How long did it take Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel?
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.
Michelangelo
Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni or more commonly known by his first name Michelangelo (; ; 6 March 1475 – 18 February 1564) was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet of the High Renaissance born in the Republic of Florence, who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art. Considered by many the greatest artist of his lifetime, and by some the greatest artist of all time, his artistic versatility was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man, along with his rival, the fellow Florentine and client of the Medici, Leonardo da Vinci.Pietà" and "David", before the age of thirty. Despite holding a low opinion of painting, he also created two of the most influential frescoes in the history of Western art: the scenes from Genesis on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, and "The Last Judgment" on its altar wall. His design of the Laurentian Library pioneered Mannerist architecture. At the age of 74, he succeeded Antonio da Sangallo the Younger as the architect of St. Peter's Basilica. He transformed the plan so that the western end was finished to his design, as was the dome, with some modification, after his death.
Leonardo da Vinci
These three were among those commissioned to paint the walls of the Sistine Chapel, the work commencing with Perugino's employment in 1479. Leonardo was not part of this prestigious commission. His first significant commission, The "Adoration of the Magi" for the Monks of Scopeto, was never completed.
Italian art
Michelangelo excelled as a painter, architect, and poet. In addition, he has been called the greatest sculptor in history. Michelangelo was a master of portraying the human figure. For example, his famous statue of the Israelite leader "Moses" (1516) gives an overwhelming impression of physical and spiritual power. These qualities also appear in the frescoes of Biblical and classical subjects that Michelangelo painted on the ceiling of the Vatican's Sistine Chapel. The frescoes, painted from 1508 to 1512, rank among the greatest works of Renaissance art.
Michelino Molinari da Besozzo
"St. Luke Painting the Virgin" is an illumination from a small Latin prayer book from 1420 which currently resides in the collection of the Morgan Library and Museum. This prayer book holds the majority of Michelino’s existing work, and its text, consisting of 47 prayers, was written in dark brown ink by a single scribe. The book, now bound with 19th century velvet with silver clasps, includes 22 full-page illuminations with floral borders; however, half of the original miniature illuminations are now missing. The illumination of "St. Luke Painting the Virgin" depicts St. Luke finishing painting a panel of the Virgin and Child, and is among the first Western representations of this scene. Later in the 15th century and throughout the remainder of the Italian Renaissance this subject became increasingly popular, for St. Luke was patron saint of painters and painters’ guilds. Throughout the 15th, 16th, and 17 centuries, artists continued to propagate saintly artistic creation by showing St. Luke painting the Madonna and Child. Michelino's version features St. Luke standing as he works on a gable-topped panel, while in Georgio Vasari's 1565 fresco of the scene that resides in the church of Santissima Annuciata, St. Luke paints a portrait of an other-worldly sitter, who is also captured in Vasari's painting.
Battle of Cascina (Michelangelo)
The painting was commissioned from Michelangelo by Piero Soderini, statesman of the Democratic of Florence. It was intended to wall of the "Salone dei Cinquecento" in Palazzo Vecchio. The opposite wall was to be decorated by Leonardo da Vinci, who was commissioned to depict the Battle of Anghiari. The two battles were notable medieval Florentine victories. The Battle of Cascina was fought on 28 July 1364 between the troops of Florence and Pisa, resulting in victory of the former. A thousand Pisans were killed and two hundred more were captured.
Sistine Chapel ceiling
Michelangelo was the artistic heir to the great 15th-century sculptors and painters of Florence. He learned his trade first under the direction of a masterly fresco painter, Domenico Ghirlandaio, known for two great fresco cycles in the Sassetti Chapel and Tornabuoni Chapel, and for his contribution to the cycle of paintings on the walls of the Sistine Chapel. As a student Michelangelo studied and drew from the works of the two most renowned Florentine fresco painters of the early Renaissance, Giotto and Masaccio. Masaccio's figures of Adam and Eve being expelled from the Garden of Eden had a profound effect on the depiction of the nude in general, and in particular on the use of the nude figure to convey human emotion. Helen Gardner says that in the hands of Michelangelo "the body is simply the manifestation of the soul, or of a state of mind and character".
Mosaic
The Abbot of Monte Cassino, Desiderius sent envoys to Constantinople some time after 1066 to hire expert Byzantine mosaicists for the decoration of the rebuilt abbey church. According to chronicler Leo of Ostia the Greek artists decorated the apse, the arch and the vestibule of the basilica. Their work was admired by contemporaries but was totally destroyed in later centuries except two fragments depicting greyhounds (now in the Monte Cassino Museum). "The abbot in his wisdom decided that great number of young monks in the monastery should be thoroughly initiated in these arts" – says the chronicler about the role of the Greeks in the revival of mosaic art in medieval Italy.
In Florence a magnificiant mosaic of the Last Judgement decorates the dome of the Baptistery. The earliest mosaics, works of art of many unknown Venetian craftsmen (including probably Cimabue), date from 1225. The covering of the ceiling was probably not completed until the 14th century.
St. Sebastian (Antonello da Messina)
The visit of the Sicilian artist Antonello da Messina to Venice in 1475–6 has traditionally been seen as turning point in the history of the city's painting – Giorgio Vasari crediting him with introducing oil painting to Venice. Antonello painted two altarpieces for Venetian churches, one for the church of San Cassiano, and the other, of which the "St Sebastian" once formed part, for the altar of the Scuola di San Rocca in the parish church of San Giuliano. It has often been assumed to have been painted in Venice in 1476, but it may have been painted only after Antonella's return to Sicily in the autumn of that year. A description by Francesco Sansovino, dating from 1581, indicates that the altarpiece consisted of a wooden statue of St Roche, flanked by painted panels showing St Christopher and St Sebastian. Sansovino describes the panel of St Christopher as being by Antonello, and that of St Sebastian as being by "Pino da Messina" (i.e. his son Jacobello or "Jacopino"). However art historians have generally accepted Antonello's authorship of the "St Sebastian". The statue and the painting of "St Christopher" are now lost.
Chigi Chapel
The frescos between the windows of the drum (c. 1552-1554) depict scenes from the Book of Genesis in order: "Separation of Light from Darkness", "Creation of the Sun and the Moon", "Creation of the Earth", "Creation of Adam", "Creation of Eve", "Creation of the Animals", "The Original Sin" and "Expulsion from Paradise". The paintings show the strong influence of the sculptural style of Michelangelo's famous Genesis-cycle on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The scenes are not in strictly chronological order. The first five are the same as the parallel Genesis paintings in the Sistine Chapel but the sixth fresco adds a new subject, the creation of the fishes, birds and wild animals. The sixth scene of the Sistine ceiling is separated into two individual paintings on the drum of the Chigi Chapel. Salviati's cycle ends here, and the three scenes from the story of Noah, that make up the last section of Michelangelo's great sequence, are missing.
Sistine Chapel
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.
Michelangelo phenomenon
The phenomenon was named after the Italian Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, poet and engineer Michelangelo (1475–1564) who is said to have thought of sculpting as a process of revealing and uncovering the figures hidden in stone. The term was introduced in 1999 by the US psychologist Stephen Michael Drigotas ("et al")."
