108. The Creation of the Sistine Chapel: Michelangelo's Darkest Hour

Rarely is one so compelled to gaze upward than when they enter the majestic Sistine Chapel. 

Featuring historically renowned art pieces such as the Creation of Adam and the Last Judgment, the Pope's private chapel is a spectacle that millions travel to witness every year. 

But did you know how it was built? Or how Michelangelo got roped into (sort of against his will) painting his now-famous ceiling? 

It's a pretty sweet story, and we're excited to share it with you. 

Join John, Tom, and Tay as we share the interesting lore behind Rome's beloved residence. Also, we'll talk about our Christmas gifts (shoutout to humidifiers) and whether zen gardens are kosher or not. 

Buy us a coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/chumphistory

Transcript

Sleepy Jay (00:00.56)
Be on Jorno and welcome to Church History for Chumps. My name is John Simon. I'm here with my good friends Taylor, Amor Mio Treadway. And of course we've got Thomas Cochade Mama. Do well.

GOBBA GOOL (00:16.259)
That sounds like a slur.

Sleepy Jay (00:18.264)
No, they're both good. A more meal. It's an apple of my mother's eye. Which my mom doesn't know you that well, but I think she'd like you, Thomas.

Tom Bombadil (00:18.343)
Yeah. Word to your, word to your mother.

GOBBA GOOL (00:26.339)
Hmm.

Tom Bombadil (00:31.95)
Yeah, we've always got a log.

Sleepy Jay (00:33.912)
Yeah, yeah, exactly. You guys have gotten a good little rapport with each other. Well, hey, is, let's see, it's about two days after Christmas as we're recording. We're about to start the new year. How was your guys' Christmas? You guys get any, it feels weird to be like, did you get any good gifts? But I mean, did you?

GOBBA GOOL (00:43.849)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (00:50.945)
I know. Like you're coming back to school and you're like, what'd get? Well, I texted you guys that Brandy and I both got each other humidifiers, which...

Sleepy Jay (00:55.494)
Yeah, exactly. get the new PlayStation. Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (00:55.714)
Hmm

Sleepy Jay (01:05.105)
Aww.

Tom Bombadil (01:06.444)
And what did I say?

GOBBA GOOL (01:08.631)
Tommy said, welcome to Christmas in your 30s.

Sleepy Jay (01:11.698)
Yeah, that's not it would have been nicer if one of you got a dehumidifier because then you could just kind of, you know, yeah. That's right.

GOBBA GOOL (01:18.271)
Ha ha. Cycle thing. It's how we...

Tom Bombadil (01:19.934)
Even like the g- or no, gift of the magi situation.

GOBBA GOOL (01:23.357)
Right. In fairness, they are different. So mine's more of like a medical thing, like really, really like pumping. Because poor Brandy's throat has just been killing her.

Tom Bombadil (01:33.059)
Yeah.

Sleepy Jay (01:34.65)
Is she like chronically dehydrated?

GOBBA GOOL (01:37.347)
I don't know, but her little throat. And so I got her like a serious industrial, you know? And then she got me one that like makes lights and has a little fountain and puts out, yeah, it puts out scent. If you put like, it's like a diffuser as well.

Sleepy Jay (01:44.688)
Yeah.

Sleepy Jay (01:49.243)
it's a little that's sweet.

Tom Bombadil (01:53.783)
Sleepy Jay (01:56.658)
was gonna say, I feel like you just got an essential oils diffuser. That's what that sounds like.

Tom Bombadil (02:00.238)
Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (02:01.477)
Well, they say it's a humidifier too, so...

Sleepy Jay (02:04.37)
there we go.

Tom Bombadil (02:04.684)
You need to get like a bonsai tree now to go with it and like a little some sand with a rake.

Sleepy Jay (02:07.782)
Let's go a little Zen garden. Yeah, a little Zen garden. Yeah, some of those flat stones with kanji on it that says like humility. you accept that as a gift Thomas or would you be like evil spirit? Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (02:07.939)
Mmm.

A little gong.

Tom Bombadil (02:13.518)
Yep.

GOBBA GOOL (02:17.853)
Right. Yes. This will be my morning meditation.

Tom Bombadil (02:27.246)
I don't really actually know what that is.

Sleepy Jay (02:29.618)
Do a little bit of research. There was a, I did receive a gift from a member when I was still pastoring. was, I think she went to China and it was like a, it kind of reminded me of like one of those little Russian dolls, but it wasn't like, you know, you open it there's like six inside. was just, it's just like kind of egg shaped and it's porcelain and it had this, it was like red and had this weird,

Tom Bombadil (02:50.476)
It's just an idol.

Sleepy Jay (02:59.068)
very religious face on it. And I was like, thank you so much. And I threw it away. I was like, no, no.

GOBBA GOOL (03:04.835)
I'm not, it's Pentecostal John came out.

Tom Bombadil (03:05.471)
No!

You're really banking that she doesn't listen to the podcast.

Sleepy Jay (03:12.355)
I think I'm okay.

Tom Bombadil (03:14.113)
Hahaha

GOBBA GOOL (03:14.691)
He he John's John's his Baptist hostel came out there.

Sleepy Jay (03:21.874)
Dude, you know, here's the thing, when all else fails, it's always good to ask, maybe there's a demonic component to what's happening. Cause I've definitely had those moments where I'm just like, dude, I don't know what's wrong. I don't know what is stressing. hold on, hold on. That might be something.

GOBBA GOOL (03:39.137)
You know what it is, you're traumatized. So guys, everybody listeners, Tommy, when John and I were in college.

Sleepy Jay (03:43.698)
my gosh, thank the Lord. The educated Baptist is here to set me straight.

GOBBA GOOL (03:49.686)
No, I'm telling you, like you were traumatized by that story we heard at Challenge. you've buried it subconsciously. We had a friend who shared with everybody one night that when she was living in Japan and her mom collected all these statues that like she was left at home one day and like a bunch of demons like manifested and harassed her.

Sleepy Jay (03:55.612)
Which one?

Sleepy Jay (04:17.025)
gosh, dude. No, I definitely buried the heck out of that. Well, dude, and I had a friend at challenge. I don't know if she ever told you these stories, but she would tell, it might've been the same person actually, but she used to tell me that she would have these visions of like coyotes coming to like her bedroom and they would speak to her in these like dark evil tones. so.

GOBBA GOOL (04:18.357)
You don't remember this? I think you're... I don't know, dude, I brought stuff back from Asia.

Tom Bombadil (04:21.016)
Sounds like it traumatized you,

GOBBA GOOL (04:44.917)
Yes, and they came from the statues. See, you did internalize it.

Sleepy Jay (04:48.719)
Right, that's right. yup. Well, cause I remember, cause I, dude, I remember driving through like Oro Valley, some of the more like deserty parts of town and I would see coyotes crossing and I used to like slow down, but then I was like, nah. I was like,

Tom Bombadil (05:05.932)
Ram, full speed ahead!

GOBBA GOOL (05:06.787)
Gosh, it's just a little coyote.

Sleepy Jay (05:11.225)
I've never killed a coyote, but I'm not gonna swerve to miss one, let's just say.

Tom Bombadil (05:16.0)
If you did it, it would be a skinwalker and that was God just letting you clean up the creation a little bit.

Sleepy Jay (05:20.633)
Let's go, I'm here for that. Yeah, I have no sympathy. I don't break for skin walkers. We've suddenly turned into haunted cosmos. man.

GOBBA GOOL (05:20.995)
my gosh, who am I on a podcast with what is this?

Tom Bombadil (05:26.35)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

GOBBA GOOL (05:31.989)
Is that the Presbyterian one that talks about all the,

Tom Bombadil (05:35.661)
Yes.

Sleepy Jay (05:36.337)
I think they're in Tommy's camp. Are they they presby or are they are they CREC?

Tom Bombadil (05:41.406)
They're actually neither. They're Presbyterian adjacent. We definitely have a lot of listeners to Church History for Chumps that really love that podcast.

