Pope's Official Residence: Inspired by Pagan Culture

Talking about the prophet and the leaves in Oedipus Rex brought me back to the good old days: four months ago in Latin V, discussing the Cumaean Sibyl.  (Ancient times, I know.)  The Sibyl was this pretty awesome lady who lived in Cumae and was one of Apollo’s priestesses.  (For all you Harry Potter nerds, think Sybill Trelawney.)  The Sibyl wrote prophesies on leaves, which is why I was thinking about her in relation to Oedipus Rex.  She also plays a significant role in Virgil’s Aeneid, helping guide the hero through his tasks (no spoilers, don’t worry!).  She was super famous with the Romans, partly because of this role that she played in Virgil’s epic.  If you’ve ever heard the saying, “The descent into Hell is easy,” that line is spoken by the Sibyl in the Aeneid.
So I wanted to bring up this super cool, super famous artwork of the Sibyl!

(At the bottom you can see the name “Cumaea” inscribed.)
This is a painting by Michaelangelo (I’m sure Elizabeth knows way more about this than I do) on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.  Apparently Michaelangelo used a man, not a woman, as the model for the Sibyl (the lady in the middle) because in the Aeneid Virgil describes her as kind of hulking and muscular.  So you’re probably all like, “What?  Why was this pagan figure on the ceiling of a chapel?”  Well, besides the fact that pagan culture permeated society long after the Middle Ages, Virgil wrote this thing called the Eclogues, and in Eclogue II, which features the Sybil, he predicts the birth of a savior.  Virgil said that this boy’s birth would bring the Golden Age and make everything better (because everything was better in the old days).  Some people thought he was a prophet who was foretelling the birth of Jesus, hence the Sibyl’s appearance as one of the twelve prophetic figures on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.