'The Sistine Secrets: Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican' by Benjamin Blech and Roy Doliner

MICHELANGELO studied the Kabbalah and Talmud? It's all right there, above our heads, as Benjamin Blech and Roy Doliner demonstrate in their fascinating study of the Sistine Chapel, "The Sistine Secrets" (HarperOne: 336 pp., $26.95). I understand the desire to reach Dan Brown's audience with the book's provocative subtitle -- "Michelangelo's Forbidden Messages in the Heart of the Vatican" -- but this book is hardly a "Da Vinci Code" knockoff. The authors, both experts on Judaica, scoured Michelangelo's work and found many oddities, raising such questions as: Why does the serpent in Eden have arms? Why, in that scene, is the Tree of Knowledge a fig tree instead of an apple tree? And, hey, why does the shape of "The Last Judgment" resemble the tablets of the Ten Commandments?

May 11, 2008