Michelangelo’s Revenge

Michelangelo - Last Judgment - 1537-41 - Fresco, 1370 x 1220 cm - Cappella Sistina, Vatican

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564). When discussing Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment” fresco, the Vatican’s Master of Ceremonies, Biagio da Cesena, said, “it was mostly disgraceful that in so sacred a place there should have been depicted all those nude figures, exposing themselves so shamefully, and that it was no work for a papal chapel but rather for the public baths and taverns.”

Detail (click photo for larger image)Taking his revenge, Michelangelo painted him into the lower right corner of the painting as Minos, the mythological king of Crete who, after death, became one of the three judges of hell, with a snake coiled around him. The artist said,“What spirit is so empty and blind, that it cannot recognize the fact that the foot is more noble than the shoe, and skin more beautiful than the garment with which it is clothed?” 

Detail (click photo for larger image)Despite his point of view, however, at Trent, a month before Michelangelo’s death, it was decided that the fresco should be “amended” by Daniele da Volterra, to paint loincloths and veils onto all of the figures in the Last Judgment, earning him the nickname “Il Braghetonne”, literally meaning “the breeches maker”. Some of those have since been removed.