Italophilia
Michelangelo was born in Florence in 1475 and, like Leonardo, was a true Renaissance man. He was a sculptor, painter, architect, poet, and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. He was considered the greatest living artist in his lifetime and, since then, one of the greatest artists of all time. His two best-known sculptures, the Pietà and David, are famous throughout the world. Michelangelo also created two of the most famous and influential frescoes in the history of Western art: the scenes from Genesis covering the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, and The Last Judgment on the altar wall of the Chapel.
Michelangelo Cerquozzi
Michelangelo Cerquozzi was born in Rome as the son of Marcello Cerquozzi and Lucia Vassalli, both Roman citizens. His father was a successful leather merchant and the family was well-off. Michelangelo Cerquozzi started his artistic training at the age of 12 in the studio of Giuseppe Cesari, a history painter in whose studio the young Caravaggio trained upon his arrival in Rome.
Various biographers and scholars describe Cerquozzi as an artist in close contact with the circle of Flemish and Dutch artists active in Rome. They place him in the period 1620-1621 as living or working in Rome alongside Jacob de Hase (also known as Giacomo Fiammingo), an Antwerp painter of battles who came to Rome in 1601. He may have studied with Jacob de Hase before this date. In 1624 he lived with the Dutch painters Paulus Bor originally from Amersfoort and Jan Harmansz originally from Reims, and during 1625-1630 with the Fleming Willem Michiels. By 1631, he had a studio with his pupil Matteo Bonicelli and Michiels.