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(1475-1564), arguably one of the most inspired creators in the history of art and, with the most potent force in the Italian High Renaissance. As a sculptor, architect, painter, and poet, he exerted a tremendous influence on his contemporaries and on subsequent W ....

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.... de' Medici, the Magnificent. There he had an opportunity to converse with the younger Medicis, two of whom later became popes (Leo X and Clement VII). He also became acquainted with such humanists as Marsilio Ficino and the poet Angelo Poliziano, who were frequent visitors. produced at least two relief sculptures by the time he was 16 years old, the (both 1489-92, Casa Buonarroti, Florence), which show that he had achieved a personal style at a very early age. His patron Lorenzo died in 1492; two years later fled Florence, when the Medici were temporarily expelled. He settled for a time in Bologna, where in 1494 and 1495 he executed several for the ....