 List Price: $26.95
Lowest Price: $15.60 
Product Description: Five hundred years ago Michelangelo began work on a painting that became one of the most famous pieces of art in the world—the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Every year millions of people come to see Michelangelo's Sistine ceiling, which is the largest fresco painting on earth in the holiest of Christianity's chapels; yet there is not one single Christian image in this vast, magnificent artwork. The Sistine Secrets tells the fascinating story of how Michelangelo embedded messages of brotherhood, tolerance, and freethinking in his painting to encourage "fellow travelers" to challenge the repressive Roman Catholic Church of his time. "Driven by the truths he had come to recognize during his years of study in private nontraditional schooling in Florence, truths rooted in his involvement with Judaic texts as well as Kabbalistic training that conflicted with approved Christian doctrine, Michelangelo needed to find a way to let viewers discern what he truly believed. He could not allow the Church to forever silence his soul. And what the Church would not permit him to communicate openly, he ingeniously found a way to convey to those diligent enough to learn his secret language."—from the Preface Blech and Doliner reveal what Michelangelo meant in the angelic representations that brilliantly mocked his papal patron, how he managed to sneak unorthodox heresies into his ostensibly pious portrayals, and how he was able to fulfill his lifelong ambition to bridge the wisdom of science with the strictures of faith. The Sistine Secrets unearths secrets that have remained hidden in plain sight for centuries. Customer Reviews: Rating: 
Date: 2008-07-04
Much more than a great art discovery
Like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel (and the Last Judgment fresco on the wall at the alter end), this book is wonderful at many levels.
First, it will help people understand a lot about one of the great philo-Semitic periods of history. Together with Britain in Victorian times, surely wonderful to see the Italian Renaissance and the period of Lorenzo di Medici (The Magnificent) was a time of great interest in Jewish learning on the part of non-Jews and a sense of Jewish-chic.
Second, a great deal of Kabbala theory will be found here. The first author being a professor of Talmud at Yeshiva U., he also presents quite a drosh on Talmudic and Midrashic issues as they touch on the images in Michelangelo's work.
Third, an enormous amount of "insider" history of the period esp, about the papacy and Italy is presented. To call this "juicy" would hardly do it justice! Vast amount of historical fact (all right, call it "gossip").
Finally, this is a book about great, if familiar art. It will help you enjoy Michelangelo's entire work (not just the Vatican masterpieces). There are many hidden messages within Michelangelo's work and many of these are based on his grasp of Jewish sources. If not all the observations seem convincing to all, a great many surely do.
Highly recommended for people who love the real stories within history. By the way, the writing is as good as the best New Yorker articles.
Rating: 
Date: 2008-07-02
Disappointing
This work got lots of press -- that it doesn't deserve. The best feature is the innovative fold out book jacket that turns into the entire ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Other than that, it is written for biblical scholars, not those interested in the ontology of the painting. Very few pictures, generally very poor quality. Not casual reading. Rating:
Date: 2008-06-29
5 stars for scholarship and readability
The authors have produced an important work of art historical scholarship that is also a delightful book to read. They take their readers on a tour of the intellectual and social world in which Michelangelo's attitudes were formed. They explain that he had "a very special education" that gave him great sympathy with freethinking, even heretical, writers. They also reveal his knowledge of the Midrash, the Talmud, and Kabbalah.
Michelangelo and other Renaissance artists embedded coded messages into nearly all their works. It delighted European elites who gained enormous social cache from their ability to interpret complex images. It also served as a way to express "censored" ideas.
In the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo took the opportunity to fill the space with "hidden messages of his passionate loves and his righteous rages, along with mystic symbols of divine justice and divine mercy" (306). His motives remain difficult to discern. But there can be no doubt that he intended his work to be read--not hidden from posterity.
The authors help us to "read" Michelangelo's images by providing the tools used by sixteenth-century humanists. They walk us through the chapel as if they were tour guides, pointing out some very extraordinary features, for example, the depiction of two putti "giving the fig" to Pope Julius's portrait (136). They also show us details that recently came to light after the Sistine ceiling was cleaned, a process that started in 1980. Most notable is the figure of Aminadab (a distant ancestor of Jesus Christ) wearing the yellow badge of shame required by the Fourth Lateran Council. He makes the "devil's horns" with his fingers and points towards the ceremonial canopy over Julius's papal throne (154).
Wow.
This book is so much fun to read.
PS-I recommend the hardcover version because the dust cover opens up into a mini-poster of the Sistine ceiling. Rating:
Date: 2008-06-27
Even with flaws, read this one!
This is an important book. Don't miss it. Despite its flaws, I give it five stars and thumbs up!
However, it is a pity that the authors did not take a more dignified, quasi-scholarly approach. There was no need to hammer each point home; a subtle touch would have been more effective.
The discussion of Michelangelo's education in the de' Medici household is fascinating. The authors claim that the Corpus Hermeticus is the work of an ancient Egyptian master. However, recent scholarship dates the work to the early centuries CE. It is stated that Picco della Mirandola, one of Michelangelo's tutors and famed in his own right, was heavily influenced by Jewish mysticism and had the largest library of Judaic and Kabbalistic writings. There is no reference for this claim, which is so important for the book's thesis.
The claim is made that few Christians in Michelangelo's time, or in this time, would suspect that the Tree of Knowledge was a fig tree, rather than an apple tree. I think that now, many people recognize that it was a fig tree. It would have been better for the authors to more carefully support their claim that in Michelangelo's time few had this understanding. Their treatment of the two angels of our nature in this panel is fascinating.
I hope that this book provokes discussion and further study. The tale is generally told well and provides stimulating food for thought. Sadly, one can imagine how a thoughtful Christian, and especially a genius such as Michelangelo, would have felt when faced with the corrupt and quite unchristian behavior of the popes and cardinals. The point is pursuasive that the secrets had to be well-hidden. Thanks goodness the ceiling was so high and inaccessible or we might not have this masterpiece with us today. Rating:
Date: 2008-06-23
Sistine Secrets
The book turned out as it promised. It was an interesting read and did in fact portray many of the mesages that were left in the paintings. |
