from early on. He attended the Florentine school of master Ghirlandaio's workshop, but within a short time (he was about 13 at the time), he left the workshop to go to the Giardini di San Marco, the free school of sculpture and copying the antique established by Lorenzo de' Medici.

As a young man, Michelangelo showed a very strong personality, and he was noticed by Lorenzo the Magnificent, who welcomed him into his court; here, Michelangelo was able to come into contact with some very great humanist thinkers, such as Marsilio Ficino. At the Medici court he made his first sculptures.

From 1490 onward he began a series of travels around Italy that would be highly formative for his artistic career; in 1494, in fact, he fled the Medici court for fear of their fall after the arrival of Charles VIII in Florence. He went to Bologna where he sculpted the Bas-relief for the Cathedral of San Petronio. In Bologna he also made the sculptural composition for the arch of San Domenico, and in 1495 he returned to Florence. The return to Florence marks the beginning of the period of his most important works. A Cupid sculpted by him that was the object of a swindle at the expense of Cardinal Jacopo Galli, a well-known Roman collector, first brought him to Rome. From then on Roman sojourns would be increasingly frequent, and it was in Rome that Michelangelo died on February 18, 1864, at the age of 89. He will never return to Florence despite repeated invitations from Cosimo I.

Michelangelo's most important works

It is not easy to summarize Michelangelo Buonarroti's experience in a few lines. However, we can attempt to mention his most majestic works, those that cannot go unmentioned. In this beautiful text by Antonio Natali, the art historian and former director of the Uffizi tells us about the most famous ones.

David di Michelangelo

Between 1500 and 1504 he created the David, an emblem of the Renaissance and today a symbol of Italy throughout the world. The work, depicts the biblical hero as he prepares to face Goliath, and is now regarded as the ideal of male beauty in art. The original is currently in the Accademia Gallery. Another copy of the same sculpture is located in Piazza della Signoria, but there are as many as 5 Davids in Florence.

Tondo Doni

Michelangelo painted this Holy Family, one of the Uffizi's immovables, for the wedding of Agnolo Doni to Maddalena Strozzi. Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael were in the city at the same time in those years. These were years of the highest cultural fervor, and Agnolo was thus able to celebrate his noble wedding and the birth of his first-born daughter with some of the greatest expressions of this exceptional flowering: the portraits of the couple painted by Raphael, and Michelangelo's tondo, which is the only certain painting on panel by the master. Michelangelo had recently studied the potential of the circular format, much appreciated in the early Renaissance for domestic devotional furnishings, in the marbles of the Tondo Pitti(Museo Nazionale del Bargello) and the Tondo Taddei(Royal Academy in London): in both cases the Madonna, Child and St. John occupy overwhelmingly the entire surface of the relief. The Tondo Doni is also conceived as a sculpture, in which the pyramidal composition of the group imposes itself over almost the entire height and width of the panel.

La Sagrestia Nuova, Cappelle Medicee

La Sagrestia Nuova, costruita a péndant della Sagrestia Vecchia brunelleschiana , fu ideata nel suo arredo architettonico e scultoreo interno da Michelangelo forse su un precedente impianto progettato da Giuliano da Sangallo. Il lavoro durò quattordici anni, subì numerose interruzioni a causa di importanti vicende storiche - tra cui la fuga e il ritorno dei Medici al potere - e rimase inconcluso nel 1534, per il definitivo trasferimento di Michelangelo a Roma.

La Pietà Vaticana

The Vatican Pietà is regarded as the artist's first major masterpiece, datable between 1497 and 1499. It is the only one that contains the artist's signature. It was commissioned by the banker Jacopo Galli, during Michelangelo's first stay in Rome. The Virgin Mary the Naked Dead Christ in her arms, and the iconography of the work before this sculpture was usually translated into a fairly rigid scheme. Michelangelo innovates the iconographic tradition by carving a sculpture with an almost pyramidal pattern that seems to convey a moment of intimacy between the two figures.

The frescoes of the Sistine Chapel

Impossible not to mention, then the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel, the main chapel of the Apostolic Palace, known throughout the world for being the place where the Pope's ceremonies are held. Michelangelo's frescoes cover its vault, created when he was 33, in which he painted nine episodes from the Bible's book Genesis, divided into thematic groups of three. This is considered Michelangelo's final masterpiece, completed in 1512.

The Dome of St. Peter's

Michelangelo Buonarroti worked on the Dome of St. Peter's until the day he died in 1564. The Dome has become a symbol of the city. Its form represents one of the high points of Renaissance architectural language and the transition to the Baroque era is one of the largest masonry roofs ever built. It has mastered the Roman skyline for centuries, and is one of the city's most scenic vantage points.

550 years since Michelangelo's birth: events at the Academy Gallery

The Accademia Gallery in Florence celebrates the 550th anniversary of Michelangelo Buonarroti's birth with The Eternal Contemporary. Michelangelo 1475 - 2025, a project that kicks off on March 6, 2025 and develops over the course of the year through a rich program of events and initiatives designed to highlight the extraordinary contemporary relevance of one of the most significant protagonists of the Renaissance. His artistic vision, innovative spirit, and the expressive power of his works continue to exert a profound influence on artists, scholars, and audiences in every age. Michelangelo, even today, inspires new reflections and interpretations. The review features personalities from the world of art and culture, including Cristina Acidini, Francesco Caglioti, Marco Pierini, Tomaso Montanari and Francesco Gori, Vinicio Capossela, who will offer different perspectives on the artist's legacy.

Here the full calendar of events.

A day of celebration: all the events on March 6

On the occasion of the 550th anniversary of Michelangelo Buonarroti's birth, on March 6 at 11 a.m., the City of Florence and Fondazione MUS.E are organizing a lecture by Professor Francesco Vossilla entitled “The Genius of Victory” in the Salone dei Cinquecento of Palazzo Vecchio. The event celebrates the great master, already considered by his contemporaries as the “divine artist,” and aims to delve into the multifaceted and restless figure of Michelangelo, who lived between Florence and Rome in the service of the most powerful men of his time.

On the same day at 10 a.m. in the basilica of Santa Croce there will also be a ceremony sponsored by the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno, together with the Opera di Santa Croce and the City of Florence. In the presence of President Cristina Acidini and Culture Councillor Giovanni Bettarini, a triple laurel wreath will be laid at Michelangelo's monumental tomb. The initiative commemorates the role that the newly founded Accademia had in 1564, when it promoted Michelangelo's funeral and later designed and sculpted his tomb having among its tasks, at the behest of Grand Duke Cosimo and Giorgio Vasari, that of celebrating the great artist.

Then on the afternoon of March 6 at 6:45 p.m. at the Martelli Chapel in the Basilica of San Lorenzo, the Opera Medicea Laurenziana with the collaboration of the Friends of the Museums of Palazzo Davanzati and Casa Martelli, Monica Bietti, former director of Casa Martelli and the Laurentian complex, to include this special occasion dedicated to the anniversary. This will be followed by a performance of Bach's Partita No. 2 in D min for solo violin by Sara pastine, one of the most highly regarded violinists on the national scene. A visit to the Tribune of Relics, commissioned from Michelangelo by Pope Clement VII in 1525, will conclude the evening.