I think it is Artemisia Gentileshci (the baroque painter). However, I am not sure if this is the correct answer.
The two things that Dan Ferguson mentions in the passage that keeps most actors going is the possibility of fame and possibility of making a lot of money
It was the Sistine Chapel.
Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel under the sponsorship
of Pope Julius II. Among the frescoes that he painted on the ceiling included
nine stories from the Book of Genesis, the emergence of Adam and Eve in the
Garden of Eden, the Great Flood and Last Judgment.
