I returned to the Vatican and excused my two-day absence by showing the pope my new designs for the Religion wall; he was so pleased that he said I should work from my studio in my own apartments more often. The next day, I received a letter from Margherita assuring me that Michelangelo was improving. The next week, she sent a note that he’d woken up and wasn’t questioning their story that they’d been sent by the Vatican to care for him.

Eventually, Michelangelo returned to work. He told people that he must’ve worked so hard that he drove himself to sickness. (See? My theory about poison probably was only paranoia.) Someone had told him that I’d snuck up the Sistine scaffolding to copy his work while he was sick. I didn’t contradict the rumor, and I don’t know who told it, but when I passed Bramante in the halls, he wouldn’t look at me. I spent the rest of that summer with my head down, drawing figure after figure for my Religion wall, perfecting each tunic, each shadow, each finger, fold, and toe, pushing toward those sibyls and prophets from the Sistine. I obsessed over every detail. I drew the bottom of Jesus’s foot six dozen times.

I didn’t see Felice again until—what? It must’ve been two months later. August, maybe? She was standing in the doorway of the papal apartments, watching me, arms crossed. I swallowed hard but went back to my work. She never did tell anyone of our second encounter in the Sistine, so I figured that she was happier keeping our secret rather than exposing it. And so, I did the same.

Chapter XXVII

Chapter XXVII

Prior to the unveiling of my Religion wall, I’d always thought of perfect perspective only as it referred to pictures: everything organized along perspective lines receding back to a single vanishing point; the atmospheric purpling of distant towns and mountains; the foreshortening of arms and hands reaching out toward the viewer; all of those tricks that painters use to transform a flat picture surface into a real world, expanding into the distance, deep and wide. However, on the day of the unveiling—with the pope, cardinals, artists, assistants, and guests packing into the papal library—my perspective on perspective changed.

After nearly a year of obsessing over every detail, I was so close to my Religion fresco that I couldn’t see whether it was good anymore, so I’d come to the unveiling determined to not look at the picture again, but to watch the faces of those experiencing the painting for the first time. I’m not sure how much I learned about my fresco that day, but I did gain perspective on the cast of characters populating my life.