Michelangelo
Michelangelo was born on 6 March 1475 in Caprese, known today as Caprese Michelangelo, a small town situated in Valtiberina, near Arezzo, Tuscany. For several generations, his family had been small-scale bankers in Florence; but the bank failed, and his father, Ludovico di Leonardo Buonarroti Simoni, briefly took a government post in Caprese, where Michelangelo was born. At the time of Michelangelo's birth, his father was the town's Judicial administrator and "podestà" or local administrator of Chiusi della Verna. Michelangelo's mother was Francesca di Neri del Miniato di Siena. The Buonarrotis claimed to descend from the Countess Mathilde of Canossa—a claim that remains unproven, but which Michelangelo believed.
René de Saint-Marceaux
He was born in Reims and at age eighteen went to Paris to study at the École des Beaux-Arts. A student of François Jouffroy, he became primarily a sculptor of portrait busts and animals. He exhibited at the Paris salon from 1868, when, passing up the competition for the Prix de Rome, he decided to spend time in Florence instead. He passed a second sojourn in Italy in 1873-74. On his return, his marble "Génie gardant le secret de la tombe" ("Spirit Guarding the Secret of the Tomb"), conserved in the Musée d'Orsay, Paris, shows the marked influence of Michelangelo.