pabulummill.substack.com/p/capital-t-taste-doesnt-exist
1 correction found
they didn’t have a functional purpose beyond their aesthetic value.
Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel frescoes were not purely decorative. They were made for a functioning papal chapel used for liturgy and conclaves, and Vatican sources explicitly describe the paintings as helping make scriptural truths understandable.
Full reasoning
This claim is contradicted by the historical function of the Sistine Chapel and by official Vatican descriptions of the frescoes.
- The Holy See describes the Sistine Chapel as a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption and notes that it hosted various liturgical feasts and, since 1878, has been the seat of every papal conclave.
- The Vatican Museums explain that the paintings in the chapel were not just aesthetic objects: they say the images "serve to render the truths expressed in the Holy Scriptures more understandable."
- The same Vatican Museums page also emphasizes the chapel’s ongoing ecclesiastical function, stating that the conclave for the election of the Supreme Pontiff is held in the Chapel.
So while the article is making a broader cultural argument, this specific sentence is historically inaccurate: Michelangelo’s frescoes in the Sistine Chapel had clear religious, didactic, and ceremonial functions, not merely aesthetic value.
2 sources
- Sistine Chapel - The Holy See
The Sistine Chapel, dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption... Since 1878, the Sistine Chapel has been the seat of every papal conclave... In the past various liturgical feasts were celebrated in the Sistine Chapel such as First Vespers for Corpus Christi, Christmas Eve Matins and Palm Sunday Mass.
- Sistine Chapel - Vatican Museums
The paintings, like the images of a book, serve to render the truths expressed in the Holy Scriptures more understandable... The Conclave for the election of the Supreme Pontiff is held in the Chapel.