Whos Who in Michelangelos Creation of Adam

Who's Who in Michelangelo's Creation of Adam: A Chronology of the Picture's Reluctant
Self-Revelation
Author(s): Leo Steinberg
Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 74, No. 4 (Dec., 1992), pp. 552-566
Published by: CAA
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Who's Who in Michelangelo's Creation ofAdam:
A Chronology of the Picture's Reluctant Self-Revelation
Leo Steinberg
1547-53 silent and solitary") since the latter seventeenth century. He

proceeds:
Some tots--alcuni putti-is all Vasari saw, or remembered
seeing, under God's other arm in the Sistine Creation ofAdam;
an inadequate observation to which Condivi had nothingThe toappearance, therefore, of the large series of photo-
add. Accordingly, God's chosen intimates in the fresco graphs by Adolphe Braun, the patentee on the Continent
(foldout following p. 566) remained for the next 320 years of our English permanent process, has been a surprise to
unlooked-for and nondescript-until rescued from anonym- many. So much so, that the world seems to understand for
ity through the industry of a retired Alsatian policeman, the first time what a royal treasure-house this Vatican
whom the Paris photographer Adolphe Braun had trained to Chapel is.
take pictures. [Michelangelo] has . . . been called abstract and ideal,
but these terms are dangerous and inexact, because of the
1870 naturalness and (above all) the individualzty of all he did.
This has hitherto been little recognised even by those who
After two years of camera work atop a 60-foot scaffold by the
examined the frescoes closely, but these photographs by
aforesaid gendarme (his name seems to be lost), the Paris
Braun show the variety of his characterisation, as no
firm Adolphe Braun et Cie. published a set of 120 large
engravings have ever done .... In the Creation of Adam,
photographic details of the Ceiling, among them The Cre-
the Almighty is surrounded by the future in the shape of
ation ofAdam: a fine albumen print, 73cm wide, mounted on
mighty children, supporting Him who needs no support,
cardboard backing (Fig. 1).' Needless to say, this earliest
and an antitypal [szc] Eve looks round from under His
photograph of the fresco surpassed in accuracy the hand-
arm, her great eyes fixed on the newly-created man!2
drawn copies that still represent the Creation in surveys and
monographs even to the late 1880s. Yet, by our lights, the The terminal exclamation mark is in order. Until this
Braun people did not play fair: to enhance the clarity of accented moment, the Creation fresco had seemed to resp
Michelangelo's composition they had treated the negative, unity of time, place, and action: God, to the wonderment
eliminating superfluous matter. Of the twelve who surround angelic witness, giving his masterwork its finishing touch
God in the fresco's right half, four or five were suppressed, Now, without waiting its turn, the specter of a preempti
including the cherubs at upper right, so that Vasari's "alcuni Eve threatened to interfere, and this must be resisted. The
putti"-the two under God's arm-lifted off against neutral notion of a premature woman in God's embrace was, Scott
ground. The effect of their startled prominence on Michelan- reported in 1875, "entirely questioned by my friends." "A
gelo criticism was catastrophic. well-known art critic," with whom he had been examining
the original two years before, "remained impervious to the
1871 idea even when constrained to admit that the figure was
There is a lengthy review of the Braun photographs in The feminine." And Scott's posthumous Autobiographzcal Notes
Portfolio, written by the Scottish artist-poet William Bell Scott. records that the eminent Charles Heath Wilson, author of a
Scott acknowledges the pains of viewing the frescoes in situ, substantial Michelangelo monograph published in 1876,
but deplores the neglect of the Sistine Chapel ("nearly always "laughed at my elucidation of the female appearing in the
The present essay is excerpted from a book on the Creatzon fresco to be

