From his earliest youth Michelangelo transformed personal torment into exquisite creativity—attempting to reconcile the apparently conflicting forces that inhabited him: his earthly passions and his fear of God. Hence the peerless monuments to beauty, celestial and infernal alike, that Michelangelo raised to the glory of God. His predecessors aspired to Heaven through faith alone; Michelangelo sought absolution through the contemplative exaltation of beauty—even on the ceiling of a papal chapel: the Sistine. This exposed him to a chorus of derision from prudish critics, who accused him of exhibiting paganism in a place of religion, and who clothed his immodest Titans in painted "breeches".

It was Michelangelo's curse to remain a colossus outside and apart from his time. It is the birthright of the comet to inspire fear and awe in the spectator; but the spectacle of such glory can sear the tender eye.