As an artist he was unmatched, the creator of works of beauty that express the full measurement of the human condition. But in a world where art flourished only with patronizing manner, Michelangelo was caught between the conflicting powers and whims of the Medici family in Florence, and the Papacy in Rome. Unlike many artists of his time, his genius was recognized .He is one of the greatest artists of all time, a man whose name has become closely related with the word "masterpiece": Michelangelo Buonarroti.
The second of five brothers, Michelangelo was born on March 6, 1475, at Caprese, in Tuscany, to Ludovico di Leonardo di Buonarotto Simoni and Francesca Neri. The same day, 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, where I am the Podestà ."
Although born in the small village of Caprese, Michelangelo always considered himself a "son of Florence," as did his father, "a Citizen of Florence."
Buonarroti's mother, Francesca Neri, was too sick and frail to nurse Michelangelo, so he was placed with a wet nurse, in a family of stone cutters, where he, sucked in the craft of hammer and chisel with my foster mother's milk. When I told my father that I wish to be an artist, he flew into a rage, 'artists are laborers, no better than shoemakers.
Buonarroti's mother died young, when the child was only six years old. But even before then, Michelangelo's childhood had been grim with little affection, and he was always to keep a uncommunicative disposition. Touchy and quick to respond with fierce words, he tended to keep to himself, out of shyness according to...