est envoy, i Rome pour photographier le plafond de la Sixtine. Six mois
published by the Menil Foundation, Inc., in association with George de prparatifs, deux annes de travaux. L'ancien gendarme, enthousi-
Braziller. I take this opportunity, as I would any fitting occasion, to sing aste, curieux, dvoue, conquiert au Vatican, jusqu'au Saint Pere [Pius
the praise of both parties, and to thank the Menil Foundation for its IX] qui, intress,, vient dit-on, plusieurs fois par semaine r6der autour
many courtesies, past, present, and promised, including the underwrit- des 6chafaudages et bavarder avec l'Alsacien."
ing of the cost of the (post-cleaning) color foldout and plate. The high See now A. Moltedo, La Szstzna rzprodotta: Gl affreschz dz Mzchelangelo
fee for these latter would weigh less heavy had the transparency dalle stampe del cznquecento alle campagne fotographzce Anderson, exh. cat.,
provided by Nippon Television been less arbitrary and bilious. Calcografia Nazionale, Rome, 1991, no. 54, 236-241. Braun's lead was
Three dear friends have been wondrously helpful along the way: quickly followed by Alinari, whose photographic campaign in the Sistine
Lillian Feder, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Graduate Center, City Chapel, initiated in 1876, produced 159 plates; by Alessandro Vasari in
University of New York; Roberta Waddell, Curator of Prints, The New 1880; by Giacomo Brogi in 1888; and by Domenico Anderson in 1898
York Public Library; and Hester Diamond. (Moltedo, nos. 57, 60, 56, and 61, respectively). But as late as 1896,
'I A full set of the Braun photographs may be seen at The New York when Estelle M. Hurll reissued Anna Jameson's Memozrs of Early Italian
Public Library. It was Gisela Freund's chapter "Photography as a Means Painters (1859), she added to Jameson's account of the Sistine frescoes:
"The Arundel Society has published a chromo-lithograph of the Sistine
of Art Reproduction" (in Photography and Soczety, Boston, 1980, 96-97)
that led me to Un Szicle de technzque: Etablzssements Braun & Cie, Paris ceiling, and Braun has issued a series of one hundred and twenty
[1950], from which I quote the relevant paragraph (p. 12): "De tous les photographs of the panels" (Boston, 1896, v, 159).
2W. Bell Scott, "Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel (Braun's
collaborateurs d'Adolphe Braun, l'un d'eux a laiss, un souvenir pittor-
esque: un ancien gendarme devenu oprateur de la maison. En 1868 il Photographs)," The Portfolzo, i, 1871, 11-12.
WHO'S WHO IN MICHELANGELO'S CREATION OF ADAM 553
TIM- Iii-:?
1 Michelangelo, Creation ofAdam, right half, photograph published by Adolphe Braun & Cie., 1870. New York Public Library
Lenox, and Tilden Foundations, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints, and Photographs (photo: Library)
group round God the Father in the Creation of Adam. He but also more intelligent than boys. This is why [Michelange-
went farther, showing his want of sense by pronouncing the lo] chose this small angel-woman to lead the pack. She is all
discovery of no consequence!"3 eye, and the eye is all comprehension."4
Why Scott's untimely Eve (Fig. 2) aroused such resistance isIt was a critical moment in Michelangelo scholarship. With
an interesting question which I hope to address in a book onoptions proliferating, all hope of certainty seemed imper-
iled. Therefore, to stay the influx of more good ideas, the
the Creation fresco now in progress. No less intriguing is the
abundance of counter-proposals that soon overwhelmed mighty Ernst Steinmann (1905) decreed:
Scott's discovery and reduced it to merely one among divers
The beautiful creature of a feminine rather than mascu-
hypotheses: might not the creature under God's arm be the
Blessed Virgin? or the personified human soul? or the Divina
line type, who presses forward so pertly from under
Sapientia spoken of in Proverbs and Ecclesiasticus? or theJehovah's left arm and looks so intently at Adam, is
neither Eve nor the "world-fashioning Sophia of the Book
Holy Ghost in the form of the Cabala's Shekhinah ? or again,
of Wisdom," nor the "personified human soul," but an
according to the opinion of Carl Justi (1900), a study in
angel of masculine build like all the rest.5
cherubic curiosity? "Perhaps," wrote Justi, "the figure is
merely the winsomest personification of the angelic craving
for knowledge. Girls as a rule are not only more inquisitive
4 C. Justi, Michelangelo: Beitrage zur Erklarung der Werke und des Menschen,
Leipzig, 1900, 43: "Vielleicht ist es nur die anmutigste Personification
englischer Wissbegierde. Madchen pflegen nicht nur neugieriger,
sondern auch intelligenter zu sein als Knaben. Deshalb wahlte er hier als
3W. Bell Scott, "Correspondence: Michelangelo's 'Creation of Adam,"
Fiuhrerin der Scharen diess Engelweibchen. Sie ist ganz Auge, und das
The Academy, Oct. 2, 1875, 358; and idem, Autobiographical Notes of the Life
Auge ist ganz Verstand."
of William Bell Scott, ed. W. Minto, London, 1892, II, 284. I thank Alan
Staley for apprising me of this autobiography and for celebrating 5the E. Steinmann, Die Sixtinische Kapelle, Munich, 1905, II, 330: "Das
centenary of its publication with the loan of his personal copy. sch6ne Wesen mit einem eher weiblichen als minnlichen Typus, das sich
554 THE ART BULLETIN DECEMBER 1992 VOLUME LXXIV NUMBER 4
Let me here interject that the gender of the God- Since the surviving versions of this Venus type usually
embraced croucher is still sometimes disputed or neutered.come without arms, Michelangelo (like Raphael in his design
Luitpold Dussler called the young thing a "spiritello," a for Marcantonio's engraving, B. 313) invented a gesture for
sprite.6 Nor could the late Frederick Hartt find "any evi- her: reaching for daddy's arm. The gesture spells innocent
dence that a female figure is designated."'7 Even after the trust-no need to interpret; unless we ponder, as Michelan-
cleaning campaign of the 1980s, Hartt insisted on masculin- gelo may have done, what Eve at this brink would be doing.
ity. In the text he wrote for The Sistine Chapel-I refer to the We are then led to wonder: in the first shock of her vision, is
elephantine one-grand, two-tome, twenty-seven-pound obsta- she seeking the fatherly arm for protection, or wanting to
cle published by Nippon Television, wherein Gianluigi Co- shake it off? Perhaps the ambivalence of the gesture implies
lalucci, chief of the restoration team, checks off the creature woman's relation to the father as she assumes her relation to
under God's arm as "the young woman whose presence here man. I say perhaps, and would argue only that the observed
continues to be explained in a variety of ways"-Hartt ambiguity, if correctly observed, makes good sense.
delivered his last word on the subject: But more telling than posture, gesture, bust measure-
ments, or coiffure are the croucher's centrality and spatial
Often and incomprehensibly characterized as female, and effectiveness. Her influence radiates to all cardinal points:
a depiction of the yet-to-be incarnate soul of Eve, or even upward as she grasps the paternal yoke that weighs on her
that of the Virgin Mary-contrary to Catholic theology, shoulder; sideward to fix upon Adam; rightward, engaging
which maintains that the soul is created at the moment of
the child; and, as we shall see, downward by way of a fatal
conception. The chest line contains no hint of Michelange-
loincloth. Daughter, bride-designate, mother, she buds here
lo's characteristic rendering of female breasts, and isas all woman-while posture and charm convey the venereal
perfectly consistent with that of the nude youths. Theattributes of beauty, candor, fecundity.
curly locks of the hair, moreover, are shorter than those of As for the challenges to her identity, those especially that
many of the nudes.8 would equate her with Mary, they disregard too much of the
picture and spread needless confusion. Notwithstanding the
If ever there was a lost cause, it's the bid to un- or transsex
claims of several recent textbooks, the refutation is simple
the croucher by arguing from the low profile of that "chest
and final: no female crouched like an Aphrodite and fasci-
line." Michelangelo gave the figure the shy mamillae of a
nated by Adam may be the Blessed Virgin. And if that's not
pubescent girl, whose hair is center-parted and piled on top
persuasive enough, then summon Hans Andersen's artless
(in Renaissance art a uniquely feminine style), and whose
child to remind us that she has nothing on. She cannot but be
pose-not to be slighted-evokes the familiar antique Crouch- Adam's mate, as William Bell Scott in 1871 (and Walter
zng Venus (Figs. 2, 3).
Pater) had eyes to see.9
1875-1905
so vorwitzig unter dem linken Arm Jehovahs hervordrangt und so
At the fourth centenary of Michelangelo's birth, the Leip
gespannt auf Adam blickt, ist weder Eva noch die 'weltbildende Sophia
Zeitschrift far Bildende Kunst published an astonishing fou
des Buches der Weisheit,' noch 'die Personifikation der Menschenseele,'
sondern ein Engel von mdinnlicher Bildung wie alle iibrigen."page article on the Creation ofAdam fresco.'1 The author
Stein-
mann's note 1, same page, lays out the evidence: "Im Fresko Michelan-
Jean-Paul Richter, better known for his subsequent corpu
gelos kann man fibrigens mfihelos die mannliche Brust des Engels
erkennen. .." the literary works of Leonardo da Vinci. In his Michelang
paper,
6 L. Dussler, Dze Zezchnungen des Mzchelangelo: Krztzscher Katalog, Richter
Berlin, rediscovered Eve in the embraced crouc
1959, 247. and, looking beyond, identified the child at her knee, the
whose
7F. Hartt, review of Tolnay, Mzchelangelo, Vol. ii, in The Art shoulder receives God's left index finger and thum
Bulletzn,
xxxii, 1950, 244.
declaring him to be none other than Christ. For the f
8 The Szstzne Chapel, commentaries G. Colalucci, intro. F. Hartt, photo-
graphs T. Okamura, New York, 1991. See Vol. II, 94, for the Colalucci
passage; for the Hartt quotation, 374, n. 24.
Hartt's doctrinal objection to the Eve identification as "contrary to
9 Pater's essay "The Poetry of Michelangelo" (1871; included i
Catholic theology" applies only where the figure is identified with Eve's
unborn soul, as in H. Hibbard, Michelangelo, New York, The Renazssance,
1974, 137, 1873), speaks in passing of "the image of the A
as he comes with the forms of things to be, woman and her pro
quoted in n. 21, below. Cf. A. Stokes, Mzchelangelo: A Study zn the Nature of
the
Art (1955): ".. . God the Father ... controls about him an fold of his garment!"-an observation which William Be
uterine
wanting
mantle filled with attendants who clamber close, souls yet to be born.full
." credit for coming in first, belittled as follows: "I am
find my friend Mr. Pater adopted the idea in his excellent Studz
(reprinted in The Crztzcal Wrztzngs ofAdrian Stokes, London, 1978, III, 52).
Hzstory of the Renazssance. He may have conceived it for himself
But most scholars avoid that particular error. Thus H. Hettner,
(Italzenzsche Studzen, Braunschweig, 1879, 257), drawing on of Braun's
"Platonistphotograph." But Scott's foreboding about being wr
of the record was justified. In scholarly Michelangelo literatu
theology" to reject Richter's identification of the figure as proper Eve,
discovery of Eve in the fresco is now routinely ascribed to his ep
called the figure the "personification of the human soul." Scott himself
Barocchi (in Gzorgzo Vasarz: La vita di Mzchelangelo, Milan an
wrote "antetype" and Eve's "eidolon," and again, "the representation of
Eve before she had existed, an antetypal Eve in the mind 1962, of
II, 525)
the gives the credit to Richter because she knows on
1875 article, not the original review of 1871; C. de Tolnay (Th
Everlasting Father, who saw effects in their causes" ("Correspondence,"
as in n. 3, 358). Cezlzng, Princeton, 1945, 136) assigns the discovery unequivo
Richter; and in the Steinmann-Wittkower Mzchelangelo Biblzo
For others, the figure represents a future tense, God's "further
(Leipzig, 1927), poor Scott gets no separate entry. His painting
purpose," "the idea of Eve," "the embodiment of the idea of Eve," "the
or polemics may not offer much to admire, but let credit sit wh
type of woman," or else "Eve, the type of Ecclesia, still uncreated
due.
yet
present, peer[ing] forth from the great fold of God's mantle" (W.
Seiferth, Synagogue and Church zn the Mzddle Ages, New 10 J. P. Richter,
York, 1970, "Die Sch6pfung des Menschen von Michelangelo in der
140)-all of which may be arguable, but not on dogmatic grounds.
sixtinischen Kapelle," Zeztschrzt fur Bzddende Kunst, x, 1875, 168-171.
..
2 Michelangelo, Creation ofAdam, detail
time, the fresco's two Adams, the Old and the New, were seen
concerted as poles apart.
But Richter's Christological hunch came a full generation
too soon-only one believer appears in the record. An
Englishman about whom one would like to know more,
Alfred Higgins, understood at once that the picture had been
irreversibly altered. Instead of freezing an instant, the
composition now traced a continuum, and Higgins approved:
"Thus are finely indicated at the very moment of Adam's
creation the further and final purposes of God in the creation
of the Mother of Mankind, and in the incarnation of the Son
of God.""I But William Bell Scott, the same who, four years
earlier, had pioneered in the recognition of Eve, denounced
as a phantasm "the entirely gratuitous supposition of one of
the numerous cherubs being the Second Person of the
Trinity, or, as he [Richter] calls, him, according to Mr.
Higgins, The Son of Man! That Michelangelo represented
Christ here as a child is incredible."'2
Incredible to the scholars then living. The Richter hypoth-
esis gathered thirty years' worth of dust until Ernst Stein-
11 A. Higgins, "Correspondence: Michelangelo's 'Creation of Adam,' "

