Dialogues with Michelangelo - the Sibyls

“The sibyl, with frenzied mouth uttering things not to be laughed at, unadorned and unperfumed, yet reaches to a thousand years with her voice....”

Heraclitus, 5th century BCE

Dialogues with Michelangelo (Libyan Sibyl) from All Things Are Always Changing

Dialogues with Michelangelo (Delphic Sibyl) from All Things Are Always Changing

Dialogues with Michelangelo (Erythrian Sibyl) from All Things Are Always Changing

In ancient Greece, the Sibyls channeled the prophetic wisdom of the gods. They would usually descend into a cave or someplace where fetid air was conducive to trances and hallucinations. Channeling of the sort was witnessed by Aeneas.

The sibyls depicted in the Sistine Chapel are the first five from a list of ten given in the Divine Institutions of Lactantius (ca. 303-311 a.d.)