The Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo, is considered to be one of the finest works of art of all time. A a tourist visiting the chapel can only imagine what it must have been like for the artist to lie on his back on the huge scaffolding, toiling endlessly to paint each detail to fit into the larger-than-life scenes. While today a painter might use interior scaffolding that is rolling scaffolding, in his day, the scaffolding was built to be stationary.

Starting in 1508, Michelangelo spent twenty months painting the ceiling. It is said that artists such as Raphael and Donato Bramante urged the Pope to select Michelangelo for this project, hoping that, as a sculptor and not a painter, he would fail. They did this out of jealousy over Michelangelo’s meteoric success.. Even though he knew Michelangelo was famous as a sculptor, the Pope felt that he had the ability to bring to life the Biblical visions. Michelangelo was reluctant to take on this task because he lacked confidence in his ability to correctly render the foreshortening of the figures that would be required.

In a life story completed in 1553, Michelangelo’s protégé, Ascanio Condivi, had this to say about Michelangelo’s work. He completed this entire work in twenty months, with help from no one, not even someone to grind his colors for him. It is true that I have heard him say that it is not completed as he would have wanted, as he was held back by the urgency of the Pope, who asked him one day when he would finish that ceiling, and when Michelangelo answered, ‘When I can,’ the pope, enraged, retorted, ‘You want me to have you thrown off the scaffolding.’ Hearing this, Michelangelo said to himself, ‘You shall not have me thrown off,’ and he descended to the floor and had the scaffolding disassembled”, and on All Saints’ Day he revealed the work, which the pope, who great pleasure, and all Rome admired it and crowded to see it.

The characters depicted on this painting are all based on Biblical stories. The centerpiece, “The Creation of Adam,” is probably one of the most widely recognized masterpieces of religious art. It is reproduced frequently and often parodied. This scene shows God giving life to the newly created Adam. Within the spandrels along the side are figures representing the ancestors of Christ. The spandrels are spaces between the right or left exterior curve of an arch and an enclosing right angle. In the Sistine Chapel, the spandrels are defined by a molding. This molding is the only actual architectural portion of the painting. All other architectural pieces are optical illusions. Between the Old and New Testament sections Michelangelo has depicted the prophets and sibyls in meditation.

A tourist viewing the entire scene can discern a difference between one end of the painting and the other. As Michelangelo began, he worked with great detail to include every detail. However, as time passed, and the impatience of the Pope grew, the level of detail had to be scaled back. This difference does not detract from the glory of the work. As one of the great works of religious art, the Sistine Chapel is the highlight of a visit to Italy, and not to be missed.