In the summer of 1942, during the Second World War, a group of young paratroopers from the Folgore Division, after having been subjected to a long and tiring training in Italy, was transported by air to the Libyan desert to cover the Italian-German front.

Charlton Heston stars as Renaissance artist Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564), who begrudgingly paints the Sistine Chapel for imperious Pope Julius II in this epic adaptation of Irvine Stone’s novel directed by Carol Reed. While the novel covers Michelangelo’s life from birth to death, the film focuses on the battle of wills between the perfectionist artist and the impatient Pope who commissions (and eventually commands) him to paint the famed chapel.