The Academy, Sept. 18, 1875, 307. ..........
12 Scott, "Correspondence" (as in n. 3), 358. Knowing Richter's argu-

ment only from Higgins's pr&cis, Scott ends with a mean-spirited swipe:
"These misconceptions appear to me to prove Herr Richter to be a3 Crouching Venus, Roman copy
wandering light, not so likely to discover as to adopt." Rome, Museo Nazionale delle Terme
mann (1905) cleared it away. To his pronouncement (quoted the picture to divert attention from the main subject." The
above) that the disputed Eve is "an angel of masculine build phrase echoes Ludwig Pastor's earlier praise of the fresco:
like all the rest," he added the clincher: "And no different is
"all accessories that might distract the attention from the
the robust putto, whose shoulder is touched by Jehovah's left main subject are excluded."16 Both authors preferred to
hand, and whom some have even designated the Son of keep Eve and Christ out of sight, lest their admission consign
Mary. He differs from his brothers only in not glancing at "the main subject" to peripheral vision and weaken our
Adam and in being disgruntled [unzufrieden] and close to appreciation of what matters most--"the first man waking
tears, probably because he has not yet found himself a ... and gazing into the fatherly face of his Maker." Gombrich
comfortable place to watch from."' admired as "one of the greatest miracles in art how Michelan-
gelo has contrived thus to make the touch of the Divine hand
1912-45 the center and focus of the picture"; and from this focus he,
So much for Richter's incredible "Son of Man." Not until
like Pastor, would permit no distraction, at least not to
1912, in Henry Thode's magisterial six-volume Michelan-beginners.'7
Gombrich's primer did well. But a publishing event of
gelo corpus, did the Christ prefigured in the Creation fresco
1951inwas at least equally influential: Skira's three volumes of
regain a strong advocate. Thode agreed that the croucher
colorhe
God's embrace-aquiver with life and love's craving, plates of Italian Renaissance paintings, part of a
wrote-is most certainly Eve, and he proceeded: once-celebrated "Painting-Color-History" series.18 It is diffi-
cult now to recall the historic thrill of those "Skira books,"
Who then is the large boy at her side. .. ? I do not scruple
coming in glory in the lingering aftermath of World War II.
here also to follow Richter in recognizing Christ in this
Before transoceanic vacations became commonplace and
Child. Strange as this interpretation may seem atcolor
first in art books routine, each Skira color plate was an
sight--was it not fitting [lag es nzcht nahe] when the
event.
preexistence of Adam's succession in the mind of God A

was
turning point was Skira's reproduction of the Cre
being depicted, to hint at the "Second Adam," and
Adam (Fig. 4), for here the designer had had an idea:
precisely in relation to Eve? The expressive gesture of the bodies of God and Adam served mainly to p
that
God's left hand and the boy's expression of sorrowtheir
have respective forefingers, he dismissed the prolix
not received sufficient attention. Both are only ble
thusto offer instead a handsome synecdoche. O
understood: the act of bestowing life upon Adam entails
fingering got reproduced, and an invention of lastin
suffering for Christ! Let it not be objected that such anlaunched.
was
interpretation goes too far .... The whole Sistine fresco
During the past forty years, the famous hand-to-hand tryst
cycle ... was meant to declare the necessity ofhas
the
become, in popular culture, the resume of the fresco, the
eternally preordained Savior.... The tragedy of human
gist of the whole Sistine Ceiling, Michelangelo's logo tout
existence begins, manifest to the spirit of God, unbe-
court, the very paradigm of high art (Fig. 5). As a sign of
known to the newborn!14 man s congress with God, the mutual reach of those hands
glosses the covers of books on religion, while variable
Thode's eloquence, for all its exclamatory punctuation, fell
abridgments of the composition-cropped more or less to
on deaf ears. Another generation would have to pass before a
dock God's expendable backup at right-arrive in a welter of
younger scholar-Tolnay in 1945-reaffirmed Richter's po-
promotional ads and cartoons. Some of these are good fun;
sition. The pair under God's left arm, Tolnay wrote, "is the
most are trash.19 But I save them all as so much crushing
embodiment of the idea of Eve and Christ ... the whole
evidence: that thousands, nay millions, rejoice in this short-
future of Man is synthesized in this group."'5
hand imagery as an antidote to complexity. Encouraged by
high example, they welcome the minimalism that lets one
1950
consume a Michelangelo product in a sightbite. The mes-
Case closed? On the contrary. The risk of straining the
sage, delivered in both word and image, is plain: Keep your
perception of Michelangelo's fresco both ways, even unto the
ulterior arm of the Deity, provoked a backlash, a renewed
insistence that the God-to-Adam connection in the picture
16 L. Pastor, The Hzstory of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages, vi,
was picture enough; and that no meddling from the rightLondon and St. Louis, 1923 and 1950, 524.
should be countenanced.
17 E. Gombrich, The Story of Art, London, 1950, 226-227. To the right
A manifesto for the reductionist cause was Ernst Gombrich's half of the fresco Gombrich devotes this one sentence: "From the other
The Story ofArt, a book for young readers whom the author, side God the Father is approaching, carried and supported by His
angels, wrapped in a wide and majestic mantle." In fact, God is not
speaking of the Creation fresco, assures: "There is nothing in mantle-wrapped, nor carried by any one of the angels (see pp.
564-565, below).
The omission of Eve and Christ even from longer descriptions of the
Creation fresco remained standard practice throughout the 1950s. E.g.,
13 ".... weil es noch keinen bequemen Aussichtspunkt finden konnte";
D. Redig de Campos, Itinerarzo pzttorico dez Musez Vaticani, Rome, 1954,
Steinmann (as in n. 5), 330. 210-217.
14 H. Thode, Mzchelangelo und das Ende der Renaissance, III, Der Kunstler
18 Italian Painting: The Renaissance, critical studies L. Venturi, histor
surveys
und seine Werke, I, Berlin, 1912, 323-324. Thode's argument here is a R. Skira-Venturi, trans. S. Gilbert, Geneva, Paris, New Yo
summary of what had been more fully argued in his Mzchelangelo: (Albert Skira), 1951, 59.
Krztzsche Untersuchungen uber seine Werke, I, Berlin, 1908, 313. 19 The book in progress will include a learned survey of the lampoon
15 Tolnay (as in n. 9), 35. my expanding collection.
ii n!4; i...:!:. .qp
N rP
my ii
MR
:F~hm j .1p
....... HIT
MIC:HI.'LNGI,'l.?) (I?1.,7-15G.|)i *..'FLING, S15fSTIE CHIAPEL. TIlE CReATION1 O)F ADsAMr fDITAftL)V, A ?ta:
MICHELANGELO
Against the crowded background of the sixteenth century Michelangelo looms large,
a tragic, Promethean figure, gifted swith perhaps the most gigantic creative force that the
world
he could has known.
capture it onlyAnd if ever artist
by magnifying 'sawitbig,'
it, making largeritthan
waslife.
he;And
always
in hisat grips ith
writings, reality,
in eyewitness accounts, in chronicles of the period, are recorded the trials and triumphs of
a genius that could never make its peace with the world.
Michelangelo was born in 1475 at Caprese, a small town in the Casntino, wherehis
father, Simone Buonarroti, was the mayor. As a young boy he was apprenticed to Ghirlan-
daio, but, apart from some technical procedures, he learnt little from this master, whose
plicid, illustrative art followed an already outmoded Quattrocento tradition. His natural
bent was towards sculpture, and he owed the real start of his career to Lorenzo d' Medici,
who took him into his household and, from 1488 to 1492, brought him up with his sons.
Thus in the famous Medici ' Garden School ' at the Piazza di an Marco he could feast his
eyes on all the treasures of ancient and contemporary art. But Lorenzo's deth atbruptly
shattered the tranquillity he had so far enjoyed, and when Piero de" Medici came to power
Michelangelo, foreseeing perhaps thettt impending fall of the Medici, moved to Venice and then
to Bologna. At the last-named town, where he completed the carvings on St Dominic's
sarcophagus, he became acquainted with the sculpture of Jatcopo della Quercia. oon after
returning to Florence he set off for Rome and while there made, amongst other works of
sculpture a Bacchus, actually a rather frigid, conventional production ispired by classical
Antiquity, and a Pieti, a group composition, in which lie chiefly aimed at tender grace and
harmony. Returning to Florence, lie started work on the famous statue of Datid wshic he
4 Page 59 from Italian Painting: The Renaissance, Geneva, Al-

