Posted
on March 6, 2014
One
of the most famous sculptors of all times, one of the most famous
painters of all times, and one of the most famous architects of all
time was born on this date in 1475.
Of
course, as you probably guessed, they were the same guy. He was also
a poet and an engineer. So, yeah: a true “Renaissance Man”!
Of
course, we're talking about Michelangelo. Actually, his full name was
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni! He was born in the
Republic of Florence, which is now part of Italy.
Michelangelo's
story is not one of those typical starving-artist,
only-discovered-after-he's-dead stories. Instead, Michelangelo was
highly praised even during his lifetime. As a matter of fact, during
his lifetime he was sometimes called “the divine one” (but in
Italian).
He inspired the Mannerist movement, and he created pieces
that were considered masterpieces during his lifetime and still are
today, centuries later.
Michelangelo
sculpted two of his most famous pieces, Pieta and
David, before he was thirty years old. One of his
greatest architectural works is the dome and western end of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and one of his greatest paintings is
the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. 
Okay,
so he was a genius. Do you ever wonder how geniuses get their start?
When
Michelangelo was quite young, his mother fell ill, and Michelangelo
was sent to live with a stonecutter and his wife. The boy remained
there for a while after his mother died, when he was just six years
old. There he learned how to handle a chisel and hammer.
Michelangelo
just so happened to grow up in the greatest cultural center of Italy,
at the time (Florence) so he was surrounded by art. He used to skip
his school assignments in order to copy paintings from churches and
talk to painters. One of these Florentine painters, a man named
Domenico Ghirlandaio, was called to the Vatican to decorate the walls
of the Sistine Chapel. When Michelangelo was just thirteen years old,
he was apprenticed to Ghirlandaio. When he was fourteen,
Michelangelo's father convinced the established artist to pay
Michelangelo as an artist (rather than just feed and house him as an
apprentice), and soon after than Ghirlandaio chose Michelangelo, as
one of his two best pupils, to go to the university-like academy that
the ruler of Florence had established.
So
the answer to the question, how do geniuses get their start is (in
this case at least): young!
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