Lee2Adam

In the 1980s, the Vatican made the momentous decision to restore the age-worn frescoes of the Sistine Chapel ceiling. It was a breathtaking undertaking -- huge and difficult -- and, as such things always do, it naturally incurred a certain amount of controversy. For, as restorers painstakingly swabbed away the built-up years of grime and dust, an astonishing and heretofore completely unexpected reality came to light.

Art historians the world over caught their breaths as one.
The original model for Adam was finally revealed.

More recently, during renovations of Leonardo's Last Supper, a new and even more startling discovery was made. One of the original apostles had been painted over. Careful cleaning revealed the original face, a face remarkably similar to the face of Michelangelo's Adam. (Note how the apostle in blue even appears to be indicating him, as though to draw our attention to Leonardo's private joke.)

(Leonardo da Vinci, Last Supper, 1498. Mixed technique, 460 x 880 cm. Refectory, Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Milan.)

Were the artists of Italy's Golden Age simply obsessed? Was this merely some young man with whom each had had a secret relationship?

But this was not all. As historians and anthropologists alike studied the unveiled images of Adam and the Apostle, they slowly began to come to a curious new realization.

This was not the first time that this face had appeared in the great artistic works of humankind.

Far from it. And the more closely the Face of Lee was studied, the more that even noted theologians came to agree: the Cult of Lee was not merely far-reaching, but truly and utterly timeless -- ageless -- eternal.