Perhaps second only in fame to Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa, Michelangelo's magnificent frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel opened to the public for the first time 500 years ago this week ...

I was 19 when I walked with a travel group into the Sistine Chapel, and I remember the shoulder-to-shoulder tourists almost as much as I remember the wondrous ceiling and walls, painted by ...