Michelangelo Buonarroti was the Florentine sculptor who carved the Pietà and the David and painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Last Judgment. He died in Rome in 1564, aged 88. The most surprising fact about him comes from the start of his career: a marble Cupid he carved was sold to a cardinal as an ancient Roman statue.
The cardinal was Raffaele Riario. When he learned the truth he demanded his money back from the dealer, and he did not press charges against the sculptor, whose talent had impressed him.
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Many of the stories people repeat about Michelangelo come from two biographies written in his lifetime. One is by Giorgio Vasari, who knew him and published his Lives of the artists in 1550. The other is by his pupil Ascanio Condivi, who wrote of one episode: "I have narrated it just as I heard it from Michael Angelo himself."
So the sculptor who passed off a fake in Rome is, in part, the man telling the story. That does not make the stories false. It does explain why the best of them leave him cleverer, prouder or more stubborn than everyone around him.
The five stories below can be weighed the same way: who first told each one, how long afterward, and what a visitor can still see today. The first is the Cupid, which no visitor can see at all.
What You'll Discover
The cardinal who bought a fake.
Why he signed only one statue.
Whose face hangs from a saint's hand.
Who he painted with donkey ears.
How his body left Rome.