Michelangelo Buys Figs, parts 1879 - 1882

1879. Although upset by being rejected by his good friend, Michelangelo did nothing about it for several months. He heard that Indaco had been hired to replace the floor of a small unimportant church somewhere in a poor section of Rome. Later he heard that the project to replace the floor was nearing completion. Then he found out that Indaco had run into some unforeseen difficulties and was having enormous problems with his floor and, as a result, was in legal difficulties.

1880. Michelangelo was overcome with curiosity and went to the church in question late at night and, seeing the interior illuminated with numerous candles, pounded on the door. Indaco opened the door of the sanctuary and seeing who it was, immediately began to push the door closed but Michelangelo prevented this by inserting his foot in the way.

1881. Indaco did not want his old friend to enter, not because of the previous slight involving the figs, but because he did not want the great man to see the idiotic and stupid mistake he had made with his inlaid floor, a mistake which threatened to ruin his life and his reputation and turn him into a laughingstock of the artists of their  community.

1882. Indaco had laid out an extremely complex black and white marble mosaic floor utilizing motifs found often as fragments in Roman ruins. The mistake he made was to measure the space of the floor from the outside wall on the eastern side over to an interior wall on the western side. Beyond the interior wall on the western side was the three feet of the space of a hallway, and then the other exterior wall.