Poor Man's Bible
Mural painting was also common in Italy, where the method employed was generally fresco, painting on freshly laid, slightly damp plaster. Many fine examples have survived from the Medieval and Early Renaissance periods. Remarkably, the best known example of such Biblical story-telling was not created for the edification of the poor but for the rich and powerful, the Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel created by Michelangelo for Pope Julius II.
Tourism in Vatican City
The Sistine Chapel is home to many pieces of art including statues, tapestries, and paintings by Michelangelo Buonarroti. One of the most famous attractions is the ceiling painting of Creation of Adam, along with the rest of the ceiling done by Michelangelo between the years of 1508 and 1512, as well as "The Last Judgment" behind the altar, which he completed between 1536 and 1541.
Madonna del cardellino
Raphael is considered to be a “master” of the High Renaissance, a title he shares with Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. He was born in 1483 and died in 1520, living a mere thirty-seven years. Despite his relatively short lifespan, he was highly influential throughout his time on earth. He produced a vast quantity of work in a variety of media. He was active in architecture, printmaking, painting, and drawing. During the first half of his career, he spent years traveling across Northern Italy and was influenced by the Florentine styles he saw there, causing this stage to be called his Florentine Period. After which, in 1508, he moved to Rome where he continued to work. Many of his commissions came from the Vatican, including the Apostolic Palace, which brought about one of his most famous works, School of Athens. Due to his relationship with the church, he and Michelangelo were fierce rivals throughout both of their careers, and often competed for the same commissions. 
During his Florentine period, this work, The Madonna Del Cardellino, was painted along with several other well-known Madonnas: The Madonna of the Meadow and La Belle Jardinière. All three share several characteristics: Madonna is clothed in red and blue, the same three subjects are painted, the pyramidal composition, the natural background, and the connection to the church through the representation of books, crosses, or, indeed, the goldfinch.
Sistine Chapel ceiling
Centrally placed above each window is a "faux" marble tablet with a decorative frame. On each is painted the names of the male line by which Jesus, through his Earthly father, Joseph, is descended from Abraham, according to the Gospel of Matthew. However, the genealogy is now incomplete, since the two lunettes of the windows in the Altar wall were destroyed by Michelangelo when he returned to the Sistine Chapel in 1537 to paint The Last Judgment. Only engravings, based on a drawing that has since been lost, remain of them. The sequence of tablets seems a little erratic as one plaque has four names, most have three or two, and two plaques have only one. Moreover, the progression moves from one side of the building to the other, but not consistently, and the figures the lunettes contain do not coincide closely with the listed names. These figures vaguely suggest various family relationships; most lunettes contain one or more infants, and many depict a man and a woman, often sitting on opposing sides of the painted plaque that separates them. O'Malley describes them as "simply representative figures, almost ciphers".
Sistine Chapel ceiling
The first stage of restoration, the work upon Michelangelo's lunettes, was achieved in October 1984. The work then proceeded on the ceiling, completed December 1989 and from there to the Last Judgement. The restoration was unveiled by Pope John Paul II on 8 April 1994. The restoration team comprised Gianluigi Colalucci, Maurizio Rossi, Piergiorgio Bonetti, Bruno Baratti and others. The final stage was the restoration of the wall frescoes by Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Perugino and others, This was unveiled on 11 December 1999.
The Last Judgment (Michelangelo)
The work took over four years to complete between 1536 and 1541 (preparation of the altar wall began in 1535). Michelangelo began working on it twenty-five years after having finished the Sistine Chapel ceiling, and was nearly 67 at its completion. Michelangelo originally accepted the commission from Pope Clement VII, but it was completed under Pope Paul III, whose stronger reforming views probably affected the final treatment.
Prophet Joel (Michelangelo)
The Prophet Joel is one of the seven Old Testament prophets painted by the Italian High Renaissance master Michelangelo (c. 1508–1512) on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. The Sistine Chapel is in Vatican Palace, in the Vatican City.
The Agony and the Ecstasy (film)
The film opens in documentary style, chronicling the work of Michelangelo Buonarroti.
It then follows Michelangelo (Charlton Heston), a renowned sculptor of the Republic of Florence in the early 16th century, and shows him at work on large-scale sculptures near St. Peter's Basilica. When Pope Julius II (Rex Harrison) commissions him to paint the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo resists because he finds the ceiling's paneled layout of the Twelve Apostles uninspiring. Nonetheless, he is forced into taking the job. During the initial attempt, Michelangelo is discontented with the results, and destroys the frescoes. He flees to Carrara, and then into the mountains where he finds inspiration from nature.
Sandro Botticelli
In 1481, Pope Sixtus IV summoned Botticelli and other prominent Florentine and Umbrian artists to fresco the walls of the newly completed Sistine Chapel. This large project was to be the main decoration of the chapel; most of the frescos remain, but are now greatly overshadowed and disrupted by Michelangelo's work of the next century, to make room for which some of them were destroyed. The Florentine contribution is thought to be part of a peace deal between Lorenzo Medici and the papacy. After Sixtus was implicated in the Pazzi conspiracy hostilities had escalated into excommunication for Lorenzo and other Florentine officials and a small "Pazzi War".
Doni Tondo
The "Doni Tondo" is believed to be the only existing panel picture Michelangelo painted without the aid of assistants; and, unlike his "Manchester Madonna" and "Entombment" (both National Gallery, London), the attribution to him has never been questioned. The juxtaposition of bright colors foreshadows the same use of color in Michelangelo's later Sistine Ceiling frescoes. The folds of the drapery are sharply modelled, and the modelling of the figures is distinctly sculptural, suggesting they are carved in medium marble. The nude figures in the background have softer modelling and look to be precursors to the "ignudi", the male nude figures in the Sistine Ceiling frescoes. Michelangelo's technique includes shading from the most intense colors first to the lighter shades on top, using the darker colors as shadows. By applying the pigment in a certain way, Michelangelo created an ""unfocused"" effect in the background and focused detail in the foreground. The most vibrant color is located within the Virgin's garments, signifying her importance within the image. The masculinity of Mary could be explained by Michelangelo's use of male models for female figures, as was done for the Sistine Chapel.
Michelangelo
While still working on the "Last Judgement", Michelangelo received yet another commission for the Vatican. This was for the painting of two large frescos in the Cappella Paolina depicting significant events in the lives of the two most important saints of Rome, the "Conversion of Saint Paul" and the "Crucifixion of Saint Peter". Like the "Last Judgement", these two works are complex compositions containing a great number of figures. They were completed in 1550. In the same year, Giorgio Vasari published his "Vita", including a biography of Michelangelo.
Medici Chapel
In a statement in the Michelangelo's biography published in 1553 by his disciple, Ascanio Condivi, and largely based on Michelangelo own recollections, Condivi gives the following description: "The statues are four in number, placed in a sacristy . . . the sarcophagi are placed before the side walls, and on the lids of each there recline two big figures, larger than life, to wit, a man and a woman; they signify Day and Night and, in conjunction, Time which devours all things… And in order to signify Time he planned to make a mouse, having left a bit of marble upon the work (which [plan] he subsequently did not carry out because he was prevented by circumstances), because this little animal ceaselessly gnaws and consumes just as time devours everything”.
