Michelangelo’s relief of the Battle of the Centaurs, created while he was still a youth associated with the Medici Academy. It is an unusually complex relief.
In 1505 Michelangelo was invited back to Rome by the newly elected Pope Julius II and commissioned to build the Pope’s tomb. It was to include forty statues.
Michelangelo was a devout Catholic whose faith deepened at the end of his life. He was abstemious in his personal life, and once told his apprentice.
While still working on the Last Judgement, Michelangelo received yet another commission for the Vatican. They were completed in 1550.
