Intellectually versatile, the brilliant Italian Renaissance artist Michelangelo Buonarroti (1475 – 1564) was also a skilled architect, poet and engineer. His studies of human anatomy and movement resulted in figures that were remarkably lifelike. Michelangelo’s crowning achievements were his sculptures, “Pietà” and “David,” created before he was 30, and the Sistine Chapel ceiling fresco, which was finished in four years and contained 300 figures. His eternal masterpieces were rendered in a wide range of media, and he was the first artist to have two biographies written about him in his lifetime.