Michelangelo
(1475-1564), was one of the most inspired creators
in the history of art and, with Leonardo da
Vinci, the most potent force in the Italian
High Renaissance. As a sculptor, architect,
painter, and poet, he exerted a tremendous influence
on his contemporaries and on subsequent Western
art in general.
Michelangelo produced at least two relief sculptures
by the time he was 16 years old, the Battle
of the Centaurs and the Madonna of the Stairs
(both 1489-92, Casa Buonarroti, Florence), which
show that he had achieved a personal style at
a very early age. The personal style was appreciated
since he spent the greater part of his adulthood
in Rome, employed by the popes.
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