XXVII
MICHELANGELO BUONARROTI
1475-1564
The last great Florentine master of the Renaissance was Michelangelo. His mighty personality towers like some Titan of old above his contemporaries, and the grandeur of his genius imposes itself upon the whole of the sixteenth century. His long life extends over a memorable period in the history of Florence. He grew up in the days of her brightest prosperity, when the State was feared and respected, and all the arts flourished under the rule of the Magnificent Lorenzo, and after witnessing Savonarola's revival, and the successive revolutions of the next thirty years, he lived to mourn over the downfall of his country and the final loss of her liberties.
The works of Michelangelo represent the culminating point of the art of the Italian Renaissance. They are the fruit of three centuries of continual effort and research, of classical learning and direct study of nature. In them the problems of form and movement which had occupied Florentine masters since the days of Giotto, find their highest development The influence of pagan art and the teaching of
