The Sistine Secrets

by Benjamin Blech

  Whether the visual effect was meant to be humbling or exalting, Michelangelo almost magically pulled together the earlier paving of the sanctuary with his sixteenth-century ceiling. In fact, this is just about the only spot where one can experience the chapel as a harmonized whole instead of an overwhelming visual bombardment. In this way, 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.

  In his biography of Plotinus, Porphyry records the last words of his teacher to his students: “Strive to bring back the god in yourselves to the God in the All.”2 That final legacy of the master of Neoplatonic philosophy left its mark in Michelangelo’s incredible unification of the lower and upper spheres in the Sistine Chapel.

  Years after Michelangelo had created this effect in the Sistine, the same as-below-so-above reflection was echoed in other great structures in Rome. Two prime examples are the Palazzo Farnese (in which Buonarroti himself had a hand) and the Church of Sant’Ivo by the Baroque architect Borromini, who in the seventeenth century followed in Michelangelo’s footsteps by embedding a great deal of hidden Kabbalistic and even Masonic imagery in his works for the church. In this case, the shapes of both the floor of Sant’Ivo and the cupola above contain the same camouflaged design—the Kabbalistic Seal of Solomon, better known today as the Star of David. As in the Renaissance, so in the Baroque.

  So far, we have looked at only the underlying faux architectural “foundation” of the ceiling and the very first panel over the front door. Already Michelangelo has used ancient Kabbalistic design to unify the chapel, has buttered up the dangerous Julius II to his face and cursed him behind his back…and the cunning artist is just getting warmed up.

  At this point, your eyes are being drawn ever more strongly to the famous panels in the center of the ceiling, but as Buonarroti himself said, “Genius is in eternal patience.” We need to proceed a cipolla—onion-style, layer by layer. The next elements are among the most ignored parts of the giant fresco, but they hold the keys to some of the biggest secrets in the whole Sistine.

  Chapter Nine

  THE HOUSE OF DAVID

  A sign between Me and you throughout

  your generations…

  —EXODUS 31:13

  YOU WILL REMEMBER that 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? And how would he get his design past the papal censors? The Vatican explains the underlying concept for the ceiling—indeed the whole chapel—as all of earlier religious history, composed of paganism and Judaism, leading up to the coming of Jesus the Messiah. In fact, though, it is the Hebrew Bible’s heroes and heroines who have the starring roles on the ceiling.

  To resolve this dilemma, Michelangelo created the panels known as The Ancestors, set in the walls beneath the central ceiling frescoes. Here Michelangelo at least minimally fulfilled the terms of his contract by tracing the lineage of Christ according to the Gospel of Matthew, the first verses of the Christian Bible. This genealogy follows the Vulgate, the Latinized version of the original names in the text, and is arguably the only Christian element in the entire work, even though it is just a barely noticeable series of names without any Christian imagery. Yet even with his choice of Christian text, the antiestablishment artist was already blazing his own trail. Up until Michelangelo, the preferred source for the lineage of Jesus was the Gospel of Luke, which begins with Adam, not Abraham. Indeed, many medieval and Renaissance images of the Crucifixion show the skull of Adam at the foot of the cross, symbolizing that Christ’s sacrifice had graced humanity with a way to expiate the Original Sin of the first man and woman. In the Sistine, though, the people named in Jesus’s family tree are all Jews.

  These little off-white plaques, a seemingly minor element overlooked by all but the most informed viewer, in fact saved the entire ceiling project—and probably the artist’s life as well. Remember that the pope’s commission to Michelangelo was a series of portraits of Jesus and his apostles—a contract the rebellious artist broke on the very first day of painting.

  The “ancestors,” with their plaques of names, do not proceed in order. Originally the names of the Jewish patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were on the front wall over the high altar—where everyone’s attention would naturally be drawn during mass. The all-important final names in the line of descent are those of Jacob and Joseph, Jesus’s grandfather and father. According to the Church’s explanation, Michelangelo was painting in chronological order, as he did with the Genesis scenes in the middle strip. However, these final names are practically lost, tucked away on the back wall in the right corner, a place usually darkened by shadow and naturally ignored by the average visitor. If indeed the goal of the ceiling project was to show all ancient history as leading up to the coming of Christ, then this final panel should have had a much more central (and noticeable) place of honor.

