This one-act play explores the relationship between the artist Michelangelo Buonarroti and the poet Vittoria Colonna. It’s the story of the lives of two people, which converge for a few years during late middle age in a bond of such intensity both are inspired as well as troubled by its implications.

 

Set against the backdrop of the completion of one of Michelangelo’s most iconic paintings, the Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, their close, passionate friendship is recorded in letters and poetry, which form the heart of the play’s dialogue. But the story of Vittoria and Michelangelo is more extraordinary than that of friendship and follows events that would shake Europe to its core and change the course of history. Vittoria, close to the great religious reformers both within and outside the Catholic Church and the devotee of a dangerous doctrine, draws Michelangelo into her world of faith and politics, leading him to make art that questions the role of the Church hierarchy. His painting threatened with destruction, when Vittoria dies Michelangelo is left to face the investigations of the Inquisition alone.

 

Visually drawing on the sumptuousness of 16th-century painting styles as well as actual images by Michelangelo, the play weaves newly translated source material and specially written scenes together to create layers of meaning and blend dramatic conventions.