I shook my head. Although the pope had agreed to let me throw out Bramante’s designs and use my own for the walls, he’d dictated that my Religion fresco was to be a scene of the Disputation of the Holy Sacrament: fifty or so religious figures standing around talking about the mystery of the Eucharist. How was I supposed to make a conversation interesting? “But if I copy the Masaccio, I’ll leave the upper half of the arch empty.”

Sodoma, feeding crusts of bread to the bird on his shoulder, said, “So?”

Before I could reply, Lotto answered for me in a mocking tone, “So, then it won’t be perfect.”

The pope and his advisers came back into the room—arguing about Venice or the French, I don’t know what, but it wasn’t conducive to deep thought—so I tossed Lotto my smock and said, “You’re in charge.”

Outside, it was hot and humid—one of those awful summer days in Rome when the sun is so bright that you think you’ll melt fast as candle wax—but the heat felt good. That past winter and spring, it had rained like washbasins, as if Michelangelo beginning the Sistine with a painting of The Flood had reminded God that there was plenty of ugliness that still needed washing away. A chill took hold. The ends of my fingers wrinkled with wet. Frescoing’s impossible in all that rain; the plaster turns to cold pottage. Not that it mattered because I’d spent that entire winter, spring, and the early weeks of summer not painting, but making hundreds— no, thousands—of sketches. And yet, here I was at the end of June, no closer to starting to paint than I’d been in January.

On the other hand, Michelangelo, I’d heard, had identified a good plaster mix and started painting. Again. He was starting for the second time before I could begin my first. Of course, no one knew how progress on the ceiling was coming along, as he’d hung tarps beneath his scaffolding to hide his work. He also threw planks at the heads of anyone who tried to climb up for a look— even at the pope. Planks! At the pope’s head. Can you imagine? “You’ll see it when I’m finished,” he would bellow.