ABSTRACT
Since Horace, in medias res has come to define a narrative structure that begins by immersing the reader somewhere in the chronological middle, invoking a sense that one is witnessing a small slice of a much longer tale that has been going on for a while. Rather than trust in an omniscient voice that begins, “once upon a time,” or ab ovo, the storyteller relies on events and characters within the story itself to clue us in to past events. Observed in their totality, the mural drawings are a flash of action of Michelangelo and his assistants, telling a story in medias res. Extended onto the building site, the notion of in medias res suggests that the space of construction contains an inherent and necessary agency in propelling the plotline of construction forward.
