The Renaissance master, born 550 years ago, pursued various art forms with astonishing vision and relentless drive.

By his early twenties, Michelangelo had already carved the Pieta, a sculpture depicting the Virgin Mary cradling the lifeless body of Jesus. It was a masterpiece, brimming with emotion.

The theme of the Pietà was popular in France and Germany during the 14th and 15th centuries. Michelangelo Buonarroti’s sculpture Pietà, completed around 1499, at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, is ...

At the foot of a curving staircase in the little modernistic Villa Sanseverino stands the last privately owned Michelangelo in the world, the Pieta Rondanini.* Every month, dozens of visitors go ...