The Fall and Expulsion from the Garden of Eden

On the Sistine ceiling, in the same frame, Michelangelo painted the Fall (Adam and Eve taking the fruit) and the Expulsion (them fleeing the angel). The tree of knowledge is a fig tree, not the apple tree of later Northern tradition. And the serpent wrapped around its trunk is not a snake — it is a woman from the waist up, with breasts and a face, offering the fruit with a hand. Michelangelo took the medieval Jewish tradition of the serpent-as-Lilith and painted her into a Renaissance masterpiece. Now at Sistine Chapel (Vatican Museums), Vatican City @vaticanmuseums