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Above the pope’s throne, Michelangelo depicted Aminadab (left), a Jewish figure in the Bible, with a yellow "badge of shame" to reprove Church leaders for their mistreatment of Jews.
Photo permission granted according to the GNU Free Documentation License |
In the heart of the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel is the site of the conclave where every new pope is elected. It is without doubt the holiest chapel in the Christian world, and draws more than 4 million visitors per year. Most of the world knows it best for its magnificent frescoes painted by the great Renaissance artist Michelangelo Buonarroti. What has remained a little-known secret, however, is that within this citadel of Christianity lies perhaps the greatest subversive act in the history of art.
Whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, atheist, art lover or merely the curious, almost none of the visitors who enter the Sistine realize that they are gazing upon secret messages embedded by Michelangelo in his artistic masterpiece. They would certainly be surprised to learn that, in the pope’s own chapel, Michelangelo employed these secret messages to advocate for a revolutionary change in Christianity’s relationship to Judaism, and that the code itself was rooted in the Jewish tradition.
Michelangelo became fascinated with Midrash and Kabbalah as a teenager, studying with private tutors provided by his patron, Lorenzo de’ Medici. Using his knowledge of Judaism and its mystical symbols, he later incorporated messages, via painted images, on the chapel’s walls dangerously contrary to the teachings of the Church. In this way, he criticized the corrupt spiritual leadership of the time, and condemned the Church’s failure to acknowledge its debt to Jewish origins.
Expressed 500 years before the more liberal contemporary theology of Pope John Paul II and "The Good Pope," John XXIII, discovery of his secret code and heretical views might have cost Michelangelo his life.
