Sistine Chapel - Architecture, Frescoes, Conclave, Quotes

A chapel in the Vatican, built in 1475–81 for Pope Sixtus IV. It is remarkable for a series of frescoes executed on its ceiling and altar wall by Michelangelo. It is the scene of papal elections, and is also the home of the Sistine Choir.

The Sistine Chapel (Italian: Cappella Sistina) is a chapel in the Apostolic Palace, the official residence of the Pope, in the Vatican City. Its fame rests on its architecture, which evokes the Temple of the Old Testament, its decoration, frescoed throughout by the greatest Renaissance artists, including Michelangelo, whose ceiling is legendary, and its purpose, as a site of papal religious and functionary activity, notably the conclave, at which a new Pope is selected.

Architecture

The Sistine Chapel is rectangular and measures 40.93 meters (134.28 feet) long by 13.41 meters (44 feet) wide (the dimensions of the Temple of Solomon, as given in the Old Testament).

A transenna in marble by Mino da Fiesole, Andrea Bregno and Giovanni Dalmata divides the chapel into two parts;

During rare important ceremonies, side walls are covered with a series of tapestries originally commissioned for the chapel by Raphael, but looted by the French armies and scattered around Europe.

The architectural plans were made by Baccio Pontelli and the construction work was supervised by Giovannino de Dolci between 1473 and 1484, at the orders of Pope Sixtus IV, from whom the Sistine Chapel takes its name.

The first mass in the Sistine Chapel was celebrated on August 9, 1483, as a ceremony by which it was consecrated and dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.

Frescoes

The wall paintings were executed by premier painters of the Quattrocento: Perugino, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Rossellini, Signorelli and their respective workshops, which included Pinturicchio, Piero di Cosimo and Bartolomeo della Gatta. The subjects were historical religious themes, selected and divided according to the medieval concept of the partition of the world history into three epochs: before the Ten Commandments were given to Moses, between Moses and Christ's birth, and the Christian era thereafter.

The walls were painted over an astonishingly short period of time, barely eleven months, from July, 1481 to May, 1482. The painters were each required first to execute a sample fresco;

The pictorial programme for the chapel was comprised of a cycle each from the Old and New Testament of scenes from the lives of Moses and Christ. The narratives began at the altar wall - the frescoes painted there yielding to Michelangelo's Last Judgment a mere thirty years later - continued along the long walls of the chapel, and ended at the entrance wall. A gallery of papal portraits was painted above these depictions, and the latter were completed underneath by representations of painted curtains. The Old and New Testament are understood as constituting a whole, with Moses appearing as the prefiguration of Christ.

The typological positioning of the Moses and Christ cycles has a political dimension going beyond a mere illustrating of the correspondences between Old and New Testament. Sixtus IV was employing a precisely conceived program to illustrate through the entire cycle the legitimacy of papal authority, running from Moses, via Christ, to Peter, whose ultimate authority, conferred by Christ, ultimately to the Pope of present.

The two most important scenes from the fresco cycle, Perugino's Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter and Botticelli's The Punishment of Korah; both contain in the background the triumphal arch of Constantine, the first Christian emperor, who gave the Pope temporal power over the Roman western world.

Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter

This fresco is located in the fifth compartment in the northern wall.

Among Perugino's frescoes in the Chapel, the Christ Giving the Keys to St. Peter is stylistically the most instructive. The principal group, showing Christ handing the silver and gold keys to the kneeling St. Peter, is surrounded by the other Apostles, including Judas (fifth figure to the left of Christ), all with halos, together with portraits of contemporaries, including one said to be a self-portrait (fifth from the right edge). Scattered in the middle distance are two secondary scenes from the life of Christ, including the Tribute Money on the left and the Stoning of Christ on the right.

The style of the figures is inspired to Verrocchio.

