Sistine Chapel fresco critic has rug pulled out from under him

ROME LETTER: The ceiling is the limit as a tapestry display is upstaged by a bold Michelangelo detail, writes PADDY AGNEW

ROME LETTER:The ceiling is the limit as a tapestry display is upstaged by a bold Michelangelo detail, writes PADDY AGNEW

SO THERE I was wandering around the Sistine Chapel the other night for a privileged, "hacks only" showing of a number of 16th-century arazzi(tapestries), created by Flemish master Pieter van Aelst, according to "cartoons" designed by Renaissance master Raphael.

To mark Pope Benedict XVI’s forthcoming visit to the UK, the Vatican museum, along with London’s Victoria and Albert, will be holding an exhibition throughout September and October which, for the first time, brings together the tapestries and the original cartoons.

Let me, however, share a secret with you. If you are ever thinking of putting any of your “artistic” work on display, do not do it in the Sistine Chapel.

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The competition there from that Michelangelo guy is a bit intimidating. As we wandered around, I could not help but notice that 75 per cent of those gathered to admire the tapestries regularly switched their attention to Michelangelo’s massive end-wall and ceiling frescoes.

Twenty or so years ago, those frescoes were restored – and some of us got to climb up on the scaffolding and even “touch” the Sistine ceiling.

The restoration, for all that it prompted the usual controversy from art critics and experts, always looked to this layman’s eye like a splendid success and it still does.

These are quite simply works that enter into the must-see-once-before-you-die category.

The poor old tapestries, for all their gold, silver and silk, never stood a chance. Alongside Michelangelo, they are as dull as ditch water. At the end of the day, a tapestry is a tapestry is a tapestry and excruciatingly boring.

Originally commissioned by Pope Leo X in 1515, these particular ones were designed to cover the lower walls of the Sistine Chapel, with a series of cartoons depicting the life of Moses and the life of Christ. Even in their intended situ, they had a hard time.

At the Victoria and Albert, with less imposing competition, they may seem more interesting.

However, like so many of my colleagues, I abandoned the tapestries and feasted my eyes on the frescoes and here, thanks to long-time colleague Ann Natanson, I made a splendid discovery.

For those of you who know the Sistine Chapel well, this is no discovery but chaps like myself who have spent a lot of time at football stadiums and political demonstrations may have missed a trick or two.

So, there it is in the extreme, lower-right-hand corner of the Day of Judgment, a portrayal of Minos, judge of the underworld.

However, this is an unusual Minos. Not only does he have donkey’s ears (as a sign of foolishness, of course) but he is also naked. Most remarkably, though, he is pictured having his penis quite clearly and, dare one say it, most painfully bitten by a snake.

The point about this particular Minos is that Michelangelo modelled him on Pope Paul III’s master of ceremonies, a certain Biagio da Cesena.

You see, Biagio had been rather unimpressed by The Last Judgmentwhen he had dropped by to see Michelangelo at work: "It is most disgraceful that in so sacred a place there should have been depicted all those nude figures, exposing themselves so shamefully," he allegedly commented, adding that the work was much more fitting "for the public baths and taverns" than for a papal chapel.

No sooner said than frescoed. Michelangelo, clearly, was not the sort of fellow to take such criticism lying down.

When Biagio finally realised just how graphically, Michelangelo had reaped his revenge, he immediately beetled round to the pope to complain.

To his credit, however, Pope Paul replied that since The Last Judgmentis a portrayal of hell, his jurisdiction clearly did not stretch that far and therefore the "portrait", complete with reptile attack, would have to remain.

And so it does, there for all and sundry to admire when they visit the Sistine.

Remarkably, however, there is another explanation for the Minos figure and his particularly painful predicament.

Some art historians claim that it was in fact the portrait of Pierluigi Farnese, son of Paul (in those days, the celibacy ruling was only an optional part of the pope gig).

Farnese jnr was accused of first sodomising and then killing Bishop Cosimo Gheri in 1537 (in those days, bishops’ conferences had a rather more direct way of resolving differences within the hierarchy).

And people complain about the Holy See today.