Room to Grow

For the past eight hundred years, Florentine museums have been collecting and displaying some of the greatest pieces of Western art in the world. But after all this time, new works are still being discovered. In nineteen seventy five, for example, a worker was busy in the bowels of the Medici Chapel clean out a coal storage room. As he stripped away decades of old plaster, he was surprised to find

something hiding underneath a human figure sketched in charcoal. Had another handyman whiled away his lunch hour doodling on the walls one hundred years before, or was something amazing hiding beneath this plaster? When the worker brought the director of the chapel down to sea. This director realized those little doodles were something very special. After more workers carefully removed the overlay of plaster, the chapel director was certain that

he had found something important. Dozens of charcoal and chalk sketches of faces, torsos, and legs decorated the walls. One set of legs seemed very familiar. In fact, it looked a whole lot like a pair that belonged to his statue in the museum. Above them a mausoleum completely designed, built and sculpted by Michelangelo. Michael Angelo, of course, was one of the four teenage mutant Ninja turtles. Wait no, that's not right. He was one of Florence's most famous artists.

His colossal statue of David still draws tourists to the city today. His talent was so great that he was even asked to paint the Assistine Chapel at the Vatican. So why were his sketches hiding in an underground coal pit. The answer lies at the intersection of art and politics. Michelangelo was a famous and influential figure during his time. He had power in the city states of Rome, Venice and Florence, and even at times had the ear of the Pope, which meant that to certain people, like the

Medici family of Florence, Michelangelo was dangerous. The Medici were a noble family in Florence who ran the wealthiest bank in the region. Their vast holdings made them incredibly powerful in Florence and gave them influence over the Vatican. With so much money to burn, they helped fund the Renaissance by commissioning work from artists. During the first few years of Michelangelo's career, the Medicis were good friends and patrons.

Beginning in fourteen eighty nine, when Michelangelo was just a fourteen year old apprentice, he was taken in by the Mediici court and supported as an artist. He painted, sculpted, and designed many works for them over the years, but in fifteen twenty seven their relationship abruptly soured. That year, Florence citizens ousted the Medicies as rulers of the city state and declared it a true republic. The medichiese countered

by raising an army to lay siege to the city. Michelangelo, a native Florentine, immediately jumped into action to help the city that he loved. As a seasoned architect and designer, he helped design the city's siege fortifications to hold off advancing armies, and for two years he helped support Florence. But when the city fell to the Medichi forces in fifteen thirty, the Mediiciese were not exactly happy to see

their old artist friend. Pope Clement, who also happened to be a member of the Medici family, swore out a warrant for Michelangelo's execution. The Pope, the mouth of the Catholic Church itself, wanted Michelangelo dead, so the great sculptor went into hype. For two whole months, Michelangelo hid right under the Medicies's nose in a tiny storage room below the Medichi chapels. The only light in his hiding place was from a tiny window, and yet even under pain

of death, Michelangelo just couldn't put the charcoal down. He spent his voluntary imprisonment sketching ideas for his new projects. He expected that soon enough Pope Clement would realize the pickle he had put himself in. Sure Michelangelo had supported the ousting of the Mediciese, but he was simply too talented to kill, and just as predicted, Michelangelo was pardoned a few months later. The Pope had a new project for him too, the Last Judgment, a vast fresco to

adorn the wall of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo's time in hiding was soon forgotten. He continued to work for the Mediciese and other patrons until his death in fifteen sixty four, and he left behind hundreds of breathtaking paintings, sculptures and buildings, but perhaps his most human works or a handful of doodles that he drew on the wall wondering if he would ever be free again. Mass crime fighters are a part of American pop culture, maybe even the most iconic part.

Marvel and DC heroes like Batman, Superman, Spider Man, and Captain America have been appearing in comics, movies, TV shows, and on shirts, lunchboxes, and backpacks for almost one hundred years. Those heroes have their roots in the pulp adventure novels of the early twentieth century, stories about characters such as Zoro and John Carter of Mars, and in turn, those characters were inspired by Wild West full heroes of the

nineteenth century. So while today superheroes seem like fantasy men in masks, fighting crime was a very real phenomenon in the Old West. Only the real life masked men were a lot more complicated than their fictional counterparts, and their secret identities were often just as strange as their masked personas. Nathaniel En Kinney was a striking figure even when he wasn't preaching from the pulpit. He stood at six feet and weighed between two hundred and fifty and three hundred pounds.

His fiery sermons matched his imposing stature. He would preach with his Bible in front of him on a podium and his two pistols lying on either side. Kinny believed in evangelical morality, a fairly strict interpretation of Christian belief. No drinking, no smoking, no partying, no womanizing, and certainly no criminal behavior of any kind. He was in the wrong place for such beliefs. Nathaniel Kinney brought his family

to the Ozarks in eighteen eighty three. The Ozarks, by the way, are a mountainous region in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas and in the post Civil War period, the Ozarks were especially lawless. You see, many of the Southern states struggled with law and order in the wake of the Confederacy's law, and Missouri was always incredibly politically divided, never entirely a Confederate or a Union state. As such,

pro Union and pro Confederate neighbors often clashed. Nathaniel Kinney, a Union veteran, grew tired of criminals of all kinds. There were dozens of murders in his county, and the culprits often went free by bribing local judges, and so Nathaniel decided to take action. He gathered over a dozen of his local friends and had them meet him at the site of a recent murder. He gave a speech over the body of the murder victim, saying that it was he and his fellow citizen's duty to uphold the law,

even if those in power chose not to. So they formed their own crime fighting society, calling themselves the Bald Nobbers. Not the most intimidating name, but it had meaning behind it. A bald knob is a hill. It refers to the mountainous terrain of the Ozarks, so a bald knobber was essentially someone who traveled over those hills. However arduous they might be, the bald and craft through their own masks.

They used flower sacks, so again not quite as intimidating as Batman, but they worked with what they had, and one day outlaw brothers Frank and Tuball Taylor, got into an argument with a local shopkeeper, John Dickerson. They shot up the store and even wounded John. The brothers were then arrested, but were related to a local judge, so the bald Nobbers knew that the outlaws would be out on bail soon, and they couldn't quite stomach the thought

of that. So the Bald Noobbers donned their masks and rode out into the night, arriving at the jail where the Taylor brothers were being held, They dragged them from their cells, beat them, and then hanged them. And you can see why modern superheroes don't kill, because it makes for a less gruesome story. As time went by, legend of Nathaniel spread, preacher by day, masked crime fighter by night. The ranks of the Bald Noobbers grew, until eventually there

were a thousand of them. But as you can imagine, all that power soon went to Nathaniel's head. He was the only one who could judge if a person deserved to live or die, to judge if they were pure and moral like him. Before long, the Bald Nobbers became just another outlaw gang, using their influence to kill indiscriminately and even bribe officials when it suited them. They had

become the very thing that they were fighting against. In eighteen eighty eight, after years of Nathaniel terrorizing the Ozarks, a rival gang member finally shot and killed him. But the legend of the Bald Nobbers lives on, so much so that there's even a theme park ride in the modern day Ozarks dedicated to the gang, as well as

a popular stage play. The story of the Bald Nobbers shows us what a dangerous concept mass crime fighting is in real life, but it also shows that when a society fails to protect its citizens, they have no choice left but to stand up for themselves. However, as Spider Man creator Stan Lee taught us, with great power comes great responsibility. Any modern day massed crime fighter would do well to remember this and to perhaps choose a less curious then a sack a flower. I hope you've enjoyed

today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.