the first paragraph is a real show-stoppper. If the writer's intent was to alienate, job well done.
At some level I think the author was attempting to rhyme with Michelangelo as a fellow iconoclast, revolutionary or bad boy. I'm not sure he's successful in that.
Still, his riffs on M's art and life are both provocative and evocative and he succeeds best when he's talking about the works specifically.
Not someone I want to go to lunch with probably.
Or to the baths.