Italian Renaissance painting
In 1508 Pope Julius II succeeded in getting the Florentine sculptor Michelangelo (1475-1564) to agree to continue the decorative scheme of the Sistine Chapel. The Sistine Chapel ceiling was constructed in such a way that there were twelve sloping pendentives supporting the vault that formed ideal surfaces on which to paint the Twelve Apostles. Michelangelo soon devised an entirely different scheme, far more complex both in design and in iconography. The scale of the work, which he executed single handed except for manual assistance, was titanic and took nearly five years to complete.
Restoration of the Sistine Chapel frescoes
The brilliant palette ought to have been expected by the restorers as the same range of colours appears in the works of Giotto, Masaccio and Masolino, Fra Angelico and Piero della Francesca, as well as Ghirlandaio himself and later fresco painters such as Annibale Carracci and Tiepolo. The reason for employing this range of colours is that many other pigments are not usable in fresco as they have chemical properties that react badly in interaction with wet plaster. The colour that is noticeably missing from Michelangelo's ceiling, but not "The Last Judgment", is the intense blue of lapis lazuli. This colour, achieved by grinding semi-precious stone, was always applied as a secondary, "a secco" stage, along with the gold leaf applied as haloes and decoration to robes.