EDITORIAL

As the Easter sunrise lights the hills of Rome one by one, and the church bells start ringing, first here, then there, in an antiphon of praise, looming far above the staccato, sungilt shafts of all the campaniles down in the city is the vast and swelling dome of St. Peter's.

For nearly four hundred years now, as pilgrims and worshippers, the believers and unbelievers have come from all the world to marvel and to learn the meaning of this pile. As seen afar off from Tivoli, or walking in hushed amazement below its upswelling curves they have heard within themselves, throbbing like the mighty organ tones of some deep basso ostinato, the voice of Genius speaking. Now, they tell themselves, we are finding the answer to that old, old question, What is man?

Underneath that vast and timeless dome there pass the glitter and pageantry, the cacaphony of sounds and incenses, raised, it is said, to the glory of God. Clustering about are the transepts of Bramante and the Sangallos, the paintings of Raphael, the portico of Maderna, Bernini's piazza and fountains-dazzling, ingenious, astonishing-but in calm grandeur brooding above them all, encircling and encompassing them all, four hundred and fifty feet into the Easter sunshine rises the dome of Michelangelo Buonarotti.

Simple in its vastness it supersedes smallness and irrelevancy, defining thereby the very meanings of concept, of strength, of power and, to some, even of resurrection, for it was the mind of Michelangelo which took the fumbling false starts of all his predecessors and welded them into the mighty whole we see today, resurrecting truth from failure, victory from defeat, back in that age of rebirth and resurrection, the Renaissance.

As we stand before this monument today in artistic and philosophic homage, or in deep religious reverence, let it never be forgotten, let it never go unsaid, that we owe all this to that genius of geniuses, Michelangelo, the lifelong homosexual, who addressed these lines to his beloved, the beautiful young Tommaso Cavalieri:

"Your will includes and is lord of mine;

Life to my thoughts within your heart is given; My words begging to breathe upon your breath;

Like to the moon am I, that can not shine

Alone; for lo! our eyes see naught in heaven Save what the living sun illumineth."*

The benisons of Easter morning, and every other morning, to Michelangelo for showing us all his love and what through love man can do.

William Lambert, Associate Editor

* RENAISSANCE IN ITALY, John Addington Symonds, New York 1888, p. 522.

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