The artist we know as Michelangelo was born Michelangiolo
di Lodovico di Lionardo Buonarroti-Simoni on March 6, 1475, in Caprese,
Italy, about forty miles from his family's native Florence. Michelangelo's
father Lodovico Buonarroti was podesta, a position
roughly equivalent to mayor, of the towns Caprese and Chiusi. This
was an important position for Lodovico, as he was descended from
a wealthy old Florentine family whose claims to nobility respectability
had slowly disappeared. The change in the family fortune's left
Lodovico Buonarroti resentful and proud, and he was often unemployed,
which greatly embarrassed his son. Lodovico's term as podesta expired
when Michelangelo was only about a month old, and the family returned
to their run- down ancestral home in Florence, where Michelangelo
was promptly put out to wet- nurse by his mother, Francesca di Neri.
Michelangelo later joked, in an effort to distance himself from
his family and establish his divine inspiration, that he absorbed
his early talent for sculpture through the milk of his wet-nurse,
who came from a family of stonemasons. Michelangelo's mother died
when he was only six years old, which means that he barely knew
her, especially since his wet-nurse also served as a nanny and
foster-mother. Michelangelo's biographers and critics point to
this lack of a strong maternal figure, coupled with Michelangelo's
embarrassment over his irresponsible father, as a possible reason
for the artist's complex relationships with women, and even as
a source of his homosexuality. Throughout his life, Michelangelo
felt deeply ashamed of his family's disgraceful decline and his
humble origins, and he was often forced to aid his father financially
later in his life. He only felt close to his younger brother Buonarroto,
with whom he kept in close contact.
Michelangelo attended a local school run by a man named Francesco
da Urbino for several years, and his self-consciousness about his
lack of formal education would later prompt him to tell stories
about ignoring his education to pursue drawing. In 1488, Michelangelo
befriended an older local boy named Francesco Granacci, who was
an apprentice in the studio of Domenico and David Ghirlandaio, two
well-known Florentine painters. The thirteen-year-old Michelangelo
joined the studio as an apprentice, and there he learned fresco
painting and began to draw compulsively, copying works by Early
Renaissance masters Giotto, Masaccio, and Schongauer. Although
Michelangelo displayed prodigious talent and an incredible visual
memory, Lodovico Buonarotti did not understand his son's preoccupation
with art and often punished him for it. Eventually, however, Lodovico
conceded to his son's decided vocation, especially when the Ghirlandaio
brothers paid both father and son for Michelangelo's work.
Michelangelo did not get along with Domenico Ghirlandaio,
and in 1489 he moved on to the sculpture school of Bertoldo di
Giovanni, a student of Donatello and an influential friend and
art curator for Lorenzo de' Medici, "the Magnificent." There Michelangelo honed
his sculptural skills in clay and marble, copying Classical works
that impressed Lorenzo the Magnificent himself. Even as a boy,
Michelangelo was difficult, sensitive, and boastful, and at one point
a jealous older student broke his nose, leaving Michelangelo slightly
disfigured for the rest of his life.
