Did Michelangelo Have a Hidden Agenda?

Wall Street Journal ^ | NOVEMBER 14, 2008 | Cathryn Drake

[Lorianne]

Never mind the Da Vinci Code -- what about Michelangelo's secret messages? On the 500th anniversary of the artist's first climb up the ladder in 1508 to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling, a new book claims he embedded subversive messages in his spectacular frescoes -- not only Jewish, Kabbalistic and pagan symbols but also insults directed at Pope Julius II, who commissioned the work, and references to his own sexuality.

First published in an English version in May by Harper One, "The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican," coauthored by Vatican docent Roy Doliner and Rabbi Benjamin Blech, is already in its second edition in Italy. It will be translated into 16 languages and released in the coming months in Spain, Portugal, France, Poland, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands.

A religious Jew who has guided visitors through the Vatican for nearly a decade, Mr. Doliner says his book is neither fiction nor an attack on the Catholic Church, but rather an attempt to reveal the universal connections between Christianity and Judaism. He says Michelangelo's frescoes also convey the tumultuous rivalry between the rulers of Florence and the Roman church at the time of their painting.

Mr. Doliner believes that Michelangelo, whose unconventional education at the court of Lorenzo de Medici included the study of Judaic and Kabbalistic texts, meant the 1,100-square-meter ceiling of the chapel as a mystical message of universal love -- a bridge of understanding between the two faiths.

[ClearCase_guy]

Well, as the article indicates, study of Kabbala was somewhat trendy at this time. Frances Yates focused her studies on a slightly later time period (1600's, mostly) but she wrote knowledgeably on this intellectual trend.

But what that really means is that if an artist were to create a massive artwork which contained religiously subversive messages and insults to the Pope ... well ... let's just say that the ceiling would have been whitewashed. The messages would most definitely have been understood.

People today just see things that are not there.

[bushinohio]

I have to agree. Suddenly 500 years later some guy finds hidden “meaning” and “messages” in the work? I’m not buying it. Just like scripture....people can twist it until it says what they want it to.

[stripes1776]

People today just see things that are not there.

Yes, I agree. The last part of the article states:

He told Julius and his advisers, I am showing how everything in the ancient world, Jewish and pagan, leads up to the coming of Jesus, the Messiah. So that's how he got away with it.

Michelangelo didn't get away with anything other than painting in the style of the Renaissance. The church has always said that the Jewish and pagan religions all pointed to the coming of Christ. This is nothing new.

[LostInBayport]

I have to agree. Suddenly 500 years later some guy finds hidden “meaning” and “messages” in the work? I’m not buying it. Just like scripture....people can twist it until it says what they want it to.

Or simply rewrite it based on wild self-projection. Abe Lincoln was a poofter, dontcha know. /sarc

[Cicero]

This kind of nonsense is really tiresome. And this guy is a “Vatican docent”? Looks like they gave the job to the wrong guy.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

****Jewish, Kabbalistic and pagan symbols ****

AW come on! Forget that silly stuff. Show us the photos of “The Positions” drawn on the wall of the Sistine Chapel by a ‘disgurntled artist” some time in the past.

[bk1000]

“The messages would most definitely have been understood.”

You are probably right, but I recall seeing various stone carvings in/on some European churches that are, let’s just say, inappropriate, and they have remained for hundreds of years. While not typically as prominent as Mikie’s ceiling, they would hardly have gone unnoticed through the centuries. Some were later defaced, but a few remain. It lends a little credibility to his idea.

[Richard Kimball]

Michelangelo, IIRC, was a little bit of a nut. Many of the best artists have some issues. However, these stories are nothing new. In my art history classes, some of the instructor's stated that he included some of the church elders in the boat to damnation.

There were also claims going around that he was homosexual, mostly based on the fact that his female forms displayed primarily masculine characteristics.

Except for the breasts, this female has the characteristics of a male. As far as I know, there are no records of him engaging in homosexual conduct.

[Clemenza]

NOT Michelangelo, but definitely painted by a screaming queen:

[Jolla]

I don't know much about psychology, but the Sistine Ceiling is beautiful

[Vince Ferrer]

There is no secret that artwork has all kinds of messages and layers of messages in it, especially in that time period, and especially Catholic art. Before printing and paper were cheap enough to be accessible to all, which was into 1800s, there was widespread illiteracy. The way to educate people was either to have someone read to you, as a priest at Mass, or to adorn the church with artwork which the person could interpret and understand. The art was a means of instruction, and everyone in the culture understood it that way.

Could he have made hidden messages? Of course, there were usually many interpretations of any particular painting. But while is is enjoyable and perfectly valid to reinterpret an older work in today's time, it is a mistake to assume that the original viewers would have that same new interpretation, because we are not the same people in the same culture that the works were originally produced for.

[ken21]

i started reading this book when it came out,

and found it thin going.

[Richard Kimball]

Oh, some people see homosexual references in everything:

[Joe 6-pack]

There are also some historians that speculate some of Michelangelo's women were based on female stone-cutters working in the marble quarries.

[BBell]

You might want to take a gander at this if your interested.

[Desdemona]

As far as I know, there are no records of him engaging in homosexual conduct.

No, but in all of his art, there is not one nude woman and all of his women are very matronly looking. His men, OTOH...women agree with his taste.

[cmj328]

Did Michelangelo Have a Hidden Agenda?

Yes, he was trying to convert the public to Roman Catholic Christianity.

[scrabblehack]

http://www.reidsguides.com/destinations/europe/italy/lazio/rome/sights/vatican_sistine.html

As the earlier Tuscan genius Dante had done to his political enemies in his poetic masterpiece Inferno, so Michelangelo put Cesena into his own vision of Hell, giving him jackass ears and painting in a serpent eternally biting off his testicles. Furious, Cesena demanded that the pope order the artist to paint his face out, to which a bemused Pope Paul III reportedly replied “I might have released you from Purgatory, but over Hell I have no power.”