Michelangelo : "Are you sure you don't want me to sculpt something instead?"

When the Pope asks a favor, you do it.

Honestly, I’m not Catholic, and if the Pope asked me to paint a picture, I’d probably do it. So in that sense, Michelangelo Buonarroti and I are like twins.

The Pope wanted Mic to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Note: "Sistine Chapel” is apparently easier to say than “Cappella Magna” (the Great Chapel), though that is my preference.

The Sistine Chapel was (and is) a very important religious site where a bunch of important stuff happens. Probably because it’s at the epicenter of the Catholic universe: the papal conclave, where new popes get selected and Dan Brown finds material for more novels. Vatican City, Italy.

So it’s 1508. The Pope wants a new ceiling. He calls on Mic. Not literally (they were still decades away from high-speed internet or fax machines). Mic doesn’t want to do it because…

I’m kind of more of a sculptor.
he says.

But finally he gives in. Even the greats give in sometimes when the pressure is heavy enough. Plus, maybe he needed the money. So he gets to work.

Again, this is the ceiling. You think you have back or neck problems?
Stop complaining.

For the next four years, Michelangelo works on creating 300+ humans, animals, angels, and beautiful beings with his magical paintbrush.

Finally, it is unveiled. And the stunning end result surpasses even the expectations following the massive amount of labor that went into it. His use of light, color; the way the characters are interacting and the dynamics of feeling and narrative it captures have seized people’s hearts for centuries, and continue to do so today.

So in the end: the work is worth it. Everyone’s happy, pretty much. And there’s even a happy coda at the end:

Michelangelo did some sculpting later on that people remembered a wee bit as well.

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