Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, commonly known as Michelangelo, was born in Caprese near Florence, Italy. He was a great sculptor, architect, poet and engineer and one of the leading figures of the Italian Renaissance. Dominating Italian art for 60 years, he summed up all the artistic discoveries of the 15th and early 16th centuries and determined their future directions. Both devout and exceptionally learned, he sought to combine traditional Christian beliefs with the classical ideals revived in the new philosophy of humanism. He saw art as a sacred calling through which the dignity of human beings should be enhanced and celebrated.
Two of his best-known works, the Pietà and the David, were sculpted before he turned thirty. Despite his low opinion of painting, Michelangelo also created two of the most influential fresco paintings in the history of Western art: the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling and The Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.
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