Sex Humor: The Pope's Not-So-Secret Penis Museum!

by Coleen Singer.

In this year of playing “Censorship Whack-A-Mole“, let’s not forget that suppression of sexual content goes back centuries before Al Gore invented the internet!  There are countless examples through the ages of this, ranging from re-touching Cherubic genitals with Fig Leaves during the Renaissance, to my not-so-fond personal memory of the local “concerned citizens” taking the sole copy of “Catcher In The Rye” out of my high school library and burning it in the parking lot.

So, censorship isn’t new. But nature abhors a vacuum and the morality police have discovered the INTERNET!  We all know from the InterWeb now that Eleanor Roosevelt kidnapped the Lindbergh baby to make him her future sex slave, and that Dick Cheney blew up the World Trade Center to increase revenue for Halliburton, but, lest I go off on a conspiracy theory tangent here, let’s look at a specific and pretty funny example of this dating back to the 15th century:

“The campaign of fig leaves”.

If you were living in a cave in 2006 and missed the book or movie, “The DaVinci Code“, there was a sequence of hero Robert Langdon trying to get access to “The Secret Vatican Library” to find some heretical text by Galileo. Or some sort of painting that showed Jesus was married to Mary Magdeline. Or the Apostle John was a tranny. Or something like that!   Regardless of this endless expository narrative, Landgon DOES make it into the Secret Vatican Library (15th century version of Snowdens’s NSA), finds what he needs and goes on to save the world.

But. He missed that secret door at the back of the room.  The one leading to the Vatican Penis Collection.  Had Robert Langdon, Dan Brown or Tam Hanks pushed away the cobwebs and entered that door, they would have discovered a 15th century “Garden of Earthy Delights”:

Penises. Hundreds and hundreds of penises.  Penises sculpted from marble and stone. Penises lovingly cast in bronze. Even itty bitty Cherub penises carved off the wall in Renaissance cathedrals!

How did all of this artistic plumbing get into the Pope’s secret room?  After the death of Michealango (who painted and sculpted LOTS of penises. died in 1564), a new wave of conservatism entered the Vatican, lead by Cardinal Carafa and Monsignor Sernini (sort of early versions of David Cameron and the Icelandic parliament today).  Cardinal Carafa and Monsignor Sernini had the pope’s ear, and pushed through Vatican legislation to get rid of all of these dirty little penises that were on church property for God and all the world to see, and replace them with FIG LEAVES!

Why fig leaves, one may ask? (rather than a head of organic cabbage, or cute kittens on a harpsichord?).

Way back in 1987 Roberto Suro of the New York Time reported on this fascinating story:

Eating the forbidden fruit instantly produced a negative side effect for Adam and Eve. According to Genesis, they realized they were naked and therefore covered themselves with fig leaves. Things rapidly went downhill after that. Now those fig leaves have become a subject of study and consternation for many art restorers at work on Italian Renaissance masterpieces.

Coinciding with the death of Michelangelo, a law was issued to cover the genitals of the painting (‘Pictura in Chapel Ap.ca coopriantur’), so Daniele of Volterra, who was Michelangelo’s apprentice, carried out the work.  After, he was nicknamed ‘Braghettone’, because he covered the genitals, but left intact the rest of the painting.

This Vatican censorship campaign against the penis went on for hundreds of years.  Starting with just a painting, it spread to sculpture and printed material.  But, the Vatican, always wise in not wanting to loose a drop of possible future marketable content to the faithful (hmm. sounds like a porn company?), stores all of this in a macabre tomb for future use. Ready for “re-insertion” if and when it becomes fashionable and increases St. Peter’s Basilica box office revenue.

Insider Vatican reports the new “nice new pope” has on his agenda to restore all of these art works by Michealango and Botticelli to their original glory.  He is, after all, that “nice new pope” that drives his own car, knows how to use a stick shift (in the pattern of a Cross, I hope), and every time his little around-Rome-town beater backfires, it backfires with white smoke (another confirmation!).

In the meantime, at least David is restored to his full glory (hmmmm.  Did they mix up his penis with one from the Cherubs? Seems a little small for the Vatican!)

And, to end this odd post, let’s revisit Tom Lehrer back in 1967 where he gave a bit of hope that the Vatican is getting all modern to keep with the times (not much has happened since then, but at least it is in the air). This was his commentary on Vatican II when they went from Latin to vernacular and the wondrous musical works of Palestrina and Josquin were replaced with nuns playing autoharps to boost church box office!

Whoa! Who was that guy singing?  It was Tom Lehrer, a brilliant guy that wrote and recorded some songs in the 1960’s about social issues and then suddenly stopped and to this day is a tenured math professor at Harvard.  Sort of like Steven Hawking with working legs, Cole Porter song writing skills and an exit strategy from being a music club performer.

Who knows? Maybe all those penises will be restored to their original glory!

p.s.
While on the Tom Lehrer tribute, here’s one more you perhaps have not heard from the anti-porn running commentary of 40+ years ago during the Nixon administreation….