Pope Julius II was standing in the middle of the Sistine Chapel. Surrounded by a retinue of red-robed cardinals, he was dressed in his long, alabaster cassock, traditional white skullcap, and his famous red shoes. And a great pillar of heavenly light shone down through a high window and cloaked him in a pearly glow! I’m jesting, sì certo, there wasn’t any such light. Despite what you may have heard, he was a man, aging like any other: tufts of gray hair poking out from under a white cap, crinkling wrinkles, cheeks drooping like wilted sunflowers. I’d heard he was once a famed Adonis; was this how I would look when my youth was gone? His legendary temper was, at least, intact, for he brought his long, gold-plated walking stick down on top of the head of . . .

Same unruly black hair, same anguished features, same clunky work boots . . .

Michelangelo.

The sculptor grabbed the pope’s walking stick and growled, “Why are you abusing me? You’re the one asking for the blessed impossible!” (He did not use the word blessed there.)

I don’t handle arguments well—not even between other people—so as the pope was about to strike again, I almost stepped between them, but Bramante held me back, “Let him carve his own tomb for once.”

Instead of me, a red-robed cardinal stepped in front of Michelangelo. “Mi dispiace, Your Holiness. Pay my brother no regard.” He was a jowly man with soft skin that belied his advancing age; how do wealthy men always look young? I recognized him quickly from Rosselli’s portrait: the Florentine Cardinal Giovanni de’ Medici, son of Il Magnifico. According to the rumors, Michelangelo had grown up alongside this cardinal in the Medici palace like a brother, so it was no wonder that the cardinal now took a protective stance when he said, “He’s been impossible since we were boys.”

“Don’t talk about our artist that way,” the pope bellowed. “It’s you who are the impossible wretch.” He aimed his stick at the cardinal’s head.

That’s the moment when Bramante decided to introduce me to the pope. And here I’d always assumed the old architect had tact. “Your Holiness, allow me to present the young painter from Urbino about whom you’ve heard so much . . .” The pope’s nose flared. The Medici cardinal’s eyes narrowed. But apparently, Bramante didn’t notice the awkwardness of his timing, for he barreled on. “He’s young and wildly talented. May I present my countryman, son of painter and poet Giovanni Santi; student of Pietro Perugino; subject of your nephew, Francesco Maria, Duke of Urbino; and the celebrated painter of Madonnas: Raffaello Santi da Urbino.”