  Matthew’s aim in his Gospel was to demonstrate a direct line of descent from Abraham to Joseph, the father of Jesus. But what is strange about Michelangelo’s method is that, if this were the case, Michelangelo should have simply painted the names in straight chronological order. He did not, but instead somewhat followed the strange zigzagging order of the trompe l’oeuil niches of early popes, frescoed there in the previous century by Botticelli and his overwhelmingly Florentine team of artists. Then, more than two decades later, Michelangelo did not hesitate to eradicate the two important plaques of Abraham-Isaac-Jacob-Judah and of Phares-Esrom-Aram from the front wall over the altar to make way for his Last Judgment fresco…and, in the process, disrupt forever the chain of Jesus’s lineage in the chapel decorations.

  Michelangelo’s order (or better, disorder) in the line of descent in the name tablets is thus very difficult to follow. Fortunately, though, for his own future and for the future of Western art, he was still able to convince Julius and his advisers that this, the “evolution” of the pre-Christian world leading directly up to Jesus, was his one and only message in the whole ceiling design. If they had been aware of all the artist’s real messages concealed in the images, one wonders if the ceiling would still be with us today.

  Analyzing The Ancestors, we soon notice that above each of these family-tree “name cards” are eight triangles (called severies) showing vague family groupings in biblical clothing. Even the most traditional Vatican interpreters of the Sistine have indicated that the identities of these figures are at best only guesswork and impossible to pin down with total assurance. Most Church commentators simply say that these are melancholy, tired families symbolic of the historic Jews languishing in their miserable state of eternal exile, sadly awaiting the return of Jesus to redeem them.

  There is an obvious problem with this interpretation, however. Most of the Jews in the triangles do not seem particularly melancholy. They are indeed all confined in their small triangular spaces, but of the eight groups, only one seems to be sad—the family above the
names of Jesse, David, and Solomon, the Jewish ancestors of the Messiah. Even in this case, on closer inspection, the central mother figure is not at all downcast, but merely peacefully sleeping. The overriding feeling in all the triangles of the Jewish ancestors is that of patiently watching, waiting, and persevering. In each and every one of them, the small family scene is completely dominated by the maternal figure. The mother is the one upon whom the family, and the whole family of the children of Israel, depends for its continuation and survival. In the severy over the names of Ozias, Joatham, and Achaz, the mother is calmly nursing her baby while holding a loaf of bread, the staff of life. As we saw in his very first work, the Madonna of the Stairs, nursing a baby held a very uplifting spiritual significance for Michelangelo.

  In the panel over Zorobabel, the Jewish mother is watching like a sentinel while her husband and child sleep peacefully. In one of the last triangles, the one over the names of Salmon, Booz, and Obeth, and over the area of the pope’s throne, the mother is actually smiling and using a pair of scissors to open a hem in her mantle. Usually, this would be done by Jews traveling in hostile territory, in order to hide their valuables inside their clothing, or to take them out later to bribe someone or to celebrate the safe end of their journey. In this case, the mother’s serene smile tells us that they have arrived safely at their destination—a sure symbol of redemption.

  One good look at the triangles of the ancestors quickly disputes the “official story” of the sad Jews waiting for Jesus, the descendant of the men of the kingly line of Judah. Populating the triangles above the name plaques, these anonymous rank-and-file Jews seem to be serenely carrying on the faith in healthy traditional family units, all nurtured and protected by and centered on the maternal figure.

  Michelangelo is making a clear visual statement that it is the mother who keeps the faith and the family tree going. He is also concealing here a reminder of the Kabbalistic concept of the need for harmonizing the male and female aspects of God, of the universe, and of ourselves.

  The Ten S’firot, the spheres of creation on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, are divided equally between male and female characteristics. These two sides of the tree are called Chessed—Mercy, the nurturing, female traits—and G’vurah—Strength, the strict, judgmental, powerful male traits. These two sides of the tree must be balanced to ensure harmony in the universe and spiritual growth in the individual. Here, in The Ancestors, Michelangelo balances the spiritual growth of the family of humanity between its mothers and fathers, creating a perfectly balanced figure by way of the shape most revered by Kabbalists and Neoplatonists—the triangle.