Sleepy Jay (05:46.402)
Okay, okay.

Sleepy Jay (05:51.346)
That is true. We've had some of our folks, yeah, shout that out. Speaking of shout outs, I know we talk about Jackson a lot, but I need to shout out Jackson because he's been, hell, he's been tutoring me in how to find good resources for learning Spanish. Because I guess he kind of shared, I won't go into all the details because it's his family business, but he basically retaught himself French.

And now he and like his family speak it. So then he gave me all these solid tips about it. So I was like, Hey, thanks Jackson. That's cool. No, it's, it's a lot more. It's a lot more involved than that.

GOBBA GOOL (06:21.603)
It's not just Duolingo. Yeah. I don't know how true this was. I saw a story. Someone said, my dad's been on Duolingo for like 500 days and we went to Spain and then he said, my dad was useless. Like, like, like my dad could only utter like four sentences and it's like, you've been studying this language for two years.

Sleepy Jay (06:39.013)
Dude, it's true. What's the point of being like...

Sleepy Jay (06:47.227)
Dude, it's, I kind of roasted a buddy of mine. It's like basic vocabulary, but like I kind of roasted a buddy of mine because he was like kind of bragging about how his Duolingo streak was like a thousand days plus, like several years. And I was like, I was like, why don't you try saying something to my wife who speaks Spanish fluently? And I was like, Annie, say something to him. And she's just like, hola Caleb, como estas? And he was like,

Tom Bombadil (06:48.312)
feel like Duolingo probably works well for Japanese.

Sleepy Jay (07:16.593)
yeah, and I, I felt so bad because this is the middle of Bible study. I just like put this man on blast, but I was also like, your little experiment is bust. Sorry. It's the owl. That owl might be a demon now that we're full circle. Yeah. They worship the freaking owl from Duolingo. I don't know.

Tom Bombadil (07:16.834)
DANG

GOBBA GOOL (07:18.069)
Sheesh.

GOBBA GOOL (07:27.167)
he deserves it. Duolingo's a scam!

GOBBA GOOL (07:34.999)
Gosh.

GOBBA GOOL (07:39.435)
Hey, is Dane, was Dane able to open presents?

Tom Bombadil (07:43.788)
Yeah, yeah, he did a little opening. Thanks for asking.

Sleepy Jay (07:45.569)
let's go! Alright, cool.

GOBBA GOOL (07:47.041)
Was he like, did you have to like really guide him or like big brothers like, like he just watched them.

Tom Bombadil (07:52.462)
See, Dane is at the age where we realized about a week ago we probably should have just gotten him like a paper cup as his present because that sort of thing is what he's most excited about. So Dane's at the age where he will unwrap something and stay engaged with the wrapping paper and not with whatever was inside of it. Yeah, it's fun. It's fun stuff.

Sleepy Jay (08:03.569)
He's like, let's go.

GOBBA GOOL (08:04.675)
Right, right. $25 toy from Target, paper cup, same thing for him.

GOBBA GOOL (08:14.112)
Right.

Sleepy Jay (08:15.057)
There's so much stimulus there, that's the thing. Yeah, it's making sounds, it's all weird. Yeah, I get that. I get that.

GOBBA GOOL (08:20.931)
John did Annie, you don't even know what you got for Christmas, you just played with the wrapping paper.

Sleepy Jay (08:26.875)
Yeah, I'm still kind of fixing it on the boxes, big dog. I'm just excited about that.

GOBBA GOOL (08:29.846)
You

Tom Bombadil (08:31.118)
You

Sleepy Jay (08:33.873)
Aw man. Well.

GOBBA GOOL (08:34.943)
Hey, so this well before no before what I was about to say, like, so there I thought I thought you were going to jump into the well jumping in. OK.

Sleepy Jay (08:38.051)
Hold on, I wasn't interrupting, just-

Sleepy Jay (08:44.761)
No, no, no. mean, I saw that you were redirecting and I was like, let me give Taylor the floor. And then you were like, I'm, I'm, I'm.

GOBBA GOOL (08:49.259)
Let me ask this. I have the microphone. Let me let me ask this. So because the listeners are also getting this and I have this theory that this week between Christmas and New Year's is is just like a dead good for nothing week. But like a lot of people still have to go to work and like they just like pretend to do stuff because half the country shut down. I guess, John, you.

Sleepy Jay (08:55.793)
Please.

GOBBA GOOL (09:18.185)
You actually have to work.

Sleepy Jay (09:22.021)
Yes, I-

Tom Bombadil (09:22.768)
people don't take a break from dying the week after Christmas.

GOBBA GOOL (09:24.641)
Right, like barbers.

Sleepy Jay (09:25.557)
No, and families don't stop grieving and all that, all that. It's actually, here's the thing, I've been in a real sourpuss mood about having to work during the holidays, but I've also really appreciated all of the time I've had with my patients and families too. So I think God's kinda helping me out there. Cause I just always find myself in a lousy mood, but then I'm like, this was actually really meaningful. I'm glad I was here. So anyways.

GOBBA GOOL (09:30.114)
Right.

GOBBA GOOL (09:45.313)
So.

GOBBA GOOL (09:50.751)
softening your stone frozen chosen heart.

Sleepy Jay (09:56.4)
melting this Scrooge, Scrooge heart of stone in me, so.

GOBBA GOOL (09:59.566)
Tommy, you have not, did you meet with any clients this week?

Tom Bombadil (10:04.428)
I did.

GOBBA GOOL (10:05.618)
wow, maybe my theory is a little bust.

Sleepy Jay (10:09.489)
Maybe it's just you, man. Maybe you're just the only one who's not working this week.

GOBBA GOOL (10:12.803)
I don't know, dude, my pastor asked me on Sunday to preach. I had to write it tomorrow. T minus 12 and 1 hours.

Sleepy Jay (10:18.455)
off.

Tom Bombadil (10:20.482)
You're preaching this tomorrow.

Sleepy Jay (10:26.033)
dang, we could have asked people to pray, but by the time they listen to it, it won't make a difference.

GOBBA GOOL (10:31.317)
I think they should probably still pray for all the damage that's about to be done.

Sleepy Jay (10:35.217)
right? that God just heals the people for what they hurt on Sunday.

GOBBA GOOL (10:39.171)
Yeah, that's right. Corrects any heresy.

Sleepy Jay (10:44.049)
I'm sure it's gonna be great, man. think you're good. You're kind of getting in your pocket a little bit as far as preaching goes, right?

GOBBA GOOL (10:51.453)
I hope so. I was assigned the new heavens and the new earth as a topic and so I chose I chose Isaiah 66. So is this going to get a little fire and brimstone II?

Tom Bombadil (10:56.609)
Epic.

Sleepy Jay (10:57.297)
Okay, that's a good one.

Tom Bombadil (11:00.398)
Epic.

Sleepy Jay (11:00.401)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Bombadil (11:06.03)
By that last verse, I asked, I asked, oh shoot, what's his name? Heath, Heath something. He's the president of Oklahoma Baptist University. One time he taught a class on Isaiah when I was in seminary. I didn't go to OBU, it was just, or whatever it's called. He was guest lecturing and I asked him one time, because the way Isaiah 66 ends is like,

GOBBA GOOL (11:08.342)
Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (11:34.626)
You know, and you know, it's all like this beautiful language about the new heavens and the new earth and you know, the nation's streaming into the city of God and all this. And then the last verses and then they will go out and look at the dead bodies burning, you know, where the worm does not die. And then it ends. Yeah. And I asked, I asked the professor, I was like, why does it end like that? And he was like, well,

GOBBA GOOL (11:50.241)
And the fire's not quenched, yeah.

Tom Bombadil (12:03.86)
If I may have told the story in the podcast before I'm not sure but he was just like if if you live in a place where Like let's say you're in Nigeria in like your entire town just got wiped out By Muslims like every single person in your town was like beheaded Verses like that are actually good news, too Like we kind of have this charmed perspective on what is considered good news living in America where we don't have a lot of

you know, intense suffering, but if you experience intense suffering and intense injustice, then that sort of verse becomes good news. And he recommended a book, I think it's called like, Piles of Bodies, Heaps of Slain. And it's like the subtext is, yeah, yeah. It's like reading.

