“His fruit was sweet to my taste”: The Song of Solomon and Michelangelo’s Temptation

Abstract

Michelangelo Buonarroti’s Temptation in the Sistine Chapel is marked by iconographic freedom and innovation, as the artist departs more than once from biblical text and pictorial tradition (fig. 1). Genesis 3:6 describes how the wily serpent tempted Eve with forbidden fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and she, in turn, tempted the first man: “And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” Michelangelo, perhaps to emphasize Adam’s free will, independence of mind, and inexcusable