This is a small detail of the amazing artistic enterprise by Michelangelo, his worldwide  famous Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel. A fresco that completely covers a wall 20 meters high and 14 metres wide that caused a sensation in the past like today, being criticized for several reasons (for example the original naked bodies). I should need to another blog just to describe the Last Judgment and all the secret messages hidden inside, but today I would like to pay attention to one specific detail. 

Millions of tourists come specially to Rome, and the Vatican Museums, to admire, if only for a second, this riot of color, of forces, of power, of dynamism. A swirling motion of bodies that revolve around Jesus, that beardness and powerful Jesus that someone in the past described without mercy for his attitude. A Jesus who has, very close to him, the angels playing the Trumpets of the Apocalypse. And just here we may pause for a moment, to understand how this extraordinary work of art hides also of the meanings, however, are still current. There are also some interesting details and curiousities, like the angel with the green cape on his shoulders: his cheeks are swollen, shooting in the exact moment of the breath inside the instrument. The voltage is maximum, the moment is important. With the Trumpets of the Apocalypse which announce, step by step, the Salvation. If you notice better we have a small detail that usually escapes. The first two figures at the foreground hold up, both of them, a book. The one on the left, from the observer, holding a small book, showing it to the souls of the saved, those who, in the Day of Judgment, they will rise up in the Grace of the heavens. The small pages contain the good deeds of those souls, the reason for which they can go to Heaven. It is small of course, because just "a little" in order to be admitted into the Kingdom of Heaven: an act of charity, aid to the needy, a selfless act. Maybe these souls in life tried to avoid to be selfish, helping someone when there was need, were open and avoid judging others. In a sense, though obviously sinning in the course of their earthly existence, these souls have had the chance to be redeemed and saved by God with those few gestures, which are collected in this little book, which made all the difference. Nobody is perfect of course, and the Grace of God is inscrutable, but better to have done something good that does not have anything decent in life!

In fact, going now to the other side, on the right there is another figure holding a great book, shown open to all those damned souls that, instead, are destined for Hell. These are the souls which, on the contrary, in life did horrendous crimes against themselves and their bodies, and the others. They may have been selfish, who knows. No need to force a great sin to be able to be automatically condemned. This book contains, however, the list of all the sins they committed, those sins never espiate that justify the descent into Hell. You can see how Michelangelo, therefore, is not focused only and exclusively on the stylistic and pictorial rendering but also on the message. All of the artists, and especially the masters, had to be able not only to make realistic and naturalistic figures. No, because a character in an opera had to be able to be a bearer of a message, maybe just a piece of meaning that was to be completed by the character-by-side. The whole masterpiece, this incredible Last Judgment, with the gestures, the poses or the objects held in the hands of the figures, were used to tell us what the author wants to communicate. In a certain way it seems that the world is full of sins and malicious people, while on the other side very few people could hope for a mercy. Or maybe, better, you don't need to great deeds in order to be saved...