Sistine Chapel

I

Introduction

Sistine Chapel, chapel located in the Papal Palace in the Vatican City, noted for its extraordinary ceiling painted by Renaissance artist Michelangelo. The Sistine Chapel is the pope’s own chapel, where important papal ceremonies are held and where, following the death of a pontiff, the Sacred College of Cardinals gathers to elect his successor.

The Sistine Chapel was constructed between 1472 and 1481 to the design of architect Giovanni de Dolci. It takes its name from Sixtus IV (Sisto, in Italian) who was pope at the time the chapel was built. The unassuming exterior of the rectangular, brick building belies the wealth of Renaissance artwork for which the interior is famed.

II

Michelangelo’s Sistine Ceiling

The Sistine Chapel’s best-known artwork is its ceiling fresco, created by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512. In nine central panels the Sistine ceiling illustrates stories from the biblical book of Genesis, beginning with God in his serial acts of creation and continuing through the downfall of Adam and Eve, and the deluge.

Framing the central panels on the long sides are huge male and female figures seated on thrones: Hebrew prophets and pagan sibyls (female seers). The prophets Jonah and Zechariah are at either end. These prophets and sibyls, who can see into the future, are shown deeply absorbed in their visions and revelations. Ten nude male figures—athletes of ideal classical beauty—pose on pedestals that surmount the thrones of the prophets and sibyls. These figures look on at the early history of humanity. Other scenes from Genesis appear beneath.

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The first three of the central Genesis panels concern the creation of the cosmos: the Creation of Light and Darkness, the Creation of the Stars and Planets, and the Separation of Land and Water. The second three depict humanity’s creation and fall: the Creation of Adam, the Creation of Eve, and the Temptation and Expulsion. The last three tell the story of Noah: the Deluge, the Sacrifice of Noah, and the Drunkenness of Noah. The last scene, showing the patriarch’s degradation before his own sons, points toward the need for a Messiah, through whose mediation human sin can be absolved. The prophet adjoining this panel is Zechariah, who foretold the entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem. Thus, the Genesis panels suggest a humanity that is not once but twice fallen from God’s grace.

Hope is to be found in additional narratives in spandrels (curved triangular areas) at the four corners of the ceiling: Judith and Holofernes, David and Goliath, the Brazen Serpent, and the Death of Haman. Each is an instance of God’s miraculous intervention for the salvation of his chosen people. That this saving grace will operate through history is attested to by the prophets and seers, who predict the coming of a Messiah. The culmination of the ceiling is the ecstatic figure of Jonah, over the altar and below the first day of creation, to which he turns his gaze. Jonah prefigures resurrection and eternal life, for as Christ spent three days in the tomb before ascending to heaven, so Jonah spent three days in the belly of a great fish before being returned to life. Through enactment of the Mass on the altar below, the faithful partake of the miracle of Christ’s promise of salvation.

The complex narrative theme of the Sistine ceiling—creation, human sinfulness, divine retribution, and redemption to come through a Messiah—is matched by the intricacy of the structural design. Michelangelo has created in paint the illusion of real architectural details to give the figures and groups of figures their own space. In all, Michelangelo painted almost 350 over-life-size human figures on the ceiling. He had to consider how the figures would look to spectators 18 m (60 ft) below on the chapel floor. He also had to allow for the barrel-vault shape of the Sistine ceiling. The figures on the ceiling face and turn every which way, in recognition of the many perspectives available to spectators below. There is no single viewpoint.

The frescoes for the Sistine ceiling were commissioned by Pope Julius II. Michelangelo began the task reluctantly; he insisted he was a sculptor only. The original plan was to show 12 apostles enthroned, linked to decorative geometric panels. Later, Michelangelo boasted that he was given a free hand after persuading the pope that the original scheme would result in “a poor thing.”

III

Michelangelo’s Last Judgment

Michelangelo returned to the Sistine Chapel in 1534 at the invitation of Pope Paul III to paint the Last Judgment, a huge fresco that fills the chapel’s west wall, behind the altar. He worked on it from 1536 to 1541. Earlier versions of the Last Judgment are compartmental in organization. Michelangelo’s composition is a swirling oval of muscular nudes. Christ is at the center of the oval, raising his right hand in a gesture of damnation to those to his left below. It is an intensely physical vision: skeletons rising from the earth, a saved soul being lifted up by a lifeline rosary, a man covering his face in horror as he is dragged down by a devil. In the lower right, Charon, the Greek mythological figure who ferries the dead into the underworld, brutalizes the damned as they are unloaded into Hell. So much of the human body on display proved highly controversial and in 1564 it was decided that some figures of the Judgment should have drapery painted over them.

IV

Other Sistine Paintings

The walls running the length of the chapel were frescoed from 1481 to 1483, before the ceiling was begun, by some of the finest Italian artists of the day, including Perugino, Sandro Botticelli, and Domenico Ghirlandaio. On the left facing the altar are scenes from the life of Moses; on the right, scenes from the life of Christ. Portraits of popes appear above these scenes.

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