Sistine Chapel

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Between 1475 and 1481, under the pontificate of Sixtus IV Della Rovere, Giovannino de' Dolci, on a plan by Baccio Pontelli, built what may be called the Chapel of Chapels. Architecturally the Sistine Chapel is a spacious rectangular hall with a barrel vault, divided into two une-qual parts by a splendid marble transenna or screen by Mino da Fiesole together with Giovanni il Dalmata and Andrea Bregno. The same artists also made the choir loft.

But the chief attractions of the Sistine Chapel are of course its frescoes, particularly those by Michelangelo, on the walls and vault. Michelangelo's marvelous paint-ings, however, came after others, which had been painted under the pontificate of Sixtus IV between 1481 and 1483, and which cover the wall facing the altar and the two side walls (these include paintings by Perugino. Pin-turicchio, Luca Signorelli, Cosimo Rosselli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Botticelli). The vault was blue and scattered with stars until Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to redecorate the vast surface.Michelangelo worked on the ceiling from 1508 to 1512 and created a powerful architectural framework for the well known figures of the Sibyls and the Prophels, the elegant bold Ignudi, the nine Stories from Genesis, in-cluding the universally famous Creation of Man.

Twenty-five years later, between 1536 and 1541, Michelangelo returned to the Sistine Chapel, this time un-der the papacy of Paul III Farnese. The new great fresco of The Lasf Judgement covers the whole back wall of the Sistine Chapel and it was so large that two of Perugino's frescoes had to be destroyed and two large arched win-dows had to be walled up.

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