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Michelangelo Buonarroti , the greatest of the Italian Renaissance  artists, is born in the

small village of Caprese on March 6, 1475. The son of a government administrator, he
grew up in Florence, a center of the early Renaissance movement, and became an
artist’s apprentice at age 13. Demonstrating obvious talent, he was taken under the
wing of Lorenzo de’ Medici, the ruler of the Florentine republic and a great patron of
the arts. For two years beginning in 1490, he lived in the Medici palace, where he was
a student of the sculptor Bertoldo di Giovanni and studied the Medici art collection,
which included ancient Roman statuary
With the expulsion of the Medici family from Florence in 1494, Michelangelo traveled
to Bologna and Rome, where he was commissioned to do several works. His most
important early work was the Pieta (1498), a sculpture based on a traditional type of
devotional image that showed the body of Christ in the lap of the Virgin Mary.
Demonstrating masterful technical skill, he extracted the two perfectly balanced
figures of the Pieta from a single block of marble.

With the success of the Pieta, the artist was commissioned to sculpt a monumental

statue of the biblical character David for the Florence cathedral. The 17-foot statue,
produced in the classical style, demonstrates the artist’s exhaustive knowledge of
human anatomy and form. In the work, David is shown watching the approach of his
foe Goliath, with every muscle tensed and a pose suggesting impending movement.
Upon the completion of David in 1504, Michelangelo’s reputation was firmly
established.

*Italian Renaissance painter and architect Raphael became Perugino's apprentice in 1504. Living
in Florence from 1504 to 1507, he began painting a series of "Madonnas." In Rome from 1509 to
1511, he painted the Stanza della Segnatura ("Room of the Signatura") frescoes located in the
Palace of the Vatican. He later painted another fresco cycle for the Vatican, in the Stanza
d'Eliodoro ("Room of Heliodorus"). In 1514, Pope Julius II hired Raphael as his chief architect.
Around the same time, he completed his last work in his series of the "Madonnas," an oil
painting called the Sistine Madonna. Raphael died in Rome on April 6, 1520.
Raphael was born Raffaello Sanzio on April 6, 1483, in Urbino, Italy. At the time, Urbino was a
cultural center that encouraged the Arts. Raphael’s father, Giovanni Santi, was a painter for the
Duke of Urbino, Federigo da Montefeltro. Giovanni taught the young Raphael basic painting
techniques and exposed him to the principles of humanistic philosophy at the Duke of Urbino’s
court.
In 1494, when Raphael was just 11 years old, Giovanni died. Raphael then took over the
daunting task of managing his father’s workshop. His success in this role quickly surpassed his
father’s; Raphael was soon considered one of the finest painters in town. As a teen, he was even
commissioned to paint for the Church of San Nicola in the neighboring town of Castello.

In 1500, a master painter named Pietro Vannunci, otherwise known as Perugino, invited Raphael
to become his apprentice in Perugia, in the Umbria region of central Italy. In Perugia, Perugino
was working on frescoes at the Collegio del Cambia. The apprenticeship lasted four years and
provided Raphael with the opportunity to gain both knowledge and hands-on experience. During
this period, Raphael developed his own unique painting style, as exhibited in the religious works
the Mond Crucifixion (circa 1502), The Three Graces (circa 1503), The Knight’s Dream (1504)
and the Oddi altarpiece, Marriage of the Virgin, completed in 1504.

A leading figure of Italian High Renaissance classicism, Raphael is best known for his
"Madonnas," including the Sistine Madonna, and for his large figure compositions in the Palace
of the Vatican in Rome.

*Tiziano Vecellio, known as Titian, was born in Pieve di Cadore, a small village in the Alps, the
son of Gregorio Vecellio, a wealthy councillor and captain of the Venetian militia in the region.
The exact date of his birth is uncertain, however, modern scholars usually set it between 1488
and 1490 on the basis of Ludovico Dolce's Dialogue of Painting, which states that, at the time of
the lost frescoes at the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, Titian was not yet 20 years old. At around the age
of ten, he moved to Venice with his elder brother Francesco to take an apprenticeship as a artist.
He initially studied mosaic at Sebastiano Zuccato's workshop and was later apprenticed to
Gentile Bellini. After Gentile's death, Titian went to work for his brother Giovanni Bellini, one
of the most important painters in Venice at the time. Here he met Giorgione, a previous
apprentice of Bellini's, who helped Titian develop his early style.
Around 1508 Titian collaborated with Giorgione on the external decoration of the Fondaco dei
Tedeschi (the state-warehouse for the German merchants). The relationship between the two
masters is still much debated by art historians, with some suggesting an open rivalry and others a
close friendship between them. What is certain is that distinguishing between their works in this
period is still controversial. For example, the famous, Christ Carrying the Cross (1508-09),
hosted in the Scuola Grande di San Rocco, long believed to be Giorgione's work, has recently
been attributed to Titian. Although Titian moved away from Giorgione's style in terms of color
palette and lighting effects, his influence continues to be apparent in Titian's work for some
years. in 1510 Titian launched his independent career in Venice and the following year he
travelled to Padua to paint frescoes in the Scuola of St. Anthony. Upon returning, the artist set up
an atelier on the Grand Canal, at S. Samuele, administered by his brother Francesco. In 1516,
after the death of Bellini, Titian was appointed as the official painter of the Republic of Venice.
This appointment was crucial for his artistic career: he enjoyed an annual fee of a hundred ducats
and a healthy tax exemption. He held this office for almost 60 years investing his earnings in the
lumber trade of his native Cadore, a very important business for the naval industry of the
Republic (it is said that Titian became the richest artist that ever lived at the time). In the same
year, he completed the Assumption of the Virgin, for the Basilica di Santa Maria Gloriosa dei
Frari, a painting that created a huge sensation for its majestic scale and innovative use of color.
During this period he also produced several half-length paintings and busts of young women,
these included Flora (c. 1515) and Woman with a Mirror (c.1515) as well as a series of small
Madonnas for a number of wealthy patrons.