Shot entirely in Italy. The movie was shot in Rome and its environs and in Tuscany, including at the Carrara quarry where Michelangelo got his marble.
Russian president Vladimir Putin gifted Pope Francis with a pre-release cut of this film on his official visit to the Vatican City (July 4th 2019). As he presented the gift to the pope, Putin called Andrei Konchalovsky one of Russia's most famous directors, then he gave some background on the film and explained that Konchalovskiy personally asked him whether pope Francis had some spare time to give it a watch.
Based on the work of Antonio Forcellino, author of "Michelangelo. Une vie inquiète "(Seuil, 2006), Andreï Konchalovsky, in eight years of research, has been able to capture the atmosphere of the place and times by a vigilant care concerning the accuracy of costumes, places, props and sets. His team found the marble quarries of yesteryear, particularly in Monte Altissimo, where the film was partly shot, unearthing this stone with "homogeneous, crystalline grain, evoking sugar" that Michelangelo loved to sculpt, "this marble so alive that we wait for it to wake up". (taken from "L'Histoire.fr").
Putin gave a copy of this movie to Pope Francis as a gift during his visit in 2019.