Michelangelo

Apprenticed to Domenico Ghirlandaio in Florence. Lorenzo de' Medici notices his talent and invites him to study in the Medici sculpture garden. He is 14. Another student, jealous, punches him and breaks his nose. It stays crooked for the rest of his life.

Commissioned to carve the Pieta for St. Peter's Basilica. He is 23. When it's finished, visitors attribute it to another sculptor. Furious, Michelangelo sneaks in at night and carves his name across the Virgin's sash. It's the only work he ever signed.

Begins work on David. The marble block is 17 feet tall and has been abandoned by two previous sculptors who couldn't handle its shallow depth. Michelangelo works on it for over two years, often sleeping at its base in his clothes.

A committee including Leonardo da Vinci and Sandro Botticelli debates where to place the David. The original plan was a cathedral buttress. They choose the Piazza della Signoria instead. The move takes four days. Forty men haul the 12,000-pound statue through Florence at night.

Pope Julius II commissions a monumental tomb for himself. Michelangelo spends months in the quarries at Carrara selecting marble. The project drags on for 40 years through five reduced contracts. The final version is a fraction of the original design. Michelangelo calls it 'the tragedy of the tomb.'

Pope Julius II orders him to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo protests. He's a sculptor, not a painter. He writes a poem about the misery of the work: paint dripping in his face, his spine bent like a bow, his beard pointing at the sky. It takes four years. He paints over 300 figures, mostly alone, standing on scaffolding he designed himself.

The Sistine Chapel ceiling is unveiled to the public. More than 5,000 square feet of frescoes. The Creation of Adam, with God's finger nearly touching Adam's, becomes one of the most reproduced images in human history.

Returns to the Sistine Chapel at 61 to paint The Last Judgment on the altar wall. He includes a self-portrait: his own face on the flayed skin held by Saint Bartholomew. Critics demand the nude figures be covered. The drapery is added after his death.

Appointed architect of St. Peter's Basilica at 71. He designs the massive dome that will define the Roman skyline. He refuses any salary. He works on it for the last 17 years of his life, knowing he won't live to see it finished.

Dies in Rome at 88. Three days later, Galileo is born in Pisa. His body is smuggled out of Rome by his nephew and brought to Florence, where it receives a state funeral at the Basilica of Santa Croce. Vasari opens the coffin weeks later and reports the body is perfectly preserved.