Woody McGee, age 14, of Lynn, Mass., for his question:

WHAT WERE MICHELANGELO'S ACCOMPLISHMENTS?

Without a doubt, Michelangelo was one of the most inspired creators in the history of art. As a potent force in the Italian High Renaissance, he was an outstanding sculptor, architect, painter and poet. In addition, Michelangelo exerted a tremendous influence on his contemporaries and on subsequent Western art in general.

Michelangelo was born in 1475. His father, a minor official in Florence, had connections with the ruling Medici family (two of whom became popes, Leo X and Clement VII), and when the boy was 13, he was able to place him in the workshop of painter Domenico Ghirlandaio.

After about two years, Michelangelo went on to study at the sculpture school in the Medici gardens and shortly thereafter was invited into the household of Lorenzo de Medici, the Magnificent. There he had an opportunity to converse with the

By the time he was 16 years old, Michelangelo produced at least two important relief sculptures, proving his great talent and sense of style.

After a time in Bologna, Michelangelo went to Rome where he produced his first large scale sculptures. One of his first pieces was the famous "Pieta," the only work he ever signed. This famous marble statue, which now stands in Saint Peter' Basilica, was completed before the artist was 25 years old.

The youthful Mary is shown seated majestically, holding the dead Christ across her lap. The high point of Michelangelo's early style is the gigantic 14 foot marble "David."

Michelangelo was only 30 when he went to Rome for two important commissions, one of which was for the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

Michelangelo had a long, productive life, living to be 89 years old. He was widely awarded the epithet "divine" because of his extraordinary accomplishments.

Michelangelo's crowning achievement as an architect was his  work at St. Peter's Basilica, where he was made chief architect in 1548. The building was being constructed according to the plan of a great architect named Donato Bramante, but Michelangelo ultimately became responsible for the alter end of the building on the exterior and for the final form of its famous dome.

St. Peter's dome became the symbol of Michelangelo's authority, as well as the model for domes all over the Western world. The majority of state capitol buildings in the United States, as well as the Capitol in Washington, D.C., are derived from it Michelangelo was an intimate of princes and popes, from Lorenzo de Medici to Leo X, Clement Y11I and Pius lil, as well as cardinals, painters and poets.

Neither easy to get along with nor easy to understand.  Michelangelo expressed his view of himself and the world even more directly in his poetry tnan in the other arts.