His education was handled by two thinkers and philosophers, Marsilio Ficino, the Athenian school founder in Florence and one of the most famous figures of the early Renaissance, and Count Giovanni della Mirandola.

Michelangelo, then seventeen years old, created the bas-reliefs Madonna at the Stairs and Battle of the Centaurs. These two reliefs are now in the Casa Buonarroti in Florence.