bert Skira, 1951
eye on the target; if Michelangelo didn't give us a simple 5 Barbara Kruger, Untitle
picture, then, by Saint Minimus, make it so, and what terpiece), 1982, unique p
ern Art, Acquired throu
happens elsewhere in the picture won't count. seum)
But perhaps it does count, and precisely in proportion to
the attention it gets. I suspect that most Christians, including
Renaissance specialists, would concede some importance to now in the largest visible context, we discover him to be the
the fresco's right half if they thought it housed Eve andonly figure within the nine histories of the Ceiling in eye
Christ. Therefore, the reductionist program requires a de-
contact with the beholder-which again singles him out. The
nial of any such presences, and a dismissal of observations by boy's gaze strikes home, like that of any infant Salvator mundi
which such presences might be confirmed. For instance: from the late quattrocento.20
Within the fresco's angelic cluster only the child under And one more point, which deserves its own rubric.
God's hand and crouching Eve are assigned settled postures,
as if they rested, like Adam, on hard terrain, solid ground. 1974
Each of their levitating companions glides, hovers, or dangles;A brief, unpublished undergraduate paper, submitted by
they alone exert gravity, as befits them who will know bodyMichael Stolbach to a Michelangelo seminar at Hunter
and weight of body. The flotation that lofts the rest of the College, New York, considers the action of God's left hand in
system exempts just these two-proleptically, and not surely the fresco (Fig. 6). Its title, "Two-Finger Exercise," refers to
through oversight. Then, looking once more at the child, butwhat is self-evident: that only God's thumb and forefinger
20 The Child's eyes in the fresco present a condition problem, which nence.
I The restorers evidently decided not to tamper with such old
have not seen addressed in debates over the recent cleaning. Crudely reinforcements. And, of course, the brush that imposed these impious
superimposed on the original surface-most noticeably at the rightblack contours busied itself elsewhere, as at Adam's left hand and in
eye-are wiry black contours, like a primitive emblem or sign: an oblong numerous other places in the main scenes of Ceiling. These impositions
oval containing concentric circles for iris and pupil. The flat trace ofwill not be detected by observers looking up from the Chapel floor; in
these outlines contrasts painfully with Michelangelo's work, where everythe large, often actual-size photographic details now being marketed,
depicted eye is orbed and solidly socketed. I suspect early overpainting,
they are sadly conspicuous. Fortunately, the Child's hithering glance
centuries old, to which the cleaning now gives embarrassing promi- remains undeterred.
joint, the paths lining the tendon. Evidently, in the artist's

mind, the design of this manus called for absolute acribie-its
status for him fully equal to the one that gets the publicity.
Ambidexterity becomes an attribute of divine operation, and
who dares say which hand preponderates? For myself,
responding to what I see (and in light of Catholic doctrine),
the matter summarizes as follows: if the Creation required
but one of God's fingers, then God's greater deed-his
Incarnation in woman's womb and subsequent self-immola-
tion for her progeny's sake-called forth a redoubled re-
......................,::;--_ :- , i: . : :-
....:::- :'::i:~: -ii_:: .,; :--~;:
source-the "two-finger exercise." In short: what God on his
i-i)- ~~:-~ i~i ::~-: -~ :
left has up his sleeve is not for scanting.
Recent writers (Sewall, Edmund Leach, Howard Hibbard
in the original 1974 edition of his Michelangelo monograph)
have shown increasing willingness to admit both Eve and the
child to complement Adam, and with them, implicitly, the
bipolarity of the design. There is, after all, a world of
difference between seeing God in a one-handed gesture, as
though the spare arm were idly hung over the back of a chair,
and seeing both limbs, like a seesaw's, extended. As Robert
Browning remarked in another connection: "Our times are
in his hands/who saith 'A whole I planned'. . . ." The
composition itself and the expanded attention we give it
coincide with its iconography.
But not for all. Though the croucher's sex now seems fairly
safe, many who balk at a pairing of Eve and Christ still see the
child as a crux. And as his identity hardens, hers becomes
correspondingly moot. Naming the one seems to unname
the other. Was it this scruple that caused Howard Hibbard,
author of the most influential American college text on
Michelangelo (1974), to have second thoughts about Eve? In
the revised edition of his book (1984), he decided that the
croucher must, after all, be the "Immaculate Mary," presum-
ably because her maternal bond with the child excludes any
alternative. And Hibbard's revision was instantly taken up.21
The reasoning seems to be this: If the God-embraced
6 Michelangelo, Creation ofAdam, detail figure is Eve, then the boy at her knee should be her
own-begotten firstborn-but surely not Cain! On the other
impress the child's shoulder. Stolbach perceived this godly

gesture not as overemphatic, forced, cramped, heavy-
handed, or proto-Mannerist, but as Christian. He pointed
21 R. S. Liebert, Michelangelo:
out that thumb and index are the consecrated two fingersA Psychoanalytic Study of His Life and Images,
New Haven, 1983, 156, n. 13: "Some writers have concluded that the
with which alone the celebrant at the Mass femaletouches
figure is Evethe corpus
(e.g., Tolnay), but I am persuaded by Hibbard
verum, the Host. And this seems to make final sense of a (1974) that she is the Immaculate Virgin, Maria Aeterna, who, as Divine
gesture which in so pondered a work cannot be nugatory. Wisdom, was with God at the Creation (Proverbs 8:22-25)." (Hibbard's
"Immaculate Mary" does not appear in the 1974 edition to which
The hand conveys more than a message: it not only points to Liebert refers. There Hibbard had written [p. 137] that the group of
the Incarnation by way of woman; it is the Father's tender of wingless angels "probably embraces unborn souls-no doubt including
the incarnate Son in sacramental self-sacrifice; seeJohn 3:16. Eve, and probably also Jesus." In the 1984 edition [p. 137], this was
altered to read: God's "left arm embraces the Immaculate Mary as he
Thus the reserved half of the fresco foreshows-beyond the touches the unborn baby Jesus.")
creation of Eve and the Son's humanation-the timeless rite Cf. also the fifth and eighth-ninth editions of Helen Gardner's Art
of the Eucharist. through the Ages (1970 and 1986/1991, respectively). 1970: "Beneath his
sheltering arm is the as yet uncreated, but apprehensively curious, Eve."
The cleaning of the fresco in the mid-1980s confirms1986/1991: "Apprehensively curious but as yet uncreated, the female
Stolbach's insight. It reveals that of the three or four hundred
figure beneath his sheltering arm, long held to represent Eve, has
hands strewn in never-repeated positions across the Ceiling,recently been interpreted as the Virgin Mary (with the Christ child at her
knee)." One recent textbook, published by Prentice-Hall in 1989, states:
not one was limned and transferred from cartoon to plaster"The young woman under God's arm is either Eve or Mary." Another,
with the meticulous care reserved for this left hand of God. from the same publisher in 1990, has God's left arm embracing "a
female
Charcoal dust left behind by the pouncing, the spolvero, figure who may represent Eve or the Virgin Mary." To readers of
such textbooks, these identifications are presented as either certain or
traces not merely contours but, regarding the index finger
moot, but never with visual observations that might bear on the
alone, the mid-knuckle pad, the skinfolds at the proximal
argument.
hand, if we call the child, as Hibbard does, "baby Jesus," then

the mother cannot be other than "Immaculate Mary."
How compelling is such ratiocination? In fact, Michelange-
lo's coupling of Eve and Christ is no scandal at all. For the
Trinity's Second Person bears the epithet "Son of Man"
because, born of woman, he is son of Eve. And since "Son of
Eve" is a trope, a metaphor to denote ultimate derivation,
Michelangelo makes the metaphoricity of the trope all-
apparent, almost palpable. The boy's sonship is presented as
sic et non, so and not so. While his clinging reach links him to
the Eve figure as to a mother, his inordinate size in relation
to hers denies direct filiation. So that, respecting the visual
data, we understand him to be her son, yes, but not in a
literal sense.
Look close: Not only does the infant head outscale the
mother's, but their knees in tandem, inviting comparison,
compel the perception that the baby's knee exceeds hers.
Can such hypertrophy, can this colossus of overgrowth be the
issue of her own loins? Pin Mary's name on that crouching KI
nude, and you monster her babe. And the artist would be
guilty of measures that make neither symbolic nor biological . . . .. ..
sense.
:i~r~Al
The current anti-"formalist" bias turns away from such

