Editing Michelangelo (section)

===Early life, 1475–1488===
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was born on 6 March 1475{{efn|1=Michelangelo's father marks the date as 6 March 1474 in the Florentine manner ''ab Incarnatione''. However, in the Roman manner, ''ab Nativitate'', it is 1475.}} in [[Caprese Michelangelo|Caprese]], known today as Caprese Michelangelo, a small town situated in Valtiberina,<ref>[http://www.cm-valtiberina.toscana.it/ Unione Montana dei Comuni della Valtiberina Toscana], www.cm-valtiberina.toscana.it</ref> near [[Arezzo]], [[Tuscany]].<ref name="Tolnay11">J. de Tolnay, ''The Youth of Michelangelo'', p. 11</ref> For several generations, his family had been small-scale bankers in [[Florence]]; but the bank failed, and his father Ludovico briefly took a government post in Caprese.<ref name="Britannica"/> At the time of Michelangelo's birth, his father was the town's [[Magistrate|judicial administrator]] and ''[[podestà]]'' (local administrator) of [[Chiusi della Verna]]. Michelangelo's mother was Francesca di Neri del Miniato di Siena.<ref name="clement5">C. Clément, ''Michelangelo'', p. 5</ref> The Buonarrotis claimed to descend from the Countess [[Matilde of Canossa|Matilde di Canossa]]—a claim that remains unproven, but which Michelangelo believed.<ref>A. Condivi, ''The Life of Michelangelo'', p. 5</ref>

Several months after Michelangelo's birth, the family returned to Florence, where he was raised. During his mother's later prolonged illness, and after her death in 1481 (when he was six years old), Michelangelo lived with a [[nanny]] and her husband, a stonecutter, in the town of [[Settignano]], where his father owned a marble quarry and a small farm.<ref name="clement5"/> There the young boy gained his love for marble. As his biographer [[Giorgio Vasari]] quotes him:
{{blockquote|If there is some good in me, it is because I was born in the subtle atmosphere of your country of Arezzo. Along with the milk of my nurse I received the knack of handling chisel and hammer, with which I make my figures.<ref name="Tolnay11"/>}}