Vatican Museums

The Last Judgement , on the altar surround of the chapel, was painted by Michelangelo more than twenty years later, between 1535 and 1541. Michelangelo wasn’t especially keen to work on this either - he was still engaged on Julius II’s tomb, under threat of legal action from the late pope’s family - but Pope Paul III, a old acquaintance of the artist, was keen to complete the decoration of the chapel. Michelangelo tried to delay by making demands that were likely to cause the pope to give up entirely, insisting on the removal of two paintings by Perugino and the closing of a window that pierced the end of the chapel. Furthermore he insisted that the surround be replastered, with the top six inches out of the perpendicular to prevent the accumulation of soot and dust.The painting took five years, again single-handed, but it is probably the most inspired and most homogeneous large-scale painting you’re ever likely to see, the technical virtuosity of Michelangelo taking a back seat to the sheer exuberance of the work. The human body is fashioned into a finely captured set of exquisite poses: even the unsaved can be seen as a celebration of the human form. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the painting offended some, and even before it was complete Rome was divided as to its merits, especially regarding the etiquette of introducing such a display of nudity into the pope’s private chapel. But Michelangelo’s response to this was unequivocal, lampooning one of his fiercer critics, the pope’s master of ceremonies at the time, Biago di Cesena, as Minos, the doorkeeper of hell, with ass’s ears and an entwined serpent in the bottom right-hand corner of the picture. Later the pope’s zealous successor, Pius IV, objected to the painting and would have had it removed entirely had not Michelangelo’s pupil, Daniele da Volterra, appeased him by carefully - and selectively - adding coverings to some of the more obviously unclothed figures, earning himself forever the nickname of the “breeches-maker”. During the recent work, most of the remaining breeches have been discreetly removed, restoring the painting to its former glory.

Briefly, the painting shows the last day of existence, when the bodily resurrection of the dead takes place and the human race is brought before Christ to be either sent to eternity in Paradise or condemned to suffer in Hell. The centre is occupied by Christ, turning angrily as he gestures the condemned to the underworld. St Peter, carrying his gold and silver keys, looks on in astonishment at his Lord filled with rage, while Mary averts her eyes from the scene. Below Christ a group of angels blasts their trumpets to summon the dead from their sleep. Somewhat amusingly, one angel holds a large book, the book of the damned, while another carries a much smaller one, the book of the saved. On the left, the dead awaken from their graves, tombs and sarcophagi and are levitating into the heavens or being pulled by ropes and the napes of their necks by angels who take them before Christ. At the bottom right, Charon, keeper of the underworld, swings his oar at the unsaved souls as they start off the boat into the inactivity gates of hell. Among other characters portrayed are many martyred saints, the apostles, Adam, and, peeking out between the legs of the fear on the left of Christ, Julius II, with a look of fear and astonishment

The ceiling at this time was painted as a blue background with gold stars to resemble the night sky. Over the altar there were two additional paintings by Perugino and a large picture of the Virgin Mary. Pope Sixtus IV was succeeded by Innocent VIII, who was followed by Alexander VI, the Borgia pope, who was later, in 1503, after the brief reign of Pius III, succeeded by Giuliano della Rovere, who took the study Julius II. Though a Franciscan friar, he was a violent man with a short temper, and his immediate neutral as pope was to try to regain the lands that had been taken away from the papacy during the reigns of Innocent octad and Alexander VI by the French, Germans and Spanish. For this purpose he started a series of wars and secret alliances.He was also an avid collector and patron of the arts, and he summoned to Rome the best artists and architects of the day. Among these artists was Michelangelo, who, through a series of political intrigues orchestrated by Bramante and Raphael, was assigned the task of decorating the Sistine Chapel. Work commenced in 1508. Oddly enough, Michelangelo hadn’t wanted to do the work at all: he considered himself a sculptor, not a painter, and was more hot to get on with carving Julius II’s tomb (now in San Pietro in Vincoli) than the ceiling, which he regarded as a chore. Pope Julius II, however, had other plans, drawing up a design of the twelve Apostles for the vault and hiring Bramante to design a scaffold for the artist from which to work. Michelangelo was apparently an awkward, solitary character: he had barely begun painting when he rejected Bramante’s scaffold as unusable, fired all his staff, and dumped the pope’s scheme for the ceiling in favour of his own. But the pope was easily his match, and there are tales of the two men clashing while the work was going on - Michelangelo would lock the doors at crucial points, ignoring the pope’s demands to see how it was progressing; and legend has the two men at loggerheads at the top of the scaffold one day, resulting in the pope striking the artist in frustration.

