Status Updates From Hadrian the Seventh

It opens with a confession. “I am insincere, sinfully not criminally.” The confession (in my copy, at least) takes up 10 pages. I take note of one sin: “In regard to the fine arts, I study the nude, human anatomy generally with no emotion beyond passionate admiration for beauty. I never have been able to find beauty shameful: ugliness yes.”

I picture the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo’s sack of skin.