The Sistine Secrets (37 page)

Should the Sistine today be linked primarily with this function and perhaps even be named after this papal purpose, as some have suggested? Would it be proper to refer to it as the Conclave Room? There are two reasons why this is inappropriate. First, Michelangelo’s frescoes have very little or nothing to do thematically with the process of papal succession. Moreover, popes traditionally stay in office for the rest of their lives, thus making Conclaves very infrequent events, especially in the modern age of better medicine and longer life spans. In fact, in Rome, when one wants to describe an event as occurring very rarely, instead of saying “once in a blue moon,” one says
ogni volta che muore un papa
—“whenever a pope dies.”

MICHELANGELO’S SISTINE CHAPEL

With the work of Michelangelo, the Sistine Chapel took on entirely new meaning. It now was completely filled with a veritable treasure of paintings meant to appeal not only to the eye but also to the mind. The goal was to teach and spiritually transform its viewers. But in what way? We have already unveiled many of the artist’s secret messages hidden throughout the frescoes; but was there one overall statement he was trying to convey? Did he deliver it? In order to decide if Michelangelo succeeded, we will first need to probe into his innermost thoughts and find the key to his master plan, his “hidden brain” in the artwork. We have to do no less than answer the question, What was Michelangelo really trying to accomplish with his Sistine Chapel frescoes?

“THE FUNERAL MONUMENT”?

If we could put ourselves into Michelangelo’s mind as he labored, what unspoken thoughts would we find about what he was thinking? One clue is the project Michelangelo was forced to abandon when Julius II ordered him to paint the ceiling. He was engrossed in his true passion—sculpting. Specifically, he was busy carving pieces for the gigantic pyramidal tomb that the pope wanted in the middle of the new St. Peter’s. Even though we only have a few finished and semifinished, scattered elements of the monument, we know what the original design was, thanks to rare sketches and Michelangelo’s memoirs dictated to Condivi. The broad rectangular base was to have been a Greco-Roman architectural pattern of alternating niches and ribs, with Classical figures representing the arts and sciences in the niches and pagan nude “prisoners” decorating the rib columns. This was to demonstrate that
Il Papa Terribile
was actually a great patron of the arts (true) and a towering intellectual (false), that he liberated the world from ignorance and Europe from what was then considered “the Turkish menace” (false), and that with his passing, the world of Culture would suffer (possibly, but only those artists and architects who were on his payroll). Of this lower level, Michelangelo did manage to begin statues of six prisoners and slaves, four of which are in the Accademia in Florence, and two of which are in the Louvre in Paris. There is debate as to whether he finished any of these figures, since they all seem to be still trapped inside the marble, an amazing effect when viewed in person.

The next, or middle, level of the pyramid was to have had four colossal biblical figures—two Hebrew prophets and two Christian saints. We do not know all of Julius’s choices for these four giant sculptures, but we do have the only one that Michelangelo created—his justifiably world-famous
Moses,
as described earlier in this book.

At the summit of the pyramid monument, Julius ordered the images of two angels, one smiling and one crying, both holding up a funeral bier with Julius lying on top. This is an obvious reference to the Holy Ark of the Covenant in the Temple of Solomon. On the lid of the ark were two cherubs, between which would appear the Divine Presence. This sacred spot was called the Glory Seat. Julius II, in a classic example of his megalomania, wanted Michelangelo to sculpt him as permanently dwelling in the Glory Seat of God.

This design was also an illustration of the Church’s theory of spiritual evolution known as successionism. Just as Darwin’s theory described a line of progression from dinosaurs to apes to human beings, successionism held that humanity evolved from pagan philosophy to Judaism and finally achieved full spiritual development in Christianity. Thus, Julius’s plan for his gigantic monument envisioned the viewer’s gaze being drawn upward from classic Greco-Roman figures to Jewish and early apostolic heroes and finally reaching its apex in the person of Giuliano della Rovere, Pope Julius II himself.

The overblown project called for more than
forty
large sculptures, all by Michelangelo himself. It would have taken several other artists several lifetimes to bring this mad scheme to completion. When the sculptor was then forced to stop work on the tomb to fresco the Sistine ceiling, he knew that the interruption of several years spent in painting the ceiling would definitively ruin any possibility of finishing the papal pyramid. Ironically, by ordering Michelangelo to paint the Sistine, Julius destroyed his own plans for his gigantic funeral monument.

