The Sistine Chapel - Is It Michelangelo’s Greatest Work?

It was Pope Sixtus IV who commissioned and gave the name to the Sistine Chapel. But it was in 1508 that Pope Julius II gave the chapel worldwide fame when he commissioned the amazing Italian artist Michelangelo to paint the 10,000 square foot ceiling with his creative frescoes.

As you travel to the Sistine Chapel to enjoy that magnificent painting, there is a lot to see in Rome en route. The chapel is not far from the seat of power for the Catholic Church, the Vatican and whether you are Catholic or not, it’s an amazing place to tour. Also not far from the Vatican is St. Peter’s Basilica that houses yet another great Michelangelo painting called “The Pieta”. While you are in St. Peter’s, the amazing dome over the Basilica is also legionary, so see all that you can because you will be talking about it when you get home.

The actual chapel is not that large, at 135 feet wide by 44 feet tall. But it’s what is on the inside that makes all the difference, because the artwork this church holds is the envy of every major museum in the world. A major restoration project that was carried out between 1979 and 1999 was completed to assure that this beautiful chapel will be there for people to enjoy for generations to come.

In addition to Michelangelo, many renowned artists are on display in the Sistine Chapel. Botticelli’s art works are on display there including his well known “The Punishment of Korah” and the 1482 “Life of Moses”. But a few steps away, you can also view works by true masters of the Renaissance period such as Ghirlandaio, Perugino and Rosselli.

But it is the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel that will always be the primary draw of visitors of all religions and nationalities. Before Michelangelo began his work, that ceiling was decorated with a simple painted stars pattern. It took the master four long years of tedious and painful work to transform that ceiling into the masterpiece that is there for our viewing today.

Michelangelo used a variety of stories from the Old Testament of the Hebrew Bible to fill his painting with prophets, Noah, Sibyls, unnamed male nude figures and even the most famous segment showing the almighty God Jehovah touching his finger to Adam to bring mankind to life.

Since the Vatican ordered the painting restored and cleaned in the 1990s, it once again explodes with the colors that the great master wanted us to see. The great thinker Goethe wrote the following words concerning the painting on the Sistine Chapel ceiling:

“Without having seen the Sistine Chapel one can form no appreciable idea of what one man is capable of achieving.”

Michelangelo had to invent a special kind of scaffold that he would use for the four year time frame as the painting was created. The work was hard and dangerous and at times the paint itself almost blinded him. And the master had to develop and put to use many new innovations in painting never used before. One such invention was a completely new kind of plaster called intonaco which was capable of resisting mold and that held paint in place much better than previous designs. This plaster is still used by painters of modern times.

The bulk of the work on the Sistine Chapel was done by 1512. But Michelangelo had more to share so he returned to the site twenty years later and he created The Last Judgment between 1535 and 1541. So be sure you bring your eyes down from the ceiling to take in this second masterpiece inside the chapel that covers the wall behind the alter of the church.

You will find The Last Judgment mesmerizing and full of interesting scenes, including a self portrait that shows St. Bartholomew having his skin flayed. Michelangelo’s images are so striking and challenging that they drew criticism from the powers that be at the time because he so frequently included nude figures in his work. It says something that Michelangelo won out in these disputes but it is tragic that later those art works were marred by censors who painted over the genitals of the nudes.

Even tourists for whom great art is not a passion will come away awe struck by the Sistine Chapel ceiling. And when you go home from your time in Rome, you will know that your trip was complete because you took the time to see this great masterpiece in the only place it will ever be shown, on the ceiling of this ancient chapel.

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