Benjamin Blech

“thought. Successionism means that one faith can replace a previous one that has ceased to function. In religious terms, it is comparable…

— Benjamin Blech

“They balance the Sistine Temple between the column of G’vurah (strength and justice) on the left side and the column of Chessed…

— Benjamin Blech

“Michelangelo’s genius was in allowing the viewer to see a great deal—in order not to show what is best left secret, except…

— Benjamin Blech

“Kabbalah (in Hebrew, literally “receiving”) refers to the mystical traditions that encompass the secrets of the Torah, the esoteric truths that reveal…

— Benjamin Blech

“The original ceiling illustrated a simple theme shared by many synagogues: a night sky, filled with golden stars. This scene is reminiscent…

— Benjamin Blech

“Vatican theologians turned the Sistine into “The New Holy Temple of the New Jerusalem.” Its role, they explained, was to replace with…

— Benjamin Blech

“Faced with the enormous insult of his burial in Rome, the citizens of Florence finally realized their cultural and spiritual debt to…

— Benjamin Blech

“Neoplatonists also believed that the vast variety of human thought, if traced back to the One Source—what Leonardo da Vinci called the…

— Benjamin Blech

“The Hebrew Bible, speaking of the first sexual encounter between Adam and Eve, says that “Adam knew” his mate. Remarkably, the Hebrew…

— Benjamin Blech

“sit well with Michelangelo. The project seemed like a series of insurmountable challenges: •​It would be the largest fresco on earth—there would…

— Benjamin Blech

“It is likely that this very maelstrom of conflicted impulses is what has foiled all previous attempts to come up with a…

— Benjamin Blech

“the man who knew that his people were in the "fire of Egypt," which would some day be paralleled by the crematoria…

— Benjamin Blech

“Until the Tower of Babel, humans had only planted and sown, reaped and harvested. Farmers are dependent upon nature and, in their…

— Benjamin Blech

“Why one of the later, lesser-known Jewish prophets over the front door of the Sistine? Michelangelo must have selected Zechariah for a…

— Benjamin Blech

“Michelangelo was entranced by this ancient masterpiece, the result of three top Greek sculptors working as a team on the island of…

— Benjamin Blech

“Codes proved their value many times over in wartime. Far less obvious, though, is the way hidden messages found a place in…

— Benjamin Blech

“There was even a third person to deal with, as far as anything that took place in the Sistine Chapel. He was…

— Benjamin Blech

“In early 1506 a peasant had been fixing up his vineyard near the Colosseum when he accidentally opened up a hole in…

— Benjamin Blech

“Michelangelo proposed to the pope that he make a large copy of the Pantheon dome on top of the new St. Peter’s.…

— Benjamin Blech

“Giudizio Universale, the Last Judgment. In the Christian tradition, this is when Jesus returns to earth to discern between right and wrong,…

— Benjamin Blech

“He hauled in Michelangelo, commanding the aged maestro to make the naked figures in The Last Judgment “suitable” for the papal chapel.…

— Benjamin Blech

“Somewhat similar is another effect called anamorphosis. This is an amazing technique that makes an image literally “morph” into another shape or…

— Benjamin Blech

“Back in the 1540s, Pope Paul III had started the repressive measures of the Counter-Reformation to crack down on the growth of…

— Benjamin Blech

“Historians are fairly certain that Buonarroti spent much time in the Jewish parts of Rome, using the authentic features of real Jews…

— Benjamin Blech

“Almost exactly five hundred years ago, a tormented soul named Michelangelo built a very narrow bridge in the middle of the air…

— Benjamin Blech