The artist’s frescoes hold many lessons for the cardinals who have to decide upon the next pope

It must be hard for the College of Cardinals gathered in the Sistine Chapel not to gawp at Michelangelo’s frescoes when they should be thinking only of electing a new pope. The only flaw in Robert Harris’s brilliant novel of clerical politics Conclave is that, as they scheme, none of the prelates seem bothered about the ceiling Michelangelo painted with scenes from Genesis between 1508 and 1512 or the Last Judgment he painted on the altar wall much later, from 1536 to 1541 – let alone the earlier paintings by Botticelli and others on the side walls.

When a bomb blows in a window in last year’s award-winning film of the book, the conclave carries on without even pausing for restorers to check the damage. As if.