Thesis (Ph.D.)--The University of Texas at Austin, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 680-718).

A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of Arts University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, 1991 / Although the perception of the design of Michelangelo's Last Judgment as dependent upon a basically circular composition around the figure of Christ has generally been observed in the literature, no sailsfactory explanation of this has been presented. In the following hypothesis, a cosmological interpretation of Michelangelo's Last Judgment proposes new sources for the circular design of the fresco around a central Apollonian Sun-Christ. After. an outline of the basic nature of the problem, an examination of earlier examples of the Last Judgment demonstrates the cosmological associations of the traditional iconography of the subject, primarily related to the hierarchical implications! of the 'flat-earth theory,' which places Heaven above and Hell beneath the earth's surface. Close formal analysis of Michelangelo's own version of the Last Judgment, which emphasizes the innovative aspects of its organisation, is then followed by an assessment of various existing interpretations of the work. In then examining the type of Sources which appear likely to have contributed to the final programme of the work, different areas of religious, literary and philosophical material are brought under consideration. In order to resolve the meaning of the fresco's iconography and composition, the influences upon Michelangelo of the Catholic religion and Reform thought, of the writings of Dante, and of Florentine Neoplatonism have been examined in an entirely new way, from a cosmologicalpoint of view, which brings to light their common emphasis on the Sun as a eymbol of the Deity. A new area of potential source material, that of contemporary scientific cosmology, has also been considered. Prevailing knowledge of Copernicus' theory of the Sun-centred universe, hitherto dismissed as a possible direct influence by renowned writers like Charles de Tolnay, on the grounds of chronology, is specifically discussed and found to be securely documented in Vatican circles at the time of the commission. Thus the sources finally proposed for the overall theme of Sun-symbolism and Cosmologyin the fresco are found to 'be dependent upon the common. ground shared between the Catholic Reformation revival of the traditional Christian analogy between the Deity and the Sun, the Neoplatonic cult of Sun-symholism, literary sources in Dante and the scientific theory of heliocentricity, as developed by Copernicus. Against this background of the History of Ideas in the Renaissance period, consideration of art historical methods leads to the suggestion of a newly proposed Biblical source for the fresco and, finally)l discussion of the deductive method of art historical intterpretation suggests the broader implications of the hypothesls, Ii both for the life and work at Michelangelo himself as well as for the/! sixteenth-century 'context of the fresco's creation. / MT2017

To call something 'inverted' or 'topsy-turvy' in the sixteenth century is, above all, to label it as abnormal, unnatural and going against the natural order of things. The topos of the world upside-down brings to mind a world returned to its initial state of primeval chaos, in which everything is inside-out, topsy-turvy and out of bounds: fish live in trees, children rule over their parents, wives command their husband and rivers flow back to their source. This thesis undertakes a detailed account of the development of the topos of the world upside-down in sixteenth-century French literature and visual culture. By examining different uses of this topos - comic, moralising and polemical - it relates the transformations of the topos to religious, social and political conflicts of the period. To explain the shift of this topos from comic and moralising device to satirical and polemical tool, this thesis argues that troubled times produce troubled texts. In order to demonstrate this hypothesis, two kinds of evidence will be examined: Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 present diachronic evidence of the 'polemicisation' of the topos of the world upside-down in literary genres of the period (adages, paradoxes and emblems) and within François Rabelais's body of work; Chapter 3 and 4 provide synchronic evidence of the polemical use of the topos of the world upside-down during the French religious wars in Huguenot and Catholic polemic and in depictions of socio-political turmoil. Charting the variety of uses of the topos of the world upside-down throughout the sixteenth century, this thesis connects the world upside-down and its historical context; and contributes to the scholarship on religious polemic.