The octagonal temple with its ample porches that dominates the central axis must have had behind it a project created by an architect, but Perugino's treatment is like the rendering of a wooden model, painted with exactitude. The sense of an infinite world that stretches across the horizon is stronger than in almost any other work of his contemporaries, and the feathery trees against the cloud-filled sky with the bluish-gray hills in the distance represent a solution that later painters would find instructive, especially Raphael.

Scenes of the Life of Moses

Botticelli painted three scenes within the short period of eleven months: Scenes from the Life of Moses, The Temptation of Christ and The Punishment of Korah. He also painted, with much help from his workshop, in the niches above the biblical scenes, some portraits of popes which have been considerably painted over. In all these works his painting appears relatively weak.

The Scenes of the Life of Moses fresco is opposite The Temptation of Christ also painted by Botticelli.

As the Moses cycle starts on the wall behind the altar, the scenes should, unlike the pictures of the temptations of Christ, be read from right to left: (1) Moses in a shining yellow garment, angrily strikes an Egyptian overseer and then (2) flees to the Midianites.

The Punishment of Korah

The message of this painting provides the key to an understanding of the Sistine Chapel as a whole before Michelangelo's work. The fresco reproduces three episodes, each of which depicts a rebellion by the Hebrews against God's appointed leaders, Moses and Aaron, along with the ensuing divine punishment of the agitators. however, Joshua placed himself protectively between them and their would-be victim, as depicted in Botticelli's painting.

The centre of the fresco shows the rebellion, under the leadership of Korah, of the sons of Aaron and some Levites, who, setting themselves up in defiance of Aaron's authority as high priest, also offered up incense.

The principal message of these scenes is made manifest by the inscription in the central field of the triumphal arch: "Let no man take the honour to himself except he that is called by God, as Aaron was." This warning also contained a contemporary political reference through the portrayal of Aaron in the fresco, depicted wearing the triple-ringed tiara of the Pope and thus characterized as the papal predecessor. The papal claims to leadership were God-given, their origin lay in Christ giving Peter the keys to the kingdom of heaven and thereby granting him primacy over the young Church. Perugino painted this crucial element of the doctrine of papal supremacy immediately opposite Botticelli's fresco.

The Temptation of Christ

The fresco which Botticelli began in July, 1481, is the third scene within the Christ cycle and depicts the Temptation of Christ. On the right in the background, three angels have prepared a table for the celebration of the Eucharist, a scene which only becomes comprehensible when seen in conjunction with the event in the foreground of the fresco.

At first sight, the inclusion of this Jewish sacrificial scene in the Christ cycle would appear extremely puzzling;

Michelangelo's painting

Michelangelo Buonarroti was commissioned by Pope Julius II in 1508 to repaint the ceiling, originally representing golden stars on a blue sky; He painted the Last Judgment over the altar, between 1535 and 1541, being commissioned by Pope Paul III Farnese. Michelangelo felt that he was a more developed sculptor than a painter, but he accepted the offer.

Left section of the ceiling, after restoration

Left centre section of the ceiling, after restoration

Right centre section of the ceiling, after restoration

Right section of the ceiling, after restoration

Ceiling

In 1508 Michelangelo was commissioned by Pope Julius II to paint the vault, or ceiling of the chapel. To be able to reach the ceiling, Michelangelo needed a support; But Michelangelo suspected that this would leave holes in the ceiling once the work was ended, so he built a scaffold of his own, a flat wooden platform on brackets built out from holes in the wall, high up near the top of the windows. He stood on this scaffolding while he painted.

The first layer of plaster began to grow mold because it was too wet. Michelangelo had to remove it and start again, so he tried a new mixture of plaster, called intonaco, which was resistant to mold. It was created by one of Michelangelo's assistants, Jacopo l'Indaco, and is still in use today.

Michelangelo used bright colors, easily visible from the floor. On the lowest part of the ceiling he painted the ancestors of Christ. On the highest section Michelangelo painted nine stories from the Book of Genesis.

