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Michelangelo Buonarroti, The Last Judgment, 1536–1541.

Fresco, 12.2 × 13.7 m.

Sistine Chapel, Vatican.

The universal artistic talent of Michelangelo, the other Grand Master of Italian Renaissance, is equal to that of Leonardo. Although he cannot measure up to Leonardo, particularly in the field of natural history, he far surpassed him as a poet and philosopher. Michelangelo’s life also includes tragic complications, which have left their traces in his work. Just as Leonardo, who was born to paint but also nursed an ambition to create great sculptural work, Michelangelo, the greatest sculptor since Phidias, was convinced that he could do great things as a painter and architect. As an architect and master builder, his greatest piece of work was the dome in St Peter’s, as a painter he left examples of art, which even today require the utmost admiration, especially when taking into account that his moods, arbitrariness and impetuous temperament now and then spoilt the boldest drafts.

His life was just as restless as that of Leonardo’s. He went to Bologna in 1494, after having provided the first samples of his artistic talents with the high relief of a centaur fight and a Madonna in front of a staircase. There he created a kneeling angel carrying a candelabrum and a statuette of St Petronius for the Basilica of San Domenico. But then, in 1496, he returned via Florence to Rome. For a merchant, he made a life-size statue of Bacchus (1496/1498), who, obviously already merry on wine, raises the wine cup with his right hand, whilst his left hand takes hold of the grapes, offered him by a small satyr, standing behind him.

In his second great piece of work in Rome, the Pietà (1499/1500), found in St Peter’s, the classical influence completely disappeared, both as far as Christ’s body and his facial expression are concerned, and in the composure of the Mother of God, conquering her pain. Michelangelo moved back to Florence in 1501, in order to start his, so far, greatest task. The chairmen of the Cathedral had provided a marble block for the execution of a large statue, and Michelangelo decided to depict the young David (1501/1504), as he takes the sling from his left shoulder, whilst the right hand already has the stone ready. None of Michelangelo’s other pieces of work achieved this kind of popularity. With his first significant painting the tondo The Holy Family (1501), he wanted to demonstrate his firm determination to break with traditional composition and the previous portrayal of the figures. Furthermore, he wanted to show that and how movement could be included in a small sized picture.

Pope Julius II (1443 to 1513) summoned Michelangelo to Rome in 1505, entrusting him with the design for his tomb. A different commission from Julius II was completed during his lifetime: decorating the ceiling (1508/1512) of the Sistine Chapel with a number of pictures, which in rigorous structuring and grouping, through a painted architectonic frame, depict the creation of the world and mankind as well as the Fall of Man and its consequences.

Michelangelo Buonarroti, Holy Family (Tondo Doni), c. 1504.

Tempera on wood, diameter: 120 cm.

Galleria degli Uffizi, Florence.

Michelangelo Buonarroti, Virgin with Child and St John the Baptist as a Child (Tondo Pitti), 1504–1505.

Marble, 85 × 82.5 cm.

Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence.

After the manifold fates of the Israelites, The Fall of Man was to be followed by the redemption, and the redeemer even come from its midst. The powerful figures of the prophets and the sibyls prepare for this, which surround the mirror of the ceiling vault and the transition between it and the vault pendentives on all sides. These paintings are perhaps only comprehensible to the individual when he reduces them to their parts and looks at each picture in itself, only then will the abundance of beauty which may find its best expression in the Creation of Eve (around 1508) be fully revealed. The ceiling paintings were completed with The Last Judgment (1536/1541). This painting is doubtlessly the greatest piece of work of the Italian High Renaissance, which, through its superabundance of figures and the guidance of their movement, prepares for those exaggerations which developed in the Late Renaissance and in the Baroque period. In all these figures Michelangelo made one thing clear: to reveal his uncompromising will; his absolute control of the anatomy of the human body in such a way that no other artist before or after him could counter with anything. With the contempt for humanity, which became second nature to him in his late years, he wanted to force all artists around him, friends as well as opponents, to look to him in admiration. That is why in Michelangelo’s work the human being can never be separated from his work. He thus considered himself the measure of all artistic matters.

Among his work are also the marble Medici tombs in the Florentine Chapel near the church of San Lorenzo. Originally planned as the tomb of the entire Medici Family, only a small, laborious and frequently interrupted part of this great project by Michelangelo, who also created the architectonic design of the chapel (1519/1534), was realised. Only the two statues of the dukes Giuliano Lorenzino, who was murdered in 1547, were finished by Michelangelo, so that they could be put up in the quadrilateral chapel in 1563.

Fate did not look upon Michelangelo the master builder very favourably either, though he was awarded the greatest task commissioned in Rome at that time: the construction of St Peter’s Cathedral. Pope Julius II had had the old basilica demolished, in order to erect an imposing new building in its place. Donato Bramante, who had been commissioned with the design and execution, intended a ground-plan in the shape of a Greek cross and a mighty dome above the crossing. When he died in 1514, only the four dome pillars with their connecting arches had been completed.

Michelangelo reached old age. He died at the age of 89, on 18 February 1564 in Rome. But the Florentines demanded his body and he was entombed in the Pantheon of their illustrious men, in the Basilica of Santa Croce.