In his day, Giacomo Cillibotti was one of the foremost artists of the Italian Renaissance, though he is little-known today. His work, though painted in the classical style, sometimes has a surreal quality, and his naming of paintings often leaves something to be desired. The painting reproduced here, for example, is his most famous work, and bears the title Venus Unaccountably Standing on an Infeasibly Large Seashell.

Interestingly, Cillibotti very nearly won a portion of the acclaim that we now accord Michaelangelo Buonarotti. As is well known, Pope Sixtus VI built what has come to be known (in his honour) as the Sistine Chapel; according to unsubstantiated legend, he broke a toe by accidentally dropping a brick on his foot while building it. We all know, of course, that the wonderful paintings on the ceiling were executed by Michaelangelo, and it is a well-documented fact that relations between Michaelangelo and the Pope became very strained because of the inordinate length of time it took to complete the job.

But what is not well known is that the job was originally contracted to Cillibotti, and if only he had performed his task competently, then he might well have achieved the kind of immortality that subsequently fell to Michaelangelo. Sadly, he failed; misunderstanding the Pope's instructions, he elected to artex the ceiling rather than painting on it. Naturally, when Michaelangelo was given the task of correcting the error, it took him some fifteen years to remove Cillibotti's handiwork before he had a surface suitable for painting, which is why it took him so long. If only the steam-stripper had been invented, the job would have been completed in a fraction of the time.

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