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Michelangelo is born in Caprese, Italy.
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Michelangelo's mother, Francesca, died when he was only 6 years old.
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Michelangelo's father realized early on that his son had no interest in the family financial business, so agreed to apprentice him, at the age of 13, to the fashionable Florentine painter Domenico Ghirlandaio's workshop.
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Michelangelo leaves Ghirlandaio's workshop and starts to study sculpture in the gardens of Lorenzo de’ Medici under the sculptor Bertoldo di Giovanni and exposing him to poets, scholars and learned Humanists. He also got special permission from the Catholic Church to study cadavers for insight into anatomy,though the cadavers had effects on his health.
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Medici dies and Michelangelo goes back to live with his impoverished father but soon returns to the Medici palace, invited by Lorenzo’s son Piero.
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Florence rebels against the leadership of Piero. Michelangelo leaves the city and goes to Bologna. There he sculpts three small statues for the tomb of San Domenico: ST. Petronuis, St. Proculus, and an angel.
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Back in Florence he sculpts a cupi and sells it to the art dealer Baldassare del Milanese, who in turn sells it as an antique work to a Roman Cardinal.
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Michelangelo moves to Rome. He sells his first important work to a banker client- the Bacchus and another Cupid. He makes his first trip to Carrara for marble.
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He sculpts the Pieta for the French cardinal Jean de Billheres but receives no other important commissions for nearly two years.
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Cardinal Piccolomini orders 15 statues for the Cathedral of Sienna. Michelangelo finishes four of them, begun by another sculptor, and adds one of his own- St. Peter, before abandoning the project.
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He returns to Florence, which has become a republic, and receives an order from the local authorities for a bronze David and a colossal marble statue of David. The Cathedral Cabildo gives him an order for marble figures of the Twelve Apostles. Only the St. Matthew is blocked out.
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He finishes an easel painting, his only one that has survived, of the Holy Family- Madonna Doni.
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David is set up in front of the Palazzo della Signoria or City Hall
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He leaves Rome in anger on learning that the Pope has given up the tomb project, and takes refuge in Florence under the protection of its governor, Piero Soderini. In November he goes to Bologna to apologize to the Pope, who pardons him and orders a colossal bronze statue of himself.
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Pope Julius decides to decorate his uncle’s chapel and orders Michelangelo to fill the ceiling with frescoes. He protests that he is no painter but the Pope insists and Michelangelo begins to work alone and in great discomfort. He finishes the Sistine Ceiling frescoes in 1512.
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He spends most of the following three years in Carrara and Pietrasanta, quarrying marble for the facade of San Lorenzo and also for the Julius tomb. He signs a contract with the Medici for the facade of San Lorenzo, which now includes 22 statues. This project is suddenly and inexplicably cancelled by Pope Leo, Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici, in 152o.
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He begins to work in the Medicini Chapel and the Laurentian Library. He goes back to Carrara for more marble. Part-time he still devotes to the Julius tomb project
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Florence anticipates an attack by a papal and imperial army and appoints Michelangelo Chief of Fortifications. He has to suspend his work in the Medici Chapel and devote himself to the defense of the city.
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Michelangelo flees Florence and is declared a traitor. He returns just before Florence is taken by the imperial forces and he goes into hiding. The Pope promises him immunity if he continues to work on the Medici Chapel figures.
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Pope Clement asks him to paint the Last Judgement on the wall of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo returns to Florence for a short stay, then leaves it for the rest of his life. He lets assistants finish the Medici Chapel and the Laurentian Library.
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Pope Clement dies and the new Pope orders Michelangelo to stop working on the Julius tomb and paint the Last Judgement frescoes above the altar of the Sistine Chapel. He finishes them on October 31, 1541. His friendship with Vittoria Colonna begins and he dedicates many religious drawings and poems to her
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The Julius Tomb is finally set up in San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome.
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Pope Paul III appoints him official architect of St. Peter's Basilica. With the help of an assistant he completes a model of the dome in 1561.
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He dies on February 18. The Pope wants to have him buried in St. Peter’s but Michelangelo’s nephew and heir, Leonardo, takes the body back to Florence, where it is buried in Santa Croce. More than a hundred artists attend his funeral.
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