Michelangelo Code: Did Michelangelo Hide Secret Codes in the Sistine Chapel?

Posted by Alex in Arts & Crafts, Paranormal on June 23, 2008 at 4:09 pm


According to a new book by Rabbi Benjamin Blech, a professor of Talmud at Yeshiva University in New York, and Vatican tour guide Roy Doliner, Michelangelo hid a secret code in the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel:

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which the renaissance artist worked on for four years in the early 16th century, is actually a "bridge" between the Roman Catholic Church and the Jewish faith, according to The Sistine Secrets: Unlocking the Codes in Michelangelo’s Defiant Masterpiece.

For example, the book states, the figures of David and Goliath form the shape of the letter gimel, which symbolises g’vurah, or strength, in the mystical Kabbalah tradition.

Link via The Weird Post


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8 comments to "Michelangelo Code: Did Michelangelo Hide Secret Codes in the Sistine Chapel?"

  1. Nicholas Dollak
    June 23rd, 2008 at 5:41 pm

    For all his formidable skill as a sculptor, and modest skill as a painter, I have doubts that Michelangelo knew much about Judaism outside of the teachings of the church in Rome at the time. His famous statue "David" portrays David as uncircumcised; and his statue "Moses" boasts a pair of horns (from a mis-translation of a Hebrew word meant to connote "rays of light"). (He also didn't use female nude models, which is why his nude women look like young boys with strange fake breasts.) I'm pretty sure any resemblance between the shapes of the figures and the shapes of Hebrew letters is purely circumstantial. If you study the dynamic poses of figures in many Renaissance and Baroque paintings, you'll see the shapes of letters from various alphabets if you want to. As for the strictly Old Testament motif on the ceiling, that was the Pope's idea.

  2. Diogenes
    June 23rd, 2008 at 5:43 pm

    Well, I think its all bogus...and even if it isn't, so what. I saw on the tee-vee these authors explaining their point of view about M giving the pope "the bird". ,
    What I think is more interesting than any kind of spite Mchelangelo might have expressed in his ceiling fresco, is that he created a giant skull out of his "last judgement" and I havent heard a word about that.

    I dont know...It's all historically corny if you ask me.

    The same hidden secrets have been placed on Vasari's pointed finger, of which, beneath lies The Battle of Anghiari.

  3. bean
    June 23rd, 2008 at 6:31 pm

    Given the crazy shapes of the Hebrew alphabet, you could see Hebrew letters in any painting, cloud, or natural formation.

  4. ted
    June 23rd, 2008 at 7:27 pm

    You could probably pick out more arabic letters than anything else, since they have such a nice flow to them.

  5. Deadmundo
    June 24th, 2008 at 11:07 am

    Im sure that all of the old artists/sculptures (Da Vinci, Michelangelo) had nothing better to do than make wonderful and fun puzzles. everthing is a secret code or puzzle or clue to another puzzle. you could take a kids book and say that it has hidden messages if you want to. Makes historians look like they have figured something important out.

  6. Tom
    June 24th, 2008 at 3:48 pm

    I'm still waiting for the Donnatello and Raphael codes, so I can have a complete TMNT set of secret codes.

  7. RM
    June 25th, 2008 at 3:00 pm

    The Roman Catholic Church is based on the Jewish faith...

  8. John Paul II
    March 23rd, 2009 at 11:56 am

    I've never laughed so hard as I did to Tom's witty thoughts. Very brilliant and funny. Kudos to you


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