Art: Ignoblest Romans

Austria’s placid art world was stirred up over a new stained-glass window. When it was first installed three years ago in the Church of the Holy Blood in Graz (pop. 226,453), nobody noticed anything unusual about it. But last month workmen renovating the church spotted two churlish types among the Romans watching

Christ receive his crown of thorns. One wore a toothbrush mustache; the other had a jutting chin. The resemblance to Hitler and Mussolini was too close for coincidence. Explained Designer Albert Birkle: “My pencil, as if by accident, drew the image of Hitler and Mussolini on the drawing board. I find nothing disturbing in putting these two men. who killed thousands of priests and millions of Christians, among the persecutors of Christ.” But Graz was disturbed. Wrote the Grazer Montag: “In a church this sort of thing has no place.” Church officials decided to keep the window as it is. Said the parish prelate, Dr. Franz Fabian: “After all, Michelangelo painted a monsignor he didn’t like*into an inferno scene.”

-Pope Paul Ill’s master of ceremonies, Monsignor Biagio da Cesena, objected to the many nude figures in Michelangelo’s Last Judgment. In revenge, Michelangelo rounded out the picture with a caricature of Biagio as Minos, a character from Hades with ass’s ears and a serpent around his midriff. When Biagio protested, the witty Pope replied: “If the painter had sent you to purgatory, I would have done my best to get you out. But I have no influence in hell.”