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 Justice
Author(s): Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier

Source: Artibus et Historiae, Vol. 17, No. 34 (1996), pp. 19-43
Published by: IRSA s.c.
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1483521
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CHRISTIANE L. JOOST-GAUGIER
Michelangelo'sIgnudi,and the SistineChapelas a Symbol

of Law and Justice
"Amme pare che ttu facci troppo"

These words, written by Lodovico Buonarotti to his son
Michelangeloin Rome on the 21st of July 1508, shortly after the
paintingof the Sistine Ceiling had begun, foretellwith 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.1Ever 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
Ceilingof the Sistine Chapel, 'the firstchapel in the world,'has occasioned considerable speculation with respect to the mysteries of its
thematic substance and whether or not its still uncertainessence is
connected with the rest of the decoration of this famous papal
chapel.2 It seems fair to say that followingalmost five-hundredyears
of discussion of these issues, consensus has not yet been achieved
on either the fundamentalmeaning of the Ceilingor the precise form,
if any, of its ideological relationshipto 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 Ceilingcommissioned by Pope Julius II between 1506 (when we

first know that Michelangelowas being considered for this project)
and 1508 (when the first of three contractswe 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 repaintedby Michelangelo
during the 1530s and early 1540s under Popes Clement VII and
Paul III,art historianshave tended to regard these commissions in
separate lights. Accordingly,the works involvedare often considered
representativeof differentstylistic moments in the development that
we now assign to Italianart-Early Renaissance, High Renaissance
and Mannerism.This segregation would also seem appropriatefor
the significantintervalsof time between each commission, and for
the fact that only two of their commissioningpopes (Sixtus IV and
Julius II)were members of the same previouslyimpoverishedand little known Ligurianfamily, the Della Rovere, while the other three
(Leo X, Clement VIIand Paul III)belonged to highlyvisible, politically
well established and wealthy Florentineand Central Italianfamilies,
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 intrinsicto
thematic discussion, offers not only an importantclue regardingthe
underlyingtheme of the Ceiling itself but, moreover, suggests that
the Ceiling is-as some have suspected-inherently related to the
19
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1) Michelangelo, the <(Sistine Ceiling)), Rome, Vatican, Sistine Chapel (Photo: Monumenti Musei e Gallerie Pontificie)
previous and subsequent decorations and, indeed, possibly even to

the purpose of the buildingitself as an architecturalmonument.3
For the great nude creatures, or ignudi, placed on the fictive
architecturalframework of the Ceiling, which have engaged the
imaginationof art historians,critics and other viewers since the cen20
tury in which they were created, there is no precedent in the history

of art [Fig. 1]. This in itself is significant.Since there has been no
context for discussion of their role, it has come to be assumed, as
though by default,that theirs is not a majorrole. Thus are they now
generally regarded as auxiliaryfigures who attend their more important painted colleagues.
MICHELANGELO'S
IGNUDI,AND THE SISTINECHAPELAS A SYMBOLOF LAWAND JUSTICE
..on
2) Michelangelo, <lgnudo,, Sistine Ceiling, Rome, Vatican,

Sistine Chapel (Photo: Monumenti Musei e Gallerie Pontificie)
3) Michelangelo, <lgnudo)>,Sistine Ceiling, Rome, Vatican,

The centralizingsymmetryof this constellationof nude male figures suggests, however, that their placement played a basic and
importantrole in Michelangelo'sscheme. To this end, their painter
even designed special seating arrangementsallowingtheir darkened
bodies to projectfrom the painted white marblethat defines the window-likeframeworkthroughwhich the 'historical'
(rectangular)scenes
representingevents from Genesis are viewed from below.Their number, twenty,and the richness of theirtorsion,together with the youthful age they all share, collaborateto invitethe beholderto supposeas many have-that they might be captives of ancient ignorance,
symbols of the beauty of the human body, genii, slaves, Atlantean
strong men, angels, adolescent heroes, symbols of eternal life,
acolytes of Christ,athletes of God, supportersof medallions,celestial

victoryimages, or some other sort of secondary figures. Some scholars have, in fact, held that they are without narrativeor symbolic
meaning.4 It will be suggested below that the bareness and boldness
of their rich and elaboratelyconceived design framingthe centralaxis
of the Ceilingoffers the expectationthat such a constellationof twenty rhythmically
spaced, grandlyarticulated,magnificentlyimaginedfigures constitute,rather,a populationof primaryactors in the scheme of
the Ceilingand in relationto the Chapel as a whole.
A unique element in the characterizationof the ignudi lies in the
attributesthat, aside from their youthfulness and in virtuallyevery
case, accompany them [Figs. 2-5]. Oak boughs, oak leaves, clusters
21
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5) Michelangelo, <lgnudo>, Sistine Ceiling, Rome, Vatican,

of oak leaves, acorns, and sacks of acorns attend these figures

and-what is perhaps most significant-only these figures. The fact
that these devices are not accorded prominence in connection with
any other figures in the Ceiling (thoughthey are used for decoration
for the imaginaryand actual architectureof the Chapel) suggests
that they are not merelyto be regarded,as many have held, as symbols of the Della Rovere family.Their conspicuous relationshipwith
these twenty figures, major in size and location, provokes the
thought that the association between the oak tree and these youthful figures is unique and specific.
This probabilityis underlinedif we consider what this symbol
meant for the Della Rovere family. Surely because the Latin word
roburor roboreus (rovere in Italian)refers to a member of the genus

quercus (quercia in Italian),or oak, known as the common oak, it
came to be regarded during the fifteenthcentury, when this family
rose to prominence with the election of Francesco Della Rovere
(Sixtus IV)to the papacy in 1471, as an appropriatevisual reference.
Thus we find stylized oak tree emblems containing splayed roots
and intertwined branches on coins associated with the reign of
Sixtus (1471-84),5 and in tomb decorations,for example in those of
CristoforoDella Rovere, who died in 1478,6 and Gerolamo Basso
Della Rovere, whose sepulchral monument was erected in 1509 by
Sixtus' nephew, Julius 11.7A pattern of oak leaves, independently
designed and colored, frames a portraitof Sixtus in a miniaturefrom
22
MICHELANGELO'S
Bartolomeo Platina'sLiberde vita Christiac omniumpontificum,and
oak leaves are used in the decorationof the bronze Tombof Sixtus
IV completed in 1493 by Antonio Pollaiuolo,as well as in the frescoed '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 ornamentaldevices in backgrounds,frames or borders.
The emblem is, however, not always prominentin monumental
works connected with this family.It is not evident,for example, in the
sepulchre of GiovanniDella Rovere, who died in 1483.9 Nor does it
play a conspicuous role in the architectureof the Roman church of
Santa Mariadel Popolo,10a structureessentially associated with the
reign of Sixtus, or in the painted decoration of the Sistine Chapel
walls where the rectangularQuattrocentofrescoes are separated by
patternsof acanthus and palm leaves. References to this hardiestof
trees are likewise not prominent in Pinturicchio'spainted vault for
Santa Mariadel Popolo, completed duringthe reign of Julius, or in
the Stanza della Segnatura, a monument of major importancethat
was the private libraryof Julius, painted next door by Raphael
between 1508 and 1511-during the very years that Michelangelo
was engaged in paintingthe Sistine Ceiling. Even in the tomb of
Julius, at San Pietro in Vincoli, begun by Michelangeloand hastily
completed after the death of Julius (which occurred in 1513),11only
the old stylized emblem appears, crowningthe border decoration.
The distinctlyornamentaluse of this symbol in famous monuments connected with famous members of this newly famous family
suggests that though indeed the oak figures in the familystemma, it
was not accorded elsewhere the importanceand prominencethat its
great boughs and sacks in the shape of cornucopias (suggesting
emblems of abundance), and garlands brimmingwith 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 peculiarto
the grand ignudi.
Given this tantalizingcombinationof circumstances, the question arises whether thematic interpretationsof the Ceiling have
wrongly relegated the ignudi to a role that Sydney Freedberg characterizes as 'childish'in that they attend, like uncomprehending
innocents at play, the historicalscenes which constitute for him (as
for others) the principalsubjects of the Ceiling.12Anextension 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 surroundingignudi.13While, on the one hand, little
visible connection exists between these figures and the prophets
and sibyls below, on the other Tolnay refrains-and perhaps wisely-from explainingwhich of the seers had visions of the Creationof
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 primarilyinterestingto Christiansfor the
gifts they offered regardingfuture events, especially those concern-
ing the coming and passion of Christ,ratherthan for their interest in

past events such as the Creation.
The subject of the Creationwas, however, a very importantone
in the Renaissance [Fig. 6]. This importancewas not new, considering the fact that attentionto this subject in the MiddleAges had been
considerable. Medieval interest in the biblical creation had been
accompanied by a knowledge of how heaven and earth arose, in a
practicalway, out of Chaos throughthe agency of the One (God) as
presented by Plato in the dialogue Timaeus.14The Timaeuswas one
of the major works of antiquitythat had survived throughoutthe
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. Duringthe
later part of the fifteenthand 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 knownto humanist scholars.15 So also were other works of classical antiquityconcerned with this subject.
Among these was the De caelo of Aristotle,which argues for an
ungenerated, eternal, universe with no beginning in time that underwent a uniformcircularmotion around a central earth. This was the
leading book in the astronomical curriculumduring the thirteenth
century. It influencedNicole Oresme, one of the most sophisticated
natural scientists of the followingcentury, to compose the Livre du
ciel et du monde, a work primarily
concerned with the question of the
rotationof the earth. The Almagest of Ptolemy, meanwhile,was well
appreciatedfor its predictivepower by those who could understand
its numericaltables but less so for its failureto 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 differentalternative.
Both the Worksand Days and the Theogony open with descriptions of Zeus thunderingin the heavens.16However, in these worksthe
reader perceives that the loud thundererand his race of gods already
exist on the peaks of MountOlympusfromthe beginningof time in an
alreadycreated universe. For Hesiod, Zeus is above all importantfor
creatingand supervisingLaw and Justice in the world.In his Naturalis
Historia,a workwhich Juliusowned in his privatelibrary,17
Pliny voices his uncertaintyas to whetherone god or many gods rule the universe which, at any rate, alreadyexisted at the time of the imposition
of divine rule.18Relyingon the older Greek astronomersAnaxagorus
and Melanippe,whose workswere stillknownto him in the firstcentury B.C., Diodorusof Siculusspeculates, in his History,that all elements
of the firstgenerationof the universewere intermingled
in a kindof uniform mud. These eventuallyseparated from one another by physical
wet fromdry,and
processes which sorted out motionfrom immobility,
hardfromsoft, in the end givingform (withoutthe intervention
of a god
or gods) to life itself.19For him the first men were thereforeundisciplined and ignorantbeasts.20
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6) Michelangelo, ((The Creation)), Rome, Vatican, Sistine Chapel (Photo: Monumenti Musei e Gallerie Pontificie)
Pliny's ambivalence respecting the existence of a divine creator

