C.L.joost-Gaugier, Michelangelo's Ignudi, And the Sistine Chapel as a Symbol of Law and Justice - 15 Mai

Michelangelo's Ignudi, and the Sistine Chapel as a Symbol of Law and JusticeAuthor(s): Christiane L. Joost-GaugierSource: Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 17, No. 34 (1996), pp. 19-43Published by: IRSA s.c.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1483521Accessed: 28/11/2008 16:52

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CHRISTIANE L. JOOST-GAUGIER

Michelangelo's Ignudi, and the Sistine Chapel as a Symbol of Law and Justice

"A mme pare che ttu facci troppo"

These words, written by Lodovico Buonarotti to his son Michelangelo in Rome on the 21st of July 1508, shortly after the painting of the Sistine Ceiling had begun, foretell with an astonishing accuracy the troubles historians of art have undergone to discover the thematic goal, or goals, of this major monument of art, history, and culture.1 Ever since the time of its creation, when no less a person than its imperious patron, Julius II, was allowed only limited access to the work in progress by its painter, Michelangelo, the Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, 'the first chapel in the world,' has occasioned considerable speculation with respect to the mysteries of its thematic substance and whether or not its still uncertain essence is connected with the rest of the decoration of this famous papal chapel.2 It seems fair to say that following almost five-hundred years of discussion of these issues, consensus has not yet been achieved on either the fundamental meaning of the Ceiling or the precise form, if any, of its ideological relationship to the works that preceded and succeeded it in that singular structure.

Because its first known decorations were commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV in the late 1470s and executed by a variety of Florentine and Umbrian artists (including Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Cosimo Rosselli, Perugino and Signorelli) during the early 1480s,

the Ceiling commissioned by Pope Julius II between 1506 (when we first know that Michelangelo was being considered for this project) and 1508 (when the first of three contracts we know of was drawn up), a series of ten tapestries designed for its side walls by Raphael in 1514-16 for Leo X, and the altar wall repainted by Michelangelo during the 1530s and early 1540s under Popes Clement VII and Paul III, art historians have tended to regard these commissions in separate lights. Accordingly, the works involved are often considered representative of different stylistic moments in the development that we now assign to Italian art-Early Renaissance, High Renaissance and Mannerism. This segregation would also seem appropriate for the significant intervals of time between each commission, and for the fact that only two of their commissioning popes (Sixtus IV and Julius II) were members of the same previously impoverished and little known Ligurian family, the Della Rovere, while the other three (Leo X, Clement VII and Paul III) belonged to highly visible, politically well established and wealthy Florentine and Central Italian families, the Medici and Farnese.

It will be the object of this study to show that a specific part of Michelangelo's painted ceiling, not usually considered intrinsic to thematic discussion, offers not only an important clue regarding the underlying theme of the Ceiling itself but, moreover, suggests that the Ceiling is-as some have suspected-inherently related to the

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MICHELANGELO'S IGNUDI, AND THE SISTINE CHAPEL AS A SYMBOL OF LAW AND JUSTICE

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Bartolomeo Platina's Liber de vita Christi ac omnium pontificum, and oak leaves are used in the decoration of the bronze Tomb of Sixtus IV completed in 1493 by Antonio Pollaiuolo, as well as in the fres- coed 'tapestries' that cover the lower level of the Sistine Chapel walls.8 In all these cases the oak tree or its leaves appear as symbolic ornamental devices in backgrounds, frames or borders.

The emblem is, however, not always prominent in monumental works connected with this family. It is not evident, for example, in the sepulchre of Giovanni Della Rovere, who died in 1483.9 Nor does it play a conspicuous role in the architecture of the Roman church of Santa Maria del Popolo,10 a structure essentially associated with the reign of Sixtus, or in the painted decoration of the Sistine Chapel walls where the rectangular Quattrocento frescoes are separated by patterns of acanthus and palm leaves. References to this hardiest of trees are likewise not prominent in Pinturicchio's painted vault for Santa Maria del Popolo, completed during the reign of Julius, or in the Stanza della Segnatura, a monument of major importance that was the private library of Julius, painted next door by Raphael between 1508 and 1511-during the very years that Michelangelo was engaged in painting the Sistine Ceiling. Even in the tomb of Julius, at San Pietro in Vincoli, begun by Michelangelo and hastily completed after the death of Julius (which occurred in 1513),11 only the old stylized emblem appears, crowning the border decoration.

The distinctly ornamental use of this symbol in famous monu- ments connected with famous members of this newly famous family suggests that though indeed the oak figures in the family stemma, it was not accorded elsewhere the importance and prominence that its great boughs and sacks in the shape of cornucopias (suggesting emblems of abundance), and garlands brimming with oak leaves and acorns, have in the Sistine Ceiling. Nor does it suggest why the association of oaks and acorns in the Ceiling should be peculiar to the grand ignudi.

Given this tantalizing combination of circumstances, the question arises whether thematic interpretations of the Ceiling have wrongly relegated the ignudi to a role that Sydney Freedberg char- acterizes as 'childish' in that they attend, like uncomprehending innocents at play, the historical scenes which constitute for him (as for others) the principal subjects of the Ceiling.12An extension of this view, now widely held, draws in also the prophets and sibyls. Charles de Tolnay suggests that it was their visions that occasioned the histories along the central axis above, the impact of which is 'reflected' in the surrounding ignudi.13 While, on the one hand, little visible connection exists between these figures and the prophets and sibyls below, on the other Tolnay refrains-and perhaps wise- ly-from explaining which of the seers had visions of the Creation of matter, light and dark, land and water, and other accompanying scenes ranged along the spine of the Ceiling. Indeed, the authors of the prophetic books were primarily interesting to Christians for the gifts they offered regarding future events, especially those concern-

ing the coming and passion of Christ, rather than for their interest in past events such as the Creation.

The subject of the Creation was, however, a very important one in the Renaissance [Fig. 6]. This importance was not new, consider- ing the fact that attention to this subject in the Middle Ages had been considerable. Medieval interest in the biblical creation had been accompanied by a knowledge of how heaven and earth arose, in a practical way, out of Chaos through the agency of the One (God) as presented by Plato in the dialogue Timaeus.14 The Timaeuswas one of the major works of antiquity that had survived throughout the Middle Ages and is the very book that Plato holds in his hand in Raphael's School of Athens, painted at the same time and for the same patron by Raphael in the Stanza della Segnatura. During the later part of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, other works in which Plato discusses how the Cosmos evolved out of Chaos, such as the Phaedo and the Protagoras, were well known to humanist scholars.15 So also were other works of classical antiquity concerned with this subject.

Among these was the De caelo of Aristotle, which argues for an ungenerated, eternal, universe with no beginning in time that under- went a uniform circular motion around a central earth. This was the leading book in the astronomical curriculum during the thirteenth century. It influenced Nicole Oresme, one of the most sophisticated natural scientists of the following century, to compose the Livre du ciel et du monde, a work primarily concerned with the question of the rotation of the earth. The Almagest of Ptolemy, meanwhile, was well appreciated for its predictive power by those who could understand its numerical tables but less so for its failure to put the earth at the center of the universe. Not so complicated as the mathematical astronomy of Ptolemy, the works of Hesiod, an author much older than Plato, presented, by late medieval times, a different alternative.

Both the Works and Days and the Theogony open with descriptions of Zeus thundering in the heavens.16 However, in these works the reader perceives that the loud thunderer and his race of gods already exist on the peaks of Mount Olympus from the beginning of time in an already created universe. For Hesiod, Zeus is above all important for creating and supervising Law and Justice in the world. In his Naturalis Historia, a work which Julius owned in his private library,17 Pliny voic- es his uncertainty as to whether one god or many gods rule the universe which, at any rate, already existed at the time of the imposition of divine rule.18 Relying on the older Greek astronomers Anaxagorus and Melanippe, whose works were still known to him in the first century B.C., Diodorus of Siculus speculates, in his History, that all elements of the first generation of the universe were intermingled in a kind of uniform mud. These eventually separated from one another by physical processes which sorted out motion from immobility, wet from dry, and hard from soft, in the end giving form (without the intervention of a god or gods) to life itself.19 For him the first men were therefore undisci- plined and ignorant beasts.20

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Pliny's ambivalence respecting the existence of a divine creator receives complementary balance in the work of one of his contemporaries who asserted the existence of one God, the creator of the Cosmos, and sought to reconcile the monolithic God (of Hesiod and Genesis) with Plato's causal god. In replacing the confusing picture offered by his predecessors with a coherent one that welded togeth-

er the idea of a single God and a just God, Philo of Alexandria, or Philo Judaeus, offered a God who was not only acceptable to Platonists but also was the historical ancestor of Moses to whom He, God, had entrusted the Law.21

Following Philo, variations of the Neoplatonic doctrine of ema- nation or creation out of the indeterminate being or the nature of God

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alone survived in certain elements of Christian and Gnostic thought as well as in Jewish Neoplatonism of early medieval times.22 One of the early texts on this subject - and the oldest extant one - that enjoyed a wide circulation and influence in learned circles of the Middle Ages gave a distinctly mystical character to the discourse on cosmology. This work, the Sefer Yezirah (Book of Creation) contains Gnostic elements and is strongly linked with Jewish speculations on Divine Wisdom which, through a system of primordial numbers, including thirty-two 'secret paths,' explains the Creation of the Cosmos.23 Such interpretations were known, through this and other texts, to early Kabbalists for whom the idea of creation out of nothing evolved-especially from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries by which time it had nurtured on Italian soil-to a complicated mystical paradox.24

It was, however, Ovid's Roman imagination that brought together Plato's physical creation of the universe by an 'unmoved mover' with the Hesiodic conception that linked the role of the supreme god (Zeus, who already existed) with the origin of Law and Justice, the Diodorian idea of the existence of a primordial race of men, and Philonic insistence on a single God as creator of the universe.25 Translated into elegant and heroic poetic analogy, Ovid's writings contained a body of Neopythagorean thought that came to be inter- preted as moral and thus could be harmonized with religious doctrine and become absorbed into the extensive body of humanist learning of the early sixteenth century.26 Ovid's account of the Creation, as presented in the Metamorphoses, moves from the creation of the world out of chaos by a God who acts single-mindedly to his punishment of the sins of man through a fabulous flood that excepted only a male and a female of the species who, marooned on a mountain top, repropagated the earth.

