Michelangelo was one of the most famous and successful people of his time. He attended a school set up by Lorenzo the Magnificent in the gardens of the Palazzo Medici. There he would have had access to the Medici collection of antiques, as well as a certain amount of tuition from the resident master, Bertoldo di Giovanni. Michelangelo was a master in more than one area. At first, Michelangelo was most famous for his sculptures such as the Pieta, Moses, David, and Pope Julius III's tomb. After Lorenzo's death, the school broke up and Michelangelo would perform informal autopsies in order to improve his mastery of the human form. The sculpture that made Michelangelo's reputation is the Pietâ. The Pieta is a sculpture with Jesus lying in the lap of the Virgin Mary. Michelangelo expressed the emotional, human aspects of Mary's morning over the body of her dead son. Because of his study of the human body, the Pieta was extremely detailed, especially in the muscles and veins.
             When carving sculptures he believed that the figures he carved were already in the marble and he had to 'free' them. He later worked on David, which was made out of a flawed stone, and summed up everything he had learned. It symbolized civic pride. It took him four years to, in his own words, "liberate the figure imprisoned in the marble." As well as being a sculptor, Michelangelo was also an outstanding painter. Pope Julius III hired Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The nine scenes of the Sistine Ceiling alternate between large and smaller rectangular sections that are supported by pagan sibyls and Hebrew prophets. In order to convey the biblical tales, Michelangelo used his skill to idealize the fundamental nature of each scene into over 300 key figures and gestures. The ceiling displays Michelangelo's deep religious faith expressed through deep respect for classical antiques. Michelangelo painted the ceiling single-handedly in over fo...