housekeeping matters as relative size. But Michelangelo
seems to me to be juggling that variable as a semantic
resource: scale is a factor in defining his dramatis personae and
in promoting the plot. So among God's dozen attendants,
variant scales confer grade and rank. Stripling angels are
sized regardless of apparent juniority, with measurements
that owe nothing to growth, as if these phaseless beings were
but attributes of a universal paternity. And in at least one
regard, their variable diminutions crucially influence the
7 Michela
"main subject." For they enable Michelangelo to make
visible, as had never been done before, the mystery of Adam
made in the image of God. Put it this way. Since all the
ambiguit
assembled angels share the Creator's anthropomorphic phy-
overlook
sique, what is there that should render man's
her same anatomy bond
special enough to be cause for astonishment? How was the
as she eye
singularity of Adam's godlikeness to be manifest?
of To which
her loi
the fresco responds: by way of a proportional
attention. norm common
to God and man and to none else, so that I mean the variously
the fluttering scarf that trails downward at lower
minished angels have somewhat to marvel at.
right. This is not (as was thought by the only writer to
Did I say "to none else"? Not so; one other
mentionhere,
it) theone
cape with a
of the nethermost angel. Since no
man's life before him, shares that same standard: the Child
Michelangelo drapery explodes out of nowhere, it is fitting to
whose immensity compared to his fellows marks
ask where him the
it springs from,Son
and the question is instantly
of God and the Son of man. It is scale that sets off these three.
answered. This long streamer, its vivid green so antithetical
They are of one measure, and that measure taken goes into to the warm hues of Heaven, originates at Eve's upper left
seeing the work. But such seeing is humbling. To receive thigh. We are to assume that it swathes her lap and flows on
Michelangelo's thought through formal gradations such as submerged behind the God figure to surface again at the
differential proportions-to see how these alone may em- head of the nether angel. Note that its trail parallels the
body kinship and kind-demands getting off the high horse created earth, while its color, else unknown in Heaven,
of cogitation to measure the girth of a knee. matches the ground that underlies Adam. I suspect that the
In my book, thanks to Richter, Thode, Tolnay, and artist meant this flutter for more than bunting run wild;
Stolbach, the identities of Eve and Christ are secure; no issuing, as it were, from the loins of Eve, it intimates a long
counterclaim has been watchful enough, and, with respect to train of consequence, of which more below.
Eve (her scale is another teaser), the alternatives merely
obfuscate and impoverish. Suggestions that she be the 1990
"Immaculate Mary," Ecclesia, or Holy Wisdom would have us As yet, so far as I know, the two envious imps who infest the
(1) not consider the figure's nudity; (2) not see the charged Creation of Adam fresco have not been sighted. They came
into view in the fall of 1990, as I gazed at an old color Vasari disposed of them as a nameless bunch-"nude little
reproduction of the Creation fresco bought some twelve years angels of tender age," he calls them. And no commentator
before at the Vatican. The sighting was recorded as follows: thought of asking "who's who" where Michelangelo's in-
Hid in the lower depth of the veil of Heaven (usually called formed biographer and personal friend had decreed anonymity.
a billowing mantle or cloak) are two dark angels, damnably Moreover, we know of no pictorial precedent that impli-
hard to see, but once spotted, not to be thought away (Figs. 7, cates the Sons of Darkness in a creation of Adam. Is such
9); and the closer you look, the more they distance them- compounding even imaginable? We are speaking, after all,
selves from the rest of the party. While their fellow travelers two distinct mythic events, with God agent in each, but o
press up to gape at earth's newest novelty-craning and staged in Heaven, the other below. Even formally, given t
stretching, not wanting to miss a thing-these two do not. To frame's oblong format, the thing can't be done. A creation
them, the sight of God's alter image rising from dust and clay man aligned with angelic fall would seam vertical opposite
brings no delight; in fact, they sulk. One of the pair lowers on one latitude, whereas Heaven and earth are the prim
under God's outstretched arm, showing only a head banked exemplars of contrasting registers. Hence no celestial distu
on one shoulder, his cheerless face darkened by a black mop bance may stratify at or beneath Adam's shoulders. T
of hair. He will not look at the earthling, though the rest ooh leveling of such disparted poles, the very notion of altitud
and aah and God himself point. tilted through ninety degrees, is manifestly absurd-that i
Overlapping him is his mate, a blond boyish figure, no less if you think about it rather than look at the fresco, whic
deeply engloomed but displayed at full length. And what is mirabile dictu and wonder of wonders, hyphenates high an
he doing but hiding half his averted face in his arm, scorning low, earth with Heaven.
to see. The posture is graceless, unbecoming an angel, Still the critic remains ill at ease. Did Michelange
especially in the bend of the lower limbs, which may be confound what immemorial practice had kept apart? T
mimicking the Almighty's crossed legs, or mocking picture is admired for its inspired simplicity. Shall it n
Adam's-or doing both and yet more, like getting a furtive grow intricate and bedeviled? Begin by accommodatin
foot tangled in the green scarf that leaks from above. At this those froward fiends, and at once the perfect pitch of
juncture, then, with God's finest handiwork in full view, the idyllic moment is marred by implied sin and fall. Michelang
foremost of these darkling angels performs strange, twitch- lo's benign Father, coming so ill-companioned, will
like motions that are difficult to make out-but perhaps apporting death to Adam along with the life-and-soul-givi
knowable through imitation, putting your own body on line. touch; whence would follow as well (thinking the matt
Try it sometime with an innocent bystander for a partner: through) the need for death's remedy. And all this in o
throw yourself into that awkward pose, and the message from picture, and in a portion of it removed from the main acti
head to hoof is instantly yours. The pose feels adversarial, But as we have seen, the remedy, the redemption, waits
threatened and threatening. Your cocked elbow and doubled the wings. And in the absence of prior fall, what need wo
knee become, like those in the fresco, nocent prongs aimed there be for a redeemer? So the very presence here of the
at an innocent. And notice this: neither one of these peevish bright Christ Child presupposes his diametric opposite
inmates of Heaven enjoys present contact with God. Wilfully the shadows.
sundered, they duck their diminished heads under one And yet, in the literature on the Sistine Ceiling, the Devil
cherub's arse. Among the Creator's attendant twelve, they has been actively missed only once-in 1969, when Sinding-
only are out of touch, as they are out of sorts. Michelangelo Larsen indicated what he perceived as a gap in the Ceiling's
seems to envisage the creation of man as an act spurned by iconographic structure.23 Discussing the Temptation and Expul-
some of God's angels. sion from Paradise fresco, he wrote: "In this picture the Devil,
Who might they be? Surely, we are seeing those malign a fallen angel, is symmetrically opposed to the angel of the
spirits whom envy stirred to rebellion: Lucifer dimmed into Lord.... In such a soteriologically and ecclesiologically
Satan and one next subordinate-call him Beelzebub. consistent story as the Sistine ceiling seems to offer, one
But this is troubling. If malcontents nest here in God's would
very expect the history of the angels as the first sinners to
fringe, why were they not apprehended before?22 And be taken into account, so that the Devil should not, as it were,
why
appear
blow their cover at this late date? We have the authority of ex nihilo."
Well
Vasari and the testimony of his readers that the clump of said and good news for the prescient author: the
cherubim about the Creator forms one unanimous huddle. black hole is filled.
22 The statement made above that the two figures I am discussing have communication) in disattributing the Haarlem sheet. The references in
never been sighted is inaccurate. It is true that they get no mention in the corpuses prove that the figure in the fresco was always discernible, its
the literature on the fresco itself, where it might be supposed that the congruence with the Haarlem study easily recognized. But the writers
darkened state of the Ceiling had made them invisible. But corpuses of follow Vasari's blind lead in identifying the figure as merely another
Michelangelo's drawings regularly refer to the more prominent of the nondescript angel. So Steinmann (p. 328) sees "innumerable curious
pair in connection with a disputed sheet of figure studies in the Teylers angels" under God's outstretched arm; and among the innumerable
Museum at Haarlem, A20v. See Steinmann (as in n. 5), 606 and fig. 14; incurious copyists of the fresco from the 16th century onward, not one
B. Berenson, The Drawzngs of the Florentzne Paznters, 2nd ed., Chicago, perceived anything untoward.
1938, no. 1466 (not reproduced); Dussler (as in n. 6), no. 526v (not 23 S. Sinding-Larsen, "A Re-reading of the Sistine Ceiling," Acta ad
reproduced); F. Hartt, Mzchelangelo Drawzngs, New York, 1969, no. 76 (a archaeologzam et artzum hzstorzam pertznentia (Instztutum Romanum Norvegi-
"superb drawing," Hartt calls it, adding a chart of previous opinions for ae), iv, 1969, 153.
and against). I side with Dussler and Alexander Perrig (personal
One larger question remains to be asked: does Michelange- finding Heaven "dispeopled," he shrugs with almighty iro-
lo's fresco compound the creation of Adam and the upset in ny-"I can repair that detriment."24
Heaven in compliance with or in defiance of Christian The creation of man, then, was suggested to God, or
tradition? Suppose him pondering the relation between necessitated by, the rebel angels' foregoing defection-
these moments. The fresco presents them as nearly coeval, whose first cause remains to this day somewhat uncertain.
action and reflex in proximation. How does this accord with The Paraclete has not made it known whether Lucifer's
the doctrine? Were these convergent events conceived as mutinous thought was directed against his Maker's do
initially independent of one another? Were they thought ion, against upstart man made in God's image, or again
simultaneous or successive, and, if successive, were they foreplanned incarnation that would unite God with man
interinvolved as cause and effect, and if so, in what order? slight the angelic state.25 Only this much we know: Luci
These rhetorical questions are not put at random; they refer Satan's apostasy depleted Heaven, whereupon, to mak
to two parallel traditions that descend from early Christianity the deficit, procreant man and woman were brought
down to the late seventeenth century. being; and they, being blessed with the God-framed pote
No dogmatic pronouncement on the subject has been tial to freely emulate angelic obedience, were expecte
delivered. But in the dominant view, prevalent at least since enter Heaven and replenish God's realm.26
Saint Gregory, the point to start from is Lucifer's impulse of So much for the standard version-which Michelang
pride. This brightest of angels, having conceived the sinning Creation fresco does not choose to follow.
thought non serviam, "I will not serve," marshaled against the
supreme power a third part of Heaven, clashed with Saint
An earlier tradition reverses the sequence: it is the prior
Michael, was hurled from his station and, with all his host of
creation of man that pricks Lucifer's envy. The legend is
rebel angels, cast into Hell, leaving behind those vast vacancies
traceable to the beginning of the Common Era, and though
which mankind was designed to replenish. Redress by refill.
it failed to enter the scriptural canon, Jewish or Christian, it
This doctrine, which presumes to explain God's motive for
remained common lore. It stands prominent in the Koran.
the creation of man, became standard teaching from patris-
Two pseudepigraphical texts, derived or adapted from
tic to modern times. In Joyce's A Portrait of the Artzst as a Young
earlier Jewish sources, preserve the story in its oldest known
Man (chap. 3), the Jesuit preacher at Belvedere College,
versions. I quote from the Apocryphal Vita Adae (The Life of
delivering the first of his Lenten sermons on the Four Last
Adam and Eve), a work familiar to medieval and Renaissance
Things, opens as follows: readers, wherein Satan converses with Adam:27
-Adam and Eve, my dear boys, were, as you know, our

