now you see it

Along with a Google account comes a bunch of options for personalizing your homepage. There's a virtual Post-it notepad, a tiny e-pony that loiters on your screen munching grass (and occasionally needing his mane brushed out), and the super-cool Art of the Day. Real geeks scoff, but non-technoids like me think this stuff is great. A week or so ago one of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel frescoes was featured on AOTD, and I remarked to my husband that a modern image of a nude man and woman in that particular pose would probably be considered pornography in our culture. He wryly remarked back something along the lines of, "Well, we're a country founded on Puritanism. What can you say?"

Then, about a week later, a painting depicting the same apple-eating event that basically ruined life for the rest of us showed up on my Google homepage, only this one was painted by Hugo Van Der Goes, a Netherlandish artist who was only about 35 years older than Mr. Buonarotti (and whose name I remember by thinking of a North Dakotan shouting, "Der goes a van!"). I couldn't help but notice the disparity between their depictions of the same scene. For one thing, there's the obvious nudity issue. Michelangelo has Adam and Eve both hanging it all out there (so to speak) while Van der Goes has painted a strategically-placed orchid and hand (which I could understand if the apple in VdG's painting had already been eaten, but it doesn't appear to be so). There's also the difference in the two painters' serpents: Mike's is a female snake-like creature with arms only, while VdG has created a creepy Gollum-like (almost child-like) beast with legs (that it won't have for much longer, payback being what it is).

So, what gives? I'm sure all of this is covered in any Art History 101 class, but having (gasp) never taken a single Art History class, I am left to wonder about these things with my simple, unschooled brain. Is this a cultural thing? Italian vs. Netherlander? Is it an age thing? Certainly, people who are 35 years older than me are - if not dead - under a significantly different impression of what is acceptable modesty-wise. Maybe not so much, though; I have a strong prudish element in my personality.

Regardless, this difference in artistic perspectives - of two men from nearly the same era painting essentially the same thing - fascinates me, and I'm not done thinking about it. I'd love some feedback on this if you're similarly interested, so tell me what you think. And forgive me for referring to the great painter as Mike; my parents had a Basset hound named Michelangelo Buonarroti before having kids, but as a little girl I only knew the old dog as...you guessed it. Old habits die hard.Follow @nicole_mcinnes

buongiorno, signorina

I've just started reading Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling by Ross King. Apparently, I'm one of the few people who hasn't read this book, but I honestly hadn't even heard of it before someone handed it to me last year. No surprise there. There was a time when I was on the cutting edge - the bleeding edge, as it's called these days, which is a pretty gross term that makes me think of shaving mishaps - of all things old, new, borrowed and blue in the literary world, thanks to a generous e-friend who gave me the NYT Book Review as a gift. Alas, gift subscriptions eventually come to an end, and I had a hard time justifying the expense after taking more than a year off working for wages to finish writing the novel which, as we know, does not tend to fatten the coffers.

Back to the King book. It's enormously intelligent and fun, and I appreciate the fact that King doesn't lionize Michelangelo or Pope Julius II, or any of the players in the 16th century world of Italian art and religion. They were human beings struggling to varying degrees within the place and time to which they were born, and King doesn't whitewash or sugarcoat this. Quote in point: "It was not unknown for artists to get embroiled in fights or even murders...Michelangelo himself had been on the receiving end of a blow from Pietro Torrigiano, another sculptor who punched him so hard on the nose, following a dispute, that Torrigiano later recalled, "I felt the bone and cartilage crush like a biscuit."" I love reading books by authors who likewise love their subject matter.

I have seen the vault of the Sistine Chapel, though it was more than 15 years ago and I undoubtedly did not appreciate it as much as I would now, careless spoiled youngster that I was. Still, even then that work struck me as the beating heart of Vatican City, the way Trevi Fountain struck me as the beating heart of Rome. Or maybe it was just the gorgeous Italian guy who flirted as I descended the fountain steps. I'll admit it. I have a thing. I totally get Jamie Curtis' reaction to Kevin Kline and John Cleese when they start speaking Italian in A Fish Called Wanda, but I'll try not to let it get in the way of objective reading as I finish this book.Follow @nicole_mcinnes