> ... I wouldn't call this unanticipated adoption. The work was explicitly commissioned, purchased in advance. Fair enough - certainly in his own time he was k

> ... I wouldn't call this unanticipated adoption. The work was explicitly commissioned, purchased in advance. Fair enough - certainly in his own time he was known to the Church thus his commissions were not "unanticipated," as you point out. Perhaps in this case the term could apply more to the legend and myth that has grown up around Michelangelo as an exemplar of the "Renaissance man" - why do we know about him more than, say, Domenico Ghirlandaio?