The openly homoerotic nature of Michelangelo's poetry was a source of discomfort to later generations. His grandnephew, Michelangelo Buonarroti the Younger, published the poems in 1623, but changed the gender of the pronouns from male to female. It was not until John Addington Symonds translated them into English in 1893 that the original genders were restored.

Michelangelo painted The Torment of Saint Anthony at the age of 12 or 13, probably while apprenticed to Domenico Ghirlandaio.

Less than three years after Michelangelo completed a twice life-size bronze statue of Pope Julius II, it was melted down to make an artillery cannon.

In 1496, Michelangelo made a sleeping cupid figure and, at the advice of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco, treated it with acidic earth to make it appear ancient. He then sold it to a dealer, Baldassare del Milanese, who in turn sold it to Cardinal Riario of San Giorgio who later learned of the fraud and demanded his money back.

It is said that Michelangelo's Brutus was commissioned to honor Lorenzino de Medici, who had earned the name of Brutus by assassinating his distant cousin, Alessandro.

In the unfinished sculpture, St. Matthew almost seems to be frozen in carbonite himself!

The sibyls were female seers from antiquity who were thought to have predicted the coming of Christ. Michelangelo's Delphic Sibyl is the most beautiful and youthful of the five.

Michelangelo's Night is part of an allegory of the four parts of day, and is situated on the left of the sarcophagus of the tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of Nemours.

Two different crucifixes, or strictly wooden corpus figures for crucifixes, are attributed to Michelangelo, although neither is universally accepted as his. Both are relatively small figures which would have been produced in his youth.

Primordial, totally detached, her eyes focused on things outside this world, her face largely hidden in shadow and she herself almost a cave of mystery -- such is Michelangelo's Persian Sibyl of the Sistine Chapel.