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.
Sistine Chapel ceiling
In each corner of the chapel is a triangular pendentive filling the space between the walls and the arch of the vault and forming the spandrel above the windows nearest the corners. On these curving shapes Michelangelo has painted four scenes from Biblical stories that are associated with the salvation of Israel by four great male and female heroes of the Jews: Moses, Esther, David and Judith.The first two stories were both seen in Medieval- and Renaissance theology as prefiguring the Crucifixion of Jesus. In the story of the "Brazen Serpent", the people of Israel become dissatisfied and grumble at God. As punishment they receive a plague of venonous snakes. God offers the people relief by instructing Moses to make a snake of brass and set it up on a pole, the sight of which gives miraculous healing. Michelangelo chooses a crowded composition, depicting a dramatic mass of suffering men, women, and writhing snakes, separated from redeemed worshipers by the snake before an epiphanic light.