Terribilità

Terribilità, the spelling in modern Italian, or terribiltà, as Michelangelo's 16th century contemporaries tended to spell it, is a quality of provoking terror (the literal meaning), awe, or a sense of the sublime, in the viewer, that is ascribed to his art. It is perhaps especially applied to his sculptures, such as his figures of David or in Moses.

Pope Julius II was apparently the first to describe Michelangelo as a uomo terribile ("terror-inducing man"), apparently describing his difficult character as much as his art. This terribilità, also references the neoplatonics of humanists such as Marsilio Ficino, who had known Michelangelo in his youth.