Michelangelo was originally commissioned to paint only 12 figures, the Apostles. The Pope offered to allow Michelangelo to paint biblical scenes of his own choice as a compromise. Michelangelo used male models, even for the females, because female models were rare and more expensive.

Last Judgement

The Last Judgment was painted by Michelangelo from 1535-1541, after the 1527 Sack of Rome by Protestant forces from the Holy Roman Empire, which effectively ended the Roman Renaissance, and just before the Council of Trent, a time of great uncertainty as to the future of the church. The work is massive and spans the entire wall behind the altar of the Sistine Chapel. The wall on which The Last Judgment is painted cants out slightly over the viewer as it rises, and is meant to be somewhat fearful and to instill piety and respect for God's power. In contrast to the other frescoes in the Chapel, the figures are heavily muscled and appear somewhat tortured–even the Virgin Mary at the center cowers beneath him.

The Last Judgment was an object of a heavy dispute between Cardinal Carafa and Michelangelo: the artist was accused of immorality and intolerable obscenity, having depicted naked figures, with genitals in evidence, so a censorship campaign (known as the "Fig-Leaf Campaign") was organized by Carafa and Monsignor Sernini (Mantua's ambassador) to remove the frescoes. When the Pope's own Master of Ceremonies, Biagio da Cesena, said "it was mostly disgraceful that in so sacred a place there should have been depicted all those nude figures, exposing themselves so shamefully, and that it was no work for a papal chapel but rather for the public baths and taverns," Michelangelo worked da Cesena's semblance into the scene as Minos, judge of the underworld.

The genitalia in the fresco were later covered by the artist Daniele da Volterra, whom history remembers by the derogatory nickname "Il Braghettone" ("the breeches-painter").

Restoration and controversy

The chapel has been recently restored (1981 through 1994). Despite evidence to the contrary, they claim that this layer of murky material was actually applied by Michelangelo himself in order to "harmonise" what they called 'ice-cream colours'. The bright colours reveal Michelangelo to have been a masterful colourist, and close-ups of the frescos show complex brushwork that would not be matched, nor even attempted until the Impressionist movement of the 19th century. Others comment that bright colours were necessary for the frescos to stand out in the gloom of the chapel, with its high, narrow windows.

Because no substantial evidence has been found proving that these were Michelangelo's original intentions, the arguments are often disregarded.

Conclave

The election of a new Pope, the conclave takes place in the Sistine Chapel.

Canopies for each cardinal-elector were once used during conclaves — a sign of equal dignity.

Quotes

Giorgio Vasari (about Michelangelo's frescoes):

This work has been and truly is a beacon of our art, and it has brought such benefit and enlightenment to the art of painting that it was sufficient to illuminate a world which for so many hundreds of years had remained in the state of darkness. And, to tell the truth, anyone who is a painter no longer needs to concern himself about seeing innovations and inventions, new ways of painting poses, clothing on figures, and various awe-inspiring details, for Michelangelo gave to this work all the perfection that can be given to such details.

Goethe:

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

Werner Herzog (German filmmaker):

Many years ago I went to the Vatican and looked at Michelangelo's frescoes in the Sistine Chapel. I was overwhelmed with the feeling that before Michelangelo no one had ever articulated and depicted human pathos as he did in those paintings. Episode 4 of Season 1 of Animaniacs spoofs Michelangelo's painting of the Sistine Chapel and the controversial nudity behind it. Episode 58 (The Cleveland-Loretta Quagmire) of Family Guy has Peter Griffin paint over Michelangelo's work with the "Obey Giant" graffiti. The University's threat to paint over the "masterpiece" and the lawsuit over a perceived violation of the Visual Artists Rights Act ended up grabbing some national attention. Irving Stone's The Agony and the Ecstasy (Signet, 1961) is a detailed biography of the life and works of Michelangelo with a section devoted to the task of painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel...