ABSTRACT
Michelagnolo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, as he was baptized, was born on 6 March 1475 in Caprese, a tiny village near Arezzo, where his father was serving a short term as mayor – almost his first job. The new baby had a brother only sixteen months older, and perhaps for this reason Michelangelo was given to a wet-nurse living on the small family farm near Florence at Settignano. Wet-nurses were commonly employed among the upper classes, although Michelangelo's father Ludovico was poor enough. The Buonarroti had been fairly prominent and successful up to the mid-Quattrocento, when Michelangelo's grandfather lost money. By late October 1494 Michelangelo was in Bologna, where luck took him to the house of Gianfrancesco Aldrovandi, a learned gentleman who had lived in Florence, a connoisseur of Florentine culture and literature, and himself an author. Michelangelo's Battle is carved in relief from marble – from the beginning, he was a carver.
