Michelangelo Simoni Inspiration

Michelangelo Simoni was born on March 6 1475 in Caprese Tuscany. He was raised in the city of Florence, and as a teenager he was “apprenticed to the busy workshop of the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio” (Michelangelo Biography). During that time, he learned all of the techniques of fresco painting and draughtsmanship. Michelangelo studied some of the greatest masters of the past such as Giotto and Donatello. It was not until the years between 1490-1492 that he was given credit for his first two works due to the help of Lorenzo de Medici. It is also when he “became increasingly interested in the human form and studied anatomy, dissected bodies and drew from live models all in his quest to master the complexities of posture and movement”( Michelangelo Biography ). Michelangelo is known as one of the most influential and imitated artists throughout history because of his intellect, talents and work ethic (Davies 568). He as able to work with many different mediums and he was a “sculptor, architect, painter and poet” (Davies 568). When Michelangelo went to Rome in in 1496, he created the

In 1497, he was given permission to build the Pieta, which is housed in St. Peter’s in the Vatican City. He promised to carve the Pieta as “the most beautiful work of marble in Rome” (Davies 569). The appearance of the Pieta “was more familiar in Northern Europe than in Italy, appearing in such works as the Roettgen Pieta, although the theme of the virgin’s lamentation for her dead son appeared in such works such as Giotto’s Arena Chapel frescoes” (Davies 569). The sculpture was influential because of the marble was made of and also the religious significance that it held. The Pieta features the Virgin holding her dead son but the woman appears too young to have a grown son. The symbolism relates back to the theme of the Madonna and Child and Michelangelo wanted her youth to express “perpetual virginity” (Davies