Da Vinci and Michelangelo

The 15th century was the great age of achievement in the Renaissance of Italian art. The most notable geniuses of this period were Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci. Leonardo lived from 1452 to 1519 and Michelangelo from 1475 to 1564. Da Vinci's art was characterized more for quality than quantity. He was a sporadic genius whose great work was the "Mona Lisa."

Michelangelo was a prolific eclectic artist producing enormous quantities of sculptures and painting characterized by supreme creativity and genius. His most famous work was the painting of the ceiling of the Sistene Chapel.

Da Vinci and Michelangelo were the vanguard of a movement of artistic genius the proved that the individual, given the means and the freedom, could achieve a level of vision and beauty thought previously reserved only for the ancients. Before the Renaissance the idea was prevalent that civilization was still declining from the time of the Roman Empire. The great achievements of the Renaissance were visual proof that Man, while not perfectable, was truly a noble being.