Florentine painting
In 1508 Pope Julius II succeeded in getting the sculptor Michelangelo 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, who had yielded to the Pope's demands with little grace, 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.
Carafa Chapel
Lorenzo de' Medici of Florence recommended to Cardinal Carafa that he grant the commission to decorate the chapel to Filippino Lippi, then in his thirties. In order to fulfill the order, the artist had to halt the works at the Filippo Strozzi Chapel in Santa Maria Novella, which he had begun in 1487 and which he would complete in 1502.
Documents attest Lippi's presence in Rome as early as 27 August 1488, working with his assistant Raffaellino del Garbo. For the painter it was the first large fresco cycle, and his first (and only) work in Rome. The paintings were already completed in 1493, when they were visited by Pope Alexander VI.