The savvy Florentine must have realized this right from the beginning, because he made the ceiling of the chapel become a
two-dimensional version
of the tomb project. The best proof of this comes from the hands of the great artist himself. We are lucky enough to have a surviving sketch of the lower part of the original design, preserved in the Uffizi Galleries in Florence.

For anyone who has seen the Sistine ceiling frescoes, either in person or through reproductions, the elements in this sketch will be familiar: reclining male nudes in various positions, larger Classical male nudes in poses that show off their musculature, female symbols of intelligence in various Classical modes of dress, the marble pedestals and architectural elements, the imposing prophets seated above, and also the white putti holding up the upper pedestals.

Even the esteemed Professor Howard Hibbard, in his very traditional explanation of the Sistine ceiling, concludes: “Michelangelo invented an alternation of architectonic thrones and sculpturesque figures that translates the forms of the Julius tomb into paint.”
¹
Bizarre as it may seem, this is one of the many layers of meaning of the Sistine Chapel: it is a gigantic
funeral monument
to the equally gigantic ego of Julius II. This also helps explain how Michelangelo got away with his drastic change of the pope’s cherished design of Christ and the Apostles for the ceiling fresco. While Julius was officiating at the first Mass at the unveiling of the ceiling, he could happily gaze at his own image dressed up as the prophet Zechariah, seated in a place of honor at the top of the glorious royal portal of the chapel, much like the Glory Seat on his impossible tomb.

So, for the egomaniacal pope, the Sistine ceiling may indeed have been a funeral monument. To save his life and to get away with completely straying from Julius’s plan, Michelangelo was able to convince his papal patron that he was merely following a different approach to glorifying him. But we know that is far from the truth. Considering the numerous ways we have seen that Michelangelo inserted vulgar insults to Julius and used secret messages to point out his corruption and abuse of power, the artist’s real purpose was certainly
not
to heap praises upon the head of the Church of his time.

So what was Michelangelo’s
real
message?

“SELF-PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST”?

A more profound and legitimate explanation of the Sistine is that perhaps it is nothing less than a huge self-portrait of Michelangelo. The images are meant to reflect his life and beliefs: his feelings torn between his love for Judaic lore and wisdom and his passion for pagan art and design; his inner conflict between his spiritual love of God and his physical love for men; his respect for Christianity (even after he was no longer a Catholic) and his righteous anger at the pope and at the corruption of the Vatican in the Renaissance; his love of Classical traditions and his passionate defense of freethinking and new ideas; his Kabbalistically inspired mysticism joined to his Neoplatonism and his carnal earthiness.

It is likely that this very maelstrom of conflicted impulses is what has foiled all previous attempts to come up with a “unified theory” of the chapel’s meaning. Any true portrait of a human being must be multifaceted. To portray the turbulent passions, loves, and hatreds of the great Michelangelo required the whole ceiling and front wall of the Sistine. As the famed British architect Sir Christopher Wren summed up his own life and works with the words, “If you want to see
my
monument, look around you,” Michelangelo may have chosen to write his autobiography on the chapel ceiling.

Yet, to view the Sistine primarily as a self-portrait doesn’t ring totally true. In spite of his arrogance regarding his artistic skill, Michelangelo was a very unassuming man. He lived an extremely humble life. Even though he was the highest-paid artist of his day, he dressed poorly and lived in a simple apartment, sending almost all his income to his family in Florence. Yes, he slipped his face into
The Last Judgment,
but unlike Julius II, he did not need an entire chapel or basilica to proclaim his ego. Furthermore, he considered himself first, last, and always a sculptor, not a painter. If he had made one piece the summary of his life, it would certainly have been a statue, not a fresco.

“AND HE CALLED THE NAME OF THAT PLACE…”

We believe we come closest to a correct answer if we direct our attention to
the single most glaring oddity of Michelangelo’s ceiling frescoes.
It is something that has hardly been noted by the painting’s millions of viewers. Yet it is almost certainly the strongest clue to Michelangelo’s true intentions—a clue that confirms the major premise of this book that the artist used his work to conceal countless messages that he did not dare to express openly.

