While Italian art restorer Antonio Forcellino is cleaning centuries of grime from Michelangelo’s statue of Moses in a Rome church, he uncovers a long-hidden secret in the life of the great Renaissance master. Forcellino embarks on a mission to re-examine the biographies, historical records and works of art created by Michelangelo and comes to a disturbing conclusion - that the official portrayal of the artist as an obedient servant to the papacy and passionate propagandist for the Catholic Church is a myth.

The truth, as Forcellino discovers, is that the artist conspired with a group of renegade reformers to open the doors of the Church to the spiritual teachings of its greatest enemies and rivals, the Protestants. In doing so, he risked the end of his exalted career and brutal punishment as a heretic in the hands of the Inquisition.

Restorer-turned-detective Forcellino unravels the mystery of the heretical messages that Michelangelo embedded in his most famous works and tracks his flight from Catholicism in long-forgotten documents. In the process he tears apart the accepted history of the artist and exposes ­- for the first time - the dark side of Michelangelo’s life that the Church has struggled to conceal from the world for nearly five centuries.