A slight breeze relieved the waves of heat rising from the broad river valley. The distant city of Rome, circled by the famous Aurelian walls, shimmered through the haze and humidity. From the tableland where the two travelers stood, the Via Flaminia dropped into the Tiber Valley and ran straight to the Porta del Popolo. The once majestic highway was mostly overgrown, and many of its perfectly fitted flagstones were broken and dislodged. Anonymous ruins, mostly of brick and rubble, lined the ancient road and excited speculation. One squarish towerlike structure, although badly weathered, rose more than four and a half meters and still retained fragments of its once splendid marble revetment – a melancholic reminder of the transience of fame and empire.

There was little relief from the intense summer sun until Michelangelo and his traveling companion, a family servant, rode through the dilapidated city gate. It was Saturday, the twenty-fifth of June, 1496. A dusty and tired Michelangelo found himself in a state of nervous anticipation. He was short in stature and not particularly handsome thanks to a flattened nose, but he was strong – a strength that would only increase with years of wielding a sculptor's heavy hammer. Michelangelo was twenty-one years old and unemployed; this was his first visit to the Eternal City.

Passing into Rome was anticlimactic. The walls, which rose to more than fifteen meters (almost fifty feet), suggested the image of an imperial capital; the reality, however, was much less impressive.