Born into a family of modest means in the Tuscan village of Caprese, Michelangelo would go on to sculpt the David and Pietà and paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling, reshaping Western art's standards for beauty and ambition for centuries.
Michelangelo's father, Lodovico, hoped his son would pursue a respectable career in commerce or government, and reportedly beat him when he expressed interest in art. Instead, at 13, Michelangelo apprenticed with the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio in Florence, then caught the eye of Lorenzo de' Medici, who invited him to study classical sculpture in the Medici gardens.
What followed was a career of almost unmatched range: the marble David, carved from a block other sculptors had rejected as flawed; the agonized figures of the Sistine ceiling, painted while lying on his back on scaffolding for four years; and the design of St. Peter's Basilica dome late in life. He lived to 88, an extraordinary lifespan for the era, and worked almost until his final days.
His rivals feared him and his patrons -- popes among them -- often found him impossible, prone to storming off jobs over money or interference. Yet no one questioned the results. Vasari, his biographer and contemporary, called him simply 'the divine one.'
Key people: Michelangelo Buonarroti, Lorenzo de' Medici