Michelangelo
Michelangelo, with Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael, is one of the three giants of the Florentine High Renaissance. Although their names are often cited together, Michelangelo was younger than Leonardo by 23 years, and older than Raphael by eight. Because of his reclusive nature, he had little to do with either artist and outlived both of them by more than forty years. Michelangelo took few sculpture students. He employed Francesco Granacci, who was his fellow pupil at the Medici Academy, and became one of several assistants on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Michelangelo appears to have used assistants mainly for the more manual tasks of preparing surfaces and grinding colours. Despite this, his works were to have a great influence on painters, sculptors and architects for many generations to come.
Sistine Chapel ceiling
The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was to have a profound effect upon other artists, even before it was completed. Vasari, in his Life of Raphael, tells us that Bramante, who had the keys to the chapel, let Raphael in to examine the paintings in Michelangelo's absence. On seeing Michelangelo's prophets, Raphael went back to the picture of the Prophet Isaiah that he was painting on a column in the Church of Sant'Agostino and, according to Vasari, although it was finished, he scraped it off the wall and repainted it in a much more powerful manner, in imitation of Michelangelo. John O'Malley points out that even earlier than the Isaiah is Raphael's inclusion of the figure of Heraclitus in the "School of Athens", a brooding figure similar to Michelangelo's Jeremiah, but with the countenace of Michelangelo himself, and leaning on a block of marble.
Friends of the Uffizi Gallery
The Michelangelo Room, which opened to the public on January 29, 2013, is an example of a completed project by this organization. The Friends of the Uffizi Gallery and the Amici degli Uffizi funded the re-construction of this room on the second floor and the re-installation of the paintings. The re-construction involved restoring the original marble floor and re-plastering the walls and painting them red. 
The re-installation included Michelangelo’s "Tondo Doni" (ca. 1507 oil and tempera on panel) which is the only confirmed panel painting existing today in its original frame. 
Other early sixteenth-century Florentine painters represented in the room include Francesco Granacci, Fra Bartolomeo (Paolo di Jacopo del Fattorino detto Baccio della Porta), Andrea del Sarto, Franciabigio, Giuliano Bugiardini, and Alonso Berruguete.
Restoration of the Sistine Chapel frescoes
On some of the figures, however, there still remains clear evidence of painting in carbon black. The apparent explanation for this is that over the long period that Michelangelo was at work, he probably, for a variety of reasons, varied his technique. Things that might affect the degree of finish achieved on a particular "giornata" include the heat and humidity of the day and the length of daylight hours. Whatever the reason for the difference is, a difference in approach to the light and shade on the individual figures is clearly apparent.
Sistine Chapel ceiling
The chapel walls have three horizontal tiers with six windows in the upper tier down each side. There were also two windows at each end, but these have been closed up above the altar when Michelangelo's Last Judgement was painted, obliterating two lunettes. Between the windows are large "pendentives" which support the vault. Between the pendentives are triangularly shaped arches or "spandrels" cut into the vault above each window. Above the height of the pendentives, the ceiling slopes gently without much deviation from the horizontal. This is the "real" architecture. Michelangelo has elaborated it with illusionary or "fictive" architecture.
Pope Clement VII
As for the arts, Clement VII is remembered for having been the patron of Benvenuto Cellini. He also ordered, just a few days before his death, Michelangelo's painting of "The Last Judgment" in the Sistine Chapel.
Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux
Carpeaux soon grew tired of academicism and became a wanderer on the streets of Rome. He spent free time admiring the frescoes of Michelangelo at the Sistine Chapel. Carpeaux said, "When an artist feels pale and cold, he runs to Michelangelo in order to warm himself, as with the rays of the sun".
Sistine Chapel ceiling
These three scenes, completed in the third stage of painting, are the most broadly conceived, the most broadly painted and the most dynamic of all the pictures. Of the first scene Vasari says "... Michelangelo depicted God dividing Light from Darkness, showing him in all his majesty as he rests self-sustained with arms outstretched, in a revelation of love and creative power."
Manchester Madonna
The Madonna and Child with St John and Angels (c. 1497), also known as The Manchester Madonna, is an unfinished painting attributed to Michelangelo in the National Gallery, London. It is one of three surviving panel paintings attributed to the artist and is dated to his first period in Rome. The painting's attribution to Michelangelo was in doubt for much of the 19th and 20th centuries, but now most scholars are in agreement. The work first came to public attention in the Art Treasures Exhibition in Manchester in 1857, hence the title the “Manchester Madonna”.
Michelangelo
The Sistine Chapel ceiling was a work of unprecedented grandeur, both for its architectonic forms, to be imitated by many Baroque ceiling painters, and also for the wealth of its inventiveness in the study of figures. Vasari wrote:
Sistine Chapel ceiling
While much of the symbolism of the ceiling dates from the early church, the ceiling also has elements that express the specifically Renaissance thinking that sought to reconcile Christian theology with the philosophy of Renaissance Humanism. During the 15th century in Italy, and in Florence in particular, there was a strong interest in Classical literature and the philosophies of Plato, Socrates and other Classical writers. Michelangelo, as a young man, had spent time at the Humanist academy established by the Medici family in Florence. He was familiar with early Humanist-inspired sculptural works such as Donatello's bronze "David" and had himself responded by carving the enormous nude marble "David", which was placed in the piazza near the Palazzo Vecchio, the home of Florence's council. The Humanist vision of humanity was one in which people responded to other people, to social responsibility, and to God in a direct way, not through intermediaries, such as the Church. This conflicted with the Church's emphasis. While the Church emphasized humanity as essentially sinful and flawed, Humanism emphasized humanity as potentially noble and beautiful. These two views were not necessarily irreconcilable to the Church, but only through a recognition that the unique way to achieve this "elevation of spirit, mind and body" was through the Church as the agent of God. To be outside the Church was to be beyond "Salvation". In the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo presented both Catholic and Humanist elements in a way that does not appear visually conflicting. The inclusion of "non-biblical" figures such as the Sibyls or "Ignudi" is consistent with the rationalising of Humanist and Christian thought of the Renaissance. This rationalisation was to become a target of the Counter Reformation.
Sistine Chapel ceiling
Prior to restoration, of all the paintings in the Sistine Chapel, the lunettes and spandrels were the dirtiest. Added to this, there has always been a problem of poor daytime visibility of the panels nearest the windows because of "halination". Consequently, they were the least well known of all Michelangelo's publicly accessible works. The recent restoration has made these masterly studies of human nature and inventive depiction of the human form known once more.
Santa Maria Maggiore
The Mannerist interior decoration of the Sistine Chapel was completed (1587–1589) by a large team of artists, directed by Cesare Nebbia and Giovanni Guerra. While the art biographer, Giovanni Baglione allocates specific works to individual artists, recent scholarship finds that the hand of Nebbia drew preliminary sketches for many, if not all, of the frescoes. Baglione also concedes the roles of Nebbia and Guerra could be summarized as "Nebbia drew, and Guerra supervised the teams".