Sleepy Jay (12:48.837)
I've heard that album. Yeah, it's by Cannibal Corpse.

GOBBA GOOL (12:51.459)
You

Tom Bombadil (12:55.518)
Reading the minor prophets through a African lens or something like that basically dealing with kind of like imprecatory prophetic language Through the lens of Africans who go through a of suffering

GOBBA GOOL (13:11.169)
Well, at risk of rabbit trailing too long, this is really interesting, though. What's even more fascinating, obviously, the enemies of God are at the forefront, like they're going to receive the Assyrians in that specific context with Isaiah are like going to receive the judgment. But Isaiah 66, he's mostly addressing the false, like religious people. Which is even more controversial.

Sleepy Jay (13:37.691)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (13:40.188)
and scary. But yeah, the whole passage, the whole book of Isaiah is just riddled with a lot of hope and then a lot of like warning and judgment for those on the, you know, the wrong side.

Sleepy Jay (14:01.305)
Yeah, Isaiah is tough. It's a great book, but it's hard. There's a lot of judgment in that.

GOBBA GOOL (14:03.319)
Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (14:05.976)
Well, Taylor's got to finish his sermon, so we should probably dive in.

GOBBA GOOL (14:09.665)
No, bro, it's done. It's done.

Sleepy Jay (14:10.725)
Good point. he's not in the...

Tom Bombadil (14:14.006)
No, Taylor, Taylor has to finish his sermon. Taylor has to finish his sermon. So we better wrap up.

GOBBA GOOL (14:20.451)
Tom, are you preaching tomorrow?

Sleepy Jay (14:22.769)
I was going to say Taylor's not in the do well Simon school of finishing your sermon at 1 30 a.m. Sunday morning. It's a rush man. Did I had some of the sweetest times with God just praying that he would help me write a sermon in the 11th hour.

Tom Bombadil (14:23.34)
Why do you ask?

GOBBA GOOL (14:24.221)
Hahaha

GOBBA GOOL (14:32.649)
You know, it's fresh. You keep it fresh if you do.

GOBBA GOOL (14:40.131)
God, I won't do this again until next time.

Tom Bombadil (14:41.006)
No.

Sleepy Jay (14:44.175)
I guess, Lord, please. It's the closest I came to those prayers that people talk about when they party too hard or whatever, and they're like, God, I'll never do it again, praying at the porcelain throne. I'm just praying at my freaking tray table laptop, just like, Lord, please. I don't know what I'm doing with this passage.

Tom Bombadil (14:56.834)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (14:59.073)
MacBook Pro. Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (15:05.569)
Well, we should start. Yeah. Okay.

Tom Bombadil (15:05.71)
You

Sleepy Jay (15:08.815)
We should, we should. All right, well, you know, Taylor felt really bad about how the episode we did on Our Lady of Guadalupe went. So we decided we would throw the Catholics yet another bone and do an episode about the Sistine Chapel, a place that Catholics and Protestants and Pagans the world over probably enjoy. So Taylor, thank you for recommending this.

All right, Ray, here, hold on one second, Taylor. Ray, could you put on some kind of tour guide, kind of like music you'd hear back in like the 90s when you visit a museum's website that has really bad graphics like Microsoft Paint? Thanks, Ray.

Tom Bombadil (15:57.422)
Man, I'm trying to imagine what that'll sound like.

GOBBA GOOL (15:59.618)
You know what's in my mind is the commercial. It was the beginning of those videos that they would play in school, like the VHS tapes. It's like the African sounding like, do, do, do, do, do, and then you're like exploring. Yeah, well, that was enough to trigger your memory, yes.

Sleepy Jay (15:59.9)
Chumpcast.

Sleepy Jay (16:10.191)
and

Tom Bombadil (16:14.094)
Yes, that's it.

Sleepy Jay (16:14.405)
Yeah, there we go. All right, here we go. So, Ray, could you put that on for us, please? Thank you. Chompcast Productions would like to welcome you to the Sistine Chapel's virtual audio tour. For best experience, we recommend using headphones or having easy access to a computer where you can look up the things that we're describing. This production may not be reproduced without prior written consent from Chompcast Productions.

This is the official audio tour both used and endorsed by the Catholic Church, TM. Intricate marble floors, low-hanging woven tapestries, pews carved from oak and walnut, an overhead, a view of some of the most majestic art pieces by the finest artists of their time. No, no, that's not Staples Center, home of the Los Angeles Lakers. You're in the Sistine Chapel.

one of the premier destinations to witness in the esteemed Vatican City. Ever since 1878, the Sistine Chapel has housed the Conclave, a ceremonial meeting of the Cardinals in order to elect a new pope. Fun fact, did you know that Conclave was also the name of a popular movie from 2024 starring Ralph Fiennes and Stanley Tucci? Construction for the...

construction for the Sistine Chapel started in 1473 and concluded in 1481. Most notably included the intricate artwork of Michelangelo, who composed both the ceiling from 1508 to 1512 and the last judgment 1536 to 1541. The Sistine Chapel remains one of the most widely visited areas in the world and especially

in Vatican City, which is housed within the city of Rome. Gloria Deo, Gloria. All right, there we go. That's kind of our start.

GOBBA GOOL (18:19.852)
It took all of.

Tom Bombadil (18:20.002)
mean, if our podcast ever blows up, we are going to get a heater of a cease and desist from the Vatican for that.

Sleepy Jay (18:25.201)
You

GOBBA GOOL (18:25.965)
Dude, they have a lot of things they need to talk to us about.

Tom Bombadil (18:31.224)
The Curia is gonna send an assassin to kill John.

Sleepy Jay (18:31.857)
That's fine.

That's all right. They didn't listen to our other episodes where I'm the only person sympathetic to the Catholic Church. I've been fighting.

GOBBA GOOL (18:36.023)
make him a martyr.

Tom Bombadil (18:42.53)
John's like, what should we do for our third episode ever? Maximilian Colby.

Sleepy Jay (18:47.959)
Yeah, come on. Who doesn't love a good old Catholic martyr, bro? Come on. We've been doing Catholic martyrs since practically since we started. We love the Catholic church. We love the papists and we never call them that. So yeah, we're talking about the Sistine Chapel. It's an incredible, and what I love about it, dude, is if you look up Sistine Chapel virtual tour, you can literally like walk through

GOBBA GOOL (18:51.575)
We love St. Francis.

GOBBA GOOL (18:58.435)
Yeah.

Sleepy Jay (19:17.003)
Sistine Chapel and you're just immediately taken in by just the incredible, I mean like everything from you've got these marble mosaic floors that you're literally walking on which makes you feel kind of strange that you're walking on something so beautiful. You've got art all across the walls and then of course you have the ceiling itself which is yeah just these rich frescoes. So I'm going to go through a few

definitions for art terms because I'm not much of an artist. I didn't do really any art history, but one of the words that is probably going to be most relevant for understanding the beauty of the Sistine Chapel is the word fresco. And a fresco is a painting where essentially you mix water-based paint with like wet lime plaster. So essentially you're making a paint that mimics the material that you're painting it on.

which causes the paint and the wall itself to kind of chemically bond, which means that it's gonna become a permanent part of the surface. And I think it just, it's gonna endure the test of time really well, which is kind of awesome.

Tom Bombadil (20:23.626)
I made a fresco in home school one time.

Sleepy Jay (20:26.683)
Did you really?

Tom Bombadil (20:28.098)
Yeah, you just like unlocked a little memory for me that I had forgotten.

Sleepy Jay (20:32.635)
Dude, we're just doing that left and right tonight.

GOBBA GOOL (20:32.739)
I drank a Fresca the other day.