Let’s reveal it by way of a simple—but far from trivial—question. What is the name of Michelangelo’s painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel? If you think it doesn’t matter, you are mistaken. Very often, the title given to an artwork is the key to unlocking its hidden meanings. For example, for centuries no one could discover the true identity of the Mona Lisa. In the year 2006, however, experts were finally able to solve the mystery, thanks to the real title of the painting—
La Gioconda.
Historians had thought that
gioconda,
or “joyous woman,” referred to her enigmatic smile. Instead they definitively established that she was the bride of a rich merchant named Giocondo. Leonardo had made a pun on her new married name. Artists gave a great deal of thought to the title they would bestow on their work. It presented them with an opportunity succinctly to convey to the viewer their message and purpose. A name proclaims, “
This
is what I had in mind when I put all of my effort into this piece.”

So what did Michelangelo call his giant fresco? Don’t be upset if you can’t remember; it’s a trick question. The remarkable and almost unbelievable truth is—
there is no title.
To appreciate the significance of this fact, you need to know that this was extremely rare in large artworks of the time. We need only look at other big frescoes, both by Michelangelo and by his contemporaries. In the same room, by the same artist, the front altar wall is
Il Giudizio Universale
—in English,
The Last Judgment.
Also in the Vatican, just a few steps from the Sistine, are the four renowned Raphael Rooms, in which every single fresco has a title. Leonardo’s famous fresco in Milan is
Il Cenacolo,
or
The Last Supper.
The second-largest ceiling fresco in Rome, located in the Great Salon of Palazzo Barberini and painted by Pietro da Cortona, has borne the same title from its inception in 1632. In fact, the title is almost as big as the massive fresco itself:
The Triumph of Divine Providence and the Fulfillment of Her Goals Under the Papacy of Pope Urban VIII Barberini.
Only by knowing this oversized name can one comprehend the confusing hodgepodge of imagery in the overblown painting. Without a title, it would be impossible to understand the piece’s real meaning.

Of course, this raises the question of why, after four and a half tortured years of slaving on his ceiling fresco, Michelangelo did not give a name or a written explanation for this superhuman effort? It is nearly unthinkable that it was a mere oversight. We cannot explain the omission by claiming that it was not his way to entitle his works because we know the precise names of his other masterpieces:
The Last Judgment,
the various
Pietà
s, the
Moses,
the
David,
the
Conversion of Saint Paul,
the
Martyrdom of Saint Peter,
and on and on. For his other projects, he often left behind poems and personal letters explaining them. Later in his life, he dictated his memoirs to his amanuensis Condivi, in order to clarify his artistic intentions—and to even some old scores. But for the name of the frescoes on the Sistine ceiling there was only silence. No title was added to help us understand what Michelangelo was trying to convey.

Why? How can we explain this lack of information about the content of the giant ceiling project by an otherwise communicative artist eager to have his works understood? We do know, from private letters to his family and friends, that he was obsessed with this project, constantly writing about it—indeed, complaining bitterly about aspects of it—while on the job. However, he never clearly revealed what he was trying to say with this work. Not only that, as soon as the ceiling was finished, he burned his notes and many of the preparatory sketches.

In light of what we have come to realize about Michelangelo’s secret agenda in the Sistine Chapel, it seems obvious that
the purposeful omission of a title for his most important work was the clearest way of expressing that what he
really
meant to say was far too dangerous to utter.
As Cicero famously put it, “Silence speaks louder than words.” A glaring exclusion of a name for a laborious task that consumed four and a half years of his life could only mean that Michelangelo felt a true statement of his intent would almost certainly doom him. Better no name than one that, if honest, would have to betray his Neoplatonic and philo-Judaic beliefs. Michelangelo couldn’t allow the papal court or the casual viewer to catch on to the fact that there were countless secret messages hidden within the overwhelming mélange of images, nor could he even hint at this critical aspect of his work. So he let his silence speak for him. It secretly whispered, “There is far more here than dares to be named.” Thankfully, we have at last been privileged to “decode” many of Michelangelo’s messages. When we now look at the incredible work of art with no name, we agree with the profound observation of Emily Dickinson that “Saying nothing sometimes says the most.”