The Sistine Secrets Quotes

“To assess the success of the Sistine, we must think in terms of its history, its prime architects, and its contemporary relevance. What was it first meant to be? What were its functions over the course of time—practically, spiritually, and conceptually? Perhaps most meaningful of all, we need to ask: what did Michelangelo want the Sistine to teach humanity? What was his vision for it—not only for his time but for posterity? Did he succeed?”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“SUCCESS, IT HAS OFTEN BEEN SAID, means different things to different people. Measured by the throngs of visitors who are moved to make personal pilgrimages to Rome and the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel is a success beyond compare—a place that some have suggested should be listed as one of the wonders of the world. But there is another way to determine whether a human effort has achieved its goal. It is important to take note of what its creators sought to accomplish. We need to know not only what the Sistine Chapel is today, but also what it was meant to be by its founders. Would they feel their chapel is a success today? As we have seen, the chapel has been altered, expanded, decorated, and yes, even partially defaced down through the ages. It has undergone not only structural alterations but also philosophic and theological modifications. Unlike Saint Paul, the Sistine never became “all things to all men,” but it has spoken with many voices and preached many different messages. Its strongest messages undoubtedly come from Michelangelo, the man most responsible for the Sistine’s enduring fame. However, his messages—“things seen and unseen”—have been obscured, misinterpreted, censored, overlooked, and forgotten over the centuries, only to come back to light in our time. Buonarroti once prayed, “Lord, grant that I may always desire more than I can accomplish.” We have to ask: would he feel that he accomplished his goal with his frescoes? For Michelangelo, could the Sistine be considered a success?”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“SUCCESS, IT HAS OFTEN BEEN SAID, means different things to different people. Measured by the throngs of visitors who are moved to make personal pilgrimages to Rome and the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel is a success beyond compare—a place that some have suggested should be listed as one of the wonders of the world. But there is another way to determine whether a human effort has achieved its goal. It is important to take note of what its creators sought to accomplish. We need to know not only what the Sistine Chapel is today, but also what it was meant to be by its founders. Would they feel their chapel is a success today? As”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“Faced with the enormous insult of his burial in Rome, the citizens of Florence finally realized their cultural and spiritual debt to Buonarroti. They hurriedly collected public donations to hire the services of Florence’s best burglars. The two thieves rode to Rome in an oxcart. After sundown, they broke into the church, stole the famous artist’s body, rolled it up with cords, and disguised it as a bale of rags. They put it in the back of the cart and rode like blazes back to Florence, arriving at dawn. The joyous Florentines immediately entombed their Michelangelo inside the Basilica of Santa Croce, where his tomb can still be seen today.”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“He hauled in Michelangelo, commanding the aged maestro to make the naked figures in The Last Judgment “suitable” for the papal chapel. Michelangelo hotly replied: “Let His Holiness make the world a more suitable place, and then the painting will follow suit.” That was the last time Buonarroti had anything to do with Carafa.”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“In his last years, Michelangelo worked on new pietà sculptures—not for any pope, but for his own diversion and probably for his own tomb. His eyesight had never recovered from his torment on the ceiling of the Sistine, and by this point in his life he was almost blind. He was sculpting more by feel than by sight—and yet he persevered, even trying new carving techniques right up until six days before his death.”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“Michelangelo proposed to the pope that he make a large copy of the Pantheon dome on top of the new St. Peter’s. The horrified pontiff replied that Hadrian’s dome was pagan—the Vatican cathedral had to have a Christian-looking dome, like the one built in Florence a century before by Brunelleschi.”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“Buonarroti was later given the job of designing the huge dome of the new Basilica of St. Peter. It is well known how much he loved the simplicity and perfection of ancient Roman architecture. His favorite building of all was the Pantheon, the central shrine to the Greek and Roman idols, built by Hadrian in the first half of the second century.”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“This had to be kept secret, of course, since only Catholic artists were allowed to work inside the Vatican, and especially in the pope’s chapel. If it had been discovered that Buonarroti had denied the Church and veered into Valdesian Protestantism, he would not only have lost his career, but also his freedom—and possibly his life.”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“In The Last Judgment, just as Mary is turning away from the severe judgment of Jesus, there is a deeper meaning: Michelangelo is symbolically turning away from the Church as well.”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“Their love, however, was the epitome of what we today would label “platonic.” They loved each other’s minds. Michelangelo was thrilled to find an intellectual peer and fellow spiritual traveler in Vittoria. Just as he had thrown himself so passionately into new ideas and movements in the past, he now became heart and soul one of the Spirituali.”