receives complementarybalance 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 monolithicGod (of Hesiod and
Genesis) with Plato's causal god. In replacingthe confusing picture
offered by his predecessors with a coherent one that welded togeth24
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
Platonistsbut also was the historicalancestor of Moses to whom He,
God, had entrustedthe Law.21
Following Philo, variationsof the Neoplatonic doctrine of emanationor creationout of the indeterminatebeing or the natureof God
MICHELANGELO'S
alone survived in certain elements of Christianand Gnostic thought
as well as in Jewish Neoplatonismof early medieval times.22One of
the early texts on this subject - and the oldest extant one - that
enjoyed a wide circulationand influence in learned circles of the
MiddleAges gave a distinctlymysticalcharacterto the discourse on
cosmology. This work,the Sefer Yezirah(Book of Creation) contains
Gnostic elements and is strongly linkedwith Jewish speculations on
Divine Wisdom which, through a system of primordialnumbers,
including thirty-two 'secret paths,' explains the Creation of the
Cosmos.23 Such interpretationswere known, throughthis and other
texts, to early Kabbalistsfor whom the idea of creation out of nothing evolved-especially from the thirteenthto the sixteenth centuries
by which time it had nurturedon Italiansoil-to a complicatedmystical paradox.24
It was, however, Ovid's Roman imaginationthat broughttogether Plato's physical creation of the universe by an 'unmoved mover'
with the Hesiodic conceptionthat linkedthe role of the supreme god
(Zeus, who already existed) with the origin of Law and Justice, the
Diodorianidea of the existence of a primordialrace 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 Neopythagoreanthoughtthat came to be interpreted as moral and thus could be harmonizedwith religious doctrine and become absorbed into the extensive body of humanist
learning of the early sixteenth century.26Ovid's account of the
Creation,as presented in the Metamorphoses, moves from the creation of the worldout of chaos by a God who acts single-mindedlyto
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 mountaintop, repropagatedthe earth.
Earlyon in his account, Ovid explains the early chaos of Nature,
which was a rounded body of rollingelements unifiedinto one-perhaps not unlike Michelangelo's conception of the first Creation
scene. God separated land and water, and lightfrom dark. Yet the
earth was not complete, Ovid asserts, untilman was moulded out of
clay mixed with the livingfluidof God so that he, man created in the
image and likeness of God and thereforedifferentfrom the beasts of
the earth, was god-like himself.27
It is this race of men who constitutedfor Ovid's great hexameter poem the Age of Gold. In this time, under the rule of the primordial god Saturn,nothingwas forbidden,and so there was no need of
Law. War did not exist. Peace and abundance reigned. The earth
was innocent. Agriculturewas 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 Springwith 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 youthfulness of this race.28
It was afterthe Golden Age of Satum, when men had lived hapas
pily theirgod, that Jupiterbegan to rule the world.Duringthis time,
the Silver Age, the discomfort of harsh changing seasons first
appeared and men were requiredto buildshelters and to plant grain.
Inthe Age of Iron,whichfolMen began to fear the Law (of Jupiter).29
lowed, love, innocence and truth gave way to violence, profitand
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 thunderboltand sent a mightyflood to cover the earth as a
sign of his ster Justice. In the Great Flood, men tried to escape by
rowingboats, climbingon roof tops, and hanging on to fallen branches, not unlikethe events depicted in Michelangelo'sGreat Flood.The
couple who were miraculouslysaved found themselves, when the
waters receded, on one of the twin peaks of MountParnassus (a site
of great importancefor Raphael's contemporarypaintingof the same
name in the Stanza della Segnatura).30Dippingtheir hands into a
sacred stream, the Cephisus (also represented in Raphael's'
Parnassus), the couple performeda kind of baptism that allowed
them to regenerate the human race which eventuallyculminated,in
Ovid's own time, in the unparalleledmagnificenceof Rome as the
Eternaland ImmortalCity, and the apotheosis of its emperor,Julius
Caesar (coincidentallythe civic 'patron'of Julius II as will be discussed below), into a star that burs forever in the sky.31Thus, as
Ovid put it, Caesar, illustriousin war and peace, rulerof the worldand
promoterof 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...throughall the ages shall [he] live in fame.32
Mankind'shappy days before the knowledgeof commerce, agriculture, and war-and before the necessity of written laws which
were occasioned after Jupiter dethroned Saturn-are recalled
towardsthe end of the Metamorphoses when, in the so called "discourse of Pythagoras," Ovid makes a powerful argument for
Neopythagoreanismin recommendingthe foods of the earth's plants
and trees be eaten as in the 'pristine'age which was the "Golden"
age blessed with the fruitof the trees before men learned to defile
their lips with the blood of animals and to dread the judgmentof 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 dethroningof 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. Virgilrememberedthe Golden Age when men ate the products of the earth and, springingfromthe oak, were righteousand 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 celebratedwork was at first more
difficultto reconcile with philosophyand theology than the Aeneid
whose exaltationof 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 moralvalue in the worldof Ovid.36Within
the next four centuries Ovid was accorded a prominentplace among
the edifying classical authors the authorityof whose enlightening
texts were invoked in demonstratingChristiangoals.37 An efflorescence of extracts and commentariesbased on the Metamorphoses
occurredin the twelfthand thirteenthcenturies, 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
traditionculminated in the many versions of the so-called Ovide
moralise, known primarilyin France but also in Italyfrom the early
fourteenth century.38Philippe de Vitry, its probable composer, did
not disguise the possibilitiesof spiritualinstructionto be derived from
a Christianinterpretationof Ovid's celebrated work. From the beginning of his long poem he advises his reader,
Se I'escripturene me ment,
Tout est pour nostre enseignement.39
Thus, in associatingwith man made of clay in the image of God,
the reader is instructedthat followingthe creation of the firmament,
of light and dark, of earth and land, the first man was created.
Insteadof findinghimself in an eternal Springhe found himselfin the
Garden of Eden where, in a land without agricultureand without
greed, without arms, withoutwar, and withoutlaws, he understood
only one rule-his covenant to serve God. Though the lengthy
medieval work eventuallydeviates from its Ovidiansource, 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 allegorizingcommentaries on the duty of man to
God.40 The importanceof Ovid and his account of the Creation is
reflected in other Ovidianallegories of the same century,for example the Allegorie and the Fabulae super Ovidium ascribed to
Giovannidel Virgilio,an early fourteenthcentury scholar and friend
of Dante. Giovanni gave courses in Ovidiana at the Universityof
Bologna and his influence appears to have reached Coluccio
Salutatiand other Florentinesby the end of the century.41That the
mythical lore of Ovid was as importantfor Dante as its Christian
applicationis nowhere more evident than in the Purgatorio, where
Dante muses, as Virgilhad before him, on the 'primotempo umano'
26
which he associates with Justice and the Golden Age when men
were content to eat acorns.42Again 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.43Thus the most popularclassical poet of the MiddleAges
had come to be immortalizedfor the Christian'tendencies'in his
most celebrated work, the Metamorphoses.
Concurrentwith these literarytraditions,popular traditionsthat
tended to conflateclassical fables with antiqueand biblicalhistoryare
known to have existed, especially in the later MiddleAges. Epic-narrativepoetrygave way, in Italyespecially,to songs, or musicalpoetry,
in which biblicalheroes came to be celebratedtogetherwith classical
heroes. Many of these poems and songs included materialdrawn
from Ovid which, mixed with biblicalhistory,became partof the legendary patrimonyof Rome and experienceda wide diffusion.44
The twelfthcenturyauthor of the Mirabliaurbis Romae repeatedly cites the witness of Ovid in describingthe sites and buildingsof
ancient Rome for contemporarypilgrimsand travelers. His account
of the foundationof Rome takes into considerationmedieval Jewish
legends about Noah as the founder of Rome which, mixed with
Ovidianinspiredideas about Saturn and Janus, suggest that after its
foundationby 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 fifteenthcentury and that would be recorded in the great encyclopedia of Roman humanism,the CommentariaUrbana, 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, consecrated,47and it was in his honorthat the day Saturdaywas named.48
Representationsof Saturn were known from Roman ruins and even
came, from late medieval times, to be imitatedin Christianchurches
where Roman, biblical and mythological heroes were sometimes
brought together with the Virtues.49This Trecento interest was to
persist well into the Cinquecentowhen, in Vasari's time, the imporand festance of Saturnfor Italywas a majorsubject for architectural
tival decoration.50
The memory of Ovid was enrichedand devotionto him accelerated in late medieval popularimagination.His purportedhouse 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
attireof a doctor.52Other traditionsthroughwhich, as a result of its
great popularity,the Metamorphoses came to be known as the
Pagan Bible and the Bible of Poets, and its authoras Ovidius magnus, Ovidiomaggiore and Ovide le grant, are also known.53
By mid Quattrocentotimes, informationfound in Ovidianworks
came to be considered as evidence in early archaeologicaltexts, as
MICHELANGELO'S
in the first comprehensive survey of ancient Rome, Flavio Biondo's
Roma instaurata. In 1510, Francesco Albertini also cited Ovid's
authorityin the Opusculum de mirabilibus.54Meanwhile, Ovid's critical fortune had been expanded through the interest of Poliziano
and others in his writings,culminatingin the editio princeps of his
work, printedby Azzoguidiin 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 individualworks were among the most
popular printedbooks of the late fifteenthand early sixteenth centuries. An Italiantranslationof the Metamorphoses, by Giovanni
Bonsignore, was printed by Giovanni Rosso for Luc'AntonioGiunta
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 subsequent printings.57The special popularityof Ovid's account of the
Creation (and the Golden Age) is reflected in the fact that some
printededitions 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 illustratedwith woodcuts that show the primordial god guiding his way among the rollingclouds of the untamed
universe, separating land from water, creating the sun and moon
with the expansive spread of his arms in opposite directions, and
makingthe first man from clay [Fig. 7]. Though their style is considerably different,the painted images of the Ceiling are not dissimilar
in thematic substance to subjects of woodcuts printedin editions of
this work that may be dated priorto the unveilingof Michelangelo's
Ceiling-which took place on All Saint's Day, 1512.59Not only does
this underscore the apparent relationshipbetween the Ceiling and
this literarywork, to which clearly the ignudi seem to be related, it
also reminds us that the legendary patrimonyof Rome, which conflated classical and biblical subject matter, is still very much alive.
Moreover, it suggests that illustratededitions 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 interpretationthat the population 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 upholdingfestoons 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'armee per I'impresadi papa
Giulio;denotando che a qual tempo ed al governo suo era I'eta