Early on in his account, Ovid explains the early chaos of Nature, which was a rounded body of rolling elements unified into one-perhaps not unlike Michelangelo's conception of the first Creation scene. God separated land and water, and light from dark. Yet the earth was not complete, Ovid asserts, until man was moulded out of clay mixed with the living fluid of God so that he, man created in the image and likeness of God and therefore different from the beasts of the earth, was god-like himself.27

It is this race of men who constituted for Ovid's great hexame- ter poem the Age of Gold. In this time, under the rule of the primordial god Saturn, nothing was forbidden, and so there was no need of Law. War did not exist. Peace and abundance reigned. The earth was innocent. Agriculture was not necessary because the miraculous tree of Jupiter (the Law giver) provided its luscious fruit, the acorn, and sweet honey which flowed from its bark. In addition, the soft shade of the oak made for an eternal Spring with no harsh seasons and no need of shelter or covering. Indeed, the reader is made to feel that the eternal Spring was reflected in the eternal youthful- ness of this race.28

It was after the Golden Age of Satum, when men had lived happily as their god, that Jupiter began to rule the world. During this time, the Silver Age, the discomfort of harsh changing seasons first appeared and men were required to build shelters and to plant grain. Men began to fear the Law (of Jupiter).29 In the Age of Iron, which followed, love, innocence and truth gave way to violence, profit and deceit. War and greed were invented and humans began to distrust one another. In his anger with the sins of the world below, Jupiter raised his thunderbolt and sent a mighty flood to cover the earth as a sign of his ster Justice. In the Great Flood, men tried to escape by rowing boats, climbing on roof tops, and hanging on to fallen branches, not unlike the events depicted in Michelangelo's Great Flood. The couple who were miraculously saved found themselves, when the waters receded, on one of the twin peaks of Mount Parnassus (a site of great importance for Raphael's contemporary painting of the same name in the Stanza della Segnatura).30 Dipping their hands into a sacred stream, the Cephisus (also represented in Raphael's' Parnassus), the couple performed a kind of baptism that allowed them to regenerate the human race which eventually culminated, in Ovid's own time, in the unparalleled magnificence of Rome as the Eternal and Immortal City, and the apotheosis of its emperor, Julius Caesar (coincidentally the civic 'patron' of Julius II as will be discussed below), into a star that burs forever in the sky.31 Thus, as Ovid put it, Caesar, illustrious in war and peace, ruler of the world and promoter of the Law, came to be a god in his own city for he was

[made] a star in order that ever it may be the divine Julius who looks forth upon our Capitol and Forum from his lofty temple...Wherever Rome's power extends over the conquered world...through all the ages shall [he] live in fame.32

Mankind's happy days before the knowledge of commerce, agriculture, and war-and before the necessity of written laws which were occasioned after Jupiter dethroned Saturn-are recalled towards the end of the Metamorphoses when, in the so called "discourse of Pythagoras," Ovid makes a powerful argument for Neopythagoreanism in recommending the foods of the earth's plants and trees be eaten as in the 'pristine' age which was the "Golden" age blessed with the fruit of the trees before men learned to defile their lips with the blood of animals and to dread the judgment of the Law.33 This extended speech also reminds men, through the thoughts of Pythagoras, that in the Golden Age all men were youthful, for it was only Time, that came with the Age of Iron and the advent of the four seasons, that could weary, or age, men. Ovid refers again to the divine pact with man and the dethroning of Saturn in the Fasti.34

Though the Golden Age was well known also to Ovid's contemporaries, Virgil's picture, drawn in the Aeneid, is perhaps the most

25


specific. Virgil remembered the Golden Age when men ate the prod- ucts of the earth and, springing from the oak, were righteous and not yet fettered by laws. The words of King Evander make it clear that the reign of Saturn (or the Golden Age) was born in Rome. Perhaps, as Jean Seznec suggests, Ovid's celebrated work was at first more difficult to reconcile with philosophy and theology than the Aeneid whose exaltation of Rome took the form of a more closely defined goal.35 Yet Ovid was not forgotten in the earliest centuries of Christianity.

By the ninth century, a French scholar bishop, Theodulph of Orleans, began to discover moral value in the world of Ovid.36 Within the next four centuries Ovid was accorded a prominent place among the edifying classical authors the authority of whose enlightening texts were invoked in demonstrating Christian goals.37 An efflores- cence of extracts and commentaries based on the Metamorphoses occurred in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, when the work in its entirety came to be well known. Poets especially drew inspiration from Ovid. Inevitably, they began to allegorize his chief work. This tradition culminated in the many versions of the so-called Ovide moralise, known primarily in France but also in Italy from the early fourteenth century.38 Philippe de Vitry, its probable composer, did not disguise the possibilities of spiritual instruction to be derived from a Christian interpretation of Ovid's celebrated work. From the beginning of his long poem he advises his reader,

Se I'escripture ne me ment, Tout est pour nostre enseignement.39

Thus, in associating with man made of clay in the image of God, the reader is instructed that following the creation of the firmament, of light and dark, of earth and land, the first man was created. Instead of finding himself in an eternal Spring he found himself in the Garden of Eden where, in a land without agriculture and without greed, without arms, without war, and without laws, he understood only one rule-his covenant to serve God. Though the lengthy medieval work eventually deviates from its Ovidian source, the early part, which discusses the Creation and establishes the relation of man to his God-creator, remains intact and provides occasion for extensive edifying allegorizing commentaries on the duty of man to God.40 The importance of Ovid and his account of the Creation is reflected in other Ovidian allegories of the same century, for example the Allegorie and the Fabulae super Ovidium ascribed to Giovanni del Virgilio, an early fourteenth century scholar and friend of Dante. Giovanni gave courses in Ovidiana at the University of Bologna and his influence appears to have reached Coluccio Salutati and other Florentines by the end of the century.41 That the mythical lore of Ovid was as important for Dante as its Christian application is nowhere more evident than in the Purgatorio, where Dante muses, as Virgil had before him, on the 'primo tempo umano'

which he associates with Justice and the Golden Age when men were content to eat acorns.42 Again in the De Monarchia, a work concerned with Justice in government, Dante refers to Virgil in describing the Age of Saturn (the Golden Age) as the 'best' age of mankind.43 Thus the most popular classical poet of the Middle Ages had come to be immortalized for the Christian 'tendencies' in his most celebrated work, the Metamorphoses.

Concurrent with these literary traditions, popular traditions that tended to conflate classical fables with antique and biblical history are known to have existed, especially in the later Middle Ages. Epic-narrative poetry gave way, in Italy especially, to songs, or musical poetry, in which biblical heroes came to be celebrated together with classical heroes. Many of these poems and songs included material drawn from Ovid which, mixed with biblical history, became part of the legendary patrimony of Rome and experienced a wide diffusion.44

The twelfth century author of the Mirablia urbis Romae repeatedly cites the witness of Ovid in describing the sites and buildings of ancient Rome for contemporary pilgrims and travelers. His account of the foundation of Rome takes into consideration medieval Jewish legends about Noah as the founder of Rome which, mixed with Ovidian inspired ideas about Saturn and Janus, suggest that after its foundation by Noah the kingdom passed to Janus who eventually shared it with Saturn.45 Saturn had also founded a city on the Capitoline- a 'fact' about him that was known to Flavio Biondo in the fifteenth century and that would be recorded in the great encyclopedia of Roman humanism, the Commentaria Urbana, published by Raffaelo Maffei in Rome in 1506 and dedicated to Julius 11.46 Indeed, it was to Saturn, the god of the Golden Age, above all other gods that the Pantheon was, according to common regard, conse- crated,47 and it was in his honor that the day Saturday was named.48 Representations of Saturn were known from Roman ruins and even came, from late medieval times, to be imitated in Christian churches where Roman, biblical and mythological heroes were sometimes brought together with the Virtues.49 This Trecento interest was to persist well into the Cinquecento when, in Vasari's time, the importance of Saturn for Italy was a major subject for architectural and festival decoration.50

The memory of Ovid was enriched and devotion to him acceler- ated in late medieval popular imagination. His purported house and garden were shown to travelers in Rome; he was regarded as a saint, and attempts to find his tomb were taken seriously.51 In Sulmona, the place of his birth, statues of him were still to be seen in the fifteenth century. One of these showed him dressed in the attire of a doctor.52 Other traditions through which, as a result of its great popularity, the Metamorphoses came to be known as the Pagan Bible and the Bible of Poets, and its author as Ovidius mag- nus, Ovidio maggiore and Ovide le grant, are also known.53

