Michelangelo

Michelangelo considered himself a sculptor first, and had carved the Pietà and David by his twenties. Yet Pope Julius II insisted he paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, a gruelling task that took him four years.

His muscular figures express spiritual struggle. In old age he designed the dome of St Peter's Basilica. He lived to almost ninety and was hailed as “the divine Michelangelo” in his own lifetime.