dell'oro,per non essere allora la Italianetravagli e nelle miserie
che ella e stata poi.61
Indeed the returnof Saturn,who had providedsweetness in life
before the appearance of avarice, was to be celebrated by Vasari
himself as a symbol of good governmentand the successful administrationof Justice. Perhaps it was precisely with the precedent of
the Sistine Ceilingin 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 inappropriateat this time. The association was as old as Hesiod,
who had stressed that man from the beginning of time flourished
under Zeus, the originatorof Justice. Before cities and war existed
Peace was the handmaidof Justice. It was the eye of Zeus that
supervised mortal men and kept watch over their judgments and
deeds.63 Linkedto the Creationand the originsof 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 buildcities 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 inheritthe idea that the
Law by itself, which was too technical, must be complemented with
grace.65And Dante, who knew the moral lessons to be derivedfrom
the Metamorphoses, could note the connection of Justice, in its
purest (original)form, to the Golden Age:
Secol si rinova;
torna giustizia e primotempo umano,
e progenie scende da ciel nova.66
Even in so remote an outpost of the Sienese Republicas the village of Lucignano,the unknownQuattrocentopainterof a fresco of
Janus carryinga cluster of oak leaves and acorns knew this meaning [Fig. 8]. For accompanied by words borrowed from Dante's
descriptionof early men eating acorns duringthe Golden Age, this
fresco was commissioned with its inscriptionto 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 dispensed.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 brimmingwith acors is a symbol of
the earth that flourishesin times of Justice. This symbol was shared
with Zeus, the giver of Justice, who watched over the golden race of
mortalmen who were born duringhis reign.68In tracing the history
of Rome, Virgilremembered the oak tree that had first nourished
man duringthe Golden Age and he reminded us that Saturn gave
the firstlaw at this time-which was Peace. It was in an oak vale that
27
7) <t'God'Creating Sun and Moon>, from Ovid, <Metamorphoses)>, 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-bearingoak that had first produced
food for mortalman was sacred to Jupiter,70and Ovid himself confirmedthis in the Tristia,a work which Julius owned in his private
library.71In the Metamorphoses, Ovid recounted a fable that confirmedthe miraculousnature of this sacred tree.72An Italianedition
of this work, printedas late as 1538, presents an illuminatingcommentaryin lieu of the poetryitself as Book I. Its text explainsthat the
reader willfind this work relatedto the Law and especiallyto the Old
Testament because even though Ovid did not have the benefit of
being a Christianhe understood the beginning of the world in the
same way that Moses did (and Christiansdo), as well as the Flood
28
which punished man for breakingthe Law. In the text that follows,
describingthe Golden Age, the importanceof the oak is stressed.73
If the hypothesis that the ignudi represent the Golden Age of
man and the Justice of the primordialGod is correct,this would suggest that they performan important,and primary,role in the development of the theme of the Ceiling as their attributesand location
suggest. The notionthat the historicalscenes alone are primarymay
therefore be modifiedto suggest that the followinggeneral subjects
were includedin the overallthematiclayout:The Golden Age of man
when man lived happilyand in a state of eteral youth accordingto
his covenant with his primordialGod, who had created the Cosmos
which functionsaccordingto a system of order;the Fall of Man, who
subsequently had discovered greed and sin and required punish-
MICHELANGELO'S
ment by the Law of God; the Great Flood,which came because man
had become depraved and requireda more serious punishment;the
emergence of Noah as the 'lust"man who was chosen by God to be
the first savior of man.74Therefore God made the firmament,God
made man, man was intrinsically
good (in the Golden Age and in the
Garden of Eden) untilhe disobeyed the Law of God and created sin.
This occasioned the Great Flood and the regenerationof mankind
and the need for a Redeemer. In this way the Hebrew and Christian
Bible (the Old Testament) and the "Pagan"Bible (the Ovidian legacy)-familiar sources that did not require theological expertisewere effectively combined and harmonized as the patrimony of
Christian Rome.
Michelangelograsped the very essence of this conflationin the
distributionand arrangementof 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 representingthe 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.75Thus the Ceiling may be
construed to represent the Law of God (PrimordialLaw). Its relation
to the previouslypainted subjects below as well as to their inscriptions, which stress the importanceof the law for Moses and Christ,
suggests a thematiccontinuityin that throughtheir dual roles as lawgiver and priest, Moses and Christare harmonizedin the pairingof
the scenes. Throughthe coming of Christthe Old Law was both fulfilled and supplanted in the New Law.76 In reigning above all,
PrimordialLaw is the source for Mosaic and Christianlaw (suggesting a Ciceronian interpretationin that Cicero had suggested in the
De Legibus, a work firstpublishedin 1498-which is set beneath the
branches of an acom-laden oak tree, that Divine Law is supreme
and reigns over civic law and religiouslaw). In this context, the Last
Judgment (or the FinalLaw)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 littleknown English humanistand bibliophile,Robert Flemmyng,for having noted, in a poem of 1477, that
the Sistine Chapel was at that time close to completion.Sixtus IV,he
informsus, had planned the buildingas well as its decorationwhich
had, as yet, not begun.77Though 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 IIIin 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 foundingwas announced in
1475, for reasons that will be discussed below. Flemmyng'spoem is,
in a sense, corroboratedby documents of 1481 and 1482 which indicate that the painted decoration, representing the Old and New
Covenants, was underway.79Most importantly,the poem suggests
8) <<Janus>,,Lucignano (Tuscany), Palazzo Comunale (Photo:

Gigliola Casini)
that the buildingwas not planned first,to be followedby the planning

of an unrelateddecoration, but that both were 'authored'(or determined) at once.
This inference assumes a certain importancewhen we take into
considerationthe findings of Eugenio Battisti regardingthe proportions and measurements of the new, strictly rectangular,structure.
Both conformed, he concluded, to explain the peculiarityof this reli29
gious structure. Its unique dimensions suggest it was modeled,
Battistiargued, 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 additionalevidence suggesting the height of the building conformed as well to that of the Solomonic structure.81
Significantsupport to Battisti'stheory 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 coincidencewas, 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 Lordbuiltto Him in thanksgiving for peace and in the expectation of God's cooperation. This
cooperationwas realized in the gift of wisdom which was recognized
in the constructionof a Porticoof Judgment, the site of Solomon's
throne which was known throughmedieval times as the seat of wisdom. Sixtus IV (who may, in embellishingRome with a magnificent
buildingto be decorated with a series of paintingsillustratingevents
from the Old and New Testaments, also have been imitatingthe
example of his namesake Sixtus IIIwho had constructedand decorated Sta. Maria Maggiore),had good reason to hope to emulate
Solomon's purpose, authorityand wisdom.83Devoted to establishing relations with the 'universal'Church, the early years of Sixtus'
reign presented a number of problems which promptedhim to turn
his attentionon politicsand Law. Plagued by disobedience withinhis
own order, he may have also discoveredthat in his early enthusiasm
to wage a grand crusade against the Turksand to take on the King
of France his image as an impoverishedFranciscantheologian and
scholar of Greek was insufficientto build upon. Aggrandizing the
Papal State and buildingthe Vatican Librarywere certainlytwo of
Sixtus' most visible goals. In this way he could assert his supreme
authorityas a sovereign prince. Perhaps the idea of a new monument of the EcclesiasticalState first occurredto him in 1475 when,
on the occasion of the celebrationof 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 followingthe example of Solomon, Sixtus no doubt enhanced
his status as a sacral king, perhaps in hopes of improvinghis relations with Louis Xl and other Europeanrulerswho were criticalof his
practices. This antagonismled to abortiveattemptsto curb his power
and to reconvene the Council of Basle with the goal of ending his
reign. In order to ensure his survival,Sixtus surroundedhimself with
his relatives and became devoted to exalting their estates. Such
causes led him to establish a chamber of one-hundredlegal experts
to oversee the affairsof the Papal States; in 1472 he reorganizedthe
primaryjudicialoffice of the Vatican,the Sacra Romana Rota.85Not
only did Sixtus himselfauthora treatise on the functionsof the pope,
the De potentia Dei, his reign produceda numberof treatises on the
30
authorityand powers of the pope.86The authorityof Solomon had

been recognized throughoutmedieval times, and the idea that his
temple, which survivedin spiritif not in fact in medieval imagination,
prefiguredthe Churchof the New Law established by Christhad first
The imageryof the
been suggested by Eusebius and Prudentius.87
new monument of the EcclesiasticalState designed by Sixtus thus
most likelywas intendedto signifythe authorityand duties of his high
office in that it was the universalsetting for the most solemn official
ceremonies of the Churchof the New Law.
Aside from these practicalconsiderations, it must be remembered that the Sistine Chapel was never meant to be a basilican
church or a privatefamilychapel. From the beginningit had a specific functionas the papal sanctuary,and as the most visible expression in the world of Sixtus'papal majesty and the authorityof the
order and rule of the Church.Thus its identificationwith the Temple
of Solomon, which as RudolphWittkowernoted had a universalsignificance in that it incorporated the numerical ratios of the
Pythagorean-Platoniccelestial harmony that demonstrated a cosmological theory of proportion, 88 would have been particularly
appropriate. In Renaissance Italy it was believed that Solomon's
Temple was based on the proportionsgiven by God to Moses for
buildingthe Tabernaclewhich was to be 'the fabricof the world."89
The locationof this unique buildingin 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 stillto be seen in the Basilicaof Saint John Lateran
in the twelfth century. For Dante, for whom Rome was the perfect
empire, Solomon's words were the model of perfectJustice. Another
traditionidentifiedRome as the new Jerusalem, and spoils from the
Templeof 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 interestedin the works of Philo at the time the Chapel was
being planned. As Leopold Ettlinger has shown, manuscripts of
Philo's writingswere collected in Italyduringthe fifteenthcentury.91
One of these, known from 1425, contained twelve works.92Another,
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'sworks.These include a lengthy explicationof the
Decalogue. By 1455, two manuscriptsof Philo's works were in the
libraryof Pope Nicholas V.94 References to Philo had begun to
appear in contemporaryliterature.The Greek scholar who translated the complete works of Philo for Sixtus, at the suggestion of
CardinalBessarion, was LilusTifernas.95The 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 Ettlingersuggests, the rediscovery of this importantwork,
which holds that Mosaic Law reflectsthe order of the universe, must
MICHELANGELO'S
have been a significantsource for the planning of the decorations
drawn from the life of Moses that line the south wall of the Sistine
Chapel. Ettlingernotes the sudden emergence of Moses as the hero
of a series of monumental frescoes which, otherwise, is without
precedent in the MiddleAges. Perhaps this may also be relatedto a
traditionstill alive in the Cinquecento that attributedthe founding of
Rome to Moses; and, according to an older medieval traditionstill
highly respected in the Cinquecento,the Tables of the Law given to
Moses by God on MountSinai and the Ark of the Covenant were
among the spoils of Jerusalem broughtto Rome from the Temple of
Solomon, where they were preserved together with the most precious Christianrelics in the Lateran.It is not unlikelythat the importance placed on these relics central to Judaism and Christianity
throughoutmedieval times and into the Renaissance may be intricately related to the choice of subjects for the Sistine wall paintings
which include numerous references to these relics.98
The Sistine wall frescoes, includingthe Finding of the Infant
Moses that was destroyed on the far wall, originallynumbered eight
Old Testament scenes. So also did their counterpartson the north
wall illustratingthe life of Christ,includingthe destroyed Baptism of
Christ number eight scenes. These are sequentially arranged and
paired in such a way that the scenes representingthe 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 egalitarianjustice.99
Designed to separate the enclosed presbyteryfrom the open
body of the Chapel, an elegant marble choir screen, now considerably altered,100formed the entrance to the most sacred part of the
Chapel, which includedthe altar and the papal throne, raised on a
platformby 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 introductionto the most sacred zone
of the Chapel. While the triple steps, complemented by the triple
zones of the marblestructureand the three tiers of the paintedwalls
to either side, might be viewed as reflectingtraditionalTrinitarian
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 supportthe seven great lights that
majestically illuminatedthe 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
Neopythagoreanwriters who were widely read at this time by the
young Pico della Mirandola,MarsilioFicinoand 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 harmonizationof 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 influenceof Philo may have been felt for, notingthe
seventh day of the Creation, Philo elaborates at length on the significanceof this number and its relationto the Law. By this number
all things in the universe are broughtto order and perfection,including essential forces that move the planets, the circuitsof the moon,
the formationof 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 dividedinto seven parts as
is also his body. In addition,the sciences, grammarand music are
dependent on this perfect numberwhich the Romans called septum,
meaning reverence. These regulatoryrules, all dependent on the
numberseven, are linkedto the Creationin that the '"orld is in harmony with the Law, and the Law with the world,and...the man who
observes the law [sic] is constitutedthereby a loyal citizen of the
world...inaccordance with which the entire world itself also is administered."103Philo's source is Moses, who he repeatedlyassures us
authored our informationon the Creation as the greatest work of
Order(and thereforeof Law). Moses introducedthe Law because he
understoodthe Orderof 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 relationto Rome, suggesting that the illuminationof the Sistine
Chapel was linkedto importantsurvivingRoman 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 illuminatethe Tabernacle. A screen was set up
inside the Tabernaclein front of the altar.The most precious object
containedin the altarof the Tabernaclewas the Arkof the Covenant.
Inside the Arkof the Covenantwere the Tables of Law inscribedby
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 traditionheld 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
31
9) Pinturicchio (?), "<Assunta>>,

