Adobe Digital Edition September 2009 ISBN 978-0-06-198745-8
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About the Publisher
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*An extra secret, this time about Leonardo: he tried to do his half of the mural project but, after making a beautiful central section, could not resist experimenting with a new fresco mixture that ruined the rest of the work. He gave up and went away to do additional anatomical studies—obviously more impressed by Michelangelo’s nudes than he would admit. The entire failed project was covered by a fairly banal battle scene by Giorgio Vasari, who would then go on to become the biographer of both Leonardo and Michelangelo. Only recently, respected art experts have discovered secret signals in the Vasari fresco that lead them to believe that Vasari actually put up an extra wall to preserve Leonardo’s work underneath. As we write, scientific investigations are under way.
* Something that most people do not know: the Jewish Bible and the Old Testament are not the same thing. The Old Testament is a Church-ordained reediting of the original order of the Jewish Bible; it realigns the books of the Prophets and the Holy Writings to heighten the impression that the Hebrew Scriptures seem to be anticipating the coming of Christ. In fact, there are even many differences between the Catholic Bible and the Protestant one.
* The Aramaic word saba, meaning “wise elder,” comes from the same Babylonian root as the word sibyl.
* If he had indeed been able to carry out the tomb in this manner, it would have been the world’s first and biggest impressionist sculpted monument—hundreds of years before Picasso, Giacometti, or Rodin.
* When the Palazzo Farnese was finished, its upper hall hosted some of the most extravagant banquets in the history of Rome. All the dishes, bowls, goblets, and utensils were solid gold. At the end of each meal, the Farnese hosts would open the back window of the palace, which overlooked the Tiber River, and blithely toss the dirtied gold service pieces out the window. The guests were duly dumbstruck. What they did not know was that the Farnese servants were hiding in the bushes under the windows with large nets, to catch all the gold objects so that the same stunt could be pulled at the next banquet.
* It is a general rule of thumb that if a Spanish family name ends in z (e.g., Valdez), the family was probably always Christian, whereas if it ends in s (e.g., Valdés), they were probably originally Jews, forced to convert after 1492.
* The pagan Romans who wanted the Church’s gold did not appreciate this response and grilled Lawrence alive, which is why he is always depicted with an iron grill. Today, he is officially the patron saint of chefs and barbecues. Who says the Church does not have a sense of humor?
* The Capitol Dome in Washington, DC, is the tallest building in the U.S. capital for the same reason.
* The day he died, the elated Christians of Rome ripped down the gates of his debtors’ prison and freed about four hundred poor souls within. Then they ran to the ghetto, destroyed the barred gates there, and liberated their Jewish friends and neighbors. Catholics and Jews together then smashed all the hated statues of the pope all over Rome. They took the head off one of his giant statues, placed a Jewish “cap of shame” on its head, and danced around it, singing “Haman is dead, Haman is dead.”
Table of Contents
Epigraph
Foreword
Preface
Book One
1
2
3
4
5
6
Book Two
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
Book Three
14
15
16
17
Conclusion
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Searchable Terms
About the Authors
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
The Sistine Secrets Page 32
