2 ... 

Raphael:
Have we met this fellow?

Michelangelo:
Well, yes. You can't have forgotten the event in Venice? The three of us and hundreds of other artists from different centuries and many countries were invited to exchange ideas and pleasantries during Venice's most recent Biennale – an interesting, if naive idea. I kept to myself most of the time, sketching and re-acquainting myself with the city. No doubt you were partying and ... what do they call it now? ... networking! I call it something less polite. Anyway, it was this same artist, Newkirk, who arranged the Venice event.

Raphael:
Oh yes, that's right – so many great artists all in the city at once. I introduced myself to Brunelleschi when some friends and I met him strolling in the Giardini. What a genius. We all owe him a great debt as the man who systematized perspective drawing, to say nothing of his amazing achievements in architecture. But like you, Michelangelo, he seems to be a bit of a cazzo, not overly friendly.

Sculpture of Brunelleschi looking at his cathedral dome

Michelangelo:
Maybe he's simply such a keen observer that he recognized you for the powdered and scented fop you are, and escaped before you could bore him to death.

Bernini:
Oh come on now; you don't mean that Michelangelo. That gathering in Venice was quite enjoyable, I thought. But I'm curious now to know just how we can be of help to Newkirk. Where is he anyway? (at that moment, as though scripted and on cue, Newkirk enters the room hurriedly and flustered). Ah, David, there you are.

Newkirk
So sorry to have kept you waiting. How on earth did you manage to empty the room of tourists? I just could not escape the throng of people packed into that slowly moving parade that joins these rooms to the Sistine. My god, they won't let you out! I asked several of the security guards to show me an exit and they all shrugged and gestured that I must follow the crowd. Any truly claustrophobic person would really freak out.

Michelangelo:
(with a sarcastic edge) I'm sure that what you said just now makes sense in some language or other. How did we empty the room, you ask? It's amazing what powers one develops when he discovers that he is a character within the fictional musings of someone from five centuries in the future. We can, of course, do absolutely anything you choose to imagine. Don't you think that carrying us around in your head like this is a bit, uh ... eccentric would be the kindest description. You might prefer "weird." 

Newkirk (looking at his feet, blushing slightly and smiling)
A bit weird, maybe; but this is not a convention I invented. It has been used in creative writing quite frequently in fact. And here is a short passage I ran across the other day – this person's feeling of familiarity with an historical figure is, I think, even weirder than mine. "Massimo Ricci [is] an architect from an ancient Florentine family ..."

Ricci's identification with Brunelleschi has been so intense that at times he says he almost feels the great architect standing, silent and invisible, beside him. "We've developed a special, almost spiritual relationship," Ricci says in his throaty growl. "Sometimes I'm filled with gratitude for what he accomplished, what he left us. Other times he frustrates me so much, I tell him to go to hell." Having Brunelleschi's spirit whisper in your ear may be about the only way to know for sure how he worked. Secretive to the end, he carried many mysteries of his dome to the grave.

But Michelangelo, as someone whose creativity extended to sculpture, architecture, painting and even poetry, you of all people can understand the "weirdness" in the creative impulse. And, admit it, this is nowhere nearly the weirdest thing you've seen during your lifetime. Life is stranger than art, no?

Michelangelo:
Si vince! You win. Fine, so you are not a hopeless lunatic, we hope. But let us get down to business; I don't want to be stuck here forever.