preparatory drawing (?), Vienna, Albertina, Inv. 4861, (Photo: Lichtbildwerkstitte 'Alpenland')
32
MICHELANGELO'S
the Lateranwere 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 illuminatedby 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 magnificentcandelabra.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, includingby allowing Michelangeloto continue work on his monumental tomb. Nor
of a "new"programseem a satisfactoryexplanadoes the "addition"
tion. 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.107To remove
Michelangelofrom 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.108Perhaps, 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 originalceiling.
Assuming Julius' determinationto 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).109However the new theme, as it evolved, was far richer.110It served well to transforma 'poor'program which was not
appealing to Michelangelointo 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 memorializingancient Rome (and through this, himself).
Though the new programwas indubitablymore 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 rebuildingthe EcclesiasticalState as it did with the immense
flatteryhe 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 universalpower over cannon and civic law. Since the
emperor had abdicated his Roman duty in being absent from Rome,
the providentialmission given by God to the Roman people noted by
Virgiland Dante had been disregarded.Thus was it incumbentupon
Julius to remind his contemporariesthat it was the Roman emperor
who had power over all other monarchs.This concept of the universal jurisdictionof 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 relationshipsas did
Julius with the civic princes of Italyas well as with the French king,
Louis XII,and the emperor,MaximilianI, 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 consolidatorof
papal administrationdeeply motivated to embellish his see and
memorializehimself,the triumphsin which he appeared in the guise
of a Roman emperorto the cries of "Giulio!"
cannot but have recalled
his great namesake who Ovid had obliginglyborne to heaven as a
god. Through his accomplishments as a warrior,his work as the
Vicar of Christ, and the magnanimityof his commissions, Julius
could no doubt imagine himself immortalizedas Ovid had seen
Julius Caesar high in the sky over the Eteral City.Thus the hurried
unveilingof the Ceilingon All Saints' Day would have constitutedyet
one more 'triumph.'Surely this was well understood by Vasari in
commentingthat the oak leaves and acorns of the ignudi signified
that at this time and under the governmentof Julius was an Age of
Gold. PietroBembo, too, had noted in a poem in praise of Juliusthat
the sacred oak of Julius whose acorns had once nourished heroes
would returnthe world to its pristinehonor; 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 fulfillmentof the
Golden Age which had flourishedin ancient Italy.113
Thus extolled,
Julius II became the representativeof 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 portraitsof the popes on the upper walls
underlinethe idea of the primacy and supremacy of the pope and
the message of Petrine authority.This authoritywas cited even in
the (now lost) altarpieceof the Assunta located on the west wall of
the Chapel, in which Sixtus was portrayedkneeling under the protective 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]114So too the
tapestries designed by Raphael (commissioned by Leo X) to cover
the fictive tapestries of Sixtus can be read as examples of Divine
Authorityexpressed in the acts of Peter and Paul, the Christian
guardians of Rome and the co-founders of the Roman Church.
Medieval traditionin 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
33
10) Michelangelo, <<TheSacrifice of Abelk, Rome, Vatican, SLstine Chapel (Photo: Monumenti Musei e Gallerie Pontificie)
lawgivers. In this role they were regarded as civic heroes, successors of Romulus and Remus, and protectors of Rome. They had
caused a new Golden Age of peace and unityin the city.Thus their
feast day was celebrated on June 29, the day of the anniversaryof
the founding of Rome. In the Cinquecento, their heads, covered
with gold and silver, were displayed on the high altar of the
34
Lateran, where the Tables of the Law were believed to be

buried.115The inclusion of St. Stephen's martyrdomin Raphael's
tapestries furtherunderlines this point for St. Stephen, one of the
original Seven Deacons of the Church, was martyred largely
because he reminded his persecutors (the Hebrews) that the true
Law of Moses was fulfilledin the Law of Christ.
MICHELANGELO'S
?
I.
.. . .' ..'
..
1.
11) Michelangelo, <<TheSacrifice of Abel>>,Rome, Vatican, Sistine Chapel (Photo: Monumenti Musei e Gallerie Pontificie)
The above hypothesis provides good reason to suggest that the

historical painting traditionallyregarded as the Sacrifice of Noah
relates ratherto the sacrifice of Abel and Cain, as both Condiviand
Vasari had identifiedit-Condivi in 1553 and Vasari in 1568 [Figs.
10-11].116Rejecting Condivi's and Vasari's indications,modem criticism 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.117Because, 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 relatedto the
sacrifice of Abel and Cain has also depended on the fact that no
cor, or fruitof the ground (Cain's offering) is represented here.118
Consequently scholars have remained unable to explain why
Michelangelowould, in such an importantwork, 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).
35
Perhaps they have assumed, as Freedberg, that Michelangelo
changed the order of events for (unspecified) 'compositional'reasons.119 Harttproposed a most ingenious reason to explain why this
might be the case. Such a discrepancyin the order of the paintings,
he suggested, is in reality a "key"to understanding"the deeper
meaning of the whole."120Though James Beck recently suggested
that Condiviand Vasari should be taken seriously, his argumentwas
primarilystylistic.121As 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 perfectlythe contents of
Michelangelo's paintingas well as the sequence of events in the
Ceiling.It is also harmoniouswith the overalltheme of the Law.
Though the silhouette in the darkened center foregroundof 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 (fitfor a modem Western table) and presented as ready to
eat while the other animals are still alive. The altar behind is being
preparedas wood is broughtin, 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 foregroundis certainlynot 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 appropriatesacrifice.122Essentially, the only animals in the foregroundare rams (the
animal that Abel sacrificed),and one of them is being preparedfor
sacrifice while being subjugated by a man who sits over it, controlling it from both sides while passing the bundleof viscera he has just
extracted. Anotherram is being subjugatedto the far left.
It is again Philo who helps the viewer here. Though his account
of the Creationleads to the Great Flood,and though he alludes to the
Drunkennessof Noah by includinga chapter on Drunkenness,the
Sacrifice of Noah does not appear as a subject in his writings.
However, Philo does place a great importanceon that of the sons of
Adam and Eve. A separate treatise, entitled De SacrificiisAbelis et
Cainiformspartof the workstranslatedfor Sixtus IV.In this workPhilo
explains that Abel and Cain did not make theirofferingsat the same
time. Abel made his first, and alone. Cain followedwith his offering
of the biblicaltext is crucial
later, aftermany days. This interpretation
to explainingwhy only one sacrifice (Abel's)occurs in this scene.
That sacrifice is alive. Abel's offering,Philo stresses, was alive;
this is importantbecause Cain's would be lifeless and dead and
therefore not an appropriatesacrifice. Abel offered the firstlingsof
his sheep, which fulfilledthe 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
36
innards) because to be pleasing to God the sacrifice had to be

'whole'-the entrailshad to be offered first,followedby the live bodies.123 Throughoutthe 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 sacrificialanimal
had to be subjugatedbecause to obey is to pass throughthe will of
God. Thus the act of obedience to subjugationrepresents 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. Preoccupiedwith the sins of Israel and the evils of the
present, Isaiah predicts a day of doom for Israel throughthe judgment of God. The words of the Lord,remindingthe IsraelitesHe will
save them, stress the importanceof live sacrifice:'The beast of the
field shall honor me..." In this passage (Isaiah 43:19-24), the Lord
asserts his pleasure in burntofferings that include the "fat."Seldom
represented in the historyof 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 subsequentlypunished),fits well with the theme of
Justice and the Law, as well as with the chronologyof the historical
paintings and the descriptions of Michelangelo'sfriends.
In addition, this subject fits well the Roman character of the
theme. The CollatioLegum Romanarumet Mosaicarum,probablythe
most important document of jurisprudence and law of preConstantiniantimes, offered the first integrationof Roman law and
religious(Old Testament) law, for it held that the antiquityand authority of Roman law lay in the fact that it was based on Mosaic law. It
was this synthesis which led to what Charles Pietridescribes as its
natural cultural extension, Christian legislation emanating from
Rome.124As Dante had regardedthe Romans as chosen people who
through their providentialhistory came to be trustees of universal
of the
peace and just governmentuntilthe end of time, the jurisdiction
Roman empire over humanityhad been recognized previouslyby St.
Augustine.Just as God had allowed Troy to be destroyed so that
Aeneas mightcome to Italyand found the families,includingthat into
which Julius Caesar and Augustus were born (and from which Julius
II was purportedlydescended), which were to govern the world,
Augustine argued, Cain was the founder of the City of the Devil
whereas Abel was the founderof the City of God. Julius II (who was
not an Augustinian)owned five copies of Augustine's De CivitateDei
in his privatelibrary,more than any other single literarywork.125
Though it involvedthe obliterationof at least three Quattrocento

paintings on the wall beneath, the Last Judgment is by the very
nature of its subject thematicallyconnected and continuous with the
MICHELANGELO'S
previous paintingprograms.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.126Though it might be argued that Clement VII had good
reason, in vindicatingthe desolation and despair of Rome, to desire
as ardentlyas Vasarisays he did the executionof the LastJudgment
by Michelangelo,its subject-which involves the final expression of
the Law at the end of history-forms appropriatejuxtapositionwith
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 revelationfell to Clement's successor, the powerful and brilliantPaul III,who in obvious respect for the subject
declined to ordain any changes. Perhaps, as Vasari speculated,
the greatest paintingon 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-widemission of the Jesuits and on the
eve of the formal establishment of the Inquisitionwith its wideranging 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 futureimportancefor the his-
tory of art in Rome, a city that-ironically-during the earlier

Renaissance had lacked a 'school'of paintingof its own. The importance of the capitalof Christendomthroughoutthis time as the greatest center of archaeology in the world may be considered to have
interfaced with the idea of symbolizingthrough the constructionof
a theme far more simple than the
this buildingand its adomrnment
that
have been imagined and on
schemes
complex theological
which there is so far no general agreement. The idea of the Garden
of Eden correspondswith the innocence of the Golden Age. Likethe
Silver Age, OriginalSin was the loss of the innate facultyof Justice.
The theme of Justice, authorityand obedience to God's Law culminates 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 underliningthe authorityof the pope as lawgiver.130
Accordingto the message of the Sistine Chapel as a whole, the
authorityof God was transmittedto 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 overalltheme of the universalityof the Law, conflating
biblicaland classical ideas as Dante had compared Zeus, the giver
of Law with Christ,131paid substantial and triumphaltribute to its
presence in the city of Rome and to the authorityof its commissioners. In this theme, whose continuityof purpose prevailedthroughthe
reigns of at least four popes, the twenty nude male youths and the
bags of acorns they carry are of no small consequence.
This articlewas presentedas a paper at the 1995 meeting of The

RenaissanceSocietyof Americain New York.I wouldliketo extendmost
to WemerL. Gundersheimer
and the staffof The Folger
gratefulappreciation
contributed
whose particular
helpfulnessand hospitality
ShakespeareLibrary,
for their
to its realization;
also to ColinEislerand O.J. Rothrock
significantly
I am also indebtedto HerbertL. Kesslerand
commentsand encouragement.
RomantradiCarolynValoneforsuggestionson the subjectof EarlyChristian
of New Mexicofor a
is also expressedto the University
tions.Appreciation
ResearchAllocation
Grantthathelpedmakethis studypossible.
1 The words of Michelangelo'sfatherare taken from a letterto
2 The term'firstchapelof the world'

is thatused by Parisde Grassis,
papalMasterof Ceremonies,as cited by J. Shearman,in 'The Chapelof
Michelangelo reprinted in G. Poggi, 1/ Carteggio di Michelangelo, ed. P.
Barocchiand R. Ristori,I, Florence,1965. no. L.
Sixtus IV,"in The Sistine Chapel. The Art, the Historyand the Restoration, C.
ed., London,1986, 25.

