The best artist has that thought alone Which is contained within the marble shell; The sculptor's hand can only break the spell To free the figures slumbering in the stone.

According to Condivi Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici for whom Michelangelo had sculpted St. Last sketch found
On 7 December 2007 Michelangelo's red chalk sketch for the dome of St Peter's Basilica his last before his death in 1564 was discovered in the Vatican archives. It is also during this period that skeptics allege Michelangelo executed the sculpture Laocoön and His Sons which resides in the Vatican.

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564) commonly known as Michelangelo (Italian pronunciation: [mikeˈlandʒelo]) was an Italian Renaissance sculptor painter architect poet and engineer who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. Two of his best-known works the Pietà and David were sculpted before he turned thirty.