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“expensive paint jobs in history. Michelangelo began at the top of the wall and slowly worked his way down for more than seven years, painting exclusively by himself, with only one or two assistants. He was trudging up and down ladders while he was in his sixties, an age at which most people in the sixteenth century were either retired or buried.”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“Giudizio Universale, the Last Judgment. In the Christian tradition, this is when Jesus returns to earth to discern between right and wrong, good and evil, and to judge all souls accordingly. The souls judged righteous will ascend to heaven, while the evil ones will be damned to eternal punishment in hell. For once, Michelangelo agreed to a theme without even putting up an argument. He was tired of fighting for the soul of the Church. He was disgusted by the hedonistic heirs of the intellectual, cultured Lorenzo the Magnificent. He was more than happy with the idea of Christ coming back to judge both the Vatican and the de’ Medicis.”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“In Jewish tradition, we find the cautionary adage “Be in the world, but not of the world.” In the Gospels, Jesus says: “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, and unto God that which is God’s” (Matthew 22:21). Michelangelo was deeply troubled by a Church that was trying to imitate the grandeur of the Caesars while ignoring the humility and poverty of Christ. He recognized that the Vatican had become a place of unbridled corruption, greed, nepotism, and military adventurism. No longer was spiritual leadership concerned with delineating the differences between the “One” and the “seventy.” And so Michelangelo dared to express his anger by way of the angry prophet Jeremiah, who predicted doom for precisely those who failed to heed this very message. Of course, it was an extremely dangerous and seditious statement.”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“the Jewish high priests but to the custodians of any monotheistic faith, popes included, to maintain the purity of belief and of people in the face of challenges from materialistic and pagan cultures.”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“Jeremiah was the godly messenger who warned the corrupt priests of the Holy Temple that their bronze and gold would be taken away and their Temple destroyed unless they cleaned up the corruption within. He is covering his mouth in the signum harpocraticum, a gesture signifying that a profound esoteric knowledge occupies his thoughts.”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“In 1510 the pope ordered the scaffolding dismantled and the first part of the fresco displayed to an eager public. The ecstatic reactions from artists and laymen alike helped overcome any complaints from the clergy and censors. Michelangelo won the right to proceed with the rest of the project without further (or with lessened, shall we say) interference. This was also his chance to stand on the ground level and see what the work looked like up there, about sixty-five feet above. He realized then that he was being too timid with the figures, that he had been making them too numerous and too small. We can immediately see the difference in the central panels after the Noah section: they are simplified and the figures are much larger and more “sculpted.” Even the prophets and sibyls increase in size from that point onward.”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“They balance the Sistine Temple between the column of G’vurah (strength and justice) on the left side and the column of Chessed (mercy and loving-kindness) on the right side. But”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“In fact, the Latin root of the word literacy is the same as for the word intellect: leggere, “to read.” The source for the word intellectual also gives us its true meaning: inter-leggere, “to read between.” An intellectual is defined by an ability to read between the lines, to analyze and to think critically, to understand things on many levels at the same time.”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“Our first clue, included in each of the Sistine portraits of the sibyls and prophets—save one—is a scroll or a book, symbolizing literacy. Through his use of books and writing, Michelangelo is showing us that he believes these seers were the intellectuals of their respective times and places.”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“Evil can be destroyed in either direction. Some are meant to be cast down. Others rise, but their elevation is meant to bring about their downfall. Underlying all, as the very cornerstone of human existence, is a universal message of hope to all people, never to give up even when the future looks bleakest. That is why these four corners of faith seem to hold up the whole ceiling, another classic subliminal and powerful message from Michelangelo.”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“The women, too, exhibit a high level of grace, intelligence, strength, and beauty.”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“In most Christian imagery of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the suffering, damned Jews were portrayed as unsympathetic caricatures. This was an extremely important part of Church teaching for centuries, that the Jews, for having rejected the word of salvation from Jesus, were summarily rejected by God. The proof for this was the destruction of the Holy Temple, Jerusalem, and the entire Jewish kingdom. This is the root of the legend of the eternally wandering Jews, whose only reason for still existing was to serve as a warning, a negative example to Christians to illustrate the cursed fate that awaits those who reject the true Messiah. Yet here, Michelangelo’s Jews are anything but caricatures of a cursed people.”