The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965)

Diane Cilento: Contessina de'Medici

Photos 

Quotes 

• Contessina de Medici : What your holiness suggests does us both dishonor.

• Contessina de Medici : What can I say? I think there's more love here than could ever exist between a man and a woman. That's what you meant.

• Contessina de Medici : Is it a crime that he wants the world to see it and share in his pride this... this fresco that he's forced you to paint, came day and night to watch, defended against its critics... this work of art, which to him has become a work of love.

  Michelangelo : Of love?

  Contessina de Medici : Yes, love. We always come back to that, don't we, Michelangelo? This one emotion which you seem unable to comprehend.

  Michelangelo : Was it love that made him break his stick across my back?

  Contessina de Medici : Love takes us in strange ways. It's the language of the blood. It's neither cold nor indifferent. Its either agony or ecstasy - sometimes, both at once.