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Artnet News rounds up recent headlines involving Renaissance master Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni as institutions prepare to celebrate his 550th birthday in 2025. The article highlights three stories: a scene in HBO's *The White Lotus* season three finale that echoes Michelangelo's *Pietà*; the ongoing scholarly debate over whether Michelangelo himself forged the ancient sculpture *Laocoön and His Sons*; and the restoration of Michelangelo's family tomb at the Basilica of Santa Croce in Florence ahead of his birthday.

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Michelangelo, best known for masterpieces like the Sistine Chapel ceiling and the Pietà, also served as the governor and procurator general of fortifications for Florence in 1529, tasked with designing military defenses against the Medici family. After the Medici were expelled in 1527, Michelangelo joined the "Nine of the Militia" committee, but his overly complex drawings were so impractical that almost none were built. The Medici, backed by Pope Clement VII, successfully besieged Florence in 1529–30, forcing Michelangelo into hiding in a secret chamber beneath the Medici Chapel, where he drew figurative works rediscovered in 1975. He was eventually pardoned and went on to create major commissions like the tomb of Pope Julius II and The Last Judgement, but left Florence for Rome in 1534.

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