1478: Florence’s Greatest Artist

Many years later, Michelangelo stood beneath the dome of the Sistine Chapel and recalled:

On a morning in 1478, a ragged young man walked into Ghirlandaio's studio.

"Back then, we called him the 'country bumpkin from Sicily,' because he was so poor he couldn't even afford paint."

"He was the first to use geometric lines in place of perspective, the first to define sculpture through the structure of the human body..."

He turned and looked at the apprentices filling the room.

"He was no painter, sculptor, or architect! But he was the soul of medieval art. You can't see him, yet he is in every painting!"

Short version: A top professor at the Central Academy of Fine Arts in the 21st century wakes up as a destitute apprentice painter in Florence. At this time, Leonardo da Vinci is still doing odd jobs in a workshop, and David has yet to be born... Years later, every great master calls him teacher. He never signs his name, yet he leads the entire Renaissance.