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That gorgeous sketch made me wonder about Michelangelo���s other works on paper, and I started flipping through pages of art books looking at reproductions of the drawings. My first discovery was that a surprising number of the drawings also had Michelangelo���s handwriting on them. My second discovery was that hardly anyone had paid attention to this remarkable combination of circumstances. And my third discovery was that, merely by looking at reproductions, I would never get a full sense of the Master���s words or his pictures. So a project took shape. I would make a full census of the words that Michelangelo wrote on his picture pages. I would try to understand what kind of creative spirit had inspired these multiple activities of visuality and language. And���most delightful of all���I would travel to all the museums that housed these masterworks and request the opportunity to look at them with my own eyes. Rome, where I happened to be on sabbatical as a Resident of the American Academy, nearly derailed the whole project, however. The Vatican Library possesses a priceless manuscript with over a hundred poems, along with a number of drawings in the artist���s hand. But the Vatican Library was shut down for renovation, and would remain so for three years. Just as I was digesting this disturbing fact, the then Director of the American Academy, the infinitely brilliant and charming Professor Carmela Vircillo Franklin invited me to lunch and happened to mention that one of the other guests would be none other than HYLAND