Ascanio Condivi

In 1553 he published Vita di Michelagnolo [sic] Buonarroti,[1] an authorised account of Michelangelo's life over which his subject had complete control.

Condivi's Vita denies that Michelangelo was indebted to any other artist and claims that he was self-taught (he was in fact a pupil of Domenico Ghirlandaio).

After the publication of the Vita Condivi returned to Ripatransone, where he undertook civic duties, married, and devoted himself to painting religious subjects.

One of these paintings, the unfinished and ambiguously themed Holy Family and other figures (now in the Casa Buonarroti, Florence), relied completely for its composition on a cartoon provided by Michelangelo.

Condivi died on 10 December 1574, because of a sudden flood while fording the torrent Menocchia [it], down the valley north of his birth town.