On March 6th, 1475, Michelangelo Buonarroti, the greatest of the Italian Renaissance artists, is born in the small village of Caprese. The son of a government administrator, he grew up in Florence, a center of the early Renaissance movement, and became an artist's apprentice at age 13. Demonstrating obvious talent, he was taken under the wing of Lorenzo de' Medici, the ruler of the Florentine republic and a great patron of the arts. For two years beginning in 1490, he lived in the Medici palace, where he was a student of the sculptor Bertoldo di Giovanni and studied the Medici art collection, which included ancient Roman statuary. This clip is courtesy of THE HISTORY CHANNEL.