Michelangelo was born August 6, 1475. He was considered the best artist of his time and since has been held as one of the greatest artists of all time. Two of his best known works- The Pietà and David were completed before he was 30 years old. The first photo is of CHRIST'S face in Pietà, courtesy of employees.oneonta.edu. Picture 2 is an overview of Michelangelo's Pietà, a 5' 9" marble sculpture of Virgin Mary holding the flesh of CHRIST JESUS- image courtesy of BackToClassics.com.

Despite his low opinion of painting, Michelangelo also created two of the most influential works in fresco in the history of Western art: the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling and The Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel in Rome.

Several months after Michelangelo's birth, the family returned to Florence, where Michelangelo was raised. At later times, during his mother's prolonged illness and after her death in 1481, when he was just six years old, Michelangelo lived with a stonecutter and his wife and family in the town of Settignano, where his father owned a marble quarry and a small farm.

In November 1497, the French ambassador to the Holy See, Cardinal Jean de Bilhères-Lagraulas, commissioned him to carve a Pietà, a sculpture showing the Virgin Mary grieving over the body of JESUS. The subject, which is not part of the Biblical narrative of the Crucifixion, was common in religious sculpture of Medieval Northern Europe and would have been very familiar to the Cardinal. The contract was agreed upon in August of the following year. Michelangelo was 24 at the time of its completion. It was soon to be regarded as one of the world's great masterpieces of sculpture, "a revelation of all the potentialities and force of the art of sculpture". It is now located in St Peter's Basilica. Wikipedia.org

Pietà is the only piece that Michelangelo ever signed.

The following is Michelangelo's poetry. (translated by Michael Sullivan)