Pay heed to the word “tale” in the title of William E. Wallace’s book Michelangelo & Titian: A Tale of Rivalry and Genius. Wallace, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, is a world authority on Michelangelo. Yet unlike his eight prior academic titles on the artist, this one is not grounded in new or existing primary sources, for there is scant evidence linking Michelangelo and Titian. He argues that for Michelangelo’s “Last Judgement he recalled Titian’s brilliant blue colour,” prompting him to purchase the exorbitantly expensive pigment from Venice. '” This brings into question the art historical practice of visual comparison without additional contextual and circumstantial background.