He was a recluse, walking alone on his way, long way of stormy life. Many times he had to carry burden of others, therefore to suffer from mistakes of whole century. He was caught between the two conflicting powers, victim of vain popes. His genius was recognized, but at what cost to his personal life?
Michelangelo was born on March 6th, 1475 at Caprese, Tuscany as the second of five brothers to the family of Ludovico di Leonardo di Buonarotto Simoni and Francesca Neri. The same day as he was born his father noted down: “Today March 6, 1475, a child of the male sex has been born to me and I have named him Michelangelo. He was born on Monday between 4 and 5 in the morning, at Caprese.” His mother was too sick to take care of him. So he was placed with a nurse, in a family of stonecutters where he discovered what a stone meant for him. “When I told my father that I wish to be an artist, he flew into a rage, ‘artists are labores, no better than shoemakers’.”
Michelangelo’s childhood had been grim and lacking in affection. Touchy and quick to respond with fierce words he defended himself, shy and lacking of trust in his fellows. His father sent him to the school of a master, Francesco Galeota teaching grammar. Michelangelo could become a successful merchant or bisinessman, but his choice was art. In age of thirteen he decided to join the workshop of the painter Domenico Ghirlando. His real school was the Medici gardens, where the Medici family soon took to him. He spent there two years as almost a member of family. By the age of sixteen he produced at least two relief sculptures, the Battle of the Centaurs and the Madonna of the Stairs, which showed that he had achieved a personal style in such a young age. After death of Lorenzo the Magnificient, his protector, the Medici were forced to flee. The revolution and political conflicts in Florence made Michelangelo to go to Rome. There he was able to study many new classical statues and ruins. He soon produced his first large-scale sculpture, the over-life-size Bacchus, which was one of few works of rather pagan than Christian themes. At about the same time, Michelangelo also did the marble Pieta in St. Peter’s Basilica. It was probably finished before Michelangelo was twenty-five years old. Just few days after it was placed in Basilica, Michelangelo overheard a pilgrim remark that the work was done by Christopho Solari.