first parents, and you will remember that they were [12] And the devil sighed and said, "O Adam, all my
created by God in order that the seats in heaven left enmity and envy and sorrow concern you, since because of
vacant by the fall of Lucifer and his rebellious angels you I am expelled and deprived of my glory which I had in
might be filled again. the heavens in the midst of angels, and because of you I
was cast out onto the earth." Adam answered, "What have
Even Milton's God supports the replacement theory: I done to you, and what is my blame with you? Since you
24 Joyce's Jesuit sources are found and admirably discussed in Elizabeth Traditzon of Satan's Rebellzon, Ithaca, 1980, passzm (brought to m
attention by the Milton scholar Robert McMahon). Whether t
F. Boyd, "Joyce's Hell-Fire Sermons," in W. E. Morris and C. A. Nault,
doctrine is relevant to Michelangelo's fresco (I think not) is a delica
Jr., eds., Portrazts of an Artzst: A Casebook onJamesJoyce's "A Portrazt of the
Artzst as a Young Man," New York, 1962, 253-263. For the quotation problem beyond the scope of this paper.
from Milton, see Paradise Lost, vii, 152-153. And cf. lines 187-191 for
26 Concerning the manner of propagation, had the Fall not occurr
Milton's song of the angels: According to SaintJohn Chrysostomos (Hom. zn Gen., 18, 4), Edenic m
Glory and praise, whose wisdom had ordain'd abiding in prelapsarian virginity would have imitated the life of t
Good out of evil to create, in stead angels; the human race would have multiplied, as the angels do, only
Of spirits malign a better race to bring God's own creative act. So also taught Saint Gregory of Nyssa (De homin
Into their vacant room. ... opzficzo, 17): that procreation followed the Fall, making imparadised li
resemble that of the angels. Saint Augustine, on the contrary, arg
As the doctrine was recently summarized: "The world is created in order
that Adam and Eve would have procreated even in Eden, but witho
ultimately to repopulate heaven after one-third of the angels defected"
lust and birth pangs; and that their progeny, having lived just a
(J. Rosenblatt, reviewing R. M. Schwartz's Bzblzcal Creatzon zn "Paradise
obedient lives of sufficient duration, would, in the absence of death, s
Lost," 1988, in Renazssance Quarterly, XLIV, Spring 1991, 175). their bodies refine into spiritual, angel-like substance -"to be chang
The sources are, of course, overabundant. But I cannot resist citing
into a more blessed form like the angels, not by the death of the body
from Saint Bonaventure's Lzfe of Saint Franczs (vi, 6, ed. London, by 1926,
the power of God" (On the Lzteral Meanzng of Geneszs, 9, 3 and 6; tran
62), the account of a "vision sent from heaven made evident untoJ. H.a Taylor [Anczent Chrzstzan Wrzters, XLII], New York, 1982, 7
Brother that was of an especial holiness": "He beheld among many Likewise
seats Saint Bernard foresees that members of the human race would
in heaven one that was more honorable than the rest.... Marvelling
one day be raised to be the angels' equals in glory (On the Song of Songs,
within himself at the splendour of this exalted throne, he began
17, to
3, 5; trans. K. Walsh, Spencer, Mass., 1971, 129). So also Milton's
consider with anxious thought who should be deemed worthy to sit
Archangel Raphael to Adam before the Fall, following their shared
thereon. Then, as he considered, he heard a voice saying unto him:meal:
'This ". . . time may come when men/With angels may participate. ...
seat pertained unto one of the fallen Angels, and is now kept for the bodies may at last turn all to spirit ...," etc. (Paradzse Lost, v,
Your
humble Francis."'
493-494, 498).
25 In Protestant theology, Lucifer's downfall was brought on by27his Vzta Adae, 12-16, trans. M. D.Johnson, inJ. H. Charlesworth, ed., The
protest against the elevation of the Son as King-Messiah; see StellaOld
P. Testament Pseudepzgrapha, Garden City, N.Y., 1985, n, 262.
Revard's excellent work The War zn Heaven: "Paradzse Lost" and the
are neither harmed nor hurt by us, why do you pursue Even Saint Augustine cites the Adam-first version-with
us?" reservations: "Some say that he [the Devil] fell from the
[13] The devil replied, " .. When God blew into you the heavenly abode because he envied man made to the image of
breath of life and your countenance and likeness were God."29 And no fewer than seven pertinent references occur
made in the image of God, Michael ... made [us] worship in the Koran, where God, speaking to man, declares:
you in the sight of God, and the Lord God said, 'Behold
Adam! I have made you in our image and likeness.' "And we created you, then we fashioned you, then we
[14] And Michael ... called all the angels, saying, 'Wor- said unto the angels, 'Adore Adam,' and they adored,
ship the image of the Lord God, as the Lord God has save Iblis [Satan] . . . Said He [God], 'What hinders thee
instructed.' And Michael himself worshiped first.... And from adoring when I order thee?' He said, 'I am better
than he; Thou has created me from fire, and him
I answered, .... 'I will not worship one inferior and
subsequent to me. I am prior to him in creation .... Let Thou hast created out of clay.' Said He [God], 'Then go
him worship me.' down ...; what ails thee that thou shouldst be big with
[15] When they heard this, other angels who were under pride . . . verily upon thee is my curse unto the day o
me refused to worship him .... judgment.' "30
[16] And the Lord God was angry with me and sent me
with my angels out from our glory; and because of you Scriptural in Islam, the legend of the Adamic occasion for
we were expelled ... from our dwellings and have been Satan's envy may have been viewed in Christian theology as a
cast onto the earth .... And we were pained to see you somewhat suspect alternative; the more so since Saint Augus-
in such bliss of delights. So with deceit I assailed your tine had declared the primary sin to have been not envy but
wife and made you to be expelled through her from pride, Invidza being a consequence of Superbia. Yet medieval
the joys of your bliss, as I have been expelled from my poems gladly followed the pseudepigraphic Lzfe ofAdam and
glory." Eve, which survives in two dozen-odd manuscripts, including
three from the ninth to twelfth centuries.31 Hence it is no
Poor Devil; hearing his plaint, one is half-tempted to surprise to find the story familiar to Saint Bernard. "Is it
sympathize. But Michelangelo's fresco, though it stages the possible," Bernard asks in his seventeenth sermon on Canti-
Adam-first version, forestalls compassion; his revolting cles,
wretches, wanting Satanic glamour, appear properly stripped
of appeal. that Lucifer, son of the morning, yielding precipitately to
The legend of Adam's antecedent creation followed by the impulse of pride, began to envy the outpouring of oil
on our human race before he was cast out into the
Satan's rancor was current among early Christians. Both
Justin Martyr and his pupil Tatian (second century A.D.) refer darkness? In the rage that possessed him did he mur
to it, and Saint Irenaeus (ca. 200 A.D.) takes Satan's surly and say to himself: "Why this waste?" I do not hold
response to the masterwork of the sixth day for granted. the Holy Spirit has made this known, nor do I ho
"This was the apostate angel and the enemy," he writes, contrary; I simply do not know. But even though
"because he was envious of God's workmanship." In Tertul- may think it incredible ... he could have foreseen
lian's treatise on patience (ca. 200 A.D.), the sight of Adam members of the human race would one day be raised
made in God's image and given sway over created nature his equals in glory.... Then, stung by a wild impu
makes Satan succumb to impatience, envy, and grief. And so envy, he plotted to maintain as subjects those who
in a sermon preached by Saint Cyprian (ca. 250 A.D.): scorned as companions.32
He who was sustained in angelic majesty, he who was Saint Bernard is being cautious-unassertive wher
accepted and beloved of God, when he beheld man made Holy Spirit has not lighted the way. But four centuries
in the image of God, broke forth into jealousy with Michelangelo's contemporary Martin Luther, citing
malevolent envy. ... .28 nard's authority, speculated that Lucifer might have
30 Chaps.
28 Justin Martyr, Dzalogue wzth Trypho, 79, Pat. gr., vI, 662-663, 7: 12-14; 38: 79. Cf. 2: 35; 15: 29-36; 17: 62-64; 18: 51; 20:
in The
117-118.
Ante-Nzcene Fathers, I, Grand Rapids, n.d., 238. Tatian, Address to the
Greeks, 7, Pat. gr., vI, 822-823, in The Ante-Nzcene Fathers, 31Ii, Grand
See Charlesworth (as in n. 27), II, 249-250, for a listing of ext
Rapids, 1962, 68. Irenaeus, Against Hereszes, 4, 40, 3, Pat. gr., vil, Cf. Revard (as in n. 25), 203: "More popular in literatur
manuscripts.
1113-14, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, I, 524. Tertullian, On Patzence,
however,5,was 5, the tradition of Lucifer's rivalry with man; dating back
Pat. lat., I, 1367, in The Fathers of the Church, XL, New York,
the1959, 200.father Irenaeus and passed down by the Books of Adam a
church
Cyprian, Treatzses, 4, "On Jealousy and Envy," Pat. lat., iv, Eve,
665-666,
it hadinfound place in medieval poems." Cf. Revard, 67-68, and n
The Ante-Nzcene Fathers, v, Grand Rapids, 1957, 492. 8 and 9 for citations of medieval English manuscripts based on the Vzt
For all the above references, I am indebted primarily to a still
Adae,splendid
which also furnished the plot for an early 14th-century, 4,000-l
work by B. J. Bamberger, Fallen Angels, Philadelphia, 1952, poemchap.
by 15,
one Lutwin, native of Austria; for the latter, see M. Garland, T
"The Church Fathers." The Justin Martyr passage mentioned Oxfordabove
Companzon to German Lzterature, 2nd ed., Oxford, 1976, s
leads Bamberger (p. 82) to conclude: "The serpent fell by leading Eve
