The Sistine Chapel takes its name from Pope
Sixtus IV Della Rovere (it is also called Sixtine Chapel),
and was built between 1475 and 1480.
The structure of the Sistine Chapel is quite simple, with
a rectangular plan, but its frescoes are breathtaking. The
side walls and the East wall of the Sistine Chapel were
frescoed by many famous artists, among them Perugino, Sandro
Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Rosselli.
The vault and the West wall, instead, were painted by Michelangelo
Buonarroti.
On the West wall Michelangelo painted an extraordinary fresco
of the Last Judgement.
If we can say that the Pietà is the product of the
artist's juvenile genius, in the Last Judgement Michelangelo
expressed the highest level of his mature art.The wall seems
to open beyond the Sistine Chapel, on an impressive Last
Judgement scenario.
The fresco shows scenes from the Old Testament and details
taken from other sources, such as the figures of Charon
and Minox, from Dante's Divine Comedy.
The composition has a dynamic progress that starts with
the sound of the trumpets and reaches its climax in Christ's
gesture of condemnation.
In the two crescents: the Angels (Archangel Gabriel among
them) carry the symbols of Christ's passion.Below, centre:
Christ the Judge, unusually vigorous and without beard,
with a powerfully built body.
The Virgin, on the left, turns her eyes compassionately.
At their feet, Rome's patron Saints, Saint Lawrence and
Saint Bartholomew (Holding his skin, where Michelangelo's
self portrait appears).
On the right, Saint Peter holding the keys, Adam and Eve,
Esau and Jacob, the Cyrenaic carrying the cross on his shoulders,
Saint Sebastian holding the arrows, Saint Catherine of Alexandria,
Saint Blaise, Dysmas with the cross and Simon Zelotes holding
a saw.
On the left, Saint Andrew and the cross, John the Baptist,
a naked Eve and Virgil. In the lower section, the Angels
in the centre are waking up the dead with their trumpets.
Bottom left: the chosen are ascending to the sky, and they
are given back their bodies.
The two men hanging from a rosary are an anti-Lutheran allusion.The
sinners condemned to Hell are on the right, where we can
see the two characters from Dante's Comedy: Charon e Minos.
Michelangelo gave the latter the face of Biagio da Cesena,
who had strongly criticised the artist's work.
The Sistine Chapel represents in painting what Saint Peter's
Cathedral is in architecture: the fulfilment of an ideal
artistic perfection. In the Sistine Chapel Michelangelo has
fully interpreted the Italian Renaissance, using a lively
and powerful pictorial language.
This is one of the reasons why the Sistine Chapel keeps
attracting visitors from all over the world.
click over one of the four areas to enlarge |
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The Last Judgement, by Michelangelo
Buonarroti
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la figura di San Pietro,
nel Giudizio Universale
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