The most common question I get about my art-historical novel, Oil and Marble: a novel of Leonardo and Michelangelo, is: “What inspired you to write it?”

For five years, from 1501 – 1505, Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo Buonarroti both lived and worked in Florence. Leonardo was an aging master, the most famous of his day. Michelangelo was a young, up-and-coming sculptor.