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Michelangelo's father sent him to study grammar with the Humanist Francesco da Urbino in Florence as a young boy.

The young artist, however, showed no interest in his schooling, preferring to copy paintings from churches and seek the company of painters.

At thirteen, Michelangelo was apprenticed to the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio.

When Michelangelo was only fourteen, his father persuaded Ghirlandaio to pay his apprentice as an artist, which was highly unusual at the time.

When in 1489, Lorenzo de ' Medici, de facto ruler of Florence, asked Ghirlandaio for his two best pupils, Ghirlandaio sent Michelangelo and Francesco Granacci.

From 1490 to 1492, Michelangelo attended the Humanist academy which the Medici had founded along Neo Platonic lines.

Michelangelo studied sculpture under Bertoldo di Giovanni.

At the academy, both Michelangelo's outlook and his art were subject to the influence of many of the most prominent philosophers and writers of the day including Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola and Poliziano.

At this time, Michelangelo sculpted the reliefs Madonna of the Steps ( 1490 – 1492 ) and Battle of the Centaurs ( 1491 – 1492 ).

The latter was based on a theme suggested by Poliziano and was commissioned by Lorenzo de Medici.