By mid Quattrocento times, information found in Ovidian works came to be considered as evidence in early archaeological texts, as

26


in the first comprehensive survey of ancient Rome, Flavio Biondo's Roma instaurata. In 1510, Francesco Albertini also cited Ovid's authority in the Opusculum de mirabilibus.54 Meanwhile, Ovid's critical fortune had been expanded through the interest of Poliziano and others in his writings, culminating in the editio princeps of his work, printed by Azzoguidi in Bologna in 1471, to be superseded by a famous edition published by the Aldine Press in Venice in 1502, just six years before the Sistine Ceiling was commissioned.55 Printed editions of Ovid's individual works were among the most popular printed books of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. An Italian translation of the Metamorphoses, by Giovanni Bonsignore, was printed by Giovanni Rosso for Luc'Antonio Giunta in Venice in 1497.56 The many editions of this work published in Cinquecento Italy include a famous translation into Italian by Ludovico Dolce, first printed in 1533, which received many subse- quent printings.57 The special popularity of Ovid's account of the Creation (and the Golden Age) is reflected in the fact that some printed editions of this work presented only Book I, which covers the Creation, the Golden Age and the Great Flood.58

Numerous surviving early sixteenth century editions of the Metamorphoses are illustrated with woodcuts that show the primordial god guiding his way among the rolling clouds of the untamed universe, separating land from water, creating the sun and moon with the expansive spread of his arms in opposite directions, and making the first man from clay [Fig. 7]. Though their style is consid- erably different, the painted images of the Ceiling are not dissimilar in thematic substance to subjects of woodcuts printed in editions of this work that may be dated prior to the unveiling of Michelangelo's Ceiling-which took place on All Saint's Day, 1512.59 Not only does this underscore the apparent relationship between the Ceiling and this literary work, to which clearly the ignudi seem to be related, it also reminds us that the legendary patrimony of Rome, which con- flated classical and biblical subject matter, is still very much alive. Moreover, it suggests that illustrated editions of the Metamorphoses might be taken into account as precedents for at least some of the subjects in the Ceiling.60

Most significantly the abundant appearance of acorns, oak boughs and sacks of oak leaves in the Ceiling and their exclusive association with the ignudi provoke the interpretation that the pop- ulation of grand, unclothed, youthful images represent the Golden Age of man. The coincidence of their association with the Della Rovere name thereby provided a compliment to its patron and explains an otherwise mysterious remark of Vasari. Describing the ignudias upholding festoons of oak leaves and acorns, he suggests that the governance of Pope Julius constituted a Golden Age for Italy:

...sedendo e girando, e sostenendo alcuni festoni di foglie di quercia e di ghiande, messe per I'arme e per I'impresa di papa

Giulio; denotando che a qual tempo ed al governo suo era I'eta dell'oro, per non essere allora la Italia netravagli e nelle miserie che ella e stata poi.61

Indeed the return of Saturn, who had provided sweetness in life before the appearance of avarice, was to be celebrated by Vasari himself as a symbol of good government and the successful administration of Justice. Perhaps it was precisely with the precedent of the Sistine Ceiling in mind that Vasari applied this analogy to Leo X and even to Clement VII.62

The connection of the Golden Age with Justice is neither new nor inappropriate at this time. The association was as old as Hesiod, who had stressed that man from the beginning of time flourished under Zeus, the originator of Justice. Before cities and war existed Peace was the handmaid of Justice. It was the eye of Zeus that supervised mortal men and kept watch over their judgments and deeds.63 Linked to the Creation and the origins of man in the thought of Plato as well, Justice-or civic wisdom-was the gift of Zeus to man after the Golden Age, when man had begun to build cities and engage in war. As he described this first and greatest of civic virtues in the Protagoras, 64 Plato linked it with punishment and approval and, ultimately, with grace. Thus did Cicero inherit the idea that the Law by itself, which was too technical, must be complemented with grace.65 And Dante, who knew the moral lessons to be derived from the Metamorphoses, could note the connection of Justice, in its purest (original) form, to the Golden Age:

Secol si rinova; torna giustizia e primo tempo umano, e progenie scende da ciel nova.66

Even in so remote an outpost of the Sienese Republic as the vil- lage of Lucignano, the unknown Quattrocento painter of a fresco of Janus carrying a cluster of oak leaves and acorns knew this meaning [Fig. 8]. For accompanied by words borrowed from Dante's description of early men eating acorns during the Golden Age, this fresco was commissioned with its inscription to adorn a chamber of law, the Sala del Tribunale. In this room-a rare example of a surviving courtroom from early Renaissance times-Justice was dis- pensed.67

The association of the oak with Justice would have been apparent to any educated person, for Hesiod had insisted in the Works and Days that the oak branch brimming with acors is a symbol of the earth that flourishes in times of Justice. This symbol was shared with Zeus, the giver of Justice, who watched over the golden race of mortal men who were born during his reign.68 In tracing the history of Rome, Virgil remembered the oak tree that had first nourished man during the Golden Age and he reminded us that Saturn gave the first law at this time-which was Peace. It was in an oak vale that

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7) , from Ovid, , Venice, Georgius de Rusconibus pub., 1509, fol. 1(r), Washington, D.C., The Folger Shakespeare Library (Photo: The Folger Shakespeary Library)

Venus presented Aeneas with the magnificent arms that would enable him to put down Turnus and achieve Justice for Rome.69 Pliny asserted that the acorn-bearing oak that had first produced food for mortal man was sacred to Jupiter,70 and Ovid himself con- firmed this in the Tristia, a work which Julius owned in his private library.71 In the Metamorphoses, Ovid recounted a fable that con- firmed the miraculous nature of this sacred tree.72 An Italian edition of this work, printed as late as 1538, presents an illuminating commentary in lieu of the poetry itself as Book I. Its text explains that the reader will find this work related to the Law and especially to the Old Testament because even though Ovid did not have the benefit of being a Christian he understood the beginning of the world in the same way that Moses did (and Christians do), as well as the Flood

which punished man for breaking the Law. In the text that follows, describing the Golden Age, the importance of the oak is stressed.73

If the hypothesis that the ignudi represent the Golden Age of man and the Justice of the primordial God is correct, this would suggest that they perform an important, and primary, role in the development of the theme of the Ceiling as their attributes and location suggest. The notion that the historical scenes alone are primary may therefore be modified to suggest that the following general subjects were included in the overall thematic layout: The Golden Age of man when man lived happily and in a state of eteral youth according to his covenant with his primordial God, who had created the Cosmos which functions according to a system of order; the Fall of Man, who subsequently had discovered greed and sin and required punish-

28


ment by the Law of God; the Great Flood, which came because man had become depraved and required a more serious punishment; the emergence of Noah as the 'lust" man who was chosen by God to be the first savior of man.74 Therefore God made the firmament, God made man, man was intrinsically good (in the Golden Age and in the Garden of Eden) until he disobeyed the Law of God and created sin. This occasioned the Great Flood and the regeneration of mankind and the need for a Redeemer. In this way the Hebrew and Christian Bible (the Old Testament) and the "Pagan" Bible (the Ovidian lega- cy)-familiar sources that did not require theological expertise- were effectively combined and harmonized as the patrimony of Christian Rome.

Michelangelo grasped the very essence of this conflation in the distribution and arrangement of the ignudiand their attributes. Thus the theme of the Law and Justice would appear to prevail in the Ceiling, and to fit with Edgar Wind's reading of the altar spandrel scenes as representing the association of Law and grace as well as with Charles Hope's reading of the medallions as constituting a group of recognizable exempla exemplifying divine authority and allegorizing submission to Divine Law.75 Thus the Ceiling may be construed to represent the Law of God (Primordial Law). Its relation to the previously painted subjects below as well as to their inscriptions, which stress the importance of the law for Moses and Christ, suggests a thematic continuity in that through their dual roles as lawgiver and priest, Moses and Christ are harmonized in the pairing of the scenes. Through the coming of Christ the Old Law was both fulfilled and supplanted in the New Law.76 In reigning above all, Primordial Law is the source for Mosaic and Christian law (suggesting a Ciceronian interpretation in that Cicero had suggested in the De Legibus, a work first published in 1498-which is set beneath the branches of an acom-laden oak tree, that Divine Law is supreme and reigns over civic law and religious law). In this context, the Last Judgment (or the Final Law) on the West wall may also be regarded as an extension of the same theme as will be seen below.

