Hollywood’s Eternity Problem rages on. First we experienced Nicolas Cage, possible vampire. He denied it. Then we witnessed John Travolta, Time Traveler. No denials, which is sinister. Maybe time travel is possible at the Tom Cruise level of Scientology. Now, we are seeing tangible evidence that no less august a personage than Sly Stallone, star of Rocky, Rambo and Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot!, has turned up back in the High Renaissance. Sharp eyed observers observed the inclusion of the brooding hunky actor in a fresco panel of a wall in the Apostolic palace in Rome, painted by no less than Raphael. The fresco, entitled “Pope Gregory IX approving the Vatical Decretal”, was part of a much larger decoration scheme thought to have been sketched out by the famed Renaissance painter and filled in by Lorenzo Lotto, a student of Raphael. Apparently Stallone borrowed Travolta’s time machine and took it much farther back than the Civil War, which appears to be the hangout for Hollywood these days. Given Pope Gregory’s high handed treatment of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick, could this be Sly’s sly way of affirming papal infallibility? The jury is still out! Observe the evidence:

I leave it to the readership as to whether Mr. Stallone followed the FIRST RULE OF TIME TRAVEL: be discrete, or you will change the past!!