Pietrangeli,
No attemptwillbe made here to cite the vast literature
connectedwiththe
The most essential
SistineChapeland the variousstages of its adornment.
historicalsources are, of course, contained in the works of two of
Michelangelo's contemporaries, Ascanio Condivi, Vita di Michelangelo
Bvonarrotiraccolta perAscanio Condivide 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 lettersand

other documents connected with the Chapel and its works. Among the mod-
37
ern sources that were most useful for this study are: E. Steinmann, Die sixtinische Kapelle, 2 vols., Munich,1901-05 (a rich source of historicaland documentary informationconcerning the various stages of buildingand enrichment of the Chapel);Charlesde Tolnay,Michelangelo, 5 vols., (1945), esp. II,
Princeton, 1969 (containingimportantcritical informationas well as documents and letters); F. Hartt,"LignumVitae in Medio Paradisi: The Stanza
d'Eliodoroand the Sistine Ceiling,"The ArtBulletin, XXXII,1950, 116-45 and
181-218 (includingthe "CriticalStatement" of E. Wind in The Art Bulletin
XXXIII,1951, 41-47 and Hartt'sreply in the same issue, 262-73); J. Wilde,
'The Decorationof the Sistine Chapel,"Proceedings of the BritishAcademy,
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 WorldArt, 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 publicationand presents a comprehensive interpretation
of
the first stages of the Chapel and its adornment);Staale Sinding-Larsen,"A
rereading of the Sistine Ceiling,"InstitutumRomanum Norwegiae Acta ad
Archeologiam et ArtiumHistoriamPertinentia, IV, 1969, 143-57 (which suggests an ecclesiologicaliconographyfor the Chapel as a whole); C. Seymour,
Michelangelo, The Sistine Ceiling, New York, 1972; Esther G. Dotson, "An
AugustinianInterpretationof Michelangelo'sSistine Ceiling,"The ArtBulletin,
LXI,1979, 198-223 and 405-30 (which puts forwardan Augustinian interpretation of the Ceiling based on the 'universal'knowledgeof St. Augustine, an
interpretationnot necessarily incompatiblewith the material presented here
which is of a more general nature);Shearman, op. cit., 22-91; J. O'Malley,
'The Theology behind Michelangelo'sCeiling,"The Sistine Chapel. The Art,
the Historyand the Restoration, Carlo Pietrangeli,ed., London,1986, 92-148;
Charles Hope, "The Medallions on the Sistine Ceiling," Journal of the
Warburgand CourtauldInstitutes, L, 1987, 200-04 (whichoffers a persuasive
argument for Michelangelo'sresponsibilityfor the programof the Ceiling);M.
Finch,'The Sistine Chapel as a Temenos: An Interpretation
Suggested by the
Restored Visibilityof the Lunettes,"Gazette des Beaux Arts, LXV,Feb. 1990,
53-70 (whichargues that a basic theme of the Ceilingis the reconstructionof
an ancient temenos fashioned accordingto a Roman language);and K. W. G.
Brandt, "Michelangelo's Early Projects for the Sistine Ceiling," in
Michelangelo Drawings, CraigH. Smyth, ed., Washington,D.C., 1992, 57-87
(which discusses the evolutionof the layout and planningof the Ceiling.
3 Ratherthan analyzingthe many differentinterpretationsand theories
put forwardso far with regardto one part or anotherof this monument,this
paper will assume the importanceof these existing interpretationsin, for want
of space, restrictingitself to a discussion of a new considerationregardinga
possible overall theme pursued throughoutthe history of the adornmentof
this building.
4 Thatthe ignudiare captives of ancient ignorancewas 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
(Histoirede l'artdepuis les premiers temps Chretiensjusqu'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 Atlanteanstrong men
was proposed by HeinrichWolfflin("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("Lavolta 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
38
angels is suggested by survivingearlierdrawingsfor the Ceilingas noted by

Tolnayin Michelangelo, II, 1945, 63 and disputedby Freedbergin op. cit., 96.
R. Kuhnsuggested (in Michelangelo Die sixtinische Decke, Berlin-NewYork,
1975, 52-58) they are cherubimsuch as had decorated Solomon's temple.
Thatthe ignudiare adolescent heroes specially invented by Michelangelofor
this occasion was suggested by A. Foratti("Gli'Ignudi'della Volta Sistina,"
L'Arte,XXI,1918, esp. 110-13). That they are symbols of eternallife was suggested by Seymour (op. cit., 86); that they are acolytes of Christby Hartt(op.
cit., 136-138); that they are "athletes"of God by C. Eisler (in 'The Athlete of
Virtue:the Iconographyof Asceticism," De artibus opuscula XL, Essays in
Honor of ErwinPanofsky, New York, 1961, 82-98 and n. 76); that they are
celestial images or "Victoryangels" by Finch (op. cit., 64-65); that they are
merely decorativesupportersof medallions by Tolnay(Michelangelo, II, 1945,
64), Freedberg(op. cit., 95-97) and O'Malley(op. cit., 100) who adds that they
lack narrativeor symbolic meaning. While all these interpretationsassume
the ignudito be secondary in terms of their importancefor the iconographyof
the Ceiling, this view is most clearly stated in the explanationof Freedberg
(/oc. cit.).
5 See illustrations
of ducato or fiorinodi camera and a doppio grosso
(1471-84) of Sixtus, with bibliography,in G. B. Picotti,"Sisto IV Papa," in
Enciclopediaitaliana, 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 Artin St. Peter's and the Vatican, Chicago, 1993,
12 and 44-45.
6 See E. Bentivoglioand S. Valtieri,Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome,
1976, fig. 83.
7
Bentivoglioand Valtieri,op. cit., 41 and fig. 46.
8 The miniature,from Vatican Cod. Lat. 2044, is reproducedas the
frontispieceof Pietrangeli,op. cit. On the tomb of Sixtus IV in St. Peter's
Basilica see L. D. Ettlinger,Antonio and Piero Pollaiuolo, Oxford,1978, 14851. Regardingthe subtle pattern of oak decorationthat appears throughout
the fictivetapestries of the lower wall, see Shearman, op. cit., esp. 41-42.
9 Bentivoglioand Valtieri,op. cit., fig. 87. This tomb is, however, richly
ornamentedwith acanthus and palm leaves.
10 It should, however, be noted that Bentivoglioand Valtierispeculate
that a small sculpturedmedallioninserted by Bramante in the heart of the
shell coveringthe choir of Sta. Mariadel Popolo may have containedthe oak
tree emblem. Survivingvisible 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
shortlyafter his death), Vasari's account provides us with a detailed description of events associated with the completionof the tomb of Julius (op. cit.,
passim). Regardingthe complex historyof 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 throughoutthe MiddleAges largelythroughthe 5th centurytranslation
and commentary of Chalcidius.The literatureon the survivalof Plato into
Renaissance times is extensive. See P. 0. Kristeller,The Philosophy of
Marsilio Ficino, V, Conant trans., New York, 1943; Idem, Renaissance
Thoughtand Its Sources, New York,1979; and esp. James Hankins,Plato in
the ItalianRenaissance, 2 vols., Leiden, 1990.
15 See Plato, Phaedo, secs. 96-98, and Protagoras, 320D-327C. That
both works were known in Italybefore the time of MarsilioFicinois certainfor
a manuscriptcontainingthe Phaedo was translated by Leonardo Bruni in
about 1405. On this see R. Sabbadini,Le scoperte dei codici latinie greci ne'
MICHELANGELO'S IGNUDI, AND THE SISTINE CHAPEL AS A SYMBOL OF LAWAND JUSTICE

secoli XIV e XV, I, Florence (1905), 1967, 50-52. Another, of the Opuscula
(includingthe Protagoras) was copied by Bartolomeoda Montepulcianoin
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, Worksand Days, esp. lines 5-55; and Theogony, esp. lines
40-75. Regarding manuscriptsof Hesiod collected during the 15th century
see Sabbadini,op. cit., I, 52-53; and Bolgar,op. cit., esp. 497-98.
17 An inventory(of uncertaindate but possibly 1513, in which case it
was compiledon the occasion of the death of Julius)of Julius'books exists in
Vatican Cod. Lat. 3966, fols. 111-17.
18
Pliny the Elder,NaturalisHistoria, esp. II.iv-v.
19 Diodorusof Siculus, History, 1.7(on the Creation).The firstfive books
of Diodorus'monumentalwork were known in the 15th century through a
Latin translationof Poggio Bracciolini.
20 Diodorusof Siculus, op. cit., 1.8 (on the first men and their undisciplined and bestial life).
21 See the followingcommentarieson the Creationby 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 literatureexists on this broad subject. See esp. Robert McQ.
Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity,New York, 1959, and Gershom
Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism,MerkabahMysticismand TalmudicTradition(lectures at Jewish TheologicalSeminaryof America),New York,rev. ed., 1965. On
Saturninus'2nd centuryrevisionof Genesis, which presentedthe originof man
as a luminousimage in the mindof 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, "YeziraSefer,"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 originsin southem France, its doctrineand
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 Florentinehumanist Pico della Mirandolahad become extremely interested in the Kabbalah,as would become Egidio da Viterbo, appointed Vicar
General of the Augustinianorder 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 approximatecontemporaries.The comment
in the text does not mean to hold that a specific textual relationshipexisted
between their works.
26 An example of an early Cinquecento Roman humanist work that
incorporates informationbased on Ovid's authorityis the vast encyclopedic
compendiumon famous men, the naturalworld and the historyof 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 descriptionof the festivitiesfor the nuptialsof 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 significanceof the Parnassus as a site,
see C. L. Joost-Gaugier, "Sappho, Apollo, Neopythagorean Theory and
Numine Afflaturin 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. Millerin 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 committedsin 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'sdescriptionof 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 imitationsof Ovid
and Ovidianworks in readinglists of the 12th and 13th centuries see Bolgar,
op. cit., 189, 197, 210, 223-24 and 423. On Ovid and his influence in the
MiddleAges see esp. GiovanniPansa, Ovidionel medioevo e nella tradizione
popolare, Sulmona, 1924; F. Ghisalberti,"MediaevalBiographies of Ovid,"
Journal of the Warburgand CourtauldInstitutes, IX, 1946, 10-44; and J.B.
Trapp, "Ovid'sTomb, The Growthof a Legend,"Journal of the Warburgand
CourtauldInstitutes, XXXVI,1973, 35-76. Generallyuseful are E. K. Rand,
Ovidand His Influence, Boston, 1925, and W. Brewer,Ovid'sMetamorphoses
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 traditionsee A. Graf, Roma nella memoria e nelle
immaginazioni del medio evo, Turin, 1923, esp. 595-610; Paul Lehmann,
Pseudoantike Literaturdes 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 Philippede 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'streatise on Ovid's
Metamorphoses, 314-21. On Giovanniand other Trecento Ovidian writers,
see the thorough study by F. Ghisalberti, "L'OvidusMoralizatus di Pierre
Bersuire,"in Studj romanzi, XXIII,1933, 1-134. Especiallyuseful is Chapter I
of this study, "I miti ovidiani e le dottrine della Chiesa." See also Idem,
"Giovannidel Virgilio espositore delle Metamorfosi,"Giornale Dantesco,
XXXIV,1931, 1-32 and, on Ovidiantraditionsin the late MiddleAges, Idem,
"Amolfod'Orleans, un cultore di Ovidio nel secolo XII,"Memorie del Real
IstitutoLombardodi Scienze e Lettere, XXIV(IV), 1932, 157-234.
42 Dante Alighieri,La Divina Comedia, PurgatorioXXII,70-72 and 14850; also Paradiso XXI, 25-33.
43 Cf. Dante's discussion in De MonarchiaI.xi.1to Virgil,Eclogues IV.6:
"iam redit et virgo, redeuntSaturniaregna"(now Justice returnsas 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 [MirabiliaUrbis Romae], F. M. Nichols, ed.
(1889), New York,1986, I: The Foundationsof Rome (3-4). On Noah's connection with Italy,and his reputation(in medievallegend) as the founderand builder
of the city of Rome, which originallybore his name, see C. L. Joost-Gaugier,
"Danteand the Historyof Art:The Case of a Tuscan Commune,Part I, The First
at Lucignano,"Artibuset Historiae,XXI,1990, esp. 23-25.
Triumvirate
46 Maffei,op. cit. (as cited in n. 26 supra), LXXIIII
(r). Book VI, in which
Maffeipresents the historyof Rome, opens with a discussion of Satum who,
as the firstKingof Italy,reigned from the Capitoline.On Satur's importance
for Italy,throughMaffei'seyes, see CCCCXVI(v), CCCCXVIII
(r), and CCC-
39
CLXXI(r). Cf. to Flavio Biondo's descriptionof the Capitolineas a sacred
locationformerlyknown as Monte Saturninunin Roma instaurata, I, secs. 66
and 74 (in De roma trivmphantelibriX... Romae instavratae libriIIIDe origine
ac gestis venetorum liber Italia illustrata..., Basel, 1559). Surely known to
these writerswere the comments of Virgil,who had noted Saturn'srole in first
building the Capitoline (Aeneid, VIII,lines 345-59), while Pliny (Naturalis
HistoriaXXXIV.v)and Livy (Ab urbe condita libriVll.xxxviii.2)cited it as a
sacred locationon which the temple of Jupiterthe Thundererwas 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 Italyas opposed to Greece. Elsewhere
in the same work (lI.xxv.64)Cicero describes Saturn as responsible for the
forces of nature.On the significanceof Saturnin the Roman pantheonsee A.
Brelich,"I primire italiani,"in Tre variazioni romane sul teme delle origini,
Rome, 1955, 48-94; Georges Dumezil, Le religionromaine 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 fromAntiquityto 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 stillexisting in the ruinsof
a Roman temple dedicated to him and Bacchus by the (anonymous)author
of La Edifichationde moltipallazi & tempiide Roma (Venice, 1480), reprinted
in Five Early Guides to Rome and Florence, P. Murray,ed., Heppenheim,
1972 (no pp.). On Satur in Christianchurches see Seznec op. cit., 131-33.
50 See,
e.g., the description of the Sala di Saturno in the Palazzo
Vecchio by Vasari in "RagionamentoSecondo," 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 respectively. On the imageryof Satur in decorationsfor the Palazzo Vecchio see J.
Cox-Rearick,Dynasty and Destiny in MediciArt, Princeton,1984, esp. 72-74
and 132-42. See also L. Mendelsohn, "SaturnianAllusions in Bronzino's
LondonAllegory, " in Ciavolellaand 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. ChapterXII,"Le
statue e le immaginid'Ovidio,"133-50.
53 Graf,op. cit., esp. 602-03. See also Le Bible des poetes methamorphoze, a prose translationof the Metamorphoses into French published as
late as 1523 by P. Le Noire, Paris, a copy of which exists in the Libraryof
Congress.
54 Biondo, op. cit., II secs. 52-53 and passim. Biondo frequentlycites
the authorityof Ovid throughouthis text. The work opens with a referenceto
the Fasti describing Janus and Saturn sharing the first kingdom of Italy.
Albertini'swork,the Opusculum de mirabilibusnovae & veteris urbis Romae,
is reprintedin Murray,op. cit. (as cited in n. 49 supra).
55 On these see Bolgar,op. cit., 249, 263 and 531-33. See also comments of F. J. Millerto Ovid, Metamorphoses, as cited in n. 32 supra, xiii.
56 This work, Ouidio methamor phoseos vulgare (trans. Giovanni
Bonsignore, printedby Giovanni Rosso, Venice, 1497) contains 53 woodcut
illustrations.Regardingit, see Prince d'Essling, Les Livresa figures venitiens
de la fin du XVe siecle et du commencement du XVIe, I, Florenceand Paris,
1907, 220-27.
57 On the first publicationof Dolce's translation,see Bolgar, op. cit.,
531.
58 See, e.g. Pvblii Ovidii Nasonis meta morphoseos liber primus...,
printedby Jacobus Rubeus (Rosso? cf. n. 56 supra), Venice, 1474, a copy of
which exists in the PierpontMorganLibrary.
59 The unveilingof the Ceiling frescoes is recorded in an entry of 31
October 1512 in the Diary of Paris de Grassis (quoted in Tolnay,
40
Michelangelo, II,1945, 247). It should be noted, in connectionwiththe text at

