Michelangelo Buys Figs, parts 1892 - 1895

1892. Actually, the Holy Fathers took great delight in hearing stories about how Michelangelo had rebuilt the home of some poor man to Vitruvius’ specifications, some simple man whose job it was just to move bricks from one place to another at the beck and call of the masons.

1893. So when the head foreman received his instructions to assemble twenty workmen to work in Indaco’s church first thing in the morning, they gathered for the task without hesitation. When the warehouses of the Vatican in which all the building materials were stored for the facade of Saint Peters received orders to pack up such and such expensive stone specifically for floor mosaics and to load them into carts they obeyed without question.

1894. That night Michelangelo returned to the church with the figs. He found the building locked up, and the candles extinguished. He pounded on the door and after a long wait, a wait in which the great man fully was able to feel his previous fault, Indaco opened the door to him and a few minutes later they got "verso il basso per l'ottone dei chiodini."

1895. During the night Michelangelo and Indaco tore out as much of the floor as possible, concentrating on those portions that were the most embarrassing, and when morning came they received the help of twenty of the Vatican stonemasons who arrived ready to work on the project.