Orientalizing Fraud and the Sistine Frescoes: Annius and Michelangelo

The notoriety of Annius of Viterbo, aka Giovanni Nanni, as a successful fraudster, has distracted historians from appreciating his legacy.  His anthology of forgeries, Vetustissmi Auctores (1498), rewrote ancient history.  He was an early promoter of Christian Hebraism.  His elevation by Alexander VI in 1499, to become his chief theological advisor, signaled his influence in Rome.  After his death in 1502, his fabrications continued reverberating through the sermons of his devotee, the most respected preacher in Rome during the first third of the sixteenth century, Cardinal Egidio.  

Totally unrecognized has been his contribution to Michelangelo's Sistine frescoes, completed 500 years ago.  Michelangelo's older brother was a Dominican colleague of Nanni in Viterbo.  Cardinal Egidio was close to Michelangelo's patron, Pope Julius II.  One distinctive aspect of the frescoes is their unprecedented attention to the story of Noah.  Noah had played a central role in Most Ancient Authors, (the English title).  It claimed that he was the source of the secular authority of the papacy - - Nanni dubbed him the first Pontifex Maximus - -  and the ancestor of all Europe's dynasties.  Trumping Lorenzo Valla's critique of the Donation of Constantine, this tale was eagerly received in Rome to reinforce the political and military agenda of Julius.  Dominating one-third of the highest point in the vault, Michelangelo's Noah frescoes reminded Europe's rulers and their diplomats who entered that chapel, that the Holy Father was their worldly father was well.  Nanni and Michelangelo also countered the rise of the Ottoman dynasty.  Nanni asserted that Christian Rome - - not the Muslim usurpers - - was through Noah the true heir of the lore and mysticism of the ancient Near East, pagan and scriptural.  Accordingly Michelangelo filled the chapel with Orientals: the Israelite ancestors of Jesus, sibyls, and prophets.