Our thanks are due to a little known English humanist and bib- liophile, Robert Flemmyng, for having noted, in a poem of 1477, that the Sistine Chapel was at that time close to completion. Sixtus IV, he informs us, had planned the building as well as its decoration which had, as yet, not begun.77 Though other extant documents are silent on the precise date of its foundation, we may speculate that it was begun sometime between 1473, when its predecessor-a chapel founded by Pope Nicholas III in about 1287-was still in use, and 1477, at which time Pope Sixtus had wom the tiara for six years.78 Good cause exists to speculate that its founding was announced in 1475, for reasons that will be discussed below. Flemmyng's poem is, in a sense, corroborated by documents of 1481 and 1482 which indi- cate that the painted decoration, representing the Old and New Covenants, was underway.79 Most importantly, the poem suggests

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gious structure. Its unique dimensions suggest it was modeled, Battisti argued, on the basis of those of the Temple of Solomon as described in 1 Kings 5-7.80 To Battisti's observations Johannes Wilde added additional evidence suggesting the height of the building conformed as well to that of the Solomonic structure.81 Significant support to Battisti's theory lies in the fact that an inscription provided by Perugino in one of the frescoes decorating the Chapel refers to Solomon's Temple.82

If such a coincidence was, as it appears, planned from the point of view of the physical structure, one might wonder what this might have signified as an idea. The First Book of Kings describes the Temple of Solomon as the House of the Lord built to Him in thanks- giving for peace and in the expectation of God's cooperation. This cooperation was realized in the gift of wisdom which was recognized in the construction of a Portico of Judgment, the site of Solomon's throne which was known through medieval times as the seat of wisdom. Sixtus IV (who may, in embellishing Rome with a magnificent building to be decorated with a series of paintings illustrating events from the Old and New Testaments, also have been imitating the example of his namesake Sixtus III who had constructed and decorated Sta. Maria Maggiore), had good reason to hope to emulate Solomon's purpose, authority and wisdom.83 Devoted to establish- ing relations with the 'universal' Church, the early years of Sixtus' reign presented a number of problems which prompted him to turn his attention on politics and Law. Plagued by disobedience within his own order, he may have also discovered that in his early enthusiasm to wage a grand crusade against the Turks and to take on the King of France his image as an impoverished Franciscan theologian and scholar of Greek was insufficient to build upon. Aggrandizing the Papal State and building the Vatican Library were certainly two of Sixtus' most visible goals. In this way he could assert his supreme authority as a sovereign prince. Perhaps the idea of a new monument of the Ecclesiastical State first occurred to him in 1475 when, on the occasion of the celebration of the Jubilee Year, numerous European monarchs and princes traveled to Rome to gain the special indulgences, pardons and privileges that were granted on that solemn and festive occasion.84

In following the example of Solomon, Sixtus no doubt enhanced his status as a sacral king, perhaps in hopes of improving his relations with Louis Xl and other European rulers who were critical of his practices. This antagonism led to abortive attempts to curb his power and to reconvene the Council of Basle with the goal of ending his reign. In order to ensure his survival, Sixtus surrounded himself with his relatives and became devoted to exalting their estates. Such causes led him to establish a chamber of one-hundred legal experts to oversee the affairs of the Papal States; in 1472 he reorganized the primary judicial office of the Vatican, the Sacra Romana Rota.85 Not only did Sixtus himself author a treatise on the functions of the pope, the De potentia Dei, his reign produced a number of treatises on the

authority and powers of the pope.86 The authority of Solomon had been recognized throughout medieval times, and the idea that his temple, which survived in spirit if not in fact in medieval imagination, prefigured the Church of the New Law established by Christ had first been suggested by Eusebius and Prudentius.87 The imagery of the new monument of the Ecclesiastical State designed by Sixtus thus most likely was intended to signify the authority and duties of his high office in that it was the universal setting for the most solemn official ceremonies of the Church of the New Law.

Aside from these practical considerations, it must be remembered that the Sistine Chapel was never meant to be a basilican church or a private family chapel. From the beginning it had a specific function as the papal sanctuary, and as the most visible expression in the world of Sixtus' papal majesty and the authority of the order and rule of the Church. Thus its identification with the Temple of Solomon, which as Rudolph Wittkower noted had a universal significance in that it incorporated the numerical ratios of the Pythagorean-Platonic celestial harmony that demonstrated a cos- mological theory of proportion, 88 would have been particularly appropriate. In Renaissance Italy it was believed that Solomon's Temple was based on the proportions given by God to Moses for building the Tabernacle which was to be 'the fabric of the world."89

The location of this unique building in the city of Rome showed that Rome and the papacy were inseparable. The site of this city was reputed in medieval legend to have been selected by Solomon, and two copper columns from Solomon's temple, which were considered miraculous, were still to be seen in the Basilica of Saint John Lateran in the twelfth century. For Dante, for whom Rome was the perfect empire, Solomon's words were the model of perfect Justice. Another tradition identified Rome as the new Jerusalem, and spoils from the Temple of Jerusalem, once in the Temple of Solomon-including the rods of Moses and Aaron-were relics of Judaica vaunted by the Lateran.90 Such reasons may have inspired papal humanists to become interested in the works of Philo at the time the Chapel was being planned. As Leopold Ettlinger has shown, manuscripts of Philo's writings were collected in Italy during the fifteenth century.91 One of these, known from 1425, contained twelve works.92 Another, brought to Italy by Filelfo in 1427,93 included the Vita Moyesi - Philo's life of Moses, who remains, as the giver of the Law, at the center of all Philo's works. These include a lengthy explication of the Decalogue. By 1455, two manuscripts of Philo's works were in the library of Pope Nicholas V.94 References to Philo had begun to appear in contemporary literature. The Greek scholar who translated the complete works of Philo for Sixtus, at the suggestion of Cardinal Bessarion, was Lilus Tifernas.95 The translation, completed in about 1479,96 is dedicated to Sixtus and was well known to humanist members of Julius Il's curia in 1506.97

As Ettlinger suggests, the rediscovery of this important work, which holds that Mosaic Law reflects the order of the universe, must

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have been a significant source for the planning of the decorations drawn from the life of Moses that line the south wall of the Sistine Chapel. Ettlinger notes the sudden emergence of Moses as the hero of a series of monumental frescoes which, otherwise, is without precedent in the Middle Ages. Perhaps this may also be related to a tradition still alive in the Cinquecento that attributed the founding of Rome to Moses; and, according to an older medieval tradition still highly respected in the Cinquecento, the Tables of the Law given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai and the Ark of the Covenant were among the spoils of Jerusalem brought to Rome from the Temple of Solomon, where they were preserved together with the most precious Christian relics in the Lateran. It is not unlikely that the importance placed on these relics central to Judaism and Christianity throughout medieval times and into the Renaissance may be intri- cately related to the choice of subjects for the Sistine wall paintings which include numerous references to these relics.98

The Sistine wall frescoes, including the Finding of the Infant Moses that was destroyed on the far wall, originally numbered eight Old Testament scenes. So also did their counterparts on the north wall illustrating the life of Christ, including the destroyed Baptism of Christ number eight scenes. These are sequentially arranged and paired in such a way that the scenes representing the life of Christ parallel those representing the life of Moses through a series of events explicitly chosen to illustrate the giving, institutionalization, and receiving of the Law, as is explained by the accompanying inscriptions on the walls above. For the Pythagoreans, as Renaissance humanists knew, the number eight was associated with egalitarian justice.99

Designed to separate the enclosed presbytery from the open body of the Chapel, an elegant marble choir screen, now consider- ably altered,100 formed the entrance to the most sacred part of the Chapel, which included the altar and the papal throne, raised on a platform by three steps from the pavement level. The triple division of the screen into seven sculptured lower bays and seven gilded grilles above surmounted by seven magnificent gilded candelabra must have formed an exalted introduction to the most sacred zone of the Chapel. While the triple steps, complemented by the triple zones of the marble structure and the three tiers of the painted walls to either side, might be viewed as reflecting traditional Trinitarian concerns, the seven gleaming divisions to which the beholder's view was attracted and focused on entering was organized not only to separate spatial areas, but also to support the seven great lights that majestically illuminated the interior.

Keeping this symbolic sacred function in mind, we may speculate that the choice of sevens may have been derived from current number theories which were considered, especially by Neopythagorean writers who were widely read at this time by the young Pico della Mirandola, Marsilio Ficino and others, to have mystical significance.101 (It should be noted in this connection that

Pythagoras has a prominent location in Raphael's School of Athens.) Neopythagorean ideas current at this time regarding the significance of the number seven which, reflecting the number of strings in Apollo's lyre, symbolized the musical harmonization of the planetary universe are described by Plato, Cicero and Macrobius and noted by Raphael in the Stanza della Segnatura. Dante describes the seven planets in the firmament, or heaven of fixed stars, as seven "lights." Pico della Mirandola stresses, in the Heptaplus, that the number seven symbolized the number of days involved in the Creation.102

Here too the influence of Philo may have been felt for, noting the seventh day of the Creation, Philo elaborates at length on the significance of this number and its relation to the Law. By this number all things in the universe are brought to order and perfection, including essential forces that move the planets, the circuits of the moon, the formation of every organic body, the stages of man's physical growth and the divisions of his life. Heaven is girdled by seven zones, the major constellation contains seven stars according to which the earth is oriented; man's soul is divided into seven parts as is also his body. In addition, the sciences, grammar and music are dependent on this perfect number which the Romans called septum, meaning reverence. These regulatory rules, all dependent on the number seven, are linked to the Creation in that the '"orld is in harmony with the Law, and the Law with the world, and...the man who observes the law [sic] is constituted thereby a loyal citizen of the world...in accordance with which the entire world itself also is admin- istered."103 Philo's source is Moses, who he repeatedly assures us authored our information on the Creation as the greatest work of Order (and therefore of Law). Moses introduced the Law because he understood the Order of God. And, because order involves number, Moses paid great honor to the number seven.104

The connection with Moses may, however, have a more specific relation to Rome, suggesting that the illumination of the Sistine Chapel was linked to important surviving Roman medieval traditions. The seven-branched Candelabrum which, according to Exodus 25:31-35, was made together with the Ark of the Covenant by the Israelites in the wilderness was used by Moses, according to the command of God, to illuminate the Tabernacle. A screen was set up inside the Tabernacle in front of the altar. The most precious object contained in the altar of the Tabernacle was the Ark of the Covenant. Inside the Ark of the Covenant were the Tables of Law inscribed by God and given to Moses as described in Exodus 25-40. The Ark of the Covenant, which later found a resting place in the Temple of Solomon, was among the spoils pillaged from the Temple of Jerusalem by Titus and brought, together with the Tables of the Law and the seven-branched Candelabrum, to Rome. Early medieval Roman tradition held that these precious Hebrew relics were given by Constantine to the Basilica of the Lateran, where they were buried in the high altar. Among Constantine's documented gifts to

