The night before the unveiling of the Sistine ceiling, I was too excited to sleep. I kept imagining the pope looking up at that ceiling, striking Michelangelo over the head with his walking stick, and howling to the heavens that he should’ve hired “my painter of miracles, Raphael!” Or maybe the pope would laugh—a loud cackle—and the cardinals would join in, pointing and mocking the sculptor who tried to be a painter. Perhaps His Holiness would have me kneel in the middle of the Sistine and anoint me papal architect right then and there. Perhaps my men could construct a new scaffolding overnight, and by morning, I could be chipping off Michelangelo’s frescoes and preparing that ceiling for my own miracles.

At dawn, I stopped trying to sleep and got up. I tried on four different shirts, settling on fashionable sleeves that were so full they could’ve been wings. I’d personally designed my gray-blue taffeta vest, trimmed with a gold brocade of holly and oak (an homage to the della Rovere family crest). After checking my boot buckles four times each and smoothing my eyebrows four, eight— all right, fine, sixteen times—I set out for the palace, arriving on a perfect count of seven.

There wasn’t a scrap of garbage nor a streak of mud near the entryway of the Vatican that day; the groundskeepers must’ve been up early to prepare. Cardinals dressed in ceremonial red robes, and dignitaries festooned in feathered hats streamed into the palace. The hallways smelled of lily and rose. Music—lutes, flutes, singing—lilted through rooms.

His Holiness wouldn’t officially consecrate the ceiling until mass on All Saints Day—when, if all went well, he might not consecrate it at all, but give it to me instead—but the pope was scheduled to view it for the first time before the rest of Rome during vespers the night before, with a fortunate few of us by his side. We would all have to wait until sunset to see the ceiling, but first we enjoyed a full day of All Hallows Eve festivities: morning prayers and songs, a noontime meal to honor the ambassador of Parma, poetry praising the papacy, a comedy show with competing jesters (they were good, but my jester from Urbino, Dominic, would’ve outperformed all of them with his juggling fireball act), and a tour of the papal apartments, including the most flattering description by the pope: “This is the room of Raphael’s miracles that produced miracles for us all!”