Another vivid account by Ross King (see Brunelleschi's Dome), this one covering (no pun intended) the Master's job on the Sistine Chapel. I'm ashamed to say that on the many times I've visited Rome, business engagements or the long lines to get in to see the Chapel have prevented me from viewing one of the most famous "paintings" in the World.
I say "painting" because in fact - as I learned in this excellent book - it's actually a fresco, which were and still are created in a unique fashion. The laborious method of applying colored minerals to a still-wet plaster surface was one of the many reasons Michaelangelo didn't really want the commission.
Compounding that were the sheer scale and unpleasant working conditions - in cramped, dangerously high locations, mostly working on his back and in poor light.
The large scale of most frescoes, and the fact that panels or sections needed to be completed before the plaster completely dried, meant first sketching the composition on paper, making pin pricks along the lines of that sketch, attaching the paper to the wall or ceiling and then applying colored chalk through those pin pricked holes. The result was an outline on the plaster that could then be colored in. Not exactly painting by numbers, but you get the drift.
Arguably, any job linked with a politically corrupt, soap-opera-ish organization can, and did get unpleasant.
A fabulous thread running through the process of painting the Cistine Chapel was Michaelangelo's jealousy of and rivalry with his "competitor" Raphael.
This might have been called "Holy Roller", if Michaelangelo had done it all a nice flat color.
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