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9) Pinturicchio (?), ">, preparatory drawing (?), Vienna, Albertina, Inv. 4861, (Photo: Lichtbildwerkstitte 'Alpenland')

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the Lateran were seven golden candelabra, each ten feet high, that were placed before the altar. These candelabra still existed in late medieval times. Thus just as the Old Law was preserved in Rome and continued to be illuminated by seven great candelabra, so also does it appear that the New Law, symbolized by the church of St. Peter as the new Moses and his successors, the popes, was illuminated by seven magnificent candelabra.105

The choice of historical scenes above was not fortuitous. Though we may never know precisely why Julius was interested in having the essentially new ceiling of the vault repainted, the reasons presented by Wilde and others do not appear to provide sufficient explanation.106 Merely to keep Michelangelo in his employ could have been accomplished in other ways by Julius, including by allow- ing Michelangelo to continue work on his monumental tomb. Nor does the "addition" of a "new" program seem a satisfactory explanation. It is evident from a letter of May 10, 1506, that Julius had already decided on the repainting of the ceiling and that Michelangelo was his choice for the commission.107 To remove Michelangelo from work on the tomb, in itself a major commission, and to put him to work on the Sistine Chapel suggests that Julius had a firm resolve to change the ceiling previously painted by Piermatteo d'Amelia for Sixtus.108 Perhaps, originally, this idea was bound up with a Julian notion of expressing his own high office by replacing the papal arms of his predecessor, essentially the only image in the vast original ceiling.

Assuming Julius' determination to continue the theme of the Law, this might have been met with a. series of twelve enthroned apostles painted on the twelve pendentives for they would have symbolized, as Esther Dotson points out, the twelve thrones (of judgment).109 However the new theme, as it evolved, was far rich- er.110 It served well to transform a 'poor' program which was not appealing to Michelangelo into a vastly more enriched one in which he could demonstrate his virtuosity. Moreover, Julius-himself a canon lawyer-could thereby express his admiration for the supreme law of God and, as well, his passionate and consuming interest in memorializing ancient Rome (and through this, himself). Though the new program was indubitably more challenging to the many talents of Michelangelo, as the artist himself suggests in a later letter, it is not yet clear precisely to what extent Michelangelo himself was its inventor.111

The basic theme of Law and Rome corresponded to Julius' goals in rebuilding the Ecclesiastical State as it did with the immense flattery he enjoyed in being hailed as a second Julius Caesar (also a 'Giulio'), from whom his flatterers imagined him descended and whose imperious duty as governor of Rome, and therefore of the world, he had inherited. In suggesting that he was a descendant of the Caesars, Julius' right to rule Rome could be sanctioned and extended to a universal power over cannon and civic law. Since the

emperor had abdicated his Roman duty in being absent from Rome, the providential mission given by God to the Roman people noted by Virgil and Dante had been disregarded. Thus was it incumbent upon Julius to remind his contemporaries that it was the Roman emperor who had power over all other monarchs. This concept of the universal jurisdiction of Roman law suggests that since Roman law is the Divine Will, then obedience to Rome is obedience to Divine Will.112

For a leader who had such quarrelsome relationships as did Julius with the civic princes of Italy as well as with the French king, Louis XII, and the emperor, Maximilian I, such a concept might have been more than appealing. To Julius a widely expanded world now looked for the extension of Christianity. As an ardent consolidator of papal administration deeply motivated to embellish his see and memorialize himself, the triumphs in which he appeared in the guise of a Roman emperor to the cries of "Giulio!" cannot but have recalled his great namesake who Ovid had obligingly borne to heaven as a god. Through his accomplishments as a warrior, his work as the Vicar of Christ, and the magnanimity of his commissions, Julius could no doubt imagine himself immortalized as Ovid had seen Julius Caesar high in the sky over the Eteral City. Thus the hurried unveiling of the Ceiling on All Saints' Day would have constituted yet one more 'triumph.' Surely this was well understood by Vasari in commenting that the oak leaves and acorns of the ignudi signified that at this time and under the government of Julius was an Age of Gold. Pietro Bembo, too, had noted in a poem in praise of Julius that the sacred oak of Julius whose acorns had once nourished heroes would return the world to its pristine honor; even Egidio da Viterbo, not always so lavish in his praise of his patron, had noted in a 1507 sermon that the reign of Julius represented the fulfillment of the Golden Age which had flourished in ancient Italy.113 Thus extolled, Julius II became the representative of God's law on earth.

Taking into account the themes of the Old Law of Moses and the New Law of Christ pictured below and emphasized by their accompanying inscriptions (which were clearly visible when the Ceiling was painted), the portraits of the popes on the upper walls underline the idea of the primacy and supremacy of the pope and the message of Petrine authority. This authority was cited even in the (now lost) altarpiece of the Assunta located on the west wall of the Chapel, in which Sixtus was portrayed kneeling under the pro- tective hand of St. Peter, the new Moses, who, placed on the side of the Moses wall, rests his key-symbolic of his role as legislator of the New Law-on the shoulder of Sixtus. [Fig. 10]114 So too the tapestries designed by Raphael (commissioned by Leo X) to cover the fictive tapestries of Sixtus can be read as examples of Divine Authority expressed in the acts of Peter and Paul, the Christian guardians of Rome and the co-founders of the Roman Church. Medieval tradition in Rome, well known in visual imagery since the fourth century (especially through the theme of Traditio Legis), showed Peter and Paul as magistrates, or legislators, that is, as

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10) Michelangelo,


11) Michelangelo, , Rome, Vatican, Sistine Chapel (Photo: Monumenti Musei e Gallerie Pontificie)

The above hypothesis provides good reason to suggest that the historical painting traditionally regarded as the Sacrifice of Noah relates rather to the sacrifice of Abel and Cain, as both Condivi and Vasari had identified it-Condivi in 1553 and Vasari in 1568 [Figs. 10-11].116 Rejecting Condivi's and Vasari's indications, modem criti- cism has insisted that the sacrifice is Noah's. It is often pointed out that Genesis 8:20 states that Noah sacrificed beasts and birds of every kind.117 Because, it was imagined, the fresco showed a fowl

being sacrificed, Noah's sacrifice was therefore exemplified. The doubts of many that the subject of this scene might be related to the sacrifice of Abel and Cain has also depended on the fact that no cor, or fruit of the ground (Cain's offering) is represented here.118 Consequently scholars have remained unable to explain why Michelangelo would, in such an important work, have put one event out of sequence (the sacrifice of Noah occurred after the Flood yet it is represented before it in chronological order of the Ceiling).

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? .. . .' . .' I. ..

1.


Perhaps they have assumed, as Freedberg, that Michelangelo changed the order of events for (unspecified) 'compositional' reasons.119 Hartt proposed a most ingenious reason to explain why this might be the case. Such a discrepancy in the order of the paintings, he suggested, is in reality a "key" to understanding "the deeper meaning of the whole."120 Though James Beck recently suggested that Condivi and Vasari should be taken seriously, his argument was primarily stylistic.121 As will be seen below, there is good reason to believe that the subject of this fresco is the Sacrifice of Abel rather than that of both brothers. This subject fits perfectly the contents of Michelangelo's painting as well as the sequence of events in the Ceiling. It is also harmonious with the overall theme of the Law.

Though the silhouette in the darkened center foreground of the fresco might, in the pre-cleaned Ceiling, have resembled a cooked chicken-tied, trussed, and table-ready-there is no explanation as to why the bundle believed by many to be a fowl would be previously cooked (fit for a modem Western table) and presented as ready to eat while the other animals are still alive. The altar behind is being prepared as wood is brought in, so the moment appears to represent the beginning, not the end, of the sacrifice. In effect, I am unable to discover a fowl anywhere in the painting. The bundle being passed in the foreground is certainly not a fowl but-as the recent cleaning reveals-a bright, red and bloody mass. This can suggest nothing other than animal viscera that, as we know from Ovid and other Roman writers, constituted the first part of the appropriate sacrifice.122 Essentially, the only animals in the foreground are rams (the animal that Abel sacrificed), and one of them is being prepared for sacrifice while being subjugated by a man who sits over it, control- ling it from both sides while passing the bundle of viscera he has just extracted. Another ram is being subjugated to the far left.

It is again Philo who helps the viewer here. Though his account of the Creation leads to the Great Flood, and though he alludes to the Drunkenness of Noah by including a chapter on Drunkenness, the Sacrifice of Noah does not appear as a subject in his writings. However, Philo does place a great importance on that of the sons of Adam and Eve. A separate treatise, entitled De Sacrificiis Abelis et Cainiforms part of the works translated for Sixtus IV. In this work Philo explains that Abel and Cain did not make their offerings at the same time. Abel made his first, and alone. Cain followed with his offering later, after many days. This interpretation of the biblical text is crucial to explaining why only one sacrifice (Abel's) occurs in this scene.