this point, that Wind ("Maccabean Histories," 1960, 313) suggested that
Michelangelohad consulted woodcuts of the MalermiBible in preparingthe
painted medallionsof the Ceiling.On this see Hope, op. cit.
60 Tolnay's considerationof precedents for the various subjects of the
Sistine Ceiling forms a photographicessay. See Tolnay, Michelangelo, II,
1945, figs. 336-66.
61
Vasari, op. cit., VII, 179-80.
62 See Vasari's
descriptionof the Sala di Satumo in the Palazzo Vecchio
as citedin n. 50 supra. On GoldenAge imagery in Renaissance visual expression there is a considerableliterature.See esp. E. Gombrich,"Renaissance
and Golden Age," Norm and Form: Studies in the Art of The Renaissance
(1966) 3rd rev. ed., Londonand New York, 1978, 29-34; E. Schroter,"Der
Vatikan als HOgel Apollons und der Musen. Kunst und Panegyrick von
Nikolaus V bis Julius II," Rdmische Quartalschrift fur christliche
Altertumskunde und Kirchengeschichte, LXXV,3-4, 1980, 208-40; CoxRearick, op. cit., passim.; C. L. Stinger, The Renaissance in Rome,
Bloomington, 1985, 293-99; B. L. Katzive, "Raphael's Parnassus: The
Harmonyof the Universeand the JulianVisionof Rome,"RutgersArtReview,
VIII,1987, 5-26; G. Guastella,"Saturn,Lordof the Golden Age," in Ciavolella
and lannucci,op. cit., 1-23; and MichaelJ. B. Allen, NuptialArithmetic:
Marsilio
Ficino's Commentaryon the Fatal Number in Book VIIIof Plato's Republic,
Berkeleyand Los Angeles, 1994, esp. 26-28 and 134-38.
63 On this connectionsee
esp. Hesiod, Worksand Days, lines 212-85.
64
Plato, Protagoras 321 D-324B.
65
Cicero, De Legibus I.
66
Dante, La Divina Comedia, PurgatorioXX11.70-72.
67 The first
inscription,directlyborrowedfrom Dante's PurgatorioXXII,
reads:
IANOPRIMOSIGNOREDE ITALIA//LA
SECOL PRIMOQUANTOORO
FU BELLOFE SAVOROSOCON FAMELE GHIANDEE NETTARECON
SETE OGNI RUSTELLO.The second, also repainted, reads: QUESTO
IANOPRINCIPIODE LAITALIA
EME/GESTEDE GROSSO INTELLETTO NON SAPEANO FA/NULLARTE FEC COSTUMI COME
ANIME/BIVEANOMAGNIANANOGHIADI PE LE VI/ER LE SALVATICHE STAVANO PLENI OLI INT/DIVE ORA SE
DE ITALIA.
CHIAMAREIA...MICO
On these inscriptionsand theirreading,and on the fresco which is dated 1438,
see C. L. Joost-Gaugier,'Why Janus at Lucignano?Ovid, Dante, St. Augustine
and the FirstKingof Italy,"
Acta HistoriaArtium,XXX (1-2), 1984, 109-22.
68 Hesiod, Worksand
Days, esp. lines 228-37.
69
Virgil,AeneidVIII, lines 315-30 and 608-25.
70 Pliny,NaturalisHistoriaXll.ii.3, X111.1.33,
XVl.i.1, and XVI.v.11.
71 Ovid, Tristia,111.1.35-40.
On the historyof the oak in mythologysee,
generally, Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft,
Georg Wissowa, ed., V (2), Stuttgart,1905, esp. cols. 2027-36. (Regarding
Julius Il's librarysee n. 17 supra.)
72 The sacred oak, when struck with the axe of a man who scorned
divinity,began to groan, to issue blood, and to cry out. Its acorns turnedpale.
The perpetrator of this sacrilegious act was eventually punished. Ovid,
Metamorphoses, VIII,lines 700-76.
73 Di Ovidiole
metamorphosi,cioe transmvtationi,tradottedal latinodiligentemente in volgar verso, con le sue Allegorie, Significationi& Dichiarationi
delle Fauole in prosa. Aggiontoui..., trans. Nicolo di Agustini, printed by
Bernardinodi BindoniMilanese,Venice, 1538. See esp. fol. 2(r): "...propinqua
alla legge nostra & massime nel vecchio testamento, perche Ovidio benche
fusse pagano & non hauesse cognitionealcuna della vera fede nodimenoinspirato, cominciadal principiodel mondo sicome Moise nella Biblia,& seguita di

grado in grado, & sicome Iddiomando il Diluviosopra la terra per grandissimi
peccati."See also fol. 3(v) which, in describingthe "primaEta dell'Oro,"refers
to three types of oak as havingprovidedsustenance for the men of the Golden
Age who experiencedan eternal spring:querze (quercia), roueri(rovere), and
ilice (ilice). It also describes the food of this population,which included"delle
giande [acors] che cadevano de gli arboridi Giove."With respect to Christian
of the Age of Satur, see, e.g., Ficino'sconcept of its regenerainterpretations
tion in the wordsof St. Paul as discussed in C. Vasoli,"JusteJustice et Loidans
le Commentairesde MarsileFicin,"Le Juste et I'lnjustea la Renaissance et a
I'Ageclassique, Saint-Etienne,1986, esp. 20-21.
74 Surely Noah was chosen for several reasons. A second progenitorof
mankind(a second Adam), he was chosen by God, who judged him to be a
righteousman. He became the instrumentof God's punishmentof man for his
corruption and injustice. In building the ark on Divine Command, Noah
demonstrated obedience. This obedience took shape in the "Noah
Commandments,"a series of laws, thought to have been bindingsince Old
Testamenttimes, on human relationsand the relationsbetween humans and
animals. (On this, see J.P. Lewis, A Study of the Interpretationof Noah and
the Flood in Jewish and Christian Literature, Leiden, 1968.) It is Noah's
acceptance of this responsibilitythat made him a savior of mankind.
75 See E. Wind,'The Crucifixion
of Haman,"Journalof the Warburgand
CourtauldInstitutes, I, 1938, 245-48; and Hope (who identifiesthe ten subjetcs
of the medallions),op. cit., 201-03. Cf. O'Malley,'The Theology," 1986, 102.
Regardingthe style of the medallions,some of which were left incompleteperhaps in Julius'hurryto unveilthe Ceilingon All Saints'Day, and others which
were executed largelyby assistants, see Tolnay,Michelangelo, II,1945, 72-77.
See also Hartt'sincomprehensible[to me] interpretationof the meaning of
these medallionsin op. cit., 199-201; and Wind, "MaccabeanHistories,"1960.
76 On the medieval
likeningof Christto the Tabernacle and the relationshipbetween the cult of the Old Law and the image of Christsee Herbert
L. Kessler, "MedievalArt as Argument," Iconography at the Crossroads:
Papers from the ColloquiumSponsered by the Index of ChristianArt..., B.
Cassidy, ed., Princeton,1993, 59-70. The replacementof the Old Law with
the New is vividlydescribed by Prudentius(Apotheosis, 330-40).
77 See E. Battisti, "II
significato simbolico della Cappella Sistina,"
Commentari,VII,1957, 97 and n. 3; Wilde,op. cit., passim; and Shearman,op.
cit., esp. 27-28. On Flemmyng,who was a pupilof Guarino,see RobertoWeiss,
Humanismin EnglandDuringthe FifteenthCentury,Oxford,1967, 97-105.
78 With respect to its predecessor,see Steinmann,op. cit., I, esp. 117-86.
On the contrastbetween the old and new chapels see esp. the discussions of
Shearman,op. cit., 26-27 and 38-39; and Brandt,op. cit. See also Battisti,op.
cit.; and, on the architect of Sixtus' building, Piernicola Pagliara, "New
Documentson the Constructionof the Sistine Chapel,"The Sistine Chapel-A
GloriousRestoration, Carlo Pietrangeli,ed., New York,1994, 256-71.
79 Shearman, op. cit., 27-28.
80
Battisti,op. cit., esp. 102-04. Battisti'scitation(3 Kings 5) is, however, puzzling.
81 Wilde, op. cit., 64. While the general appearance of the Temple of
Solomon can be gleaned from the Bible, scholars are not in agreement about
many details of its structureand adornment. See esp. Andre Parrot, The
Temple of Jerusalem (1954), trans. (n.a.), rep. Westport, 1985, 15-60; Carol
H. Krinsky, "Representations of the Temple of Jerusalem before 1500,"
Journal of the Warburgand Courtauld Institutes, XXXIII,1970, 1-19; Jean
Ouellette, "The Basic Structure of Solomon's Temple and Archeological
Research," in The Temple of Solomon. Archeological Fact and Medieval
Tradition,Joseph Gutmann,ed., Ann Arbor, 1976, 1-21; and Pierre Dumas,
Jerusalem, Le Temple de Salomon, Nice, 1983.
82 This commemorativeinscription,which adorns the triumphalarches
in the backgroundof Perugino'sfresco of the Givingof the Keys, was firstdiscussed by Steinmann (op. cit., I, 333-34).
83 The nave of Sta. Maria

