But this concept just seems ripe for a movie translation. It will certainly be more interesting than reading about how these scholarly fellows discovered that the famous fresco contains many references to the Jewish tradition, as well some insults against the pope in secret messages. Michelangelo apparently stopped short of writing "you suck" in Hebrew as a tattoo across Adam's leg, but according to the authors of the book the artist focused on Old Testament figures and "encoded these messages using his knowledge of ancient Jewish texts." Geez, I know that he was supposedly forced into doing the famed ceiling and that his back hurt from being on the uncomfortable scaffolding, but that seems like a lot of effort with little payout since this is just being "discovered" or analyzed now.

I'm sure I'm not the only one out there who thinks this would make an interesting film. I'm sure there is some network exec out there who saw this story just like I did and started ringing up the authors to secure the movie rights and already is well on their way to finding some eager young Dan Brown wannabe to pen the script. The film version will likely involve revenge and betrayal and an angry Michelangelo painstakingly learning the Hebrew alphabet in order to stick it to the man, er, pope. But if Tom Hanks gets cast as Michelangelo, I'm going to be really annoyed.