That sacrifice is alive. Abel's offering, Philo stresses, was alive; this is important because Cain's would be lifeless and dead and therefore not an appropriate sacrifice. Abel offered the firstlings of his sheep, which fulfilled the sacred ordinance decreed in Exodus. Because young animals are wild, Philo explains, they have to be tamed or subjugated. When controlled, they respond submissively, and this is pleasing to God. Abel offered not only the young live animal that had to be subjugated, Philo continues, but also the "fat" (the

innards) because to be pleasing to God the sacrifice had to be 'whole'-the entrails had to be offered first, followed by the live bod- ies.123 Throughout the discourse, Philo reminds the reader that his knowledge of this event is derived from the Law of Moses, who taught that wildness is equivalent to anarchy. The sacrificial animal had to be subjugated because to obey is to pass through the will of God. Thus the act of obedience to subjugation represents submission to authority.

The idea of Justice in this scene is supported by the prophet Isaiah whose presence, as designed by Michelangelo, is surely not accidental. Preoccupied with the sins of Israel and the evils of the present, Isaiah predicts a day of doom for Israel through the judgment of God. The words of the Lord, reminding the Israelites He will save them, stress the importance of live sacrifice: 'The beast of the field shall honor me..." In this passage (Isaiah 43:19-24), the Lord asserts his pleasure in burnt offerings that include the "fat." Seldom represented in the history of art, the sacrifice of Noah would have offered few parallels with the idea of Justice (and obedience and punishment) whereas the Sacrifice of Abel, in which God chose the sacrifice of the 'good' brother, Abel, and rejected that of the 'bad' one, Cain (who is subsequently punished), fits well with the theme of Justice and the Law, as well as with the chronology of the historical paintings and the descriptions of Michelangelo's friends.

In addition, this subject fits well the Roman character of the theme. The Collatio Legum Romanarum et Mosaicarum, probably the most important document of jurisprudence and law of pre- Constantinian times, offered the first integration of Roman law and religious (Old Testament) law, for it held that the antiquity and authority of Roman law lay in the fact that it was based on Mosaic law. It was this synthesis which led to what Charles Pietri describes as its natural cultural extension, Christian legislation emanating from Rome.124As Dante had regarded the Romans as chosen people who through their providential history came to be trustees of universal peace and just government until the end of time, the jurisdiction of the Roman empire over humanity had been recognized previously by St. Augustine. Just as God had allowed Troy to be destroyed so that Aeneas might come to Italy and found the families, including that into which Julius Caesar and Augustus were born (and from which Julius II was purportedly descended), which were to govern the world, Augustine argued, Cain was the founder of the City of the Devil whereas Abel was the founder of the City of God. Julius II (who was not an Augustinian) owned five copies of Augustine's De Civitate Dei in his private library, more than any other single literary work.125

Though it involved the obliteration of at least three Quattrocento paintings on the wall beneath, the Last Judgment is by the very nature of its subject thematically connected and continuous with the

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previous painting programs. So also was the plan for the Expulsion of Lucifer and the Bad Angels that, as described by Vasari, was designed to complete and complement the Last Judgment on the altar wall.126 Though it might be argued that Clement VII had good reason, in vindicating the desolation and despair of Rome, to desire as ardently as Vasari says he did the execution of the LastJudgment by Michelangelo, its subject-which involves the final expression of the Law at the end of history-forms appropriate juxtaposition with its predecessors which are concerned with the Law at the beginning of time and durng the course of history. In this sense, the cycle is complete.

The glory of its revelation fell to Clement's successor, the powerful and brilliant Paul III, who in obvious respect for the subject declined to ordain any changes. Perhaps, as Vasari speculated, the greatest painting on earth showing the 'true' Judgment and the 'true' Damnation, was decreed by God to show how Destiny works.127 No less an occasion than Christmas Day of 1541 was chosen for its unveiling. Perhaps this was intended to convey a message to the world shortly after the issuance of the papal bull that established the world-wide mission of the Jesuits and on the eve of the formal establishment of the Inquisition with its wide- ranging punitive powers.128 As Colin Eisler has observed, the shape of the altair wall suggests the Tablets of the law; perhaps this was an intended coincidence.129

Given the disparities of artistic style contained in the various major moments of decoration of the Sistine Chapel, it is clear that each of these moments was of intense future importance for the his-

This article was presented as a paper at the 1995 meeting of The Renaissance Society of America in New York. I would like to extend most grateful appreciation to Wemer L. Gundersheimer and the staff of The Folger Shakespeare Library, whose particular helpfulness and hospitality contributed significantly to its realization; also to Colin Eisler and O.J. Rothrock for their comments and encouragement. I am also indebted to Herbert L. Kessler and Carolyn Valone for suggestions on the subject of Early Christian Roman traditions. Appreciation is also expressed to the University of New Mexico for a Research Allocation Grant that helped make this study possible.

1 The words of Michelangelo's father are taken from a letter to Michelangelo reprinted in G. Poggi, 1/ Carteggio di Michelangelo, ed. P. Barocchi and R. Ristori, I, Florence, 1965. no. L.

tory of art in Rome, a city that-ironically-during the earlier Renaissance had lacked a 'school'of painting of its own. The importance of the capital of Christendom throughout this time as the greatest center of archaeology in the world may be considered to have interfaced with the idea of symbolizing through the construction of this building and its adomrnment a theme far more simple than the complex theological schemes that have been imagined and on which there is so far no general agreement. The idea of the Garden of Eden corresponds with the innocence of the Golden Age. Like the Silver Age, Original Sin was the loss of the innate faculty of Justice. The theme of Justice, authority and obedience to God's Law culmi- nates in the Last Judgment, the last event in world history. There is no doubt that the main subject of the Sistine wall frescoes does not consist in allusions to events in the life of Sixtus IV, so much as in expressing and underlining the authority of the pope as lawgiver.130 According to the message of the Sistine Chapel as a whole, the authority of God was transmitted to Moses, to Christ, to St. Peter and to the popes to the end of the world. Such a theme, incorporating well known sources, required, as Hope suggested with respect to the medallions, no complex theological planning.

Thus the overall theme of the universality of the Law, conflating biblical and classical ideas as Dante had compared Zeus, the giver of Law with Christ,131 paid substantial and triumphal tribute to its presence in the city of Rome and to the authority of its commission- ers. In this theme, whose continuity of purpose prevailed through the reigns of at least four popes, the twenty nude male youths and the bags of acorns they carry are of no small consequence.

2 The term 'first chapel of the world' is that used by Paris de Grassis, papal Master of Ceremonies, as cited by J. Shearman, in 'The Chapel of Sixtus IV," in The Sistine Chapel. The Art, the History and the Restoration, C. Pietrangeli, ed., London, 1986, 25. No attempt will be made here to cite the vast literature connected with the Sistine Chapel and the various stages of its adornment. The most essential historical sources are, of course, contained in the works of two of Michelangelo's contemporaries, Ascanio Condivi, Vita di Michelangelo Bvonarroti raccolta per Ascanio Condivi de la Ripa, Rome, 1553; and Giorgio Vasari, Le vite de' piu eccellenti pittori scultori ed architettori...(1568), G. Milanesi, ed., Florence, 1881, VII, esp. 173-216; as well as in letters and other documents connected with the Chapel and its works. Among the mod-

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ern sources that were most useful for this study are: E. Steinmann, Die sixtinische Kapelle, 2 vols., Munich, 1901-05 (a rich source of historical and doc- umentary information concerning the various stages of building and enrich- ment of the Chapel); Charles de Tolnay, Michelangelo, 5 vols., (1945), esp. II, Princeton, 1969 (containing important critical information as well as documents and letters); F. Hartt, "Lignum Vitae in Medio Paradisi: The Stanza d'Eliodoro and the Sistine Ceiling," The Art Bulletin, XXXII, 1950, 116-45 and 181-218 (including the "Critical Statement" of E. Wind in The Art Bulletin XXXIII, 1951, 41-47 and Hartt's reply in the same issue, 262-73); J. Wilde, 'The Decoration of the Sistine Chapel," Proceedings of the British Academy, XLIV, 1958, 61-81; H. von Einem, Michelangelo, Stuttgart, 1959, 49-71; E. Wind, "Maccabean Histories in the Sistine Ceiling," Italian Renaissance Studies, E.F. Jacob, ed., London, 1960, 312-27; Charles de Tolnay, "Michelangelo," in Encyclopedia of World Art, IX, New York and London, 1964, esp. cols. 884-98; L. D. Ettlinger, The Sistine Chapel before Michelangelo, Oxford, 1965 (which brings together much of the information since Steinmann's publication and presents a comprehensive interpretation of the first stages of the Chapel and its adornment); Staale Sinding-Larsen, "A rereading of the Sistine Ceiling," Institutum Romanum Norwegiae Acta ad Archeologiam et Artium Historiam Pertinentia, IV, 1969, 143-57 (which suggests an ecclesiological iconography for the Chapel as a whole); C. Seymour, Michelangelo, The Sistine Ceiling, New York, 1972; Esther G. Dotson, "An Augustinian Interpretation of Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling," The Art Bulletin, LXI, 1979, 198-223 and 405-30 (which puts forward an Augustinian interpretation of the Ceiling based on the 'universal' knowledge of St. Augustine, an interpretation not necessarily incompatible with the material presented here which is of a more general nature); Shearman, op. cit., 22-91; J. O'Malley, 'The Theology behind Michelangelo's Ceiling," The Sistine Chapel. The Art, the History and the Restoration, Carlo Pietrangeli, ed., London, 1986, 92-148; Charles Hope, "The Medallions on the Sistine Ceiling," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, L, 1987, 200-04 (which offers a persuasive argument for Michelangelo's responsibility for the program of the Ceiling); M. Finch, 'The Sistine Chapel as a Temenos: An Interpretation Suggested by the Restored Visibility of the Lunettes," Gazette des Beaux Arts, LXV, Feb. 1990, 53-70 (which argues that a basic theme of the Ceiling is the reconstruction of an ancient temenos fashioned according to a Roman language); and K. W. G. Brandt, "Michelangelo's Early Projects for the Sistine Ceiling," in Michelangelo Drawings, Craig H. Smyth, ed., Washington, D.C., 1992, 57-87 (which discusses the evolution of the layout and planning of the Ceiling.