"Adamslegende."
astray. Here Justin follows, though not exactly, the view of the Adam-
32because
books that Satan's fall occurred after the creation of man, and Saint Bernard,
of On the Songs of Songs (as in n. 26), 17, 3, 5, p. 129.
his hostility to man."
29 Saint Augustine, On the Lzteral Meanzng of Geneszs (as in n. 26), 9, 14, p.
146 and n. 38.
prevision of the Son's incarnation: Even Milton makes room for the Invidia alternative, not by
predating Adam's actual creation, but by crediting Lucifer
... the Divine Majesty abased himself and became like us (and Beelzebub) with prior knowledge of God's intention to
poor bags of worms. ... The angels are much holier than initiate the new race. And as late as ca. 1700, the American
we poor sinners, and yet He adopted our nature. .. . This Samuel Willard, speculating upon "The ground of [the rebel
fact elicited the awe of St. Bernard and gave rise to many angels'] apostasy," concluded that "they reckoned them-
fine thoughts, found especially in his devotions. He gave it selves to be degraded in being employed to minister for
as his opinion that this had caused the archfiend Lucifer's man. ... Hereupon ... they are filled with malice against
fall and eviction from heaven. Perhaps Lucifer, so St. God and man." So much and more from Willard's lectures at
Bernard supposed, had foreknowledge of God's eternal Harvard. They deposit us at the end point of an ancient,
resolution to become a man in time, and not an angel. intermittent tradition some fifteen centuries old.36
This provoked his insolence against God. He was aware, The post-Renaissance dramas and epics that treat Satan's
of course, that he was a creature more beautiful and revolt as a reflex to the elevation of man drew from the same
excellent in appearance than man. This also aroused his hoard of legend and theological speculation that had in-
envy of mankind; he begrudged man the high honor ofspired Michelangelo in 1510.37 The artist's conception of the
God's assumption of human nature. This vexed him and event, spread beltwise across the Sistine Ceiling, anticipates
his companions. They became envious when they learned by some eighty years a major theme of late Renaissance and
that God would despise them and assume human nature.Baroque poetry. But with this among other differences: the
Therefore Lucifer and his hosts fell and were driven out of
poets, in emulation of Homer, Virgil, and Tasso, blow Satan
heaven.33
out into an epic hero; Michelangelo allows Invidia no heroic
dimension; to envy-driven foes of man and God he concedes
Note Luther's explicit "therefore." He allows-at least as
nothing but joyless squalor.
an alternative possibility-that the rebel angels' first sin was
resentment of the creation of man and of God's humanation
Why Michelangelo chose the Adam-first version is appar-
ent from the picture itself. As he presents the Creation, the
in petto. But such speculation, conducted under unenlight-
human race in its pristine embodiment is not the vision of a
ened conditions, was decried by Calvin as futile and ill-
advised:
replacement. Michelangelo's Adam, God's own commensu-
rate, is a culminant masterwork, long-intended, and of such
What concern is it to us to know anything more about exalted perfection and privilege that even angels break forth
devils.... Some persons grumble that Scripture does not in envy. Why else those pinched gripers, nested so near
in numerous passages set forth systematically and clearly
that fall of the devils, its cause, manner, time, and
character. But because this has nothing to do with us, it 35 For the work of these poets, see W. Kirkconnell, The Celestzal Cycle: The
Theme of "Paradise Lost" zn World Lzterature, New York, 1967, and Revard
was better not to say anything, or at least to touch upon it(as in n. 25).
lightly, because it did not befit the Holy Spirit to feed our In the Dutch poet Vondel's drama Luczfer (1654), the eponymous
curiosity with empty histories to no effect. And we see thathero, still Heaven's brightest, broods on God's youngest creature:
the Lord's purpose was to teach nothing in his sacred He is the friend of Heaven. Our slavery
Even now begins. Go hence, rejoice and serve
oracles except what we should learn to our edification. And honor this new race like servile slaves.
Therefore, lest we ourselves linger over superfluous mat- For God was man created; we, for him.
ters... .34 Let then the angels bend their necks beneath
His feet....
Superfluous perhaps for the salvation of souls, but not so Beelzebub, Lucifer's second, responds:
to the imagination of artists. When, in the sixteenth and The massive gate of Heaven stands ajar
For Adam's seed. An earth-worm that hath crawled
seventeenth centuries, the revolt in Heaven became a prime
Out of the dust-out of a clod of clay
subject of new epic and dramatic poetry, Satan's motives, his Defies thy power....
psychology, along with his bellicosity, took center stage. AndLucifer:
for several poets-Valvasone in 1590, Marini in 1610,
That shall I thwart, if in my power it be.
Valmarana, 1623, Heywood, 1635, Vondel, 1654-Satan's
primitive sin, while yet enheavened, was precisely his grief See Vondel's Luczfer, trans. L. C. Van Noppen, New York and London,
1898, 296, 297. For a more recent translation, see Kirkconnell, 372.
over the creation of man, and his envy.35
36 Dr. Willard's Harvard lectures appeared posthumously under a catchy
title as follows: A Compleat Body of Dzvznzty zn Two Hundred and Fifty
Exposztory Lectures on the Assembly 's Shorter Catechzsm wherezn the Doctrznes of
the Chrzstzan Relzgzon are unfolded, thezr Truth confirm'd, thezr Excellence
dzsplay'd, thezr Usefulness zmprov'd; contrary Errors and Vzces refuted and
33Martin Luther, Sermons on the Gospel of St.John, 7, 14, in Luther's Works, expos'd, Objectzons answer'd, Controverszes settled, Cases of consczence resolv'd;
xxII, ed. J. Pelikan, trans. M. H. Bertram, St. Louis, 1957, 103. The and a great Lzght thereby reflected on the present Age, by the Reverend and
passage is cited in Revard (as in n. 25), 73, along with a passage from the Learned Samuel Willard, M.A.... Vice-President of Harvard College in
16th-century theologian Zanchi, who "concurs with Luther's view, Cambridge. ... Sermons collected and published by Joseph Sewall and
remarking that the angels' sin, for which they fell, was the sin of envy for Thomas Prince for the late Samuel Willard, Boston, 1726. My quotation
the gift of grace the Son was to confer on mankind." is from sermon 52, p. 181.
34 Calvin, Instztutes of the Chrzstzan Relzgzon, I, xiv, 16; trans. F. L. Battles 37 No precise source for Michelangelo's interpretation of the event has
(The Library of Chrzstzan Classzcs, xx), Philadelphia, 1960, I, 175. yet come to my attention. God willing, it will.
4K,
AIN
17.
4ft"
AQ
Alt;
8 Baldassare Peruzzi, The Adoration of the Magi, 1522, detail, ink and brown wash. London, National Gallery
between man and God, cringing in aversion from Adam? motif of divine arrival, presents again God the Father amidst
Seeing the fresco whole, we receive its full message: God's cherubim, but as a demiurge grown so enfeebled since the
boon and the Devil's bane intermixed among things to come. stressful days of the hexaemeron, that now, at this first
Things to come? Observe that the Devil's foot, and Christmas, his decrepitude needs all the lifting he gets.
perhaps his occulted left arm, are already entangled in the Vasari, writing from memory-or perhaps with an aide-
loose cloth that falls from the lap of Eve. m6moire in the form of a cursory sketch-may have confused
Peruzzi's underpropped Father figure with Michelangelo's.
1991 Third: like most of his readers, Vasari may have misread
You reread Vasari on the Creation fresco and find him to be the action of the smooth glider under God's thigh.38 No
the primary source for the ever-repeated assertion that God other candidate among God's twelve attendants qualifies
is being carried (portato) by a group of angels-which justeven remotely for carrier action, and the figure's right hand
isn't so. Why, then, did he say it? Three possible (possibly could well be thought to support the Lord's knee. However,
interrelated) reasons suggest themselves. since that right hand is hidden, its operation must be
First, a scriptural association: where Psalm 17:11 envisages
God in motion, "He ascended upon the cherubim, and He
flew, He flew upon the wings of the wind" (et ascendit super38 Most authors, with the honorable exception of Tolnay, repeat after
cherubim et volavit). So the idea of God riding on bearer-
Vasari and put all God's companions to load-bearing work. A few pick
angels was in the air, and Vasari's ekphrasis may just beout the streaker: Hartt (as in n. 22), 81, no. 76, speaks of "the nude angel
upholding the Lord's right leg"; Dussler (as in n. 6), 244, no. 526v, of the
another instance of projecting upon a picture what one angel "der an der Unterseite Gottvater stfitzt." When R. Kuhn (Michelan-
remembers from a known text. gelo: Die Sixtinische Decke, Berlin, 1975, 28) writes "Gott faihrt, auf einem
Second: interference from a memory image. Vasari ad- der Engel gelagert, dahin" ("God proceeds, couched on one of the
angels"), it is still this same underling he has in mind. Gombrich, on the
mired Peruzzi's Adoration of the Magi (1522; Fig. 8) as a "cosa other hand (see n. 17, above), would not single him out, lest such focus
maravigliosissima." Its upper zone, adapting Michelangelo's"divert attention from the main subject."
N, liey~~cY~107
qc __ Iyl
''S
.2il
44 /
4, 1/00-
,1,
jo,,
IrI
;JP 4i *
Michelangelo, Creation ofAdam, Vatican, Sistine Chapel (?Nippon Television Network Corporation, Tokyo, 1991)
IV
- -A
tr'
4 . a -
IS?';-
? I
S o
R,
inferred from the elbow-and the result of such inquisition is