Cappella Paolina
Michelangelo’s two frescoes in the Cappella Paolina, "The Conversion of Saul" and "The Crucifixion of St Peter" were painted from 1542 to 1549, the height of his fame, but were widely viewed as disappointments and even failures by their contemporary audience. They did not conform to the compositional conventions of the time and the subject-matter is depicted in an unorthodox manner. Despite the importance of the chapel and the significance of their subjects, the frescoes were generally neglected and overlooked in favor of Michelangelo’s nearby masterpieces in the Sistine Chapel.More recently an Italian scholar has recognised Michelangelo's face both in Saint Paul and saint Pete by facial superimposition (Sandro Giometti'Michelangelo, Displaying the Invisible" TAU pub.er Todi 2018).In his last period the Artist felt himself called by Christ as an apostle of his and jexpresses this bestowing his old man's face to the young Saul on his way to Damascus.On the opposite wall he paints his self- portrait in the face of Saint Peter, who stares in a reproaching way to the cardinals and to the new elected pope for their non evangelical lifestyle.
Sistine Chapel ceiling
Within Michelangelo's own work, the chapel ceiling led to the later and more Mannerist painting of the Last Judgement in which the crowded compositions gave full rein to his inventiveness in painting contorted and foreshortened figures expressing despair or jubilation. Among the artists in whose work can be seen the direct influence of Michelangelo are Pontormo, Andrea del Sarto, Correggio, Tintoretto, Annibale Carracci, Paolo Veronese and El Greco.
Prophet Isaiah (Michelangelo)
The Prophet Isaiah is one of the seven Old Testament prophets painted by the Italian High Renaissance master Michelangelo (c. 1542–1545) on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. The Sistine Chapel is in Vatican Palace, in the Vatican City. Elements of this fresco have inspired various artists, including Caravaggio and Norman Rockwell in his famous Rosie the Riveter illustration.
Sistine Chapel
The only reproduction of the Sistine Chapel ceiling was painted by Gary Bevans at a church in Goring-by-Sea, West Sussex, England. A full-size architectural and photographic replica of the entire building was commissioned by the Mexican Government and funded by private donors. It was on view at Mexico City from June 1 to July 15, 2016; it may then be exhibited at other Mexican cities and possibly elsewhere in the world. It took 2.6 million high definition photographs to reproduce the totality of the frescoes and tapestries. A video of the history of the Chapel is shown to the visitors before entering the building; inside, a light-and-sound demonstration explains the content of each of the frescoes.
Il Pordenone
He appears to have visited Rome, and learnt from its High Renaissance masterpieces, but lacked a good training in anatomical drawing. Like Polidoro da Caravaggio, he was one of the artists often commissioned to paint the exteriors of buildings; of such work at most a shadow survives after centuries of weather. Michelangelo is said to have approved of one palace facade in 1527; it is now only known from a preparatory drawing. Much of his work was lost when the Doge's Palace in Venice was largely destroyed by fires in 1574 and 1577. A number of fresco cycles survive, for example part of one at Cremona Cathedral, where his "Passion" scenes have a violence hardly repeated until Goya. Another cycle was at the Scuola Grande della Carità in Venice, now the Gallerie dell'Accademia, the main art museum, where he worked with the young Tintoretto.
Madonna of the Stairs
The Madonna of the Stairs (or Madonna of the Steps) is a relief sculpture by Michelangelo in the Casa Buonarroti, Florence. It was sculpted around 1491, when Michelangelo was about seventeen. This and the "Battle of the Centaurs" were Michelangelo's first two sculptures. The first reference to the "Madonna of the Stairs" as a work by Michelangelo was in the 1568 edition of Giorgio Vasari's "Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects".
Sistine Chapel
Between 1508 and 1512, under the patronage of Pope Julius II, Michelangelo painted the chapel's ceiling, a project which changed the course of Western art and is regarded as one of the major artistic accomplishments of human civilization. In a different climate after the Sack of Rome, he returned and between 1535 and 1541, painted "The Last Judgment" for Popes Clement VII and Paul III. The fame of Michelangelo's paintings has drawn multitudes of visitors to the chapel ever since they were revealed five hundred years ago.
Sistine Chapel
The first stage in the decoration of the Sistine Chapel was the painting of the ceiling in blue, studded with gilt stars, and with decorative borders around the architectural details of the pendentives. This was entirely replaced when Michelangelo came to work on the ceiling in 1508.
Sistine Chapel ceiling
Their painting demonstrates, more than any other figures on the ceiling, Michelangelo's mastery of anatomy and foreshortening and his enormous powers of invention. In their reflection of classical antiquity they resonate with Pope Julius' aspirations to lead Italy towards a new 'age of gold'; at the same time, they staked Michelangelo's claim to greatness. However, a number of critics were angered by their presence and nudity, including Pope Adrian VI who wanted the ceiling stripped.
Sofonisba Anguissola
In 1554, at age twenty-two, Anguissola traveled to Rome, where she spent her time sketching various scenes and people. While in Rome, she was introduced to Michelangelo by another painter who was familiar with her work. Sofonisba initially showed Michelangelo a drawing of laughing girl, but the painter challenged her to draw a weeping boy, a subject which he felt would be more challenging. When Michelangelo made a request for her to draw a weeping boy, Anguissola drew "Boy Bitten by a Crayfish" and sent it back to Michelangelo, who immediately recognized her talent. Michelangelo subsequently gave Anguissola sketches from his notebooks to draw in her own style and offered advice on the results. For at least two years, Anguissola continued this informal study, receiving substantial guidance from Michelangelo.
Italy
The Italian Renaissance is said by many to be the golden age of painting; roughly spanning the 14th through the mid-17th centuries with a significant influence also out of the borders of modern Italy. In Italy artists like Paolo Uccello, Fra Angelico, Masaccio, Piero della Francesca, Andrea Mantegna, Filippo Lippi, Giorgione, Tintoretto, Sandro Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Raphael, Giovanni Bellini, and Titian took painting to a higher level through the use of perspective, the study of human anatomy and proportion, and through their development of an unprecedented refinement in drawing and painting techniques. Michelangelo was an active sculptor from about 1500 to 1520, and his great masterpieces including his "David", "Pietà", "Moses". Other prominent Renaissance sculptors include Lorenzo Ghiberti, Luca Della Robbia, Donatello, Filippo Brunelleschi and Andrea del Verrocchio.
Michelangelo Cinganelli
He was a pupil or strongly influenced by Bernardino Poccetti of Florence. Along with Orazio Riminaldi, he painted the four Evangelists and angels (1597) in the cupola of the Cathedral of Pisa; a "Birth of the Virgin" and "Annunciation" (1598) in the choir; and decoration of the organ in 1602. He also painted in the church of San Domenico, Pistoia. He is documented as working for the tapestry shop of the Medici in Florence. Cinganelli supervised the designs by Ludovico Cigoli for the principal chapel in the church of Santa Felicita in Florence, and frescoed the chapel in 1620.
