Summary

Pope Julius II dies just a few months after the painting of the vault of the Sistine Chapel was completed. Giovanni de Medici is elected Pope, and takes the name Leo X. Julius had paid Michelangelo 2000 ducats for the ceiling and to begin the carving of the marbles for the tomb. Michelangelo simultaneously sculpts three large columns: Moses, the dying captive, and the heroic-rebellious captive. Michelangelo seeks the right moment, the right meaning for his Moses, musing that “[t]he sculptor who did not have a philosophic mind created empty forms.”

Raphael still tries to belittle the painting of the Sistine Chapel, but to the rest of Italy, Michelangelo is “Master of the World.” The piers of Bramante’s St. Peter’s have cracked, and work has been stopped. Michelangelo befriends Sebastiano Luciani, a skillful painter, but one without inspiration. Michelangelo sketches and draws for him...