Michelangelo, The Pope and the Donkey

When in Rome, everyone advises you to give yourself up to pleasure with reckless abandon. 

Have an espresso whilst people watching in the middle of a busy piazza. Let the spaghetti and parmesan leave it’s greasy mark on your lips and then order pizza as your main course. Have two helpings of chocolate ice-cream cause why the hell not? And finally go meet the Art. 
Oh......the Art.....you’ll need a cigarette after spending time gazing at some of the statues. 

In the middle of all this I wondered if the inhabitants of the Vatican City just across the river were immune to Rome's vibe. 

It turns out that Catholicism is not immune to pleasure at all. In St.Peter’s Basilica the smell of myrrh dominates your senses and everywhere you look there are references to martyrs, sacrificing yourself, and generally having a miserable experience now so you can chill out in the after life. 

Behind the walls of the Vatican though it’s a different story. 

On your way to the Sistine Chapel the halls are adorned with Greek Statues of Dionysus and beautifully carved youths also known as marble you want to touch.

And then you get into the Sistine Chapel itself to be overwhelmed by Michaelangelo’s amazing paintings of the Genesis and the Final Judgement. 

Hold on! Everyone he painted on the walls and ceiling is naked. 

Are we in the house that piety built? 

Turns out that when the Pope’s own Master of Ceremonies, Biagio de Cesena, saw the painting of the Final Judgement in progress one afternoon he had the same reaction and immediately complained to the Pope about it saying "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," 

The Pope, who was lunching, had to put his fork down in the middle of having his favourite dish (spaghetti with tomato, fresh basil leaves cut from the Vatican gardens and Parmesan from the province of Reggio Emilia) and deal with the “situation”. 


Michelangelo (who had extraordinary amounts of good credit with his Holiness after sculpting the Pieta, 10 years previously at the tender age of 24) explained to the Pope that when Judgement day comes we will not be judged for what we’ve amassed or what we wear but for who we’ve truly been. We are all naked in the eyes of the Lord, this is why all the figures are naked. 

The Pope left, happy with Michelangelo’s answer but quite pissed off with Cesena because his spaghetti was now cold and he had given the cook the afternoon off. 

Michelangelo who was also pissed off with Cesena decided to work his face into the scene as, Minos, judge of the underworld (on the far bottom-right corner of the painting) with Donkey Ears (i.e. indicating foolishness), while his nudity is covered by a coiled snake that chews on his testicles for eternity. 

When Cesena saw it a few days later he walked as fast as he could without running (and tripped over his robes twice because of it) up the Vatican corridors and into the Pope’s quarters to complain. 

Cesena interrupted the Pontiff mid-second attempt at enjoying his favourite dish and at the precise moment of inhaling the glorious smell of one of the fresh basil leaves that adorned the pasta.   

The Pope put his fork down and explained that if Michelangelo had placed Cesena in purgatory he could perhaps have done something about it, however as his jurisdiction did not extend to hell, the portrait of Cesena would have to remain. 
His Holiness proceeded to delicately add Parmesan to the dish and pick up his fork.