  Below the triangles of the mothers are the lunettes, the arches of the ancestors. These panels are in the shape of upside-down U’s, bearing the aforementioned name tablets of the ancestors, flanked on both sides by their imagined portraits. Even here, art experts and Church historians have had to say that the figures are not easily matched up with the names. Your eye, however, will tell you immediately that these arches are linked with the smaller “mother” triangles above them. The top point of each smaller triangle forms a perfect isosceles triangle (sides of equal length) when connected to the two bottom outer points of each lunette. The artist is sending a direct message to your subconscious “inner eye” that the anonymous maternal figures above and the smaller figures of the well-known, important ancestors (several of them kings and leaders) below are all the same family. This is part of Michelangelo’s even greater message in the Sistine: Jew, gentile, man, woman, king, commoner—we are all the same family. This might seem like a banal platitude, but back then it was a dangerous philosophy to voice in public. Up until the modern era, royalty and their dynasties—the so-called bluebloods—were assumed to exist by divine right, special beings superior to mere mortals and appointed by God. Whites were considered genetically superior to people of color, men superior to women, Aryans superior to Jews, and on and on. Even today, there are certain separatist fanatics who want to ban The Diary of Anne Frank from American public school libraries. Why? At the end of her inspiring journal, just before the Nazis take her away, young Anne writes: “I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.” All people, and not just one supremacist group—still a threatening message to narrow minds. Imagine how much more daring this universalist kind of message must have been in the early sixteenth century in the papal court of Julius II.

  There is also a bit of mystical “gender-bending” on the part of the artist. According to Philo of Alexandria and other Kabbalistic traditions, the upward-pointing triangle is the male symbol, while the downward-pointing triangle is the symbol of the female. Here, Buonarroti places the powerful mother figures in the upward “male” version of the triangle. Ever the Neoplatonic Kabbalist, Michelangelo is balancing the father and the mother, the male and female, the active and receptive.

  Again, the standard explanation of these portraits is the sad wait of the pre-Christian ancestors, in a sort of limbo until the return of Christ. This notion, however, does not accord with conventional Church teaching. According to Catholic tradition, Jesus descended to hell after death in order to free the Jewish patriarchs and other non-Christian prophets and holy teachers from limbo. In the year 2006, Pope Benedict XVI declared the concept of limbo invalid. So, if the Jews portrayed in the lunettes and triangles are not in a sort of limbo, what are they doing here? Michelangelo has embedded several clues in these figures to let us know his true intentions.

  First to be recognized are the faces. 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.

  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 for the exaggerated features of the quarrelsome Salmon-Booz-Obeth figure, fighting with his own image carved into the head of his walking stick, all the faces of the Jewish ancestors bespeak great intelligence and even a sort of spiritual nobility. (It is interesting to note that this one negative, bearded, argumentative portrait is on the wall right above the platform for the throne of the bearded, argumentative Pope Julius.) The portrait of Asa has very clearly Semitic features, the stereotypical kind that would please a Goebbels; however, Michelangelo shows him as a real person and imbues him with a sense of grace and culture that elevates the man, instead of debasing him.

  The profile of Achim is undeniably Jewish, but with a majesty comparable to Michelangelo’s portrayals of Moses and even of God himself. Zorobabel, the Jewish king who was blinded by the Babylonian conqueror Nebuchadnezzar, is shown as a handsome, vital man, but with his eyes blacked out. The women, too, exhibit a high level of grace, intelligence, strength, and beauty. Meshullemet, the mother of Amon, is depicted as young and beautiful, contentedly and lovingly singing her babies to sleep.

  There is also a wide range of Jewish facial characteristics. Since the horrors of the Inquisition had forced countless Jews from all over the world to seek refuge in Rome, Michelangelo was able to meet exiles from many different backgrounds and cultures. Some of the Jews he depicts are obviously Ashkenazi, from Eastern European lands. Others are Sephardic, from France, Greece, and the Iberian Peninsula. Still others are from the Middle East, together with a smattering of native Roman Jews.

  For all of these, Michelangelo found artistic compassion and sympathy. It re
quired a truly open mind and heart to depict Jews in the early sixteenth century with so much authenticity and understanding. To appreciate the enormous significance of this fact, simply consider how Jews were portrayed in Europe up through the 1940s, and how they are still portrayed today in many Arab Muslim countries.

  Also demonstrating both Michelangelo’s familiarity with the Jews and his friendship for them is the range of clothing styles in which he portrays them, reflecting the native lands of all these different Jews who had found their way to Rome. Back in Florence, Michelangelo’s family had been involved in the fabric trade that had made his hometown wealthy. He was well aware of the different materials and styles worn by Christians and Jews from around the world. Many art experts have written at length about his imaginative play with changing colors in the clothes of the ancestors, often saying that he used swaths of color to form the shape of the body underneath. This is only partially true. Edward Maeder, the curator of costumes and textiles from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, discovered another secret after the great fresco was cleaned and restored. Michelangelo’s Jews are wearing a special kind of textile called variously cangiante (shot silk) and sarscenet (since the Crusaders brought it back to Europe from the Middle East, or Saracen lands). Today we would call this “iridescent” clothing, which changes color and tone with every movement and every fold.