Michelangelo Celesia
He was born Pietro Geremia Celesia in Palermo in 1814, the son of Lancellotto Celesia, Marchese of Sant'Antonino, and Giuseppa Caruso Azzolini. As a teenager, he felt called to become a monk of the Monastery of San Martino della Scala in his native city, which belonged to the Cassinese Congregation of the Order of Saint Benedict. He was received as a candidate of the monastery in 1833 and, at admission into the novitiate, he was given the religious name of Michelangelo. He made his solemn profession on January 15, 1835, and was ordained to the priesthood on July 24, 1836.
Sistine Chapel
The painted area is about 40 m (131 ft) long by 13 m (43 ft) wide. This means that Michelangelo painted well over of frescoes.
Roman Renaissance
The Sistine Chapel takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV, who had the old Cappella Magna restored between 1477 and 1480. It was originally to be decorated by artists from Umbria and Marche. But through the intercession of Lorenzo de' Medici, the commission of the wall decoration was instead entrusted to the best Florentine artists of the time, Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Pinturicchio, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Cosimo Roselli. They created a series of frescos depicting the Life of Moses and the Life of Christ, offset by papal portraits above and trompe l’oeil drapery below. The work on the frescoes began in 1481 and was concluded in 1482. This is also the date of the works in marble: the screen, the choir stalls, and the pontifical coat of arms over the entrance door. On 15 August 1483 Sixtus IV celebrated the first mass when the chapel was consecrated and dedicated to the Virgin Mary. The Sistine Chapel, now the seat of the most important ceremonies of the papacy, became a point of reference for Renaissance art, setting a milestone for the character developments of the late fifteenth.
Spirituali
The ranks of the Spirituali included Cardinal Gasparo Contarini (1483–1542), Cardinal Jacopo Sadoleto (1477–1547), Cardinal Reginald Pole (1500–1558), Italian poet Vittoria Colonna, and her friend, the artist Michelangelo (1475–1564), who painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and the very controversial "Last Judgement". These "Italian evangelicals" proposed to reform the Church through a spiritual renewal and internalization of faith by each individual, viewing the intense study of scripture and justification by faith as means to that end. "Central [to the "Spirituali"] was a renewed emphasis on the grace which God sent through faith," writes Church Historian Diarmaid MacCulloch, "together with a consistent urge to reveal the Holy Spirit as the force conveying this grace – to that associates of the movement were soon characterized as "Spirituali"."
The Last Judgment (Michelangelo)
As well as the criticism on moral and religious grounds, there was from the start considerable criticism based on purely aesthetic considerations, which had hardly been seen at all in initial reactions to Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling. Two key figures in the first wave of criticism were Pietro Aretino and his friend Lodovico Dolce, a prolific Venetian humanist. Aretino had made considerable efforts to become as close to Michelangelo as he was to Titian, but had always been rebuffed; "in 1545 his patience gave way, and he wrote to Michelangelo that letter on the "Last Judgement" which is now famous as an example of insincere prudishness", a letter written with a view to publication. Aretino had not in fact seen the finished painting, and based his criticisms on one of the prints that had been quickly brought to market. He "purports to represent the simple folk" in this new wider audience. However, it appears that at least the print-buying public preferred the uncensored version of the paintings, as most prints showed this well into the 17th century.
Bufalini Chapel
The chapel was commissioned by Niccolò dei Bufalini (~1450 - 1506) for his mortuary chapel in the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli. Bufalini was a prelate, citizen of Città di Castello, who worked as abbreviator "" and consistorial lawyer in Rome. His family coat of arms (a bull with a flower) appears widely in the chapel. Several important painters, including Pietro Perugino, Sandro Botticelli, Luca Signorelli, and Pinturicchio, had finished the wall decoration of the Sistine Chapel (1482), and had returned to their hometowns, with the exception of Pinturicchio, who had formed a workshop including some of the collaborators in that work. Pinturicchio, who had been so far outshone by Perugino's fame, could exploit his presence in Rome to obtain the commission of his first great work, the Bufalini Chapel, also favored by the common origin with Riccomanno Bufalini. The painter had already executed at least one work for the latter's family, a "Madonna" now in the Municipal Gallery of Città di Castello (c. 1480).
Michelangelo and the Medici
In 1527, the Florentine citizens, encouraged by the sack of Rome, threw out the Medici and restored the republic. A siege of the city ensued, and Michelangelo went to the aid of his beloved Florence by working on the city's fortifications from 1528-29. The city fell in 1530, and the Medici were restored to power. Completely out of sympathy with the repressive reign of the ducal Medici, Michelangelo left Florence for good in the mid-1530s, leaving assistants to complete the Medici chapel. Michelangelo left Florence for the last time at the age of sixty, leaving the Medici chapel unfinished. Michelangelo decided to settle in Rome, where he had hoped to finish Pope Julius II's tomb but was unable to do so, due to a new project that had been assigned to him by Pope Julius II. Thus Michelangelo set the tomb aside to paint a fresco in the Sistine Chapel.
Michelangelo was commissioned to do the tombs of Lorenzo de' Medici’s grandson, Giuliano, duke of Nemours and Lorenzo’s third son, and popes Leo X and Clement VII, both Medici; also Lorenzo il Magnifico. Only two were completed: Giuliano’s and Lorenzo’s.
Michelangelo
In the same year, the Medici were expelled from Florence as the result of the rise of Savonarola. Michelangelo left the city before the end of the political upheaval, moving to Venice and then to Bologna. In Bologna, he was commissioned to carve several of the last small figures for the completion of the Shrine of St. Dominic, in the church dedicated to that saint. At this time Michelangelo studied the robust reliefs carved by Jacopo della Quercia around main portal of the Basilica of St Petronius, including the panel of "The Creation of Eve" the composition of which was to reappear on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. Towards the end of 1494, the political situation in Florence was calmer. The city, previously under threat from the French, was no longer in danger as Charles VIII had suffered defeats. Michelangelo returned to Florence but received no commissions from the new city government under Savonarola. He returned to the employment of the Medici. During the half year he spent in Florence, he worked on two small statues, a child "St. John the Baptist" and a sleeping "Cupid". According to Condivi, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, for whom Michelangelo had sculpted "St. John the Baptist", asked that Michelangelo "fix it so that it looked as if it had been buried" so he could "send it to Rome ... pass [it off as] an ancient work and ... sell it much better." Both Lorenzo and Michelangelo were unwittingly cheated out of the real value of the piece by a middleman. Cardinal Raffaele Riario, to whom Lorenzo had sold it, discovered that it was a fraud, but was so impressed by the quality of the sculpture that he invited the artist to Rome. This apparent success in selling his sculpture abroad as well as the conservative Florentine situation may have encouraged Michelangelo to accept the prelate's invitation.
Scrovegni Chapel
Giotto, who was born around 1267, was 36–38 years old when he worked at Enrico Scrovegni's chapel. He had a team of about 40 collaborators, and they calculated that 625 work days ("giornati") were necessary to paint the chapel. A "work day" meant that portion of each fresco that could be painted before the plaster dried and was no longer "fresh" ("fresco" in Italian ).
