Quotes from Benjamin Blech

Michelangelo then summarily fired his Roman staff of assistants. He next sent for five longtime friends, all artists with experience in fresco work, to come in from Florence for the duration of the project. Some would later on be replaced, but Buonarroti hired only Florentine helpers with tightly closed lips, so that none of the Roman spies could find out what he was really putting up on the Sistine ceiling.

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.

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.

Vatican theologians turned the Sistine into "The New Holy Temple of the New Jerusalem." Its role, they explained, was to replace with a Christian counterpart the original Temple in Jerusalem demolished by the Romans in 70 CE. What was lost to the Jews would be shown to have been transferred to the Church.

Very often, the title given to an artwork is the key to unlocking its hidden meanings. For

Ottomans invaded the Italian peninsula itself, seizing the city of Otranto on the southeastern coast, slaughtering the archbishop and many priests in the cathedral, forcibly converting the townspeople, beheading eight hundred who refused to convert, and sawing the bishop in half.

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.

Michelangelo was aiming with his frescoes, we modestly suggest that if he had dared to give the giant artwork a title he might have called it "The Bridge.

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.

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

With his genius, Michelangelo built many bridges of the spirit.

He infused his ceiling fresco with Kabbalistic images that reflected the Kabbalistic pavement design below. He linked the Jewish ancestral tree to Jesus. He connected pagan philosophy and design with Judaism and Christianity. He joined his love of male beauty to his love of God. He narrated the entire story of the universe, beginning with creation, in a way that makes us realize humanity's common ancestry.

Michelangelo knew that for the Church to fulfill the will of God, it had to become a paradigm of true brotherhood. There had to be a bridge between rich and poor, between privileged and downtrodden, between those who ostensibly spoke for God and those who desperately needed divine assistance.

Thus, Michelangelo filled the chapel with hidden messages of his passionate loves and his righteous rages, along with mystic symbols of divine justice and divine mercy. For him, the Sistine was indeed the Sanctuary, the neck of the world, but more than that, it was "The Bridge"—the bridge meant to unite people with God, with their fellow humans, and, perhaps most difficult of all, with their own spiritual selves.

Almost exactly five hundred years ago, a tormented soul named Michelangelo built a very narrow bridge in the middle of the air in the middle of a chapel in the middle of Rome. This resulted in a masterwork that would change the world of art forever.

What this lone artist wanted to do was construct a giant bridge of the spirit, spanning different faiths, cultures, eras, and sexualities.

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.

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.

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.

Still, Rome was horrified by all this. The Vatican had "Christianized" the teachings of Aristotle, and not Plato. It preached that redemption could come only through the One Church. These Florentine ideas about the individual, about Art and Science, about universality, and about Greek and Jewish love were anathema and blasphemy…

Within the fall, we find the ascent. —KABBALISTIC PROVERB

people would flock to the churches to mingle, to hear a sermon from a talented popular orator, and to enjoy the latest artwork. Religious ceremonies of the era were anything but brief. A mass, especially a papal one, could last for hours.

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