Short answers, pulled from the story.
Michelangelo, born Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni on the 6th of March 1475, was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance. He created the Pietà and David in sculpture, the Sistine Chapel ceiling and The Last Judgment in fresco, and served as architect of St. Peter's Basilica.
Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling between 1508 and 1512, taking roughly four years. The composition stretches over 500 square metres and contains over 300 figures, with nine episodes from the Book of Genesis at its centre, including The Creation of Adam.
Michelangelo completed the David in 1504 from a block of Carrara marble that had sat unworked for 40 years, portraying David as a symbol of Florentine freedom. The BBC has called it the world's most famous statue, and the original now stands in the Accademia.
Michelangelo wrote more than three hundred sonnets and madrigals, with about sixty addressed to men. The longest sequence was written to the young Roman patrician Tommaso dei Cavalieri, whom he met in 1532, and these poems predate Shakespeare's sonnets to the fair youth by 50 years.
At the age of 71, Michelangelo succeeded Antonio da Sangallo the Younger as architect of St. Peter's Basilica in 1546. He returned to Bramante's concepts for a centrally planned church, and the dome, completed after his death, has been called the greatest creation of the Renaissance.
Michelangelo died in Rome on the 18th of February 1564, at the age of 88. His body was taken to the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence, fulfilling his last request to be buried in the city he loved.