Sistine Chapel ceiling
The colours, which now appear so fresh and spring-like with pale pink, apple green, vivid yellow and sky blue against a background of warm pearly grey, were so discoloured by candle smoke as to make the pictures seem almost monochrome. The restoration has removed the filter of grime to reveal the colours again. However, the restoration was met with both praise and criticism. Critics assert that much original work by Michelangelo – in particular pentimenti, highlights and shadows, and other detailing painted "a secco" – was lost in the removal of various accretions.
Prophet Jeremiah (Michelangelo)
The Prophet Jeremiah is one of the seven Old Testament prophets painted by the Italian High Renaissance master Michelangelo (c. 1510-12) on the Sistine Chapel ceiling. The Sistine Chapel is in Vatican Palace, in the Vatican City.
Sistine Chapel ceiling
Michelangelo was commissioned to paint these areas as part of the work on the ceiling. The structures form visual bridges between the walls and the ceiling, and the figures which are painted on them are midway in size (approximately 2 metres high) between the very large prophets and the much smaller figures of Popes which had been painted to either side of each window in the 15th century. Michelangelo chose the Ancestors of Christ as the subject of these images, thus portraying Jesus' physical lineage, while the papal portraits are his spiritual successors, according to Church doctrine. (see "gallery")
Sebastiano del Piombo
These led a Florentine friend of Michelangelo, Pierfrancesco Borgherini, to commission Sebastiano to decorate a chapel in San Pietro in Montorio in Rome; he no doubt hoped to get significant input from Michelangelo. There is a Michelangelo drawing of 1516 for the "Flagellation of Jesus" in the British Museum, and other sketches; the final design survives only in a copy by Giulio Clovio after another Michelangelo drawing (Royal Collection). In the event there were a series of interruptions and Sebastiano did not complete the chapel until early 1524. The "Flagellation" is painted in oil on plaster. This was a method first practiced by Domenico Veneziano, and afterwards by other artists; but according to Vasari only Sebastiano succeeded in preventing the colours eventually blackening.
Restoration of the Sistine Chapel frescoes
Between June 1980 and October 1984 the first stage of restoration, the work upon Michelangelo's lunettes, was achieved. The focus of the work then transferred to the ceiling, which was completed in December 1989 and from there to the Last Judgment. The restoration was unveiled by Pope John Paul II on 8 April 1994. The final stage was the restoration of the wall frescoes, approved in 1994 and unveiled on 11 December 1999.
The Last Judgment (Michelangelo)
The preparation of the wall led to the end of more than twenty years of friendship between Michelangelo and Sebastiano del Piombo, who tried to persuade the Pope and Michelangelo to do the painting in his preferred technique of oil on plaster, and managed to get the smooth plaster finish needed for this applied. It is possible that around this stage the idea was floated that Sebastiano would do the actual painting, to Michelangelo's designs, as they had collaborated nearly 20 years earlier. After, according to Vasari, some months of passivity, Michelangelo furiously insisted that it should be in fresco, and had the wall re-plastered in the rough "arriccio" needed as a base for fresco. It was on this occasion that he famously said that oil painting was "an art for women and for leisurely and idle people like Fra Sebastiano".
Michelangelo and the Medici
Michelangelo's father sent him to study grammar with the Renaissance humanist Francesco da Urbino in Florence as a young boy. The young artist, however, showed no interest in his schooling, preferring to copy paintings from churches and seek the company of painters. At thirteen, Michelangelo was apprenticed to the painter Domenico Ghirlandaio. When Michelangelo was only fourteen, his father persuaded Ghirlandaio to pay his apprentice as an artist, which was highly unusual at the time. When in 1489 Lorenzo de' Medici ("Lorenzo il Magnifico")," de facto ruler of Florence, asked Ghirlandaio for his two best pupils, Ghirlandaio sent Michelangelo and Francesco Granacci. Lorenzo had taken notice of Michelangelo’s unusual talent and, wishing to encourage him, proposed for Michelangelo to move into the palace and live there as his son to be educated along with the Medici children. Lorenzo even offered Michelangelo’s father Lodovico a respectable position in the palace. Michelangelo was thrown into the midst of the Medici circle where he was involved with poetry, science, philosophy, and art"."
Descent from Mount Sinai (Sistine Chapel)
On 27 October 1480, several Florentine painters left for Rome, where they had been called as part of the reconciliation project between Lorenzo de' Medici, the "de facto" ruler of Florence, and Pope Sixtus IV. The Florentines started to work in the Sistine Chapel as early as spring 1481, along with Pietro Perugino, who was already there. Rosselli brought with him his son-in-law, Piero di Cosimo, who perhaps collaborated on this painting and at least one of the others assigned by his master.
The Prophet Isaiah (Raphael)
Much comparison is made of the Raphael fresco "Prophet Isaiah" to the work of Michelangelo, Ernst Gombrich going as far to suggest that Michelangelo may have hired Raphael to work on Ezekiel for the Sistine Chapel, which he believes is much more reflective of Raphael than of Michelangelo. This would have allowed Raphael to both gain influence by Michelangelo and also contribute to the decoration of the Sistine Chapel.
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.
Sistine Chapel
The Sistine Chapel's ceiling restoration began on 7 November 1984. The restoration complete, the chapel was re-opened to the public on 8 April 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 and removed the original intent of the artist.
Vatican Museums
Pope Julius II founded the museums in the early 16th century. The Sistine Chapel, with its ceiling decorated by Michelangelo and the Stanze di Raffaello decorated by Raphael, are on the visitor route through the Vatican Museums. In 2017, they were visited by 6 million people, which combined makes it the 5th most visited art museum in the world.
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.
Leda and the Swan (Michelangelo)
In 1512 Alfonso I d'Este, Duke of Ferrara went to Rome to reconcile with Pope Julius II, who had excommunicated him in summer 1510 for his alliance with Louis XII of France against the Republic of Venice. Julius absolved him and Alfonso spent a few days in Rome before returning to Ferrara. On 11 July he visited the Sistine Chapel, where Michelangelo was completing the ceiling. As he climbed the scaffolding he had a long and admiring conversation with Michelangelo, who promised him a painting.
Sistine Chapel ceiling
Michelangelo painted onto the damp plaster using a wash technique to apply broad areas of colour, then as the surface became drier, he revisited these areas with a more linear approach, adding shade and detail with a variety of brushes. For some textured surfaces, such as facial hair and woodgrain, he used a broad brush with bristles as sparse as a comb. He employed all the finest workshop methods and best innovations, combining them with a diversity of brushwork and breadth of skill far exceeding that of the meticulous Ghirlandaio.
Sistine Chapel ceiling
Along the central section of the ceiling, Michelangelo depicted nine scenes from the Book of Genesis, the first book of the Bible. The pictures are organized into three groups of three alternating large and small panels.