Tom Bombadil (20:37.794)
Ha

Sleepy Jay (20:40.081)
What you'll also see kind of covering the walls are spandrels and lunettes. So a spandrel is a roughly triangular space usually found in pairs between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame between the tops of two adjacent arches. And then a lunette, which is French for little moon, is a crescent or half-shaped architectural space or feature where they usually fill it with sculptures or...

Painted designs or masonry or things like that. So, yeah, I mean the level of mastery that was used for this space and like I mentioned before in my kind of derpy introduction the main use so this is like the personal chapel of the Pope, but it's also it's most regularly used in kind of the the rights of the church

within the the conclave which they used earlier this year for the election of Pope Leo XIV. Let me think, I was just gonna... do you guys know the difference between a chapel and a church?

GOBBA GOOL (21:54.636)
what? There's a technical definition?

Sleepy Jay (21:54.969)
is interesting, I looked this up. There is.

Tom Bombadil (21:58.242)
I'm guessing a chapel is only a worship space.

Sleepy Jay (22:02.233)
Yeah, yeah, pretty much. go ahead.

GOBBA GOOL (22:02.495)
Mm. OK, that's a good guess. I was going to say, so we refer to the chapel space at school. Like we say, that's the chapel. In old churches that have a remodeled sanctuary, they will have a lot of old churches maintain their old sanctuary. And a lot of times, they'll call it the chapel.

Sleepy Jay (22:13.009)
Mm-hmm.

Tom Bombadil (22:17.666)
Yes, you can.

Sleepy Jay (22:29.937)
That's a good point. Yeah, think a lot of, cause my old church growing up did that too. And I think that it's kind of become synonymous with just like a smaller, lesser used church building. But like traditionally the difference between a church and a chapel, kind of like Thomas was saying, churches are, they are specifically for a congregation or a parish. Like there's usually a.

priest or a pastor assigned to that church building, whereas a chapel is just a worship space.

GOBBA GOOL (23:04.311)
So the chapel is more of a building than because when you say church, like, yeah, you...

Tom Bombadil (23:04.673)
And if you have a

Or could be a place inside of a building. like if you have like a, I'm pretty sure you could have like a cathedral, which is basically like a town, you know, enclosed in walls and within that cathedral somewhere you'd have maybe even more than one chapel.

Sleepy Jay (23:24.313)
Yeah, because like, I mean, even in the secular space, quote unquote, you can have a chapel in hospital, which is, you know, where chaplains often meet with people, but also if you're, you know, if you want to go somewhere. And usually hospital chapels will have like, you know, kind of tiny little stained glass windows, something to kind of give it this sense of like religious significance, but.

GOBBA GOOL (23:24.823)
Hmm

GOBBA GOOL (23:46.477)
Yeah, like old manors will have a little chapel. Yeah, wow. I never thought of that. That's all right. OK.

Sleepy Jay (23:49.74)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sleepy Jay (23:53.69)
Yeah, yeah. And so like on, on pilgrimages and especially in towns that used to have a lot of religious symbol or significance, you can find a chapel and it's usually a very small, so usually it's like a single room and, and yeah, it'll, it'll usually have, you know, a few pews, usually like kind of like a front display area with some of the basic stuff, but yeah, you can.

pray there and it's expected to worship but it's not a place where a church would gather regularly. interesting little thing.

GOBBA GOOL (24:30.819)
So the Sistine Chapel was just that, a chapel. But it was for papal

Sleepy Jay (24:38.033)
Mm-hmm. It's also not that big I think people tends to go into the Sistine Chapel and they're surprised at how small it is because I think Let me see Yeah, so it's it's 68 feet high which is pretty substantial which also makes sense considering you of all the you know You're kind of gazing up at it. But yeah, I think it's it's like 40 meters long like 13 meters wide so

Tom Bombadil (24:47.276)
Is it super tall but not a lot of square footage?

Sleepy Jay (25:06.801)
Yeah, I when you consider a building that, you you kind of expect to be, I don't know, massive. Like soon you think of a lot of these cathedrals and basilicas that are just like, yeah, basically like these little towns that have all these little separate segments and all these other areas. This is just, it's basically just a rectangle. It's just one long hall that's about a hundred some feet long and then 40 feet wide. So yeah, it's not as big as people tend to expect.

GOBBA GOOL (25:37.719)
That's super interesting.

Tom Bombadil (25:38.464)
Okay. Neither of you have been to Rome, right?

Sleepy Jay (25:39.899)
Yeah.

Sleepy Jay (25:43.342)
Nah, it's on the list though.

Tom Bombadil (25:44.416)
I haven't either.

GOBBA GOOL (25:44.735)
Mm-mm. I've only traveled to Africa and China and Japan.

Sleepy Jay (25:49.681)
Sorry.

So you went to two different Disney parks and Ethiopia.

GOBBA GOOL (25:57.195)
Yes.

Tom Bombadil (25:58.478)
Hahaha

GOBBA GOOL (26:00.618)
I bet, like, it's kind of funny. Most people don't have that on their passports before they have Europe or Mexico, right?

Sleepy Jay (26:06.065)
You know what? Hey, set the trend, blaze the trail.

GOBBA GOOL (26:09.921)
Yeah. So to answer your question, no, have not. Yeah, I've not been to Rome.

Sleepy Jay (26:15.471)
into Rome. Yeah. I also didn't know this. It's not free to go to the Sistine Chapel. you have to, it's, it's essentially, yeah, well, no, I mean, it probably, it's basically, it functions like a museum. So I think, I think I saw that it was like 40 some bucks to like buy a ticket to go, but you can't just like waltz in, which I think is kind of whack. I get it, but I'm also like, come on, dude, it's a chapel. It's a chapel.

GOBBA GOOL (26:22.435)
course not. Gotta pay an indulgence. Yeah, wait a second.

GOBBA GOOL (26:43.632)
Yeah, know what you don't have to pay to get into? No, I was going to say.

Sleepy Jay (26:47.247)
Your church, Taylor. On Sunday at 9 a.m. when Taylor's gonna be preaching.

GOBBA GOOL (26:51.763)
I was gonna say the Smithsonian and a bunch of other secularist monuments.

Sleepy Jay (26:58.425)
Is this Missillian really free?

GOBBA GOOL (27:00.065)
Yes, all of every museum in DC is free.

Tom Bombadil (27:02.783)
federally funded.

Sleepy Jay (27:03.951)
That is actually super surprised. See, I didn't know that. I didn't know that. They're kind of straps, you know.

GOBBA GOOL (27:06.145)
Like, you know, I get it because Rome doesn't have a lot of money. I get it. I get it. They're hurting for cash. Come at me, Rome! I'm tired of this!

Sleepy Jay (27:17.521)
No

Tom Bombadil (27:19.424)
Man struck a nerve.

GOBBA GOOL (27:21.088)
I'm gonna get assassin's creed, dude.

Sleepy Jay (27:23.217)
We may never drop this episode.

GOBBA GOOL (27:27.635)
I know, for fear of Taylor's life, who's also heavily doxed himself.

Sleepy Jay (27:30.373)
Guys, you're in Ontario, California, and you see a hooded slender man holding Taylor, please tell him it's not worth it. my gosh. So when the Sistine Chapel was originally built between 73 and...

GOBBA GOOL (27:37.261)
Please stop him.

Tom Bombadil (27:49.358)
I just hold on, hold on. I just have to, I just have to, I have to hype our listeners up for the fact that we, I'm going to make an announcement. We are going to be bringing video to church history to chumps. And if you could have seen Taylor's face right now, which actually we could probably make a short, we have to make a reel out of what Taylor just did. He was, he was dead serious fire in his eyes.

Sleepy Jay (28:09.873)
We might need to do that. Yeah.

Sleepy Jay (28:14.703)
that Baptist fire. They stoke that fire since the day they're born, right after they're baptized at the age of 15.

GOBBA GOOL (28:19.021)
That's right. I'm catechized in it. It's Sunday school.