3 Rather than analyzing the many different interpretations and theories put forward so far with regard to one part or another of this monument, this paper will assume the importance of these existing interpretations in, for want of space, restricting itself to a discussion of a new consideration regarding a possible overall theme pursued throughout the history of the adornment of this building.

4 That the ignudiare captives of ancient ignorance was proposed by S. J. Freedberg (Painting of the High Renaissance in Rome and Florence, Cambridge, Mass., 1961, 97). That they are symbols of the beauty of the human body was suggested by J. Klaczko (Rome et la Renaissance: Essais et Esquisses: Jules II, Paris, 1902, 384-86) and repeated by A. Michel (Histoire de l'art depuis les premiers temps Chretiens jusqu'a nos jours, IV (I), Paris, 1909, 565-71) and others; that they are genii was suggested by Tolnay n Michelangelo, II, 1945, 63-66; that they are slaves or Atlantean strong men was proposed by Heinrich Wolfflin ("Die sixtinische Decke Michelangelos," Repertorium fir Kunstwissenschaft, XIII, 1890, 264-72 and again in "Ein' Entwurf Michelangelos zur sixtinischen Decke," Jahrbuch der koniglich preussischen Kunstsammlungen, XIII, 1892, 178-82), Steinmann ("Die Atlanten," in op cit., II, 241-61); A Venturi ("La volta della Sistina," L'Arte, XXII, 1919, 85-94), and frequently repeated in survey materials (e.g. I. Earls, Renaissance Art, New York and London, 1987, 139); that they might be

angels is suggested by surviving earlier drawings for the Ceiling as noted by Tolnay in Michelangelo, II, 1945, 63 and disputed by Freedberg in op. cit., 96. R. Kuhn suggested (in Michelangelo Die sixtinische Decke, Berlin-New York, 1975, 52-58) they are cherubim such as had decorated Solomon's temple. That the ignudiare adolescent heroes specially invented by Michelangelo for this occasion was suggested by A. Foratti ("Gli 'Ignudi' della Volta Sistina," L'Arte, XXI, 1918, esp. 110-13). That they are symbols of eternal life was suggested by Seymour (op. cit., 86); that they are acolytes of Christ by Hartt (op. cit., 136-138); that they are "athletes" of God by C. Eisler (in 'The Athlete of Virtue: the Iconography of Asceticism," De artibus opuscula XL, Essays in Honor of Erwin Panofsky, New York, 1961, 82-98 and n. 76); that they are celestial images or "Victory angels" by Finch (op. cit., 64-65); that they are merely decorative supporters of medallions by Tolnay (Michelangelo, II, 1945, 64), Freedberg (op. cit., 95-97) and O'Malley (op. cit., 100) who adds that they lack narrative or symbolic meaning. While all these interpretations assume the ignudito be secondary in terms of their importance for the iconography of the Ceiling, this view is most clearly stated in the explanation of Freedberg (/oc. cit.).

5 See illustrations of ducato or fiorino di camera and a doppio grosso (1471-84) of Sixtus, with bibliography, in G. B. Picotti, "Sisto IV Papa," in Enciclopedia italiana, XXXI, Rome, 1936, 922-23. Cf. with stemma illustrated in G. Castellani, "Della Rovere," in Enciclopedia italiana, XII, Rome, 1935, 544-55. See also R. Weiss, The Medals of Pope Sixtus IV, Rome, 1961. On the use of this symbol by Julius II in papal coinage and medals see G. L. Hersey, High Renaissance Art in St. Peter's and the Vatican, Chicago, 1993, 12 and 44-45.

6 See E. Bentivoglio and S. Valtieri, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome, 1976, fig. 83.

7 Bentivoglio and Valtieri, op. cit., 41 and fig. 46. 8 The miniature, from Vatican Cod. Lat. 2044, is reproduced as the

frontispiece of Pietrangeli, op. cit. On the tomb of Sixtus IV in St. Peter's Basilica see L. D. Ettlinger, Antonio and Piero Pollaiuolo, Oxford, 1978, 148- 51. Regarding the subtle pattern of oak decoration that appears throughout the fictive tapestries of the lower wall, see Shearman, op. cit., esp. 41-42.

9 Bentivoglio and Valtieri, op. cit., fig. 87. This tomb is, however, richly ornamented with acanthus and palm leaves.

10 It should, however, be noted that Bentivoglio and Valtieri speculate that a small sculptured medallion inserted by Bramante in the heart of the shell covering the choir of Sta. Maria del Popolo may have contained the oak tree emblem. Surviving visible evidence to support this suggestion (ibid., 26 and figs. 35, 36 and 37) is lacking.

11 Written in Michelangelo's lifetime (the revised version published shortly after his death), Vasari's account provides us with a detailed description of events associated with the completion of the tomb of Julius (op. cit., passim). Regarding the complex history of this monument, see esp. Tolnay, Michelangelo, IV, 1945.

12 Freedberg, op. cit., 95-97. 13 Tolnay, Michelangelo, II, 1945, 63-65 and, more specifically, Idem,

"Michelangelo," 1964, col. 886. 14 The Timaeus, a part of which had been translated by Cicero, was

known throughout the Middle Ages largely through the 5th century translation and commentary of Chalcidius. The literature on the survival of Plato into Renaissance times is extensive. See P. 0. Kristeller, The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, V, Conant trans., New York, 1943; Idem, Renaissance Thought and Its Sources, New York, 1979; and esp. James Hankins, Plato in the Italian Renaissance, 2 vols., Leiden, 1990.

15 See Plato, Phaedo, secs. 96-98, and Protagoras, 320D-327C. That both works were known in Italy before the time of Marsilio Ficino is certain for a manuscript containing the Phaedo was translated by Leonardo Bruni in about 1405. On this see R. Sabbadini, Le scoperte dei codici latini e greci ne'

38


secoli XIV e XV, I, Florence (1905), 1967, 50-52. Another, of the Opuscula (including the Protagoras) was copied by Bartolomeo da Montepulciano in about 1418. On this see R. R. Bolgar, The Classical Heritage and its Beneficiaries, Cambridge, 1954, 483 (and regarding Bartolomeo see Sabbadini, op. cit., I, 70-80 and passim).

16 Hesiod, Works and Days, esp. lines 5-55; and Theogony, esp. lines 40-75. Regarding manuscripts of Hesiod collected during the 15th century see Sabbadini, op. cit., I, 52-53; and Bolgar, op. cit., esp. 497-98.

17 An inventory (of uncertain date but possibly 1513, in which case it was compiled on the occasion of the death of Julius) of Julius' books exists in Vatican Cod. Lat. 3966, fols. 111-17.

18 Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, esp. II. iv-v. 19 Diodorus of Siculus, History, 1.7 (on the Creation). The first five books

of Diodorus' monumental work were known in the 15th century through a Latin translation of Poggio Bracciolini.

20 Diodorus of Siculus, op. cit., 1.8 (on the first men and their undisci- plined and bestial life).

21 See the following commentaries on the Creation by Philo: De Opificio Mundi (On the Creation), Legum Allegoriae (Allegorical Interpretation), and Quaestiones et Solutiones in Genesin (Questions and Answers on Genesis).

22 A vast literature exists on this broad subject. See esp. Robert McQ. Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity, New York, 1959, and Gershom Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah Mysticism and Talmudic Tradition (lec- tures at Jewish Theological Seminary of America), New York, rev. ed., 1965. On Saturninus' 2nd century revision of Genesis, which presented the origin of man as a luminous image in the mind of God, see Grant, op. cit., 98-102).

23 On the Sefer Yezirah, cf. the older literature (Hirsch [Heinrich] Graetz, Gnosticismus und Judenthum, Krotoschin, 1846, esp. 102-32; and Louis Ginzberg, "Yezira Sefer," in Jewish Encyclopedia, XII, New York and London, 1906, 602-06) with the newer literature (Gershom Scholem, "Yezirah, Sefer," in Encyclopedia Judaica, XVI, Jerusalem, 1971, cols. 782-88).

24 On the early Kabbalah, its origins in southem France, its doctrine and its development, see G. Scholem, Origins of the Kabbalah (1962), R.J. Zwiwerblowsky, ed., A Arkush, trans., Princeton, 1987, passim. By the 1480's the Florentine humanist Pico della Mirandola- had become extremely interested in the Kabbalah, as would become Egidio da Viterbo, appointed Vicar General of the Augustinian order in Rome by Julius II in 1506, during the 1520's.

25 It should be noted that though Philo was younger than Ovid, who he outlived, they were nonetheless approximate contemporaries. The comment in the text does not mean to hold that a specific textual relationship existed between their works.

