February 18: On This Day in World History … briefly
Michelangelo died in Rome in 1564, at the age of 88 (three weeks before his 89th birthday). His body was taken from Rome for interment at the Basilica of Santa Croce, fulfilling the maestro's last request to be buried in his beloved Florence.
1564: A Celebration of a Life of Genius
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni or more commonly known by his first name Michelangelo, the artistic paragon of the Renaissance Age and Italy’s finest creative genius, died in Rome at the advanced age of 88, three weeks before his 89th birthday.
He was still hard at work right up to the end. Michelangelo was so talented that he was equally at ease with sculpture, painting, architecture, and even poetry, but his first love was for marble and the chisel.
The ‘Pieta’ and the collosal ‘David’, both carved when he was in his twenties, are masterpieces, although the extraordinary frescoes of the Book of Genesis that adorn the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel are arguably his greatest work.
They were commissioned by Pope Julius II and took four years to complete. Twenty years later, he returned to the Sistine Chapel to paint the famous ‘Last Judgement’ on the wall behind the altar for Pope Clement VII.
The sack of Rome (The Sack of Rome in 1527 was a military event carried out in Rome (then part of the Papal States) by mutinous troops of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor) and the destruction of the Florentine Republic left Michelangelo disillusioned and his later worked depicted a deep spiritual sorrow.
His last sculpture, a second ‘Pieta’ was intended for his own tomb. He mutilated it in a fit of dejection and never finished it. The figures were as powerful as ever, but filled with suffering – and a passionate faith – an inspired portrait of the dead Christ, yet to rise again.
Most notable historic snippets or facts extracted from the book ‘On This Day’ first published in 1992 by Octopus Publishing Group Ltd, London, as well as additional supplementary information extracted from Wikipedia.
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