At thirty-one, Michelangelo was considered the best artist in Italy and perhaps the world; long before his death at the ripe old age of nearly ninety, admirers called him the greatest sculptor and artist who ever lived. (And his detractors, of whom there was no shortage, were an arrogant brute, a miser and a swindler.) Decade after decade, he worked at the epicenter of turbulent events that determined the face of the European world and the course of history. Michelangelo's achievements are grandiose - just remember the huge area of frescoes in the Sistine Chapel or the marble giant David. And yet, what he accomplished at the limit of human strength is only a small fraction of his plans, the scale of which was truly more suitable for a demiurge than for a mortal... In his book, the famous art historian and art critic Martin Gayford explores what the world was like in which the titanic genius of the Renaissance happened to accomplish his artistic feats, and what it was like to live in this world for himself - Michelangelo Buonarroti, a man who forever changed our idea of what an artist should be. The publishing design is preserved in PDF A4 format.