Maggiorewas decorated with mosaics, which
still survive, with subjects taken from the Old Testament juxtaposed with
scenes from the early life of Christon the triumphalarch. On this example of
the munificenceof Sixtus III(422-432), see the vita of Sixtus in Bartolomeo
Platina's Lives of the Popes (Platina's Lives of the Popes...to the Reign of
Sixtus IV, trans. and continuedby Paul Rycaut, London,1685, Part I, 77-78);
also FerdinandGregorovius,Historyof the City of Rome in the MiddleAges,
trans. A. Hamilton, I, London, 1900, 187-90; Richard Krautheimer,"The
Architectureof Sixtus III:A Fifth-CenturyRenaissance?" De ArtibusOpuscula.
Essays in Honor of ErwinPanofsky, MillardMeiss, ed., I, New York, 1960,
291-303; and Ettlinger,The Sistine Chapel, 1965, 98-102. On Solomon's
throneas the seat of Wisdom, see FrancisWormald,'The Throne of Solomon
and St. Edward'sChair,"De artibus opuscula XL, Essays in Honor of Erwin
Panofsky, New York, 1961, 532-39.
84 For a descriptionof the 1475 of the celebrationof the Holy Year see
the continuationof Platina'sLives of the Popes (as cited in n. 83 supra), II,3.
See also n. 85 infra.
85 On the life of Sixtus IV, see Rycaut's continuationof Platina'sLives
of the Popes (as cited in n. 83 supra); Emmanuel Rodocanachi, Histoire de
Rome, Une cour princiere au Vatican pendent la renaissance: Sixte IV...,
Paris, 1925; and EgmontLee, Sixtus IVand Men of Letters, Rome, 1978. See
also ChristineShaw, Julius II,The WarriorPope, Oxford,1993, 9-125. Of particularinterestto the Sistine Chapel are the discussions of Steinmann,op. cit.,
I, 3-117; Rona Goffen, "FriarSixtus IV and the Sistine Chapel,"Renaissance
Quarterly,XXXIX(2), 1986, 218-63; and Carol Lewine, The Sistine Chapel
Walls and the Roman Liturgy,UniversityPark, 1993. On Sixtus'reorganization of the Rota see John F. D'Amico, Renaissance Humanism in Papal
Rome, Baltimoreand London,1983, 7, and n. 14.
86 These treatises are discussed
by Ettlinger,i The Sistine Chapel,
1965, 9-10 and notes.
87 On the medieval historyof Solomon'sTemple in writtenaccounts and
pictorial representations, see Krinsky, op. cit.; also Stanley Ferber, 'The
Temple of Solomon in Early Christianand Byzantine Art," The Temple of
Solomon: Archeological Fact and Medieval Tradition,Joseph Gutmann,ed.,
Ann Arbor, 1976, 21-45. That the Temple of Solomon prefiguresthe Church
of the New Law is suggested in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History,X.iv.3-4;and
in Prudentius,TituliHistoriarumXXI.
88 Rudolf Wittkower,Architectural
Principles in the Age of Humanism,
London, 1952, 91, 103, and 121-22. On the influence of the Temple of
Solomon see nn. 81 and 87 supra. The functions of the Sistine Chapel are
discussed in Shearman, op. cit.; and Lewine, op. cit.
89 On the significanceof the Temple of Solomon as the 'Temple of the
World"patterned after Moses'Tabernacle,see Wittkower,op. cit., 155.
90 Solomon's medieval mythologicalstature derives from various legends. Accordingto a medievalJewish legend, he planteda cane in the sea at
the point where, after the water receded, the city of Rome would be built
(GabrielG. Bredow, Rabbinische Mythen Erzihlungen und Lugen, 2nd ed.,
Weilburg,1833, 119-20. See also Graf,op. cit., 71.) The two copper columns
from Solomon's Temple are described in 12th century Rome, as miraculously exuding water on the day commemoratingthe destructionof Jerusalem, by
Rabbi Benjaminof Tudela (in The Itineraryof Rabbi Benjamin Tudela, trans.
and ed., A Asher, I, Londonand Berlin,1841, 40-41); in the late 13th century the Memoriale de mirabilibusdescribes four bronze columns taken from
Solomon's temple and placed by Constantinebefore the main altar of the
Lateran (Laura Onofori,"Roma come nuova Terrasanta,"Roma Sancta, La
citta delle basiliche, M. Fagiolo and M.L. Madonna,eds., Rome, 1985, 29).
However these are not mentioned in the lists, descriptions and inventories
provided in Philippe Lauer,Le Palais de Latran, Paris, 1911, 50-51 and passim. On Solomon as Dante's model of perfect Justice, see La Divina
Comedia, Paradiso XVI11.70-130:Dante, entering the Heaven of Jupiter,
41
invokes the temperatestar as the source of all true Justice on earth. The star
reveals a halo of light that spells the first words of the Book of Wisdom:
"Diligitejustitiamqui judicatis terram (Love righteousness, you who are the
judges of the earth)."These words, for Dante authored by Solomon, lead
Dante to contemplatethe eagle, the symbol of Roman Law and Justice (ibid.,
94-114). On this concept, see Nancy Lenkeith, Dante and the Legend of
Rome, London, 1952, 129-31. Rome as the new Jerusalem is discussed by
Onoforiand Madonna in op. cit., 29 and 32. The relics of Judaica in the
Lateranare described in Lauer,loc. cit. On theirsurvival,see n. 98 infra.
91 Ettlinger,The Sistine Chapel, 1965, 116.
92 Bolgar, op. cit., 482.
93 On the Filelfomanuscript,see Bolgar,loc. cit.
94 Loc. cit.
95 On this, see Ettlinger,The Sistine Chapel, 1965, 116-17.
96 One dedicationcopy is dated 1479, the other 1481. Other copies of
this translationexist as well. See ibid., 116, n. 3.
97 Maffeimentionsit in 1506 in the CommentariaUrbanawhere he cites
the name of its translatoras LilioTifernate.Op. cit., CCLXI(r).
98 Ettlinger,The Sistine Chapel, 1965, 100-16. On Moses as founderof
Rome see Onofori, op. cit., 29 (this was brought to my attention by S.
Margaret Franklin).The Graphia aureae urbis Roma described the spoils
transportedto Rome after the sack of Jerusalem by Titus.Among these were
the Tables of the Law and the Arkof the Covenant (in which they were kept).
Medievaltraditionheld that they had been preserved by Vespasian and were
later placed in the altar of the basilica of the Lateranby Constantine.See
Lauer, op. cit., 50-51 and, for the text of this early medievaldocument, n. 4.
Despite the fact that the Lateranwas pillaged by the Vandals before the
arrivalof Alaricin Rome, Renaissance traditionheld that these objects were
still preserved in situ. Indeed, there is a continuous traditionthroughout
medieval times describingthese relics of Judaica. The 12th century description of the Lateranby G. Diacro,the TabulaMagna, cites the survivalof these
relics in the Sancta Sanctorum of the high altar (reprintedin ibid., see esp.
397). In the mid-16thcentury,OnuphrioPanvinio,in his lengthydescriptionof
the Lateran contained in the De praecipuis urbis Romae sanctioribusque
basilicis, describes the "infinitenumber"of relics contained here with special
attention to the Jewish relics including the Ark of the Covenant, the
Candelabrumof Moses, the Table of Moses, the Golden Thurrible,the urn
containingmanna, the rod of Aaron, the Tables of the Law, and the rod of
Moses (in that order).Among the accompanying Christianrelics were items
fromthe Last Supper and the Table of the Last Supper as well as five barley
loaves and two fishes, the purple garment of Christ,two jars of blood and
water from the side of Christand the camel hair coat of St. John the Baptist
(for the text see ibid.,435-37). Panvinioexpressly says that the Jewish relics
were broughtto Rome from the Temple of Solomon (ibid.,437). Writinglater
in the century, the English traveler Gregory Martincited the Ark of the
Covenant, the Tables of the Law, and the rod of Moses as reputedlystill
housed in the high altarof the Lateran(GregoryMartin,Roma Sancta [1581],
G.B. Parks, ed., Rome, 1969, 35).
99 The inscriptionsalong the walls of the Chapel, which all refer to the
rite of the Law, once partiallyobliterated,are now restored. For their text see
Seymour, op. cit., 95-96; and Shearman,op. cit., 41-51. See also the discusof the numsion of Goffen, op. cit., 235-36. On the Pythagoreaninterpretation
ber eight, see Allen, op. cit., 69. and n.79.
100 On the changed position of the screen, the present iron grilles and
the later additionof a candlestick,see Shearman, op. cit., 29-41.
101 See, e.g. F. Calandri,Arithmetica, published by Lorenzo Morgiani
and Johann Petri in Florence in 1491, a copy of which is in the Pierpont
Morgan Library.The frontispiece contains a 'portrait'of Pythagoras at his
desk. In such works the importanceand significance of numbers was the
main subject. That Pico was interestedin these writersis attested by his fre-
42
quent referencesto "thePythagoreans"in all his works as well as by the presence of works by lamblichus,Proclus, "Pythagoras,"and other Pythagoreans
in his private library.Regarding Ficino's interest in numbers and mathematical enigmas, see Allen, op. cit. A vast bibliographyexists on the order and
symbolism of numbers in the MiddleAges and the Renaissance. See, e.g.
Vincent F. Hopper,MedievalNumber Symbolism, New York,1938; and Heinz
Meyer, Die Zahlenallegorese im Mittelalter,Munich,1975.
102
On the significanceof the Pythagoreanharmonyof the spheres in the
Parnassus of the Stanza della Segnatura, see Joost-Gaugier, "Sappho,
Apollo,"op. cit. In Paradiso XXII.148-150and XXIII.20-21,Dante is finally
beneath him which he had
able to contemplatethe seven planets (or "lights")
followed in Canto XXI (esp. 13-15). The text of Pico's Heptaplus was completed in about 1486. This workwas dividedinto seven books and each book
into seven chapters, commemorating-as its author stresses-the Creation.
See Pico della Mirandola,Opera omnia loannis Pici Mirandvlae concordiaeque comitie..., Basel, 1557. (no pp.).
103 For the quoted passage from De OpificioMundi(On the Creation)
see Philo in Ten Volumes, trans.F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker,Londonand
New York,1929, I, 7.
104
See Philo, De OpificioMundi(On the Creation)I, passim, esp. secs.
101-31.
105 See n. 98 supra. On the Ark of the Covenant in Solomon'sTemple
see Ferber,op. cit., 26. Regardingthe spoils of Jerusalemand the traditionof
their donationto the Lateranby Constantinesee Lauer,op. cit., esp. 50-51,
and n. 4. These, includingthe seven-branched candelabrum,the Ark of the
Covenant,the Tables of the Law and the rod of Moses, are noted in Panvinio's
descriptionas still (believed to be) buried in the altar in Renaissance times.
The gifts of Constantineto the Lateranare recorded in a survivinginventory
possibly dating from the 4th century.The text describes seven gold candelabra,each 10 feet high, decorated with silver ornaments,which were placed
in frontof the high altar(see Lauer,op. cit.,30). That these still existed in the
16th centuryis affirmedby Panvinio,who described them in the 1550's (ibid.,
443). On St. Peter as the New Moses see n. 115 infra.
106
See, e.g., Wilde, op. cit., 71-72.
107
For the text of this letter,from Piero Roselli in Rome to Michelangelo
who was at the time in Florence,see Poggi, op. cit., I, no. X. See also discussions of this letter in Seymour, op. cit., 76-79; and Brandt,op. cit., 58.
108 Even the content of this ceiling, essentially a star-studdedheaven (so
far as we know it) centralizedby the papal emblem of Sixtus, can be construed as referringto papal authorityin the Cosmos. Many scholars have discussed this previousceiling. See esp. Steinmann,op. cit., I, 187-96 and Plate
Brandt,
7; Seymour, op. cit., 70-79; Shearman, op. cit., 44-45; and particularly
op. cit., 60-61.
109 On the Augustinianinterpretationof the twelve thrones see Dotson,
op. cit., esp. 427-28.
110 On earlier schemes by Michelangelo for the Ceiling, see esp.
Seymour, op. cit., 81-82. Cf. Brandt,op. cit., who sees Michelangelo'sfinal
design as the result of a progressiveevolutioninvolvingthe solutionof problems connected with the vaultingsystem of the Chapel.
11 In a letter of December 1523 to Giovanni Francesco Fattucci in
Rome, Michelangelocloses with a comment on his (then past) relationswith
Julius regardingthe planningof the Ceiling.The author's own words, "che io
facessi ci6 che io volevo" suggest that he was, at least to a considerable
extent, the author of the program. The letter specifically says that
Michelangelohad complainedabout the earlierprogram(the twelve apostles)
and that he was given fresh instructionsby the pope, together with a certain
of the subject matfreedom-implying a freedom in the painted interpretation
ter, perhaps in the determinationof the subject matteritself.For the text of this
letter see Poggi, op. cit., III,no. DXCIV.In contrast to most other scholars,
Hope offers good reason, based on what he views as the unsophisticatedthe-

