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The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican | 
 enlarge | Authors: Benjamin Blech, Roy Doliner
Publisher: HarperOne
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
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Rating:  36 reviews
Sales Rank: 8711
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.8 x 1.3
ISBN: 0061469041
Dewey Decimal Number: 759.5
EAN: 9780061469046
ASIN: 0061469041
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
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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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 31 more reviews...
 Sistine Secrets Revealed! December 3, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
A thoughtful, thought-provoking and enlightening account of what's between the brush strokes of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. I highly recommend this fascinating, erudite and very readable book.
 glad i purchased this November 25, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I saw this advertised, but could not find it in stores. Glad I ordered it from Amazon. Enjoyed the book
 Michelangelo's Jewish agenda? Reference, please . . . November 18, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
This book describes many of Michelangelo's high Renaissance artworks in the Vatican City, Florence and elsewhere and claims Michelangelo was directly influenced by Jewish religious teachings of the Talmud, Midrash and Kabbalah in his subject matter as well as deeper symbolic messages of Christian religious art, particularly in the Sistine Chapel.
The authors note that Michelangelo was virtually adopted by Lorenzo de Medici and educated in an intellectual environment of the de Medici court that included Renaissance scholars and philosophers who were proponents of ideals of unity of religious and philosophical thought. Among other sources, the authors claim these studies included Jewish teachings and philosophical works based on Jewish teachings. The authors argue that the Jewish component of those intellectual discussions at the "School of Athens" in the de Medici family palace must have been picked up and internalized by the young Michelangelo as a lifetime intellectual influence and a sympathy to Jewish religious and mystical thought. This tenuous speculation about his early education is the basis of the central claim.
In order to accept the theme, one has to accept the central speculation about Michelangelo's alleged fascination with the Jewish teachings.
Several detailed observations, subjective interpretations and speculations about the artworks in the Sistine Chapel and elsewhere are then provided in the book to validate these claims. These interpretations of the artworks are the strength of the entire argument. The authors provide skimpy evidence of this alleged fascination in Michelangelo's letters and poetry, his known associates, or in any accounts of his contemporaries.
More conventional Christian scholarship could have provided the Old Testament subject matter and many of the subtleties revealed in the authors' observations.
The authors' theme that Jewish teaching was as central and profound as they propose, and claims of Michelangelo being directly influenced by the Jewish teaching are not well established.
Some of the observations and speculations of the book are interesting. The book has provided me with previously unfamiliar insights in the history and symbols in the Sistine Chapel. Some of the speculations the authors provide seem plausible, others are open to various interpretation, while others strain credibility or contradict my own observations.
I cannot validate or invalidate the authors claims, however, because I have been frustrated by a lack of reference in dozens of places in the text when I had a question regarding an extraordinary or even an uncontroversial statement of fact, history, observation, theory or speculation. There are other places where the authors disagree with other writings I have read on the subjects.
The book is woefully lacking in annotation and reference. I cannot assess how common or how unique the themes and subtleties of Michelangelo were in the context of wider Renaissance religious art or how common or unprecedented are the observations and speculations the authors provide.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence that the authors do not provide. What we get instead are speculations, subjective interpretations and conspiracy theory.
The result is a book that is neither fish nor fowl; neither scholarly treatise nor popular guide accessible to a larger naive audience.
I can suggest this book to readers with a particular interest in the Sistine Chapel or Michelangelo's life for its unconventional viewpoint, but I would caution the reader to read it with a critical mind.
Secret Protestant polemic November 15, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
According to this very intriguing book, Michelangelo was a "humanist and Neoplatonist" who had a deep appreciation of Judaism and especially the Kabbalah, reflected amazingly in the Sistine Chapel ceiling, which depicts not one Christian saint or hero.... only Jewish ones!!
Among other things, this book confirms that Sandro Botticelli, Signorelli and numerous other Italian painters of the period 1400-1600 hid "secret symbols" in their paintings, much of it "anti-Vatican-establishment." The list of these "proto-protestant" artists includes many whom I cited in 1993 in my "Woman with the Alabaster Jar" (cited by Dan Brown as a signficant source for "The Da Vinci Code") because I discovered coded symbols of an "alternative" or "proto-Protestant" Christiaity in their paintings, especially their images of Mary Magdalene. This new book includes stories and lore from the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud, Midrash and Kabbalah, books apparently dear to Michelangelo's heart.
In "The Sistine Secrets" we are shown how Michelangelo attacked the corruption of Pope Julius II and the Vatican insiders--"high priests" who betrayed Christ and his truth--through symbols in his paintings, placed so high in the ceiling that we couldn't see explicit details until the "zoom cameras" of the 20th century.
REMEMBER WHEN THE BEATLES DISAPPEARED IN THE 60'S... November 9, 2008
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
AND PEOPLE WERE PLAYING THE LP'S BACKWARDS TO FIND HIDDEN CLUES TO THEIR WHEREABOUTS. THE 'DISCOVERY' OF OUTLINES OF HEBREW LETTERS IN THE FIGURES DEPICTED IN THE FRESCO IS EQUALLY OF QUESTIONABLE LEGITIMACY.
A BIT OF A REACH. THE REST OF THE CONJECTURES ARE MORE INTERESTING AS CLEARLY MICHELANGELO WAS A PHILO-SEMITE AND RESENTFUL OF THE CHURCH'S CORRUPTION. FUN READ WHICH WOULD MAKE A VISIT TO THE SISTINE CHAPEL (FOR THOSE WHO CAN ENTER) THAT MUCH MORE ENGAGING AFTER GLEANING THE INFORMATION.
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