How old was michelangelo when he sculpted the pieta

Raphael or Picasso? Monet or Titian? What about Cecilia Giménez, the Spanish grandmother responsible for the botched but now iconic Monkey Christ restoration?

La pietà

Okay maybe that one’s pushing it, but agreeing on the greatest artist to have ever lived is an impossible task.

Nonetheless, for the last 500 years one name has hovered near the top of almost everyone’s list: Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni, famous enough to be known to history by his first name alone.

Born into a family of humble means in the tiny Tuscan town of Caprese in 1475, Michelangelo’s staggering achievements changed the course of art forever and led to his contemporaries dubbing him ‘il Divino’ - the divine one.

And indeed he must have seemed closer to God than a man to his peers, cranking out masterful studies in human anatomy and psychology for most of his almost 89 years – an impressive age even