Michelangelo Di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni is known as the greatest sculptor of the sixteenth century. He was known in the same magnitude as Donatello in the fifteenth century and Bernini in the seventh century. Michelangelo was not only a renowned Italian Renaissance sculpture and painter, but also an architect and poet. He "exerted an paralleled influence on the development of Western art"(Encyclopedia Britannica, 1994). The Artist that is known around the world simply as, Michelangelo resisted a paintbrush. He often claimed that his only tool would be the chisel.
             Born at Caprise, in Tuscany on March 6, 1475, he was the second of five boys. Even though he was born in Tuscany, he considered himself from Florence. This loyalty to Florence would later help shape his life. He was sensitive about being considered an artist, and treated as if he "ran a shop". Michelangelo would later profess that his family paid taxes and held government posts in Florence for three hundred years. This would place him among the city's upper echelon. With this would come wealth, land, and social status, and this
             disconnected Michelangelo from the fellow artists.
             Michelangelo's mother became very sick and could not take care of the future painter of the Sistine Chapel, so he was placed with a nurse, in a family of stone cutters. This is where Michelangelo was first exposed to stone working. This would help explain how he developed his own personal style at the tender age of sixteen. Michelangelo first showed this personal style in two relief sculptures, The Battle of the Centaurs, and The Madonna of the Stairs (Both 1489-92, Casa Buonarroti, Florence).
             Along with these two sculptures, Michelangelo's early style is shown in the marble David. Michelangelo worked on this gigantic (4.34 m/ 14.24 ft) stature between 1501 and 1504. He chose to represent David as an athlet
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