Sleepy Jay (28:25.869)
All right. So it was originally known as the Capella Magna, which is just, it just, I think means big chapel in, in Italian. Yeah, it does. It does. And, and it was under the decree of Pope Sixtus the fourth and Pope Sixtus is where we get the name Sistine from. So that's where Sistine Chapel originally comes from.

GOBBA GOOL (28:35.969)
Sounds way cooler than just Big Chapel though. Capella Mac, nah.

GOBBA GOOL (28:51.66)
Huh?

Sleepy Jay (28:54.929)
Taylor, you did a little bit of research about Michelangelo. I want you to share about that because then I have some fun facts about some controversies that came from Michelangelo's contribution.

GOBBA GOOL (29:05.729)
Yeah, so he's kind of an interesting fella. If I had to like give a brief painting, if you will, a quick sculpture of his life, I would say Michelangelo is, he would be like a hero in today's world. The dude was loaded.

by the end of his life. Had more money than even some, like, princes is what I saw. And he just didn't care. Like, he just didn't, he ate to survive. The guy was, he just wanted to do art, man. He came from this, I'll just, I'll jump in now to his biograph. So he was born on March 6th in 1475.

So that kind of, the high Renaissance period is getting ready to start. And his family was just middle class. So his dad was like a banker and like involved in some local politics, but not super wealthy. And then his mom dies when he's six and he gets sent to go live with a nanny.

whose husband works with stone and that's where he picks up his first hammer and chisel.

Tom Bombadil (30:37.102)
Mmm.

Sleepy Jay (30:38.225)
Hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (30:39.334)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And he actually, so by age 13 though, he gets taken on as an apprentice. So you gotta remember back then.

You didn't go to public school, right? So you like became an apprentice to something, to learn something was kind of your average person's path. But he gets taken on by this guy. It is so hard for me not to pronounce these with my like borderline racist New York Italian. Domen, Domen, Domenico Guerlandao.

Sleepy Jay (30:53.201)
Mm-hmm.

Sleepy Jay (31:09.669)
Do it, man, do it. It's what we're here for.

Sleepy Jay (31:18.289)
exactly how it is. Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (31:18.445)
Nailed it.

GOBBA GOOL (31:19.549)
So, so we'll call him Dom.

Tom Bombadil (31:21.698)
And that's how an Italian man with a stutter introduces himself.

GOBBA GOOL (31:25.397)
That's right, yeah.

Sleepy Jay (31:26.289)
Doot doot doot doot doot.

GOBBA GOOL (31:30.852)
Tomaritso, Guerlandao. Anyway, he gets taken on by this guy who is a very famous painter. he, and then, but the Michelangelo is basically like a savant. And so he quickly becomes one of his favorite students. And that's kind of how he gets his start.

Sleepy Jay (31:45.553)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (31:54.372)
At a certain point he goes and studies, they call it like one of the humanist schools, but we have to like the word humanist now is got more of a secular connotation. did not back then. Michelangelo, from my understanding and my brief period of research, was a devout Catholic and like loved the Lord. Why, what did you?

Sleepy Jay (32:18.449)
Hmm. So that humanist school he wasn't learning about like, you know,

GOBBA GOOL (32:24.899)
No, honestly, no, not no. Nietzsche didn't come around yet. The world wasn't tainted by his foul insert, whatever. He he did. I want to say, though, the Franciscan order. So he was a third Franciscan or whatever they call him. So he was a Franciscan member of that. And I almost want to say that those guys. He wasn't a monk.

Tom Bombadil (32:25.601)
Nietzsche.

Tom Bombadil (32:51.54)
As in he was a monk?

GOBBA GOOL (32:54.787)
It's like being a member of this was, yes, it was like a religious order. It didn't require vows or anything, but it was a way to pledge yourself to. I mean, everyone was a church member then, right? So if the whole country is a member of the capital C church, then how do you find your people? You just join different orders.

Tom Bombadil (32:57.39)
It was like the religious order.

GOBBA GOOL (33:19.509)
I want to say, because Tommy, you asked, like, well, what was the humanism? From what I looked at, I want to say it was almost a more...

GOBBA GOOL (33:31.723)
empathetic, dare I say liberal understanding. And we're going to talk about the pope in a minute that commissioned the Sistine Chapel. That guy, you wouldn't want anything to do with him, so to speak. He was not a good guy. And I think this like Franciscan order would probably, I think we would get along with them a little bit more.

Tom Bombadil (33:58.466)
So is this school, it sounds like maybe this school had more to do with like an approach to the arts than it did philosophy or is it philosophy?

GOBBA GOOL (34:06.675)
No, no, no, no. So he went and studied. No, OK, I'm just going to read you what I have on the secular Franciscan order. It's third branch of the Franciscan family formed by Catholic men and women who seek to observe the gospel of Jesus by following the example of Francis of Assisi. So they're not under a higher direction. They just make a spiritual commitment to them. Yeah.

Yeah, it's just a way for it to... The third order is like a way for the other people to kind of attach themselves to this Franciscan style without taking the... Yeah, the Franciscan way without taking these devote vows and kind of, you know... All right, yeah. But no, he went to a school, he was educated for a little bit, but then he starts slapping, so to speak.

Tom Bombadil (34:46.668)
way. Yes.

Tom Bombadil (34:53.484)
Yes, okay.

GOBBA GOOL (35:04.451)
Uh, he's coming out. He starts creating some seriously good art. Uh, let me see what the His he like creates early early on One of the big ones Okay, so when he was like 17, have you guys seen? Um the the crucifix Before it's just called crucifix. It's just a picture of christ naked on the cross

Sleepy Jay (35:32.923)
pull it up real quick.

GOBBA GOOL (35:34.339)
Yeah, so he did that when he was 17. And then by the time he was 18, and I know every listener has seen this before, his statue of Hercules.

Tom Bombadil (35:45.068)
Yes.

GOBBA GOOL (35:46.837)
Yeah, so he did that when he was like 18.

Sleepy Jay (35:50.097)
wow, that's crazy.

GOBBA GOOL (35:52.888)
Yeah, I mean, he was incredibly talented. Yeah.

Sleepy Jay (35:56.463)
Yeah.

You know what's wild? Like, so he's... I know I'm getting ahead of it, but like, he's s-

Tom Bombadil (36:04.718)
So he's only been doing this for five years when he makes Hercules, you're saying.

Sleepy Jay (36:08.292)
Right.

GOBBA GOOL (36:08.451)
Well, no, he'd been doing it his whole life, but I guess professionally, yeah.

Sleepy Jay (36:13.809)
But like, he's such an incredible sculptor, this feels like someone, I have to use Kanye West because I don't know anybody else, but let's assume all the Nazi stuff that happened over the past year never happened. It's like if someone came to Kanye West and they're like, Kanye, you're the greatest hip hop superstar of all time. We need you to paint the Sistine Chapel. It's basically like they're taking this dude who's a sculptor.

GOBBA GOOL (36:39.746)
Right.

Sleepy Jay (36:43.473)
and like basically saying, I'm sure all that stuff applies if you just start painting instead. Like that's crazy. But also the dude was just so talented. Like, my gosh.

GOBBA GOOL (36:54.935)
Well, my favorite thing that he did, which is the pieta, which have you guys seen that one? That's the one of Mary holding. Yes, that's my favorite that he did. Just from like a technical standpoint, the flowing cloth. That imagery of Mary holding Jesus, like his body was a common, like we don't have that in the Bible, but like she was also like alive. This is it.

Sleepy Jay (37:01.977)
Yeah, the virgin holding Jesus.

GOBBA GOOL (37:24.387)
I'm just saying we're not being heretics here. Yeah.

Sleepy Jay (37:27.641)
No, no, that's a very common visual, think, especially in that time. And I mean, it's also, you're right, it's freaking gorgeous. I will say, so I've never been to Rome. My wife and I went to Belgium and a little bit in Paris when we first got married. And there was a church, I think it was a basilica in Brussels, that was the only church, I believe,

GOBBA GOOL (37:34.688)
Mm-hmm.

