Michelangelo long before Michelangelo

I have to credit most of the knowledge in this post to my Italian Ren professor, Dr. Medicus, who lectured on Federighi yesterday with some very brilliant ideas.

First I must begin with an introduction to Italy, c. 1500. They thought that the millennium and a half, meant the end of days, and that the anti Christ walked the earth. And he might've, the Borgia was the pope at the time... And the only good thing he ever did was get rid of Savanerola.... (A character for another day)

Anyway, They thought the world was going to end, artists like Botticelli were going nutzoid, and people were depicting hell, and all its little places, recently talked about by Dante. What a joyous time to live in! And we think of this was the high point of the Renaissance... Phooy.

So, there was this artist named Luca Signorelli, and he painted lots of naked dudes, and naked dudes that might have been girls if you had never seen a girl before:

And this wasn't normal. Generally Renaissance art doesn't have a bunch of nakedness. And if it does, it gets covered up like Michelangelo last judgement, where everybody used to be naked, but no longer is.

But, does this look familiar? Yes, Michelangelo loved naked dudes, and he painted lots of them, and quite a few of them look like these ones...

And we continue to Federighi. He was a sculptor that did all kinds of stuff that no one looks at. Like this bench, with its two arms that are reclining naked figures.

Which kinda reminds everyone of this:

And this:

Which reminds people of this, even though its a man... but Michelangelo didn't know much about the differences in male and female anatomy...

And then, Federigh did this. Which is crazy pants.

I mean come on, there are dragons eating turtles heads, thats awesome! But the important thing is the figures, which look alot like this: 

Michelangelo's bound slave. 

These are all aspects of michelangelo that we art historians think are THE SHIT. But, they weren't thought up by Michelangelo. He obviously saw these other things, and was like WHOA! ME LIKE! And, so he recreated them on a bigger and better scale, like GIGANTIC. 

So, when people talk about the big three. Michelangelo, Da Vinci, and Rafael, you've gotta remember that they weren't the first to do these things, they were inspired, and before 1500 when the big three get going, there was a lot of crazy awesome shit going down all over Italy, and in the North too! 

:D Tomorrow, I'll tell you why Da Vinci is only half as awesome as you think he is. Ventruvian man, Shmroovian Man.