ological approach of the medallions,to believe that Michelangelowas at liberty to devise his own iconographyfor the Ceiling (op. cit.).
112 Julius II would not have been the firstItalianpublicfigureto embrace
the cult of hero exaltationin this sense. Machiavellitoo had been impressed
with Ovid's account of the apotheosis of Julius Caesar as S. de Graziashows
n Machiavelliin Hell (Princeton,1989, 353). Though Shaw's recent publication (op. cit., 204-07) suggests this is an exaggerationof art historians,much
has been writtenconcerningthe cult of Julius II as a second Caesar. In 1506,
a Latinpoem by Johannes MichaelNagonius addressed Julius, followinghis
conquest of Bologna, as a second Julius Caesar (Stinger,op. cit., 91). On two
separate occasions Bramanteput before Julius plans to commemorateJulius
Caesar in his honor (Shaw, op. cit., 200; and E. Gombrich,
Journal of the Warburgand CourtauldInstitutes, XIV,
"Hypnerotomachiana,"
1951, 119-22). During a liturgical oration, delivered in 1511, Cristoforo
Marcello hailed Julius, whose militarycampaigns he praised, as a "second
Julius Caesar" (Clare O'Reilly, "Maximus Caesar et Pontifex Maximus,"
Augustiniana, XXII,1972, 80-117). Post victorytriumphsand orations referred
to Julius in these terms as well (see, e.g., Loren Partridgeand Randolph
Starn, A Renaissance Likeness: Art and Culture in Raphael's Julius II,
Berkeley and London, 1980, 82-89). RegardingJulius II's purporteddescent
from Julius Caesar (and thereforeAeneus) see Schrotter,op. cit., 228-35; and
C. Moatti,A la recherche de la Rome antique, Paris, 1989, 38. The classic
source describing Caesar's descent from Aeneus is Virgil(Aeneid, esp. VIII
626-731). On the ancestral traditionof Julius Caesar in antiquityand the cult
of Julius Caesar, see S. Weinstock, Divus Julius, Oxford, 1971. On the
absence of the emperorto gover the worldfrom Rome see, e.g., Dante, La
Divina Comedia, Paradiso, XXVII.139-41.
113 Hartt, op. cit., 133, quotes and discusses Bembo's work. That of
Egidioda Viterbois published, together with commentary,by John O'Malley:
"Fulfillmentof the Christian Golden Age under Pope Julius II: Text of a
Discourse of Giles of Viterbo,1507," Traditio,XXV,1969, 265-339.
114 The compositionof the lost Assunta is
thoughtby many to be recorded in an anonymousdrawingin the Albertina(see V. Birkeand J. Kertesz,Die
italianischen zeichungen der Albertina, Ill, Vienna, Cologne, Weimar, 1995,
no. 4861). The iconographical conflation of Moses and Peter and the
medieval cult of Peter as the new Moses (as Moses' Christian successor
Peter received the Law from Christ,as Moses had received it from God) are
discussed in C. Pietri,Roma Christiana,Paris and Rome, 1976, I, 316-41 and
II, 1413-71, esp. 1436-42; and HerbertL Kessler, "Scenes from the Acts of
the Apostles on Some Early ChristianIvories,"Gesta, XVIII/I,1979, 113-14.
Pietripoints out that the image of Christconferringthe pallium(the Law) on
Peter, also symbolized by the keys, is a Roman traditionthough it experienced a wide diffusion.Thus Peter became, for the New Law, the new legislator(parallelingthe role of Moses for the Old Law).The Assunta sketch quite
clearlyshows St. Peter conferringthe keys (of his authorityas legislatorof the
Church)on Sixtus.
115 On the joint mission of Peter and Paul and the special interest in
them in Roman medieval culture, see Pietri, op. cit., II, esp. Chapter XVII
("TraditioLegis")on the iconographyof Peter and Paul as legislators;also
1575-79 on the magistralrole of Peter and Paul, 1539-41 on their feast day,
and 1571ff on their association with Rome and their triumphaliconography.
See also Herbert L. Kessler, 'The Meeting of Peter and Paul in Rome,"
DumbartonOaks Papers, XLI, 1987, esp. 265-73; and Idem, "Scenes from
the Acts," 1979, 116-17. In the 16th century Roman traditionrevered the
heads of Peter and Paul covered with gold and silver which decorated the
tabernacle of the altar in which the Tables of the Law were buried (see
Panvinio, in Lauer,op. cit., 435 and Martin,op. cit., 34-35). The reliquariesof
these two heads that presentlydecorate the high altarare not the originalreliquaries. Stolen in 1434, they were retrievedbut disappearedagain in the 18th
century.The present reliquariesare believed to be copies of the originals.On

the primacyof Peter and Paul in Rome see Stinger,op. cit., 156-234 and on
the heads of the two constitutingone of Rome's most sacred sites, 171.
116 See Condivi,op. cit., 23; and Vasari,op. cit., VII,181. Though in the
earlieredition of his work Vasarihad called the scene the Sacrifice of Noah,
he corrected this in the second edition after, as he notes (op. cit., VII, 176)
checking his informationwith Michelangeloin order to clear up any doubts.
(Cf. Vasari, La terza et vltimaparte delle vite de gli architettoripittoriet scvltori di Giorgio Vasari, Florence, 1550, 967; and Vasari, Le vite, 1568, VII,
181.)
117 See, e.g., E. Wind,'The Arkof Noah,"Measure, 1-11,
1950-51, 414-15;
and A. Chastel, "FirstReactionsto the Ceiling,"in The Sistine Chapel. The Art
,the Historyand the Restoration, C. Pietrangeli,ed., London,1986, 154-55.
118
See, e.g., Hartt,op. cit., 185.
119
Freedberg, op. cit., 98-99.
120
Hartt,op. cit., 135.
121 J.
Beck, "Michelangelo's Sacrifice on the Sistine Ceiling,"
Renaissance Society and Culture:Essays in Honorof Eugene F Rice, Jr., J.
Monfasaniand R. G. Musto,eds., New York, 1991, 9-17.
122 See, e.g., references to the use of entrailsin Roman sacrificein Ovid,
Metamorphoses XV, lines 576-78 and 794-95. Renaissance interest in
antique sacrifice (and sacrificialaltars such as the one seen in this composition) is discussed in F. Saxl, "Pagan Sacrifice in the Italian Renaissance,"
Journal of the Warburgand CourtauldInstitutes, II (4), 1939, 346-67.
123 Philo, De Sacrificiis Abelis et Caini (On the Sacrifice of Abel and
Cain), esp. secs. 52, 88, 104 and 136-39.
124 On this importantdocument of early Christianity
(which still survives),
probably inspired by the lawyer-apologistTertullian(cf. his Apologia XLV.3),
see Pietri,op. cit., II, 1469-70; also L. C. Ruggini,"Ebreie Romania confronto
nell'ltaliatardoantica,"ItaliaJudaica. Attidel I Convegno Interazionale (Bari
1981), Rome, 1983, 38-67.
125 St Augustine, De Civitate Dei XV.v. On this, see Lenkeith,op. cit.,
passim, esp. 75-89. On the libraryof Julius see n. 17 supra. An interesting
parallel is drawn between the crime of Cain and the founding of Rome
(accordingto Augustine)by C. Frugoniin A Distant City: Images of Urban
Experience in the Medieval World(1983) trans. W. McCraig,Princeton,1991,
171-75.
126 Vasari, Le vite, 1568, VII,204. The desire of ClementVIIto have the
entrance wall repaintedwas no doubt inspiredby the ruined conditionof the
last two scenes of the lives of Moses and Christcommissionedby Sixtus IV.
A proper identificationof these scenes, and their authors, is proposed by
Francesco Stastny, "Anote on two frescoes in the Sistine Chapel,"Burlington
Magazine, CXXI,(921), Dec. 1979, 777-82.
127
Vasari, Le vite, 1568, VII,214.
128 On the
reign of Paul II,see esp. Leon Dorez, La Courdu Pape Paul
III, Paris, 1932, 2 vols., esp. I, 1-18 and, regarding his relations with
Michelangelo, I, 143-54. On the founding of the Jesuit order see John
O'Malley,The FirstJesuits, Cambridge,Mass., 1933.
129 Colin Eisler, in discussion with the author.Roundedtablets of the law
are held by Moses in Raphael'sDisputa.
130 With respect to this older, unsatisfactory, interpretation
of the wall
frescoes see Lee, op. cit., 145-47.
131 Dante, La Divina Comedia, Purgatorio, VI.118-20. The passage
reads:
"E se licitom'e, o sommo Giove
che fosti in Terraper noi crocifisso
son li giusti occhi tuoi rivoltialtrove?"
The text is quoted from Dante Alighieri,The Divine Comedy, trans.and ed. C.
S. Singleton, II (1), Princeton,1973, 62.
43

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

Author(s): Christiane L. Joost-Gaugier

Michelangelo'sIgnudi,and the SistineChapelas a Symbol

"Amme pare che ttu facci troppo"

the Ceilingcommissioned by Pope Julius II between 1506 (when we

previous and subsequent decorations and, indeed, possibly even to

tury in which they were created, there is no precedent in the history

2) Michelangelo, <lgnudo,, Sistine Ceiling, Rome, Vatican,

3) Michelangelo, <lgnudo)>,Sistine Ceiling, Rome, Vatican,

acolytes of Christ,athletes of God, supportersof medallions,celestial

4) Michelangelo, (<lgnudo,,, Sistine Ceiling, Rome, Vatican,

5) Michelangelo, <lgnudo>, Sistine Ceiling, Rome, Vatican,

of oak leaves, acorns, and sacks of acorns attend these figures

roburor roboreus (rovere in Italian)refers to a member of the genus

ing the coming and passion of Christ,ratherthan for their interest in

Pliny's ambivalence respecting the existence of a divine creator

er the idea of a single God and a just God, Philo of Alexandria, or

Giulio;denotando che a qual tempo ed al governo suo era I'eta

Venus presented Aeneas with the magnificent arms that would

8) <<Janus>,,Lucignano (Tuscany), Palazzo Comunale (Photo:

that the buildingwas not planned first,to be followedby the planning

authorityand powers of the pope.86The authorityof Solomon had

Pythagoras has a prominent location in Raphael's School of

9) Pinturicchio (?), "<Assunta>>,

Lateran, where the Tables of the Law were believed to be

The above hypothesis provides good reason to suggest that the

being sacrificed, Noah's sacrifice was therefore exemplified. The

innards) because to be pleasing to God the sacrifice had to be

Though it involvedthe obliterationof at least three Quattrocento

tory of art in Rome, a city that-ironically-during the earlier

This articlewas presentedas a paper at the 1995 meeting of The

2 The term'firstchapelof the world'

Michelangelo reprinted in G. Poggi, 1/ Carteggio di Michelangelo, ed. P.

Barocchiand R. Ristori,I, Florence,1965. no. L.

ed., London,1986, 25.

Milanesi,ed., Florence,1881, VII,esp. 173-216;as well as in lettersand

angels is suggested by survivingearlierdrawingsfor the Ceilingas noted by

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

Michelangelo, II,1945, 247). It should be noted, in connectionwiththe text at

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

83 The nave of Sta. Maria

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

century.The present reliquariesare believed to be copies of the originals.On

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