Sleepy Jay (37:56.006)
that has a Michelangelo sculpture outside of the Vatican. And like, you know, if you've ever been to one of these like ginormous churches that just like is extremely historical, they've got tons of artwork and they basically section it off kind of like a line at like an amusement park. So you're just kind of like walking to one thing, that's a relic, very cool. And you walk into one thing, look, it's Peter with his dad, Joseph. And then you're just kind of keeping going. But like it was at the very end.

And we've just seen hundreds of years worth of spectacular, beautiful religious art. And then at the very end, you see a piece of Michelangelo, which is, I think it's called the Madonna with Child, where it's Mary with baby Jesus. And you're just immediately like, my gosh. everything I've seen was amazing, but this is incredible. So yeah.

Tom Bombadil (38:46.75)
and just paled in comparison.

Sleepy Jay (38:54.149)
Michelangelo prodigy like it's amazing. Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (38:56.515)
Yeah, 100 % 100 % of prodigy and and I mean

Tom Bombadil (39:00.11)
Sculpting has to be like the coolest art form too. It's just unbelievable.

Sleepy Jay (39:05.209)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (39:06.691)
I mean, you've got to think, this stuff was made, like, Pietta was made 500 years ago. So he made it when he was 20, like 25, mid-20s, somewhere in there. Oh, it's nuts. And it just goes to show what is possible for humans to do when you just sort of, lock someone away and force them to, like, do something for, you know what I'm saying? Like, like,

Sleepy Jay (39:14.961)
That's just wild.

Sleepy Jay (39:24.773)
Mm-hmm.

Sleepy Jay (39:29.585)
That's

Tom Bombadil (39:30.702)
This is why this is why Chinese Olympians just dominate

GOBBA GOOL (39:36.396)
Yeah

Sleepy Jay (39:36.579)
I was gonna say, this is why communists, you know, have got their like, if I just take away all these oppressive options, like, you'll be really good.

GOBBA GOOL (39:45.464)
Yeah. I think we talked about it last episode or a couple episodes ago, but mean, education was that way too. You ship your child that you've beaten till they're 16, and then you ship them off to Oxford, and they come back a genius. Yeah. But you know, that's what ChatGPT is for. Dude, just wait. Just wait. It'll be like the next iPhone where I can just be like, hey, Siri.

Sleepy Jay (39:52.913)
Mm-hmm.

Sleepy Jay (40:01.582)
Yeah, yeah, pretty much.

Sleepy Jay (40:09.381)
right. Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (40:09.976)
Hehehe

GOBBA GOOL (40:15.725)
draw me a blah blah blah and then Siri will be like, okay. And then we'll just generate something for me.

Sleepy Jay (40:22.767)
Yeah, like you did with this episode, right?

GOBBA GOOL (40:25.677)
Yep. Man, catching strays left and right.

Sleepy Jay (40:28.305)
I'm sorry.

Sleepy Jay (40:35.449)
Yeah. So, so do you know how that kind of conversation went? So he's like, he's got to have this reputation for being one of the greatest sculptors around, right? He's probably getting commissioned by, you know, politicians and clergy and stuff like that at that point.

Tom Bombadil (40:54.934)
And on that note, while he thinks about that answer, second question, you mentioned earlier that he was loaded. Was that because he had inheritance or because he made bank off of his work?

GOBBA GOOL (41:07.243)
Yeah, they paid pretty handsomely. So when I looked it up, it said it could either be he was paid either like a couple mil all the way upwards to like $50 million for Sistine Chapel. The equivalent. But if it's on the higher end, I mean, the guy had the equivalent of hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in his account when he died.

Tom Bombadil (41:22.283)
Wow.

Tom Bombadil (41:35.416)
They just made him the most wealthy man in Rome.

Sleepy Jay (41:37.969)
Wow.

GOBBA GOOL (41:38.251)
No, no, not even close. Then that just goes to show how much money the church has.

Sleepy Jay (41:45.329)
Hmm.

Tom Bombadil (41:45.87)
instead of most wealthy man.

GOBBA GOOL (41:47.808)
yeah. I mean, I don't think he was the most wealthy man, but he was definitely up there, which is so funny because he didn't care about his money like at all. It was literally the equivalent of somebody like these tech bros that are savants and are doing like, you know, groundbreaking things with AI. And then they go to like their kind of dirty apartment and just like smoke hookah and then fall asleep on a bean bag.

Tom Bombadil (42:09.602)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (42:15.275)
and then like wake up and put on basketball shorts and go back. Like that's, that's the equivalent of, of him. So, you asked how that conversation went. So he had been commissioned to do all sorts of things. So, and that's how it worked back then. You, didn't have the wealthy paid for art to be made, which goes to show.

Sleepy Jay (42:21.905)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (42:44.579)
Because if we're going to talk about, like, why don't we have people creating this kind of stuff today? Well, don't really have Elon Musk being like, I want to create a beautiful public piece. And I'm going to find the most talented guy in the world and pay him to do it for years.

And then it's like going to belong to people. Like we don't really think that way anymore. Our society doesn't operate that way. But it did back then. And he yeah, he kind of like passed around from different different people. And it all came back down to like the fact that his his it started because his his master was very famous already. His master and his master had actually done like previous painting on the Sistine Chapel, I believe.

Sleepy Jay (43:29.713)
Okay, that makes sense. That makes sense.

Sleepy Jay (43:36.721)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (43:37.219)
And so now we get to Pope Julius the Second, which this guy...

We were you said this was supposed to be the episode where we talked nicely about Catholics, but I.

Tom Bombadil (43:51.19)
It's a hard century to do that. Very difficult century to do that.

GOBBA GOOL (43:53.698)
Yes. So just to put this into perspective, this guy is the worst and has been called the best of all the popes at the time. But yeah.

Sleepy Jay (44:03.441)
Ooh, okay. What's going on? What's the context of what's happening here?

GOBBA GOOL (44:08.629)
So Julius becomes Pope in, gosh, this is why.

Tom Bombadil (44:16.302)
Is this when they were just chilling in France instead of doing their work in Rome?

GOBBA GOOL (44:20.533)
No, no, no. think the, the, the, the, OK, here's a good little non sequitur or whatever rabbit trail. So history is really hard to do well. And let me tell you why, because it requires an immense amount of research. And guys like Tommy ask really good questions. And so someone who is very familiar

with the high Renaissance, when he said, what's going on in France, would be able to take all of the data that they know and summarize it into like one sentence that's going to answer specifically what Tommy is asking. if, no, I'm not, no, no, ChatGPT is terrible for this stuff, by the way. Like don't, if, when it comes to history, I would not trust ChatGPT.

Tom Bombadil (45:06.36)
He's talking about chat GPT

GOBBA GOOL (45:19.539)
It does not, it hallucinates a lot. But anyway, so as someone who is trying to pursue history, like, I'm having fun bouncing around, but I got to tell you, I was so much more comfortable when we were just talking about the apostles a few months back, because like that was the world that I was living in. Like I was comfortable when we were in the fourth century patristics, because we were just living in that world. And so.

Sleepy Jay (45:37.201)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (45:48.642)
Those sorts of little questions are really good, Tommy, but they're really hard to just answer off the top of your head if you're not super familiar. If I am correct, I will say, if I'm correct, I will say, I think relations with France were getting better. I think they were, I do know right now in this time period what they were concerned with, kind of like early,

Tom Bombadil (45:54.86)
Yeah, okay.

Sleepy Jay (45:57.905)
Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (46:17.347)
16th century, they are concerned with reclaiming Italy completely and removing the barbarians. That was Pope Julius II's thing. Now, he was only pope for 10 years. He started in 1503 and he died in 1513.

Sleepy Jay (46:25.567)
gosh.

Sleepy Jay (46:43.427)
I am just now realizing the crazy overlap that's happening here because most of the painting here is going to happen in like the early to mid 1500s. And this is literally as the Reformation is happening. So the entire Catholic world is like kind of in an upheaval right now. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Tom Bombadil (46:43.468)
Okay.

