Who Was Michelangelo?

By (author) Anderson, Kirsten; By (author) Who HQ; Illustrated by Copeland Gregory
Short description/annotation
Travel to Renaissance Italy and learn about the young apprentice who went on become a true master, and one of the most beloved sculptors and painters of all time, Michelangelo!
Description
Michelangelo created some of the world''s most recognisable art, from the statue of David to the intricate ceiling fresco of the Sistine Chapel. Beyond his well-known painting and sculpting, he was a gifted poet and architect. Young readers can learn about the entirety of Michelangelo''s life, from his time as a young apprentice, his relationships with several Catholic popes and the Medici family, to his unwillingness to stop working into his late eighties. A perfect read for art lovers and fans of the Renaissance.
Biographical note
Kirsten Anderson is a writer and actress who lives in New York City with her charming Pomeranian, Sunflower. She has written several biographies for children, including Who Was Andy Warhol? and Who Is Kamala Harris?
Excerpt
Who Was Michelangelo?

 
A crowd gathered around the new statue in the chapel of Santa Petronilla in 1500. It was indeed a wonder. The sculpture showed a famous scene from the Bible. There was the Virgin Mary, holding the body of her dead son, Jesus Christ. This scene is often called a pietà. (Pietà means “pity” in Italian.) Many others had painted or sculpted this same grouping of mother and son. But this statue was different. Although carved from hard marble, it was incredibly lifelike. People could see tiny details, like stretched muscles and the pull of the skin where Mary’s hand held onto the body of Jesus. The folds of Mary’s gown looked as soft as real fabric. When the sun streamed through the chapel’s windows, the statue glowed. It was hard to believe it was carved from stone.
 
Everyone agreed that it was a magnificent work, unlike anything they had seen before. But who had carved it? Many of the people gathered in the chapel that day didn’t seem to know. As much as the crowd loved the image before them, they might not have been looking too closely at it.
 
Nearby, a young man listened quietly. He was amazed that anyone would wonder who the artist was. He had made the statue. Hadn’t they seen his name? On a ribbon across Mary’s chest, he had carved the words, “Michelangelo the Florentine was making.” He wrote “was making” instead of “made” because he had heard that the artists of ancient Greece signed their work like that. It was their way of saying that a work of art was never truly finished.
 
But Michelangelo (say: mee-­keh-­LAN-­juh-­low) was ready to begin working on something new. He had other important projects ahead of him. Soon he would become known as one of the greatest artists in the world. Hundreds of years later, people are still awed by the statues, paintings, and buildings he made.
 
And he never signed any others. That first pietà is the only one with his name on it. After that, no one would look at his work and ask, “Who made this?” Everyone would know it was Michelangelo.
 

Chapter 1: Education of an Artist

 
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was born on March 6, 1475, in Caprese, a town in what is now known as Italy. His family was really from Florence, a big city nearby, but his father, Lodovico, had taken a job as podesta, or mayor, of Caprese for a year. Then the Buonarrotis, as they were known, returned to Florence.
 
Michelangelo had one older brother and three younger brothers. His mother, Francesca, died when he was six. The Buonarrotis had once been a wealthy merchant family, but by the late 1400s, they had lost almost all of their large fortune. Lodovico, though, considered himself