Michelangelo Daily

sculptor, architect, poet (and painter) 📍 from Caprese, Republic of Florence

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Michelangelo Daily is here

a Michelangelo piece of work every day on your dash

Michelangelo Buonarroti, the renaissance sculptor-painter-architect was a melancholic poet and tireless letter writer.

A total of 302 poems and 518 letters written by MIchelangelo himself remain to us today, along with his artworks and his sketches.

From 6 March 2025, Michelangelo’s 550 birthday, I’ll start to post everyday a quote from his literary legacy or a pic from his artistic output.

More info about the translations here || A tag system can be used to better navigate the blog.

Personal account: @itsmalombra

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Self-portrait of Michelangelo Buonarroti as Saint Bartholomew, holding his flayed skin. Last Judgement, Sistine Chapel, Vatican City. 1536–1541

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Sonnet written by Michelangelo after the death of Vittoria Colonna, between 1547 and 1564. Translation by John Addington Symonds (1904). The original version in Italian.

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Final terzina of a Michelangelo's sonnet to Pope Julius II, exact date unknown. Translation by John Addington Symonds (1904). The original version in Italian.

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The Resurrection of Christ

1532-3

Black chalk with much stippling over stylus underdrawing

British Museum

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Risen Christ, also known as Cristo della Minerva, Christ the Redeemer or Christ Carrying the Cross.

Marble, 1519–1521.

Left of the main altar in Santa Maria sopra Minerva church, Rome.

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Happy Easter to all the followrs of MIchelangelo Daily!

The Last Judgment - Details of Jesus and Mary

Fresco on wall, 1536–1541

Sistine Chapel, Vatican City

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The Deposition (also called The Bandini Pietà or The Lamentation over the Dead Christ).

Marble, 1547–1555 circa

Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence.

The sculpture depicts four figures: the dead body of Jesus Christ, newly taken down from the Cross, Nicodemus, Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary. Because the sculpture is housed in the Museo dell'Opera del Duomo in Florence is therefore also known as the Florentine Pietà. According to Vasari, Michelangelo originally started the sculpture when he was 72 to decorate his tomb in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, but he later sold it before completion, after intentionally damaging Christ's left arm and leg. The face of Nicodemus under the hood is considered to be a self-portrait of Michelangelo himself.

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Pietà of the Saint Peter's Basilica by Michelangelo Buonarroti

Marble, 1498–1499

Saint Peter's Basilica, Vatican City

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Michelangelo's sonnet number 5, dedicated to his friend Giovanni da Pistoia, in which he described the physical discomfort he suffered while painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling. The first image is the letter with a little sketch about how he worked (the story that he painted lying on his back is actually false and based only from the biography of Paolo Giovio, which the movie The Agony and the Ecstasy popularized it), the second is the 1904 translation by John Addington Symonds.

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How to use the tags

Michelangelo Buonarroti was not only a sculptor and a (somewhat unwilling) painter, but also an architect, urbanist and poet. His works and legacy is enormous and diversified, with many sketches, projects, sonnets and letters left to us.

Below there is the list that can be used to better navigate Michelangelo Daily: with time and the increase of entries the tag system will be more and more precise.

painting

sculpture

architecture

sketching/drawings

poetry (madrigals - sonnets)

letters/epistolary (soon there will be a special section for all the letters divided by their recipients)

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The Dream of Human Life, or simply called The Dream

1533 circa

drawing, black chalk, sheet

Courtauld Gallery, London.

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Sacrifice of Noah

1509-1512

7th bay of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, Vatican City.

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Study after Giotto's Ascension of St. John the Evangelist

1490

Pen and gray and brown ink over traces of drawing in stylus,

Musée du Louvre, Paris

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Detail of the Tondo Doni

Oil and tempera on panel, 1507

Uffizi, Florence

One of the few panel painting by Michelangelo to survive related from his mature age. Still in its original frame, the Doni Tondo was probably commissioned by Agnolo Doni to commemorate his marriage to Maddalena Strozzi, the daughter of a powerful Tuscan family.

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Unnamed brief poem, later reused for the Poem #38/XXXVIII "Quanta dolcezza al cor per gli occhi porta"

Translation by William Wells Newell (1900) - signed as "III epitaph" in this edition

Picture: detail from "Leda and the Swan" by Anonymous.

Based from a sketch by Michelangelo Buonarroti and his scultpure The Night, the authorship of the painting is still unknon. Some scholars think that Michelangelo himself completed it with the help of a pupil (maybe Daniele da Volterra), others date the art piece more late, some of them up to a century later, by the hand of artist such as Rubens.

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Sketch in pen and ink on paper of the Battle of Cascina

1504

Ashmolean Museum