Michelangelo
In 1505 Michelangelo was invited back to Rome by the newly elected Pope Julius II and commissioned to build the Pope's tomb, which was to include forty statues and be finished in five years. Under the patronage of the pope, Michelangelo experienced constant interruptions to his work on the tomb in order to accomplish numerous other tasks. Although Michelangelo worked on the tomb for 40 years, it was never finished to his satisfaction. It is located in the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome and is most famous for the central figure of Moses, completed in 1516. Of the other statues intended for the tomb, two, known as the "Rebellious Slave" and the "Dying Slave", are now in the Louvre.
The Entombment (Michelangelo)
According to documents discovered in 1981, Michelangelo had been commissioned to paint a panel for the church of Sant'Agostino in Rome, but in the end gave back the sum received. It is probable that this work was the "Entombment", which remained unfinished upon Michelangelo's return to Florence.
Sistine Madonna
The Sistine Madonna, also called the Madonna di San Sisto, is an oil painting by the Italian artist Raphael Sanzio. The painting was commissioned in 1512 by Pope Julius II for the church of San Sisto, Piacenza. The canvas was one of the last Madonnas painted by Raphael. Giorgio Vasari called it "a truly rare and extraordinary work".
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.
Sistine Chapel
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. Contrary to popular belief, he did not lie on this scaffolding while he painted, but painted from a standing position.
Sistine Chapel ceiling
Michelangelo was also almost certainly influenced by the paintings of Luca Signorelli whose paintings, particularly the "Death and Resurrection Cycle" in Orvieto Cathedral contain a great number of nudes and inventive figurative compositions. In Bologna, Michelangelo saw the relief sculptures of Jacopo della Quercia around the doors of the cathedral. In Michelangelo's depiction of the "Creation of Eve" the whole composition, the form of the figures and the relatively conservative concept of the relationship between Eve and her Creator adheres closely to Jacopo's design. Other panels on the ceiling, most particularly the iconic "Creation of Adam" show "... unprecedented invention".
Risen Christ (Michelangelo, Santa Maria sopra Minerva)
The work was commissioned in June 1514, by the Roman patrician Metello Vari, who stipulated only that the nude standing figure would have the Cross in his arms, but left the composition entirely to Michelangelo. Michelangelo was working on a first version of this statue in his studio in Macello dei Corvi around 1515, but abandoned it in roughed-out condition when he discovered a black vein in the white marble, remarked upon by Vari in a letter, and later by Ulisse Aldrovandi. A new version was hurriedly substituted in 1519-1520 to fulfil the terms of the contract. Michelangelo worked on it in Florence, and the move to Rome and final touches were entrusted to an apprentice, Pietro Urbano; the latter, however, damaged the work and had to be quickly replaced by Federico Frizzi at the suggestion of Sebastiano del Piombo.
The first version, rough as it was, was asked for by Metello Vari, and given him in January 1522, for the little garden courtyard of his palazzetto near Santa Maria sopra Minerva, ' translated as "As his greatest honor, as if it were of gold", a mark of the esteem in which Michelangelo was held". There it remained, described by Aldrovandi in 1556, and noted in some contemporary letters as apparently for sale in 1607, following which it was utterly lost to sight. In 2000 Irene Baldriga recognized the lost first version, finished in the early seventeenth century, in the sacristy of the church of San Vincenzo Martire, at Bassano Romano near Viterbo; the black vein is clearly distinguishable on Christ's left cheek. It is now often called the Giustiniani Christ. The parts finished later are the "right hand, parts of the face and the back".
Gaspare Diziani
Between 1710-1720, he painted a group of eight pictures that included the "Mary Magdalene" for the church of Santo Stefano in Belluno, and "Entry into Jerusalem" for San Teodoro in Venice. He also painted three frescoes on the "Life of Saint Helena" in the Scuola del Vin next to the church of San Silvestro. Diziani’s celerity and technical assurance are evident from preparatory oil sketches, where color has been applied in rapid and spirited strokes.
Michelangelo
In 1520 the Medici came back to Michelangelo with another grand proposal, this time for a family funerary chapel in the Basilica of San Lorenzo. For posterity, this project, occupying the artist for much of the 1520s and 1530s, was more fully realised. Michelangelo used his own discretion to create the composition of the Medici Chapel, which houses the large tombs of two of the younger members of the Medici family, Giuliano, Duke of Nemours, and Lorenzo, his nephew. It also serves to commemorate their more famous predecessors, Lorenzo the Magnificent and his brother Giuliano, who are buried nearby. The tombs display statues of the two Medici and allegorical figures representing Night and Day, and Dusk and Dawn. The chapel also contains Michelangelo's "Medici Madonna". In 1976 a concealed corridor was discovered with drawings on the walls that related to the chapel itself.
Sistine Chapel ceiling
Michelangelo, who was not primarily a painter but a sculptor, was reluctant to take on the work. Also, he was occupied with a very large sculptural commission for the pope's own tomb. The pope was adamant, leaving Michelangelo no choice but to accept. But a war with the French broke out, diverting the attention of the pope, and Michelangelo fled from Rome to continue sculpting. The tomb sculptures, however, were never to be finished because in 1508 the pope returned to Rome victorious and summoned Michelangelo to begin work on the ceiling. The contract was signed on 10 May 1508.
Conservation and restoration of frescos
The Sistine Chapel was restored in the late 1970s and through the 1980s. This was one of the most significant, largest and longest art restoration projects in history. The entire project took twelve years to complete, not taking into account the inspections, planning and approval of the project. Among the many parts of the chapel that was restored, what drew the most attention were Michelangelo's frescoes. The restoration sparked controversy. A number of experts criticized the proposed techniques, claiming that the restoration procedure would scrape off the layers of various materials on the frescoes, which would lead to damage beyond repair, and that the removal of the materials would expose the pigments on the frescoes which were fragile and dated to artificial light, temperature variations, humidity and pollution. Such exposure, they feared, would cause massive damage to the original artwork.
The Creation of Adam
During the same period, Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which took approximately four years to complete (1508–1512). According to Condivi's account, Bramante, who was working on the building of St Peter's Basilica, resented Michelangelo's commission for the Pope's tomb and convinced the Pope to commission him in a medium with which he was unfamiliar, in order that he might fail at the task.
Giuliano Bugiardini
Some years later in Rome, while at work on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo sought Giuliano Bugiardini's services but later rejected them. Vasari mentioned Bugiardini assisted Michelangelo very briefly in 1508 with the painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He painted a "Martyrdom of St Catherine" for Santa Maria Novella in Florence, based on Michelangelo's sketches. He also painted in Bologna in 1526–1530.
Sistine Chapel
The Sistine Chapel (; ; ) is a chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope, in Vatican City. Originally known as the "Cappella Magna", the chapel takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV, who restored it between 1477 and 1480. Since that time, 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. The fame of the Sistine Chapel lies mainly in the frescos that decorate the interior, and most particularly the Sistine Chapel ceiling and "The Last Judgment" by Michelangelo.
Palazzo Vecchio
Michelangelo never even got past making the preparatory drawings for the fresco he was supposed to paint on the opposite wall—Pope Julius II called him to Rome to paint the Sistine Chapel, and the master's sketches were destroyed by eager young artists who came to study them and took away scraps. The surviving decorations in this hall were made between 1555 and 1572 by Giorgio Vasari and his helpers, among them Livio Agresti from Forlì. They mark the culmination of mannerism and make this hall the showpiece of the palace.
