Typology in the Sistine Ceiling: A Critical Statement

Abstract

In an essay on “Sante Pagnini and Michelangelo A Study in the Succession of Savonarola,”1 I observed some years ago that the Genealogy of Christ, the representation of which in the Sistine Ceiling poses an iconographical problem of difficulty, forms the subject of a large group of Renaissance sermons, tracts, and anthologies. Among these I mentioned the sermons collected in the Renaissance Homeliarius (1506), the commentary of St. Antonine of Florence in his Summa (1480), the debate on the Genealogy between Annius of Viterbo (1498) and Samuel of Cassino (1502),2 and the summation of these tendencies in the Isagoge (1536) of Sante Pagnini, Savonarola's pupil.3 I notice that in Mr. Hartt's article on the Sistine Ceiling,4 in which this subject is discussed at length (pp. 201–213), no mention is made anywhere of the existence of these Renaissance sermons and tracts, and that the Isagoge of Sante Pagnini is dismissed without even a record of its title.5 From Mr. Hartt's own arguments it is evident that these sources were not consulted by him, which may be owing to the fact that accessible libraries are not always equipped for the study of Renaissance theology. Yet this hardly suffices to excuse the extraordinary action of avoiding any reference to the existence of so large a body of relevant Renaissance literature, or of substituting for it quotations from Hrabanus Maurus who wrote in the ninth century. Among the many mediaeval commentaries of Matthew 1, which offer a mystical interpretation of the names in the Genealogy, the text of Hrabanus is not outstanding either for the singularity or the wealth or the influence of its propositions,6 and it does not fit Michelangelo's pictures.