Maggie Peale Everett and I had a restful and uneventful flight over to Rome for the first leg of our Guideposts Reflections of Italy tour with a group of intrepid Guideposts readers (many of whom I met for the first time at the baggage-claim belt).
Waiting for my room to be readied I wandered up a set of ancient steps across from the hotel and went inside San Pietro in Vincoli, a modest basilica that holds one of the greatest pieces of statuary in the world, Michelangelo’s Moses.
I did not expect to be so awestruck. It is absolutely breathtaking. The billowing beard and flowing hair, the stone tablets in his muscled arms, an expression I can’t quite interpret–anger, shock, disappointment, amazement at having seen the face of God. Maybe that’s how the great sculptor wanted it: inscrutable, open to the perceptions of the observer.
It is most famous, perhaps, for its “horns.” Undeniably there are identical twin protrusions from his head. Some say these are meant to represent rays of light symbolizing his enlightenment by the word of God. Other experts opine that an ambivalent scriptural translation claims Moses grew actual horns at the sight of the Lord.
Or maybe they are just cowlicks.
Michelangelo sculpted the piece from 1513-1515. It was intended for the grandiose, almost pharaonic tomb of Pope Julius II, who died in 1513. The tomb was not completed until 1545. The great statue of Moses, however, seems virtually alive some five centuries later. I include a picture so you can see for yourself.
