Do you know why Pope Julius II assigned the impossible task to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel to a young artist at that time much more experienced and known as a sculptor rather than as a painter, such as Michelangelo?

His painting experience was limited to small pieces, and little in the way of frescoes, and more than this not on extended ceilings like the one of the Sistine Chapel, which required a type of scaffolding radically different from any other used before...this slowed down the start of the works that took 4 years to be completed ...the Pope clearly believed in this case that potential could trump experience.

Michelangelo indeed recurred to his skills and taste as a sculptor and architect in painting the now-iconic frescoes of the Sistine, that still nowadays stand out for their monumental classic beauty that imitate sculptural forms of the Ancient Rome

Keep reading Eric Weiner’s article at Harvard Business Review 

This Summer travel backwards in Renaissance