v;
UNA--
revelatory.
A.FIU,,e MRAv
g'y.
A ...........
Here I'm on dangerous ground. Speak of an elbow these

. . . . ......
... . .......
k-*E g. - -
days, and up goes the cry of formalism, or voyeurism, or

ggg
fetishism. Indeed, an odd elbow is not a promising candidate . . . . . . . . . . . . .
for an epiphany. Yet this one, beheld in its territorial %f, "AM
2C, mg
context, helps consummate the fresco's subplot, defining the
Mir Ily!" ,a
glider's pose and his valor in defense of Heaven.
ME
Briefly stated: the glider's right arm is not supinated, as it

"M
..........
ME,
would have to be to produce an upturned palm under a load; 0i,
the arm is pulled back and pronated with elbow out, an .Oz- A ,
X.
action best understood when the figure is viewed upright, as

though it were striding. (Fig. 9; since the overall imagery of
the Ceiling addresses multiple orientations, an ad hoc turn
through ninety degrees seems permissible.) Not that I mean
to downplay the glider's weightlessness, which underscores
God's own drift. But his present tilt--easy come to an aerialist of
his class-translates a specific stance, a confrontational posture
R - 1,
that becomes more intelligible with the body erect.
Describe the action: a right-footed stride; a right arm .......... ....
.... ....
retracted from its swiveled shoulder; the head in abrupt x-Ok.
counter-spin facing Lucifer; and the left arm .... Wait, what
n
left arm-does it show? Yes, the painter accommodates just . . . ......
4.,
enough arm to stage a heroic action. But it's a squeezed

W.
portion he shows, and I used to find it incomprehensible.

The vestige I saw looked like a bobby sock at the ankle of the
N;
little tyke at God's neck. Yet this triangular segment, wedged

between the glider's blond locks and God's hip, is roundly
modeled and, its paucity notwithstanding, sufficient to project
a raised arm-a gallant arm interposed as though to shield
God from Satanic ill-will. I suggest that this martial posture
(compare the Hercules in Michelangelo's early Centaurs
relief) defines the figure as the champion of Heaven.
One had always supposed that his head turned only to . .. . . . .. . .
keep Adam in view. That first impression is not ruled out-it

accords with the horizontal reading. But now, in the stacked OV.,
... . ... ...
upright of the subplot, given his whole body's posture (and

singular beauty), the glider's immediate object of confronta-
":1 5",
Z
tion is Lucifer. And this confirms a hunch long entertained

9 Michelangelo, Creation ofAdam, detail, turned 90 degrees
but muted so long as the figure, traduced by Vasari's haste,
(C Nippon Television Network Corporation, Tokyo, 1991)
served only as Father's little helper, "supporting him who
needs no support" (Scott). Now, with both arms, including
one exterior elbow, on show, we are in on his enterprise and
divine his identity. Surely this fairest of angels is the Archan-
gel Michael, the defender of Heaven, I'angelo Michele, the
artist's name saint, here sprawled like a signature across right
bottom, a cryptogram with concomitant flourish-Eve's
flying loincloth as his paraph.39
God is the axis. On one side of him, literally beneath, we
behold the first impulse of sin in Lucifer's envy and his
39 It occurs to me that Michelangelo's notorious omission of Saint

Michael, weigher of souls, from the LastJudgment fresco-an oversight
that would draw severe censure from the religious-should perhaps be
considered along with Michael's strong presence at the Creation of
Adam. If Michelangelo knew his Archangel to be safely domiciled on the
Ceiling, Michael's puzzling exclusion from the altar wall takes on a
slightly different cast. But this, for once, is pure speculation. Ijust like to
think that Michelangelo would rather engage his name saint in defense
of Heaven than as a weigher of fellow souls.
encounter with Michael, which implies imminent tumble Give it time, I said to myself. Remember how long
from Heaven and further consequences too depressing to before anyone spotted our cherished Eve. Until 18
itemize. On God's counter side, diametrically opposite the was just one in a crowd. And the outsize boy at her kn
rebel angels, appears the ordained redemption through the not get singled out until four years later, so that
woman-born Christ. entered the picture-or entered our picture of it-
Note that the flowing contour of the celestial envelope,365 years after the fresco was painted. And from tha
Heaven's upended cope, is twice disturbed: by a nick, bottomrecognition to the detection of Antichrist in a dark po
left, where the Devil makes his grab for a portion of it; and atHeaven, check off another 115 years, and then an
upper right where it gathers in a nota bene pointed to the twelvemonth to admit the Archangel Michael-which b
Redeemer. us to 1991. Allowing a decent interval to assimilate th
comers should take us past the millennium. And we ou
2001 ... leave the twenty-first century something to do.
Hearing me expound the identities of these five-Eve and
the Christ Child ("some tots!"), Lucifer with sidekick, and
Leo Steinberg is University Professor Emeritus of Art H
Saint Michael-a colleague desires to know whether I had of Pennsylvanza. Now in retirement, he wonders
University
identified the rest of God's entourage in the fresco and,
ever if
found tzme to teach [165 West 66th Street, New York
10023].
not, was it wise to rush into print with an incomplete roster?

Whos Who in Michelangelos Creation of Adam

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Who's Who in Michelangelo's Creation of Adam: A Chronology of the Picture's Reluctant

1547-53 silent and solitary") since the latter seventeenth century. He

The present essay is excerpted from a book on the Creatzon fresco to be

2 Michelangelo, Creation ofAdam, detail

11 A. Higgins, "Correspondence: Michelangelo's 'Creation of Adam,' "

12 Scott, "Correspondence" (as in n. 3), 358. Knowing Richter's argu-

preexistence of Adam's succession in the mind of God A

ii n!4; i...:!:. .qp

4 Page 59 from Italian Painting: The Renaissance, Geneva, Al-

joint, the paths lining the tendon. Evidently, in the artist's

impress the child's shoulder. Stolbach perceived this godly

hand, if we call the child, as Hibbard does, "baby Jesus," then

The current anti-"formalist" bias turns away from such

-Adam and Eve, my dear boys, were, as you know, our

inferred from the elbow-and the result of such inquisition is

Here I'm on dangerous ground. Speak of an elbow these

days, and up goes the cry of formalism, or voyeurism, or

fetishism. Indeed, an odd elbow is not a promising candidate . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Briefly stated: the glider's right arm is not supinated, as it

would have to be to produce an upturned palm under a load; 0i,

action best understood when the figure is viewed upright, as

retracted from its swiveled shoulder; the head in abrupt x-Ok.

left arm-does it show? Yes, the painter accommodates just . . . ......

enough arm to stage a heroic action. But it's a squeezed

portion he shows, and I used to find it incomprehensible.

little tyke at God's neck. Yet this triangular segment, wedged

keep Adam in view. That first impression is not ruled out-it

upright of the subplot, given his whole body's posture (and

tion is Lucifer. And this confirms a hunch long entertained

39 It occurs to me that Michelangelo's notorious omission of Saint

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