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only vehicle for socializing and entertainment. Even in the freethinking Florence of Michelangelo’s youth, people would flock to the churches to mingle, to hear a sermon from a talented popular orator, and to enjoy the latest artwork. Religious ceremonies of the era were anything but brief. A mass, especially a papal one, could last for hours. How to maintain the proper mood and not bore the congregation to sleep? Art was the answer. But not just pretty pictures that required only a short glance. It had to be art that would serve as an ever-unfolding, mesmerizing element of the religious ambience. That is another reason that the art in Michelangelo’s day was so complex—it had to bear hundreds of repeated viewings of long duration. The audience had to believe that it was always possible to discover in it new meanings and insights.
    Thus, generation by generation, art—both private and public—became more and more complex and multilayered. Just as Shakespeare filled his works with straightforward storylines, sex, violence, and bawdy jokes for the “groundlings” (the uneducated peasants who stood or sat on the ground) while at the same time creating gorgeous poetry with profound levels of meaning for the wealthy and cultured patrons in the upper seats, artists in Michelangelo’s era were creating amazing pieces that would speak to every level of intelligence. The common folk would see pretty pictures and statues and listen to a cleric’s narration of their meaning. For those of sufficient background, however, there were far more treasures to be gleaned from delving into each work.
    Every single element of Renaissance art has an inner significance: the choice of subject and protagonists, the faces selected for different characters in the work, the colors used, the species of flowers or trees shown, the kinds of animals portrayed, the positions, stances, gestures, and juxtapositions of the characters in the scene, even the location and landscape itself—all have hidden meanings. For endlessly creative geniuses like Leonardo and Michelangelo, this made each new work an extremely exhilarating—and exhausting—journey deep into the piece and thus deep into their own souls.
    The greatest challenge arose, however, when the artist felt he had to hide his real message out of fear, knowing that his ideas were unacceptable to the establishment or perhaps even prohibited. In times of intolerance and religious persecution, art very often did not dare openly declare what the artist so urgently wanted to communicate. Codes, hidden allusions, symbols, and veiled references comprehensible to only a very limited circle of peers were the only recourse available to those who broke with the traditional dogmas of their age—especially if the artist knew his ideas would be anathema to his patron or to the authorities.
    This, as we will see, is what makes Michelangelo and his work in the Sistine Chapel so fascinating. Michelangelo may well be the paradigm of the great artist whose work reflects a passion for both aesthetic perfection and intellectual persuasion. More than anything, he wanted to create works of art that would endure not only because of their beauty but also for their daring—and at the time subversive—statements to people both inside and outside the Church. Although Michelangelo knew that a majority of his contemporaries would not see beneath the superficial, he had faith that somehow his “coded” allusions would surely be exposed by diligent scholars. Michelangelo was certain that history would take the trouble to decipher his true meaning—because hiding dangerous thoughts in works of art was common practice to a great many of his colleagues, a practice with an ancient pedigree.
    FROM THE BIBLE TO THE RENAISSANCE
     
    The first recorded instance of a hidden message in artwork goes back almost four thousand years, to a story recorded in the biblical book of Genesis. Joseph, the heir and favored son of the last