GOBBA GOOL (47:03.991)
Well, the whole world is.

because they just found this brand new continent.

that this guy Christopher Columbus comes back talking tail of, right? You have the printing press, which I've ranted about before, but like that's now starting. Society is changing. This is what's going to lead to like the enlightenment.

Sleepy Jay (47:18.353)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (47:34.689)
So the whole world is, all the Legos are dumped out right now. Yeah. Yeah. Much like today. Much like today. I don't know if the Legos have ever been put together.

Sleepy Jay (47:39.537)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. It's a good way to put it.

GOBBA GOOL (47:48.516)
But there are times where technical innovation or big change happens and I think it's more chaotic than not.

Sleepy Jay (48:02.929)
Sure, sure.

GOBBA GOOL (48:03.971)
So this guy, Pope Julius, he was a product of nepotism. He held multiple bishops at the same time. I've read somewhere up to he had like five bishoprics at the same time. He had a child.

And you're like, wait, but I thought he was sworn to celibacy. Yeah, me too. And then they still made him pope. So,

Sleepy Jay (48:30.097)
Right.

Sleepy Jay (48:38.065)
God makes God make God uses crooked sticks to draw straight lines. What I like to say.

GOBBA GOOL (48:45.321)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, I don't know if he used a crooked stick to borderline kidnap poor Michelangelo and force him to create one of the greatest works of art of all time. So there you go. Yeah, and I don't think the realm looks back at this period of time with the fondness. So I know we're kind of like memeing about the Catholics right now.

Sleepy Jay (48:51.057)
Let's rock crooked lines.

Sleepy Jay (48:59.748)
Sleepy Jay (49:09.809)
Mmm.

GOBBA GOOL (49:12.883)
But I also know that this was just like a rough patch. I wouldn't want Southern Baptist to be judged by why, by our worst moments. I.E. we're splitting from you so we can keep our slaves.

Sleepy Jay (49:20.017)
by your worst moments.

GOBBA GOOL (49:30.989)
So I get it.

Sleepy Jay (49:31.765)
I think we all deserve the compassion and charity of not being judged by our historical lows. So I think that's fair. That's very fair. man.

GOBBA GOOL (49:38.756)
That's right. Yeah. So anyway, the last thing I'll say is so Julian, as I said, he ascends the throne. Julian II ascends the throne to papacy at 1503. He picks the name Julius. Sorry, it's not Julian, it's Julius. And some people say he picked it not to honor the only other pope, Julian.

Sleepy Jay (49:51.483)
Mm-hmm.

GOBBA GOOL (50:07.437)
but rather to reference Julius of Rome.

Sleepy Jay (50:18.769)
Oh, so he wanted to be. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was more of a religious political statements.

GOBBA GOOL (50:20.758)
Caesar.

Yeah, and

Yeah, and he was definitely like a military pope. read, I can't remember exactly where it was. He led troops in battle.

Tom Bombadil (50:40.93)
Wow.

GOBBA GOOL (50:41.005)
Like, what kind of pope is leading troops in battle? Well, this guy is. So anyway, there was a lot of war going on. You know, they just found this brand new continent. And this guy wants to like submit his legacy. last, last thing I'll say. He also started construction on, he wanted to redo St. Peter, Constantine's St. Peter's Basilica.

So he actually started demoing like this dilapidated thing and wanted to like rebuild it. But then if there's any doubt that this guy was, what's it called when someone's like obsessed with power?

Sleepy Jay (51:25.777)
Power Hungry?

Tom Bombadil (51:26.014)
Where do we hit- Where do we hit wha-

GOBBA GOOL (51:28.251)
What do we hit with? If there was any doubt that this guy is not power hungry, there was a word I was looking for, but that word he once again tried to kidnap. And I think he did successfully. Then he died. He wanted Michelangelo to like build him this grand tomb.

GOBBA GOOL (51:50.819)
So I say...

Sleepy Jay (51:51.813)
And Michelangelo was down with the tomb though, right?

GOBBA GOOL (51:55.38)
I don't remember. I don't know if I saw that. All I know is he threw quite a bit of money at Michelangelo and basically used all his papal authority to twist his arm to get him to come here and do this.

Sleepy Jay (51:57.933)
okay.

Sleepy Jay (52:11.983)
Now, Taylor, I have a very important question. Are you familiar with the poem?

GOBBA GOOL (52:17.229)
poem Michelangelo wrote? No, I didn't know. We should also tell the listener. So he's famous for sculpting and painting, but he was also a master wordsmith.

Sleepy Jay (52:19.024)
Yeah.

Sleepy Jay (52:29.509)
So he wrote a poem and I'm gonna read it right now, cause it's not super long. This is actually kind of amazing. we've, we've Taylor, Taylor explained this well, but he was basically coerced by kind of a despot of a, of a Pope to do something he didn't want to do. He already had artistic ventures that he was really psyched about. And when, and, and remember we already mentioned this too. He painted

during two different eras. Like he painted the ceiling from 1508 to 1512. He painted the last judgment almost, no, like 20 plus years later. yeah, so he had done, when he did the last judgment, this man was, think in his sixties and he, know, again, you're painting the ceiling. So he has to go up on one of those, gosh dang it, what are those called? You guys probably know it.

GOBBA GOOL (53:06.539)
Yeah, well, after the Pope had died, so, yeah.

Tom Bombadil (53:23.788)
scaffolding.

Sleepy Jay (53:24.933)
scaffolding. Yeah. So he's like basically dangling up in the air for hours and hours at a time.

GOBBA GOOL (53:29.333)
Yeah, do you know, you know why it had to be that? Because the pope wanted the Sistine Chapel to still be functional. Yep, so he couldn't build, they couldn't build like traditional scaffolding that he could like climb up and stand and like stretch out on. And this like destroyed his back when he, yeah, just.

Sleepy Jay (53:33.36)
Why is that?

Sleepy Jay (53:41.259)
gosh, man.

Sleepy Jay (53:47.909)
Yeah.

Sleepy Jay (53:54.181)
Yeah, yeah.

Tom Bombadil (53:54.711)
I bet.

GOBBA GOOL (53:55.458)
Like, like he had to rest for some sources say like months at a time. Yes. yes, the poem.

Sleepy Jay (53:59.89)
This poor guy. Well here, I'm gonna read this poem, because it's pretty amazing. Here we go. I've already grown a goiter from this torture. Hunched up here like a cat in Lombardy, or anywhere else where the stagnant water is poison. My stomach squashed under my chin, my beards pointing at heaven, my brains crushed in a casket, my breast twists like a Harpy's.

My brush above me all the time dribbles paint so my face makes a fine floor for droppings. My haunches are grinding into my guts. My poor ass strains to work as a counterweight. Every gesture I make is blind and aimless. My skin hangs loose below me and spines all knotted from folding over itself. I'm bent, taut as a Syrian bow.

GOBBA GOOL (54:51.839)
No.

Sleepy Jay (54:55.759)
Because I'm stuck like this, my thoughts are crazy, perfidious, tripe. Anyone shoots badly through a crooked blowpipe. My painting is dead. Defend it for me, Giovanni. Protect my honor. I am not in the right place. I am not a painter.

Tom Bombadil (55:12.782)
my gosh

Sleepy Jay (55:17.509)
Gosh, so good. And you feel so bad for this guy. man. Dude. Yeah. He was, he was pretty miserable. It seems like he, actually kind of hated this whole process. so I'll get into kind of our last little, little mini story on the, on the Sistine, you know, the Sistine escapades here, which was

GOBBA GOOL (55:18.947)
Hmm.

Tom Bombadil (55:24.866)
That sounded like a tweet.

Sleepy Jay (55:45.016)
In addition to all of the physical pain that poor Michelangelo had to go through, it was actually wildly sort of controversial. One of the most known things is The Last Judgment, which he painted over five years from 36 to 41, which is a depiction of Christ's return. so when you look at it, it's just this massive, massive, like just

feature of portraits, there's probably, there's dozens and dozens of figures all around it. There's Christ and Mary, there's saints and angels, there's demons, there's the people being delivered into heaven, there's people who are being condemned to hell. It's just incredibly vivid. And it's one of those things that you could like move like square by square and just see so much detail.

