From Distinction to Discrimination: The Fraught History of Moses’ Horns
St. Joseph’s Univ. Institute for Jewish-Catholic Relations
In 1545, Michelangelo completed one of the most famous works of European art: a massive marble sculpture of Moses holding the tablets of the Ten Commandments. Yet the muscular figure also has the strange feature of horns protruding from Moses’ head. Their history is complex, entangled with the difficulties of translating ancient languages, the layers of Jewish and Christian interpretations of a challenging biblical passage, the history of artistic representations, and the long and fraught history of anti-Judaism. Join us as an expert on this famous artwork reveals some of the twisting and knotty history of the horns to establish the religious and artistic contexts that informed Michelangelo’s decision to place horns on the greatest of Jewish prophets and that continue to inform contemporary responses to the work.
Asa Simon Mittman is Professor of Art and Art History at California State University, Chico, where he teaches Ancient and Medieval Art, as well as thematic courses on monsters and film. He is author of Maps and Monsters in Medieval England (2006), co-author with Susan Kim of Inconceivable Beasts: The Wonders of the East in the Beowulf Manuscript (2013, awarded a Millard Meiss Publication Grant from the College Art Association and an ISAS Best Book Prize), and author and co-author of a number of articles on monstrosity and marginality in the Middle Ages.
