Michelangelo Buonarroti Quotes

Eighty-Eight Years, Then St. Peter's

Michelangelo worked until the day before he died. At seventy-one, he was appointed chief architect of St. Peter's Basilica, designing its dome, the largest in the world at the time. He accepted no payment. He painted 'The Last Judgment' on the Sistine Chapel's altar wall between 1536 and 1541. He wrote over 300 poems. He never married. He lived in near-poverty despite being the most famous artist alive, sending most of his money to his ungrateful family. He died on February 18, 1564, in Rome, at eighty-eight. He had been a sculptor, painter, architect, and poet. He considered himself only a sculptor. Everything else, he said, was beneath him.