Throughout the arc of the year, some 5 million people enter the
Sistine Chapel. As they gaze about them, their eyes feast on works of
some of the greatest art of the Italian Renaissance. In the early summer of 1508, Michaelangelo wrote an entry into his domestic ledger.
“I, the sculptor Michaelangelo, today on 10 May 1508, have received 500 ducats from the Chamber of His Holiness as the first instalment of the painting of the Chapel of Pope Sixtus, in accordance with which I am starting work today...”
The commission from Pope Julius II arrived in 1506.
For Julius, the commission was the continuation of a family project.
His uncle, Pope Sixtus IV (1471-84) had ordered the architect Giovanni dei Dolci to design the chapel according to the shape and measurements of the Temple of Solomon.
Pope Sixtus had engaged some of the finest Tuscan artists of his day.
Artists such as Ghirlandiao, Perugino, Pinturicchio and Roselli had laid out a scheme of parallel lives of Moses and Christ. Above the panels, a series of full portraits of the early pontiffs underlined the role of the papacy in the development of the Church.
Extensive repair
In 1504, cracks in the ceiling appeared.
The repair of the ceiling required extensive repair, which was completed in early 1506.
Pope Julius’ commission was unwelcome for several reasons.
Already in 1505, Pope Julius had ordered Michaelangelo to prepare his funerary monument, to be placed in the choir chapel of St Peter’s Basilica.
It was to be decorated with 40 marble statues, on top of which was to rest the recumbent figure of the Pontiff, supported by two angels.
Michaelangelo had already ordered and paid for the marble to be used in the tomb and had presented the Pope with a design.
Michaelangelo protested that the painting of the ceiling would delay the work on the tomb.
The Pope refused to rescind his orders.
Rome was in a frenzy of building and decoration.
In April 1506, Julius laid the foundation stone of a new St Peter’s Basilica, designed to replace the millennium-old Constantinian basilica.
In 1508, Rapael di Stanzio commenced the decoration of the Pope’s private apartments in the Apostolic Palace.
Julius told the Florentine artist that he wanted a series of the 12 apostles gathered around the figure of Christ, an image regularly employed by artists since the 3rd Century. Michaelangelo initially agreed.
On reflection, he felt the formation would not work on the long ceiling. When the Pope asked what prompted the change of mind, Michaelangelo replied: “The apostles were poor and this painting will be poor.”
Ambitious
The plan presented by Michaelangelo was ambitious.
Over nine panels, Michaelangelo proposed to paint the creation of the world and the great flood.
Working on a bridge platform, Michaelangelo and his few assistants toiled for four years.
On 31 October, the scaffold was dismantled and the work appeared for the first time in all its glory.
To celebrate the 500th anniversary, Pope Benedict celebrated Vespers in the Sistine Chapel on October 31, exactly 500 years to the date and hour where Pope Julius celebrated vespers on the day the chapel was unveiled.