ABSTRACT
Unorthodox iconography would be blamed in Michelangelo's later frescoes in the Pauline Chapel. If one contextualizes Michelangelo's innovative iconography in the years during which his fresco was commissioned, begun and finished, people can recognize that the timeline charts the most active period of reformist activity in Italian Evangelism. The more aggressive accusation made in the fresco by Michelangelo against the Church can be perceived in the iconographic reference to the sin of simony, which is clearly pointed out by the artist in the upside down figure pushed to hell by an angel. The fact that Michelangelo once again defied the iconographic tradition suggests that he had in mind not the representation of an historical event but rather a spiritual experience. This experience, is one in which Michelangelo himself wished to participate, as suggested not only by the striking similarity between the artist's features and the face of Saul's, but also from Michelangelo's poetry.
