““sit well with Michelangelo. The project seemed like a series of insurmountable challenges: •It would be the largest fresco on earth—there would be more than twelve thousand square feet to cover. •He had never frescoed before. •His competition would be staring him in the face every day—the Moses and Jesus wall panels, world-class masterpieces created by the top fresco artists in the world—including his own first maestro, Ghirlandaio. When and if he ever finished the ceiling, his beginner’s work would be compared with these. •The chapel was in constant use, more than twenty times per month. The scaffolding could not be of the traditional kind, which would require too much wood and thus block up the chapel and render it unusable for years. •The pope’s rigid and unimaginative concept for the ceiling stood against everything Michelangelo believed in, both as a spiritual seeker and as an artist. •The pope’s advisers would be trying to catch him at any changes or “heresies” that he might insert in the work. •The pope and Bramante had given him a large number of Roman assistants to help with the plaster and paint—but Michelangelo knew very well that their other job would be to spy on his work.””