26 An example of an early Cinquecento Roman humanist work that incorporates information based on Ovid's authority is the vast encyclopedic compendium on famous men, the natural world and the history of Rome and its emperors and pontiffs authored by Raffaelo Maffei (also known as Raffaelle Volterrano), the Commentaria Urbana, first published in Rome in 1506. A different approach to Ovid's appeal to humanists can be seen in Vasari's description of the festivities for the nuptials of Prince Don Francesco of Tuscany, where a special car was devoted to Saturn (who presided over the Age of Gold) in "Per le nozze di Francesco de'Medici," in Vasari, op. cit., VIII, 587-95.

27 Ovid, Metamorphoses, I, lines 1-88. 28 Ovid, op. cit., I, lines 89-113. 29 Ibid., I, lines 114-25. 30 Ibid., I, lines 125-319. On the significance of the Parnassus as a site,

see C. L. Joost-Gaugier, "Sappho, Apollo, Neopythagorean Theory and Numine Afflatur in Raphael's Fresco of the Parnassus," Gazette des Beaux Arts, CXXII, Oct. 1993, 123-34.

31 Ovid, op. cit., I, lines 320-440 and XV, lines 745-870.

32 Ibid., XV, lines 840-42 and 877-79. The quoted passage is trans. by F. J. Miller in Ovid, Metamorphoses, Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1944, 425 and 427.

33 Ovid, Metamorphoses, XV, lines 60-479. Here 'Pythagoras' contrasts the men of the Golden Age, who received food from the earth, with the 'new race' of men who committed sin and came to dread the Styx.

34 Ovid, Fasti, I, lines 295-306 and III, lines 795-800. 35 J. Seznec, The Survival of the Pagan Gods (1940), trans. B.F.

Sessions, Princeton, 1972, 91. For Virgil's description of the Golden Age see Georgics II, lines 536-43, and Aeneid VI, lines 792-97, VII, lines 202-05, and VIII, lines 315-30.

36 Seznec, op. cit., 91-92. 37 On this see ibid., 91-94. Regarding 12th century imitations of Ovid

and Ovidian works in reading lists of the 12th and 13th centuries see Bolgar, op. cit., 189, 197, 210, 223-24 and 423. On Ovid and his influence in the Middle Ages see esp. Giovanni Pansa, Ovidio nel medioevo e nella tradizione popolare, Sulmona, 1924; F. Ghisalberti, "Mediaeval Biographies of Ovid," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, IX, 1946, 10-44; and J.B. Trapp, "Ovid's Tomb, The Growth of a Legend," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, XXXVI, 1973, 35-76. Generally useful are E. K. Rand, Ovid and His Influence, Boston, 1925, and W. Brewer, Ovid's Metamorphoses in European Culture, Boston, 1933. See also C. Lord, Some Ovidian Themes in Italian Renaissance Art (diss. Columbia University 1968), University Microfilms, Ann Arbor, 1977.

38 Regarding this tradition see A. Graf, Roma nella memoria e nelle immaginazioni del medio evo, Turin, 1923, esp. 595-610; Paul Lehmann, Pseudoantike Literatur des Mittelalters, Leipzig, 1927, esp. 2-16; Edmond Faral, Recherches sur les sources latines des contes et romans courtois du moyen age, Paris, 1913, esp. chapters 1-3; and Idem, Les Arts poetiques du 12e et 13e siecle, Paris, 1924, esp. 43-60.

39 P. de Vitry, Les Oeuvres de Philippe de Vitry [Ovide Moralise] in Oeuvres publiees par Prosper Tarbe, Geneva, 1978, 3, lines 1-2.

40 Philippe de Vitry, op. cit., esp. 3, 10, 12, 14, 16 and passim. 41 See esp. P. Wicksteed and E. Gardner, Dante and Giovanni del

Virgilio, Westminster, 1902, esp. 220-50 and, on Giovanni's treatise on Ovid's Metamorphoses, 314-21. On Giovanni and other Trecento Ovidian writers, see the thorough study by F. Ghisalberti, "L'Ovidus Moralizatus di Pierre Bersuire," in Studj romanzi, XXIII, 1933, 1-134. Especially useful is Chapter I of this study, "I miti ovidiani e le dottrine della Chiesa." See also Idem, "Giovanni del Virgilio espositore delle Metamorfosi," Giornale Dantesco, XXXIV, 1931, 1-32 and, on Ovidian traditions in the late Middle Ages, Idem, "Amolfo d'Orleans, un cultore di Ovidio nel secolo XII," Memorie del Real Istituto Lombardo di Scienze e Lettere, XXIV (IV), 1932, 157-234.

42 Dante Alighieri, La Divina Comedia, Purgatorio XXII, 70-72 and 148- 50; also Paradiso XXI, 25-33.

43 Cf. Dante's discussion in De Monarchia I.xi.1 to Virgil, Eclogues IV.6: "iam redit et virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna" (now Justice returns as the reign of Saturn returns).

44 On the subject see F. A. Ugolini, I cantari d'argomento classico, Geneva and Florence, 1933, esp. 1-29, 97-135 and 180-82.

45 The Marvels of Rome [Mirabilia Urbis Romae], F. M. Nichols, ed. (1889), New York, 1986, I: The Foundations of Rome (3-4). On Noah's connection with Italy, and his reputation (in medieval legend) as the founder and builder of the city of Rome, which originally bore his name, see C. L. Joost-Gaugier, "Dante and the History of Art: The Case of a Tuscan Commune, Part I, The First Triumvirate at Lucignano," Artibus et Historiae, XXI, 1990, esp. 23-25.

46 Maffei, op. cit. (as cited in n. 26 supra), LXXIIII (r). Book VI, in which Maffei presents the history of Rome, opens with a discussion of Satum who, as the first King of Italy, reigned from the Capitoline. On Satur's importance for Italy, through Maffei's eyes, see CCCCXVI (v), CCCCXVIII (r), and CCC-

39


CLXXI (r). Cf. to Flavio Biondo's description of the Capitoline as a sacred location formerly known as Monte Saturninun in Roma instaurata, I, secs. 66 and 74 (in De roma trivmphante libri X... Romae instavratae libri III De origine ac gestis venetorum liber Italia illustrata..., Basel, 1559). Surely known to these writers were the comments of Virgil, who had noted Saturn's role in first building the Capitoline (Aeneid, VIII, lines 345-59), while Pliny (Naturalis Historia XXXIV.v) and Livy (Ab urbe condita libri Vll.xxxviii.2) cited it as a sacred location on which the temple of Jupiter the Thunderer was later built.

47 Graf, op. cit., 103. This is in accordance with Cicero's statement (in De Natura Deorum IIl.xvii.44) that Saturn is held in the highest reverence by people in the West-surely meaning Italy as opposed to Greece. Elsewhere in the same work (lI.xxv.64) Cicero describes Saturn as responsible for the forces of nature. On the significance of Saturn in the Roman pantheon see A. Brelich, "I primi re italiani," in Tre variazioni romane sul teme delle origini, Rome, 1955, 48-94; Georges Dumezil, Le religion romaine archaique (1974), 2nd ed., Paris, 1987, 281-82, 461 and 606-07; R. Schilling, Rites, cultes, dieux de Rome, Paris, 1979, 228-29, and G. Pucci, "Roman Saturn: the Shady Side," in Saturn from Antiquity to the Renaissance, ed. M. Ciavolella and A A. lannucci, Toronto, 1992, 37-49.

48 Graf, op. cit., 660. 49 A statue of Saturn is described in 1480 as still existing in the ruins of

a Roman temple dedicated to him and Bacchus by the (anonymous) author of La Edifichation de molti pallazi & tempii de Roma (Venice, 1480), reprinted in Five Early Guides to Rome and Florence, P. Murray, ed., Heppenheim, 1972 (no pp.). On Satur in Christian churches see Seznec op. cit., 131-33.

50 See, e.g., the description of the Sala di Saturno in the Palazzo Vecchio by Vasari in "Ragionamento Secondo," and that of Saturn's carriage in the festival decorations for the marriage of Francesco de'Medici cited above. Both are contained in Vasari, op. cit., VII, 35-44 and 593-95 respec- tively. On the imagery of Satur in decorations for the Palazzo Vecchio see J. Cox-Rearick, Dynasty and Destiny in Medici Art, Princeton, 1984, esp. 72-74 and 132-42. See also L. Mendelsohn, "Saturnian Allusions in Bronzino's London Allegory, " in Ciavolella and lannucci, op. cit., 101-39.

51 Graf, op. cit., 598; and Trapp, op. cit., 41-46. 52 R. Weiss, The Renaissance Discovery of Classical Antiquity (1969),

2nd ed., Oxford, 1988, 121. See also Pansa, op. cit., esp. Chapter XII, "Le statue e le immagini d'Ovidio," 133-50.

53 Graf, op. cit., esp. 602-03. See also Le Bible des poetes methamor- phoze, a prose translation of the Metamorphoses into French published as late as 1523 by P. Le Noire, Paris, a copy of which exists in the Library of Congress.

54 Biondo, op. cit., II secs. 52-53 and passim. Biondo frequently cites the authority of Ovid throughout his text. The work opens with a reference to the Fasti describing Janus and Saturn sharing the first kingdom of Italy. Albertini's work, the Opusculum de mirabilibus novae & veteris urbis Romae, is reprinted in Murray, op. cit. (as cited in n. 49 supra).

55 On these see Bolgar, op. cit., 249, 26

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C.L.joost-Gaugier, Michelangelo's Ignudi, And the Sistine Chapel as a Symbol of Law and Justice - 15 Mai