Quotes About Sistine

People who prefer e-books...think that books merely take up space. This is true, but so do your children and Prague and the Sistine Chapel.

There was indeed something rather incongruous in Lucy's moral outburst over Mr. Eager. It was as if one should see the Leonardo on the ceiling of the Sistine. He longed to hint to her that not here lay her vocation; that a woman's power and charm reside in mystery, not in muscular rant. But possibly rant is a sign of vitality: it mars the beautiful creature, but shows that she is alive.

What I hope to convey with From the Earth to the Moon is what Andy's captured so well in this book—just how magnificent an undertaking Apollo really was. That going to the moon was not just a technological endeavor, but an artistic one, like Michelangelo's frescoes on the Sistine Chapel ceiling.

The Sistine ceiling contains no direct references to Christianity or Christ. Michelangelo the Platonist didn't feel the need for any, because his message is more universal. Instead all the scenes are from the Old Testament, which every Renaissance Platonist knew to be the ground zero of docta religio, the true religion shared by all peoples and faiths.

There is so much about the history of the Sistine that seems predestined. According to the more reliable sources, work began on renovating the chapel in 1475. In the very same year, in the Tuscan town of Caprese, Michelangelo Buonarroti was born.

The ambitious pope had already discussed the Sistine ceiling with Michelangelo in 1506, probably while they were together in Bologna. No doubt Julius, an art lover, had heard of the huge success of the twin cartoons for the city hall frescoes in Florence. It is very likely that his summons to Michelangelo was also a way for the jealous Roman pontiff to sabotage the Florentine fresco project. We do know that Michelangelo never went back to that job.

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.

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.

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

Half an hour ago, at the appointed hour, Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca had entered the chapel. He walked to the front altar and gave opening prayer. Then, he unfolded his hands and spoke to them in a tone as direct as anything Mortati had ever heard from the altar of the Sistine.

It is God's will!" someone was yelling, his voice echoing in the Sistine Chapel. "Who but the chosen one could have survived that diabolical explosion?" "Me," a voice reverberated from the back of the chapel.

Maybe he was just a crazy guy who liked funerals." Phyllis was applying polish topcoat with all the care of Michelangelo painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. "Nobody goes to funerals for fun," said Lucy,

Lots of paintings have hidden messages," said Clara. "Even the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo painted an angel essentially giving the pope the finger.

There couldn't be too many bars in the world, I thought, where a man acted out a scene from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel when he wanted an Amstel Light.