Saturday, June 21, 2008
YET ANOTHER BOOK
Michelangelo hid a secret code in the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel made up of mystical Jewish symbols and insults aimed at the pope, according to a new book.
The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which the renaissance artist worked on for four years in the early 16th century, is actually a "bridge" between the Roman Catholic Church and the Jewish faith, according to The Sistine Secrets: Unlocking the Codes in Michelangelo's Defiant Masterpiece.
The book, which is already on the New York Times bestseller list, is the work of Rabbi Benjamin Blech, an associate professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University in New York, and Roy Doliner, a tour guide at the Vatican....
The authors believe the entire Sistine Chapel, which they say is built to the same proportions as the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, is a "lost mystical message of universal love" which was intended to be decoded.
The authors believe Michelangelo picked up his knowledge of Judaism while at the court of Lorenzo de Medici in Florence.
In addition, they say there are several attacks on Pope Julius II, who commissioned the work, embedded in the painting.
Disgusted with papal corruption, they think Michelangelo painted the prophet Zechariah in the pope's likeness.
Behind him, one angel is "making an extremely obscene hand gesture at the back of his head."
Critics of the new book point out that there is no record in Michelangelo's extensive and well-preserved writings of any secret code in the ceiling.
Read all of it...