You know, the bodies are so animated, the facial expressions are so realistic. It's just incredible. But one thing that Michelangelo valued probably because, I mean, I could see this being both a theological and maybe some of the humanist influence, but he was not deterred at all by nude bodies. And so of all these,

figures that he plastered all above this chapel, there were like 40 plus that were just like fully nude, which again, he saw as artistic expression. think there was this sense that, you know, this is a moment of judgment in which we are all deeply vulnerable and exposed. So to put people in clothes would actually be, you know, be kind of this.

this distraction, kind of like removal of something, but he was pretty on board with that. And one of the cardinals around the time that it was being painted, his name was Biagio da Sassena. And he was very upset about it. He has this quote that's pretty famous. He said, regarding the nudity, he said, it was most disgraceful.

Sleepy Jay (57:59.196)
that in so sacred a place there should have been depicted all those nude figures exposing themselves so shamefully and that it was no work for a papal chapel but rather for the public baths and taverns. So basically like...

Tom Bombadil (58:14.328)
Fair critique. You know, I'm looking at it. I'm really curious. I've got to look this up in this towards the center. There's somebody holding like just just the skin of a human body. I was going to ask if it was Bartholomew. That's so cool.

GOBBA GOOL (58:26.653)
skin. That's Bartholomew. It's Bartholomew. Yep.

Sleepy Jay (58:30.991)
Yeah, I'm telling you, there's so many kind of homages here and things like that. So yeah, so what I think is hysterical is Michelangelo responded. And if you've got a portrait of The Last Judgment in front of you, zoom into the very bottom right and you'll see a generously buff dude with

the ears of a goat wrapped with a snake and another snake is biting his junk. And that's Minos, the judge of the underworld, who Michelangelo painted to resemble this cardinal who had criticized him. And so the fact that he was like, because I know you're so modest, I'm not gonna...

GOBBA GOOL (59:17.699)
Mmm.

Tom Bombadil (59:17.819)
my gosh.

Sleepy Jay (59:25.307)
feature your private parts, but he covered it by having a snake biting him there. It's just expert level trolling. That's pretty crazy.

GOBBA GOOL (59:30.819)
That's crazy.

Tom Bombadil (59:36.59)
It's interesting, he actually uses loincloths to cover up almost everybody. There's a lot of exposed backsides, but there appears to be one guy who does not have a loincloth, so I'm like, who's that? Did they come back and paint him later?

Sleepy Jay (59:48.496)
Well, no, no. So here's the thing, dude. So here's where this extends. when Michelangelo dies, actually, no, I have to share the end of this quick anecdote. So when Cardinal Cicena complained to the Pope about what he had done, this like mockery, apparently the Pope reported, unfortunately, my authority does not extend to hell. So I can't change anything.

Tom Bombadil (01:00:17.048)
What?

Sleepy Jay (01:00:18.277)
because he was featured as the king of the underworld basically. He's being tongue in cheek, but yeah, kind of ridiculous. But no, after Michelangelo died, again, we talked about the Reformation. This was when the counter Reformation was starting to happen. This was a really interesting kind of social political era, especially in Italy and Spain. But they kind of have this new value system of like,

Tom Bombadil (01:00:21.484)
GOBBA GOOL (01:00:23.619)
Mmm.

Sleepy Jay (01:00:47.409)
you know, we want our areas to be very modest. And if this is a place of worship and if this is a private chapel for our Pope, we want it to be, you know, respectful. And so they hired this dude who is like very controversial now, Daniel de Volterra. And he basically was tasked with going up and censoring a lot of the nudity. So he

added fig leaves or he would add loin cloths and he was given the nickname Il Bregatoni, which is the breeches maker. So basically Mr. Pants. And then so it remains like that for a very long time. And then just recently in the past, like, I don't know, late 20th century, like the 1980s, the Sistine Chapel underwent a restoration, which

GOBBA GOOL (01:01:27.075)
Mr. Pants.

Sleepy Jay (01:01:43.12)
Restoration is not very uncommon for major pieces of art. It's basically just kind of a way to remove the dust and the junk that's kind of accumulated over the years. because of the context in which a lot of these were added, a few of them were removed where it was appropriate to do so. Basically, they kind of tried to assess

where it looked really haphazardly done, where it compromised the artistic integrity by covering the things up. And then they would try to restore those to the original, but the majority of the coverings actually stayed because they felt it was a valuable part of the piece's history. yeah, so that's a real interesting little controversial episode for them back then. Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (01:02:31.074)
Hmm. Fascinating.

GOBBA GOOL (01:02:36.163)
Mmm. Well, good job, John.

Sleepy Jay (01:02:42.545)
Thanks, G. Yeah. So, I don't know. If you guys ever go to the Sistine Chapel, you'll have to let us know. Yeah.

Tom Bombadil (01:02:45.506)
Fascinating.

Tom Bombadil (01:02:49.996)
I'd really like to. I'd really like to.

GOBBA GOOL (01:02:51.329)
Mm-hmm. Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and comment on Spotify. We get popping every week. So I missed this shout out last. I saw Zach, who was a guy I met in Alabama. I saw that he had commented on an episode a while ago, and I never said anything. I'm so sorry. So shout out, Zach.

Sleepy Jay (01:03:01.007)
Yeah. And you know what? Here's the thing.

Sleepy Jay (01:03:15.825)
Dang. What a bummer that had to be to him. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Dude, shout out our guy Brian. He commented that, you know, he's just been a recurring listener for a while. And yeah, he just really enjoys our goofy jokes and stuff. just reading your comment, Brian actually really warmed the heart of the group chat quite a bit. So we appreciate you, man. And we're real grateful to have you guys around. And I will say, you know,

GOBBA GOOL (01:03:17.781)
Shout out our Catholic friend.

Sleepy Jay (01:03:44.815)
We talk a lot about the Catholic Church and how they're asking for money when they don't need it. you know, we ask for money as a podcast, but we need it. Yeah. Cause no one's tithing to us. you know, no one's ever given us an indulgence to get their grandma out of purgatory. we could start, we can't start that. Can we start that? We'll talk about it.

GOBBA GOOL (01:03:54.499)
But we need it.

Tom Bombadil (01:03:56.041)
Hehehehehe

GOBBA GOOL (01:04:07.287)
we could start that.

GOBBA GOOL (01:04:12.579)
Absolutely.

Sleepy Jay (01:04:14.001)
off the mics. But yeah, we would love, like I said, we've got a goal for the year of 2026. We'd love to become financially self-sufficient, because that would kind of free us up to just do more stuff. We're not having to pay the piper every episode.

GOBBA GOOL (01:04:30.783)
Every piece of content, always free, though. Yep.

Sleepy Jay (01:04:34.097)
mean, yeah, absolutely. We want to keep giving away Chump Talk for free. We don't want to do paywalls. We really like to not have to do ads. I'm tired of all this Squarespace and Raycon headphones and all that junk. I want to do that. So yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (01:04:51.487)
If you'd like to advertise with us, shoot us a message.

Sleepy Jay (01:04:54.577)
Dude, I actually liked that way better. It was like, if you shot us like 20 bucks and you were like, hey, could you just shout out my like lumber yard? I'd be like, yo, Joe was lumber in Tacoma, Washington. Hit him up. That's right. All right. Well, that's all we got for today. Hey, we will see you guys in the new year.

GOBBA GOOL (01:04:57.101)
Yeah.

GOBBA GOOL (01:05:03.949)
Dude, I would be so excited. hit him up for all your lumber needs.

GOBBA GOOL (01:05:18.421)
in 2026.

Sleepy Jay (01:05:20.55)
That's right, we can't Alright, see you guys.

Tom Bombadil (01:05:21.486)
God bless you.

GOBBA GOOL (01:05:25.668)
and