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“What, then, is the unifying theme, if any, of these four different corner panels that might account for their selection by Michelangelo? The obvious answer is that these four scenes represent four major salvations of the Jewish people in moments when they appeared doomed. Is”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“Over the front altar wall, we see the spandrel of Esther and Haman. This story is found in both Hebrew and Christian Bibles in the book of Esther. It is read in full every year by the Jews on Purim, the holiday that celebrates the salvation of the Jews in the ancient Persian Empire, the largest community of Jews in the Diaspora at that time. The emperor Achashverosh, whom some historians think might be Xerxes II, rules over his vast empire from his capital of Shushan (Susa in modern Iran) but cannot run his personal life very well. He holds enormous marathon banquets and orgies with his decadent pagan wife, Vashti. According to the unexpurgated Talmudic version, he has her killed after she refuses to dance nude for his guests. The Persian emperor’s vizier, or right-hand man—indeed, he practically runs the empire for him—is Haman, a power-hungry egomaniac who yearns to be as mighty as the emperor himself. He advises the newly widowed ruler to hold a sort of “beauty pageant” to find the most desirable woman in Persia to be his next wife. Esther, a beautiful young Jewess, wins the pageant and is crowned queen of Persia. However, she doesn’t tell anyone in the palace—especially the emperor or Haman—that she is a Jew. Later in the story, Haman decides to massacre all the Jews in the empire and dupes Achashverosh into validating the decree. At the last minute, Esther finds enough faith and courage to tell the king that she is a Jew, condemned to die because of Haman’s evil machinations. The emperor has Haman strung up high on the very tree upon which he wanted to hang the leaders of the Jews. In an ironic way, the wicked vizier gets his wish, being elevated high above the common crowd.”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“the original commission for the ceiling was a plan designed by the pope and his closest advisers. Jesus was to have been the focal point of the project, surrounded by his apostles and probably also Mary and John the Baptist. This commission was especially dear to the pope’s heart, since the chapel had originally been built by his uncle Sixtus IV and would be an eternal monument to their family’s glory. Now Michelangelo was about to subvert the entire project to secretly promote his own beliefs, especially those of humanism, Neoplatonism, and universal tolerance. He had already somewhat appeased the pope with his ploy of putting him in the place of Jesus—but how was he going to get the pope to pay for the world’s largest Catholic fresco without a single Christian figure in it?”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“Historians are fairly certain that Buonarroti spent much time in the Jewish parts of Rome, using the authentic features of real Jews for his images. We can see the proof of that here. Except”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“Michelangelo managed to join the preexisting flooring with his new ceiling design into a unique statement. The result was an uncanny illustration of the ancient Kabbalistic tenet “As below, so above; as above, so below.” In other words, the spiritual design of the floor reflected the spiritual design of the ceiling, and vice versa. Michelangelo had fully absorbed the mystical teaching from ancient Judaic sources that our actions on earth, whether good or evil, can indeed influence the universe. Here was a concept that appealed to Michelangelo as a disciple of the school of Neoplatonism as well.”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“Still, the rebellious artist had placed a minor Jewish prophet in the important spot where the pope had wanted Jesus. How did Michelangelo imagine he would avoid the pope’s wrath in openly defying his wishes? Replacing Jesus with a minor prophet might have doomed any other commissioned artist, but Michelangelo found a brilliant way to appease his patron. The Zechariah panel is not simply an idealized portrait of a biblical figure. Michelangelo superimposed a portrait of Pope Julius II on the ancient Hebrew prophet. Not only that, but Michelangelo portrayed Zechariah dressed in a mantle of royal blue and gold—the traditional colors of the della Rovere clan, the family of both Pope Sixtus IV and his nephew Pope Julius II. Replacing the image of Jesus Christ with a portrait of the pontiff? This was no problem for the egomaniacal Julius. It placed his visage permanently over the entrance to this glorious new sanctuary for all future popes and commemorated his family’s role as its builders.”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican

“Why one of the later, lesser-known Jewish prophets over the front door of the Sistine? Michelangelo must have selected Zechariah for a variety of reasons—again, there are multiple layers of meaning, so integral to Talmudic and Kabbalistic thought, and so dear to Michelangelo. First of all, Zechariah warned the corrupt priesthood of the Second Holy Temple: “Open your doors, O Lebanon, that the fire may devour your cedars” (Zechariah 11:1). This was a prophecy that if the priesthood did not cease its corrupt, unspiritual behavior, the doors of the sanctuary would be broken open by attacking foes and the Temple, built partly of cedarwood from Lebanon, would be burned down. And here is the author of that warning, right over the doors of Pope Julius’s sanctuary. Zechariah is also the prophet of consolation and redemption. He is the one who urges the Jews to rebuild Jerusalem and the Holy Temple: “Thus says the Lord of hosts; My cities shall again overflow with prosperity; and the Lord shall yet comfort Zion, and shall yet choose Jerusalem” (Zechariah 1:”
― Benjamin Blech, The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican