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Michelangelo Buonarroti: Paintings
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Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (March 6, 1475 – February 18, 1564), commonly known as Michelangelo, was an Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet and engineer. Despite making few forays beyond the arts, his versatility in the disciplines he took up was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival and fellow Italian Leonardo da Vinci.
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In 1508 Julius commissioned Michelangelo to decorate the ceiling of the chief Vatican chapel, the Sistine. This work was relatively modest at first, and Michelangelo felt he was being pushed aside by rival claimants on funds. But he soon was able to alter the traditional format of ceiling painting, whereby only single figures could be represented, not scenes calling for dramas in space; his introduction of dramatic scenes was so successful that it set the standard for the future.
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Michelangelo developed a romantic relationship with at least one man, Tommaso de' Cavalieri, who was 23 years old and Michelangelo 57 when they met in 1532. This infatuation caused Michelangelo to write a series of sonnets and madrigals that constitute the largest sequence of poems composed by Michelangelo; whether the relationship was merely a Platonic affectation, as modern apologists hasten to assert, the sonnets are the first large sequence of poems in any modern tongue that are addressed by one man to another.
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If Michelangelo sought relations with women, they came from a more humble station, where favors were dispensed more readily or were exchanged for money. A few poems suggest such experiences--and his ability to laugh at them: "When I look down upon each of your breasts they look like two watermelons in a bag."
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Michelangelo dedicated to him over three hundred sonnets and madrigals, constituting the largest sequence of poems composed by him. Though some modern commentators assert that the relationship was merely a Platonic affection, the sonnets are the first large sequence of poems in any modern tongue addressed by one man to another, predating Shakespeare's sonnets to his young friend by a good fifty years.
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In 1496 Michelangelo went to Rome, where he carved the 'Pietà' for St. Peter's. The theme of the dead Christ recurs throughout his work, and is the subject of his early 'Entombment'.
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