Michelangelo, in full Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, (born March 6, 1475, Caprese, Republic of Florence [Italy]—died February 18, 1564, Rome, Papal States), Italian Renaissance sculptor, painter, architect, and poet who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art.Michelangelo was born to Leonardo di Buonarrota and Francesca di Neri del Miniato di Siena, a middle-class family of bankers in the small village of Caprese, near Arezzo, in Tuscany. His mother's unfortunate and prolonged illness forced his father to place his son in the care of his nanny. The nanny's husband was a stonecutter, working in his own father's marble quarry. When Michelangelo was six years old, his mother died yet he continued to live with the pair and legend has it this unconventional situation from childhood would lay the foundation for his later love affair with marble.