Michelangelo
In November 1497, the French ambassador to the Holy See, Cardinal Jean de Bilhères-Lagraulas, commissioned him to carve a "Pietà", a sculpture showing the Virgin Mary grieving over the body of Jesus. The subject, which is not part of the Biblical narrative of the Crucifixion, was common in religious sculpture of Medieval Northern Europe and would have been very familiar to the Cardinal. The contract was agreed upon in August of the following year. Michelangelo was 24 at the time of its completion. It was soon to be regarded as one of the world's great masterpieces of sculpture, "a revelation of all the potentialities and force of the art of sculpture". Contemporary opinion was summarised by Vasari: "It is certainly a miracle that a formless block of stone could ever have been reduced to a perfection that nature is scarcely able to create in the flesh." It is now located in St Peter's Basilica.
Michelangelo
In 1546, Michelangelo was appointed architect of St. Peter's Basilica, Rome. The process of replacing the Constantinian basilica of the 4th century had been underway for fifty years and in 1506 foundations had been laid to the plans of Bramante. Successive architects had worked on it, but little progress had been made. Michelangelo was persuaded to take over the project. He returned to the concepts of Bramante, and developed his ideas for a centrally planned church, strengthening the structure both physically and visually. The dome, not completed until after his death, has been called by Banister Fletcher, "the greatest creation of the Renaissance".
Francis Quinn
Michelangelo was 71 when he painted the Sistine Chapel.
Sistine Chapel
During the reign of Sixtus IV, a team of Renaissance painters that included Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Pinturicchio, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Cosimo Rosselli, created a series of frescos 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 15 August 1483 Sixtus IV celebrated the first mass in the Sistine Chapel for the Feast of the Assumption, at which ceremony the chapel was consecrated and dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
Italian Renaissance painting
In 1480, a group of artists from Florence was commissioned with the work: Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Cosimo Rosselli. This fresco cycle was to depict "Stories of the Life of Moses" on one side of the chapel, and "Stories of the Life of Christ" on the other with the frescoes complementing each other in theme. "The Nativity of Jesus" and the "Finding of Moses" were adjacent on the wall behind the altar, with an altarpiece of the "Assumption of the Virgin" between them. These paintings, all by Perugino, were later destroyed to paint Michelangelo's "Last Judgement".
The remaining 12 pictures indicate the virtuosity that these artists had attained, and the obvious cooperation between individuals who normally employed very different styles and skills. 
The paintings gave full range to their capabilities as they included a great number of figures of men, women and children and characters ranging from guiding angels to enraged Pharaohs and the devil himself. Each painting required a landscape. Because of the scale of the figures that the artists agreed upon, in each picture, the landscape and sky take up the whole upper half of the scene. Sometimes, as in Botticelli's scene of "The Purification of the Leper", there are additional small narratives taking place in the landscape, in this case "The Temptations of Christ".
Separation of Light from Darkness
The Separation of Light from Darkness is, from the perspective of the Genesis chronology, the first of nine central panels that run along the center of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling and which depict scenes from the Book of Genesis. Michelangelo probably completed this panel in the summer of 1512, the last year of the Sistine ceiling project. It is one of five smaller scenes that alternate with four larger scenes that run along the center of the Sistine ceiling. The "Separation of Light from Darkness" is based on verses 3–5 from the first chapter of the Book of Genesis:
Although in terms of the Genesis chronology it is the first of nine central panels along the Sistine ceiling, the "Separation of Light from Darkness" was the last of the nine panels painted by Michelangelo. Michelangelo painted the Sistine ceiling in two stages. Between May 1508 and the summer of 1511, he completed the "entrance half" of the Sistine chapel and ended this stage by painting the "Creation of Eve" and the scenes flanking this central panel. After an idle period of about 6 months, he painted the "altar half," starting with the "Creation of Adam", between the winter of 1511 and October 1512.
The Battle of Anghiari (Leonardo da Vinci)
Michelangelo's and Leonardo's unfinished paintings adorned the same room together for almost a decade (1505–1512). The cartoon of Michelangelo's painting was cut in pieces by Bartolommeo Bandinelli out of jealousy in 1512. The centerpiece of "The Battle of Anghiari" was greatly admired and numerous copies were made for decades.
Sistine Chapel
The project was perhaps supervised by Perugino, who arrived at the chapel prior to the Florentines. It is probable that the commission of Ghirlandaio, Botticelli and Roselli was part of a reconciliation project between Lorenzo de' Medici, the "de facto" ruler of Florence, and Pope Sixtus IV. The Florentines started to work in the Sistine Chapel in the Spring of 1481.
Testament and Death of Moses
On 27 October 1480 a group of Florentine painters left for Rome, where he had been called as part of the reconciliation project between Lorenzo de' Medici, the "de facto" ruler of Florence, and Pope Sixtus IV. The Florentines started to work in the Sistine Chapel as early as the Spring of 1481, along with Pietro Perugino, who was already there. Neither Bartolomeo della Gatta nor Luca Signorelli (who was thirty at the time) appear in the official contracts signed between the Papal court and the painters, but they were most likely among the assistants of Perugino, who was the general superintendent of the works. Signorelli is mentioned in the Sistine Chapel after his master left in 1482, as the author of the "Disputation over Moses' Body" on the entrance wall (repainted by Matteo da Lecce in 1574 due to its poor state).
Doom paintings
The most famous of all Doom paintings, "The Last Judgment" by Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, painted in 1537 to 1541, comes at the end of the tradition, and is unusually sited on the east wall behind the altar.
Sistine Chapel
The northern wall houses the "Stories of Jesus", dating to 1481–1482. They include:Michelangelo 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.
Sistine Chapel ceiling
The entire ceiling is a fresco, which is an ancient method for painting murals that relies upon a chemical reaction between damp lime plaster and water-based pigments to permanently fuse the work into the wall. Michelangelo had been an apprentice in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio, one of the most competent and prolific of Florentine fresco painters, at the time that the latter was employed on a fresco cycle at Santa Maria Novella and whose work was represented on the walls of the Sistine Chapel. At the outset, the plaster, "intonaco", began to grow mold because it was too wet. Michelangelo had to remove it and start again. He then tried a new formula created by one of his assistants, Jacopo l'Indaco, which resisted mold and entered the Italian building and fresco tradition.
Because he was painting "fresco", the plaster was laid in a new section every day, called a "giornata". At the beginning of each session, the edges would be scraped away and a new area laid down. The edges between "giornate" remain slightly visible; thus, they give a good idea of how the work progressed. It was customary for fresco painters to use a full-sized detailed drawing, a "cartoon", to transfer a design onto a plaster surface—many frescoes show little holes made with a stiletto, outlining the figures. Here Michelangelo broke with convention; once confident the "intonaco" had been well applied, he drew directly onto the ceiling. His energetic sweeping outlines can be seen scraped into some of the surfaces, while on others a grid is evident, indicating that he enlarged directly onto the ceiling from a small drawing.