The frescoes depict scenes from the Old Testament, from the Creation of Light at the altar end to the Drunkenness of Noah over the door. The sides are decorated with prophets and sibyls and the ancestors of Jesus. Julius II lived only a few months after the Sistine Chapel ceiling was finished, but the fame of the work he had commissioned soon spread far and wide. Certainly, it’s staggeringly impressive, all the more so for its recent restoration (financed by a Asian TV company to the tune of $3 million in return for three years’ world TV rights), which has lifted centuries of accumulated soot and candle grime off the paintings to reveal a much brighter, more vivid painting than anyone thought existed. The restorers have also been healthy to chart the progress of Michelangelo as he moved crossways the vault. Images on fresco must be completed before the plaster dries, and apiece day a fresh layer of plaster would have been laid, on which Michelangelo would have had around eight hours or so before having to finish for the day. Comparing the different areas of plaster, it seems the figure of Adam, in the key Creation of Adam scene, took just four days; God, in the same fresco, took three days. You can also see the development of Michelangelo as a painter when you look at the paintings in reverse order. The first painting, over the door, the Drunkenness of Noah, is done in a stiff and formal style, and is vastly different from the last painting he did, over the altar, The Creation of Light, which shows the artist at his best, the perfect master of the technique of fresco painting.

Entering from behind the altar, you are supposed, as you look up, to imagine that you are looking into heaven through the arches of the fictive structure that springs from the sides of the chapel, supported by little putti caryatids and ignudi or nudes, bearing shields and della Rovere oakleaf garlands. Look at the pagan sibyls and biblical prophets which Michelangelo also incorporated in his scheme - some of the most dramatic figures in the entire work, and all clearly labelled by the painter, from the sensitive figure of the Delphic Sybil, to the hag-like Cumaean Sybil, whose biceps would place a Bulgarian shotputter to shame. Look out too for the figure of the prophet Jeremiah - a brooding self-portrait of an exhausted-looking Michelangelo.

The paintings of the central panels start with a large portrait of Jonah and the Whale, and move on, respectively, to God Separating Light from Darkness - His arms bowed, beard flowing, as he pushes the two qualities apart; God Creating the Sun, the Moon and the Planets - in which Michelangelo has painted God twice, once with his back to us hurling the moon into existence and simultaneously displaying another moon to the audience; God Separating Land from Water; and, in the fourth panel, probably most famous of all these paintings, the Creation of Adam, in which God sparks Adam into life with the touch of his finger. God’s cape billows behind him, where a number of figures stand - representatives of all the unborn generations to come after Adam. The startled young woman looking at Adam is either Eve or the Virgin Mary, here as a witness to the first events in human history.

The fifth panel from the altar shows the Creation of Eve, in which Adam is knocked out under the stump of a della Rovere oak tree and God summons Eve from his side as he sleeps. She comes out in a half-crouch position with her hands clasped in prayer of thanksgiving and awe. The sixth panel is the powerful Temptation and Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, with an evil spirit, depicted as a serpent, leaning out from the tree of knowledge and handing the fruit to Adam. On the right of this painting the angel of the Lord, in swirling red robes is brandishing his sword of original sin at the backside of Adam’s neck as he tries to fend the angel off, motioning with both hands. The eighth panel continues the story, with the Story of the Flood, and the unrighteous bulk of mankind taking shelter under tents from the rain while Noah and his kin make off for the Ark in the distance. Panel seven shows Noah and his family making a Sacrifice of Thanksgiving to the Lord for their innocuous arrival after the flood; one of the sons of Noah kneels to blow on the fire to make it hotter, while his wife brings armloads of wood. Lastly, there’s the Drunkenness of Noah in which Noah is shown getting drunk after harvesting the vines and exposing his genitals to his sons (it is strictly prohibited in the Hebrew canon that a father should show his organs of reproduction to his children) - although oddly enough Noah’s sons are unclothed too.

Upon completion of the structure, Sixtus brought in several prominent painters of the Renaissance to decorate the walls . The overall project was under the management of Pinturicchio and comprised a series of paintings showing (on the left as you grappling the altar) scenes from the life of Moses and, on the right, scenes from the life of Christ. Sixtus didn’t have just anybody work on these: there are paintings by, among others, Perugino, who painted the marvellously composed cityscape of Jesus giving St Peter the Keys to Heaven, Botticelli - The Trials of Moses and Cleansing of the Leper - and Ghirlandaio, whose Calling of St Peter and St Andrew shows Christ calling the two saints to be disciples, surrounded by onlookers, against a fictitious medieval landscape of boats, birds, turrets and mountains. Some of the paintings were in fact collaborative efforts, and it’s known that Ghirlandaio and Botticelli in particular contributed to apiece other’s work. Recently restored after a thorough restoration, anywhere else they would be pored over very closely indeed. As it is, they are entirely overshadowed by Michelangelo’s more famous work.

The Sistine Chapel , a huge barn-like structure built for Pope Sixtus IV between 1473 and 1481, serves as the pope’s official private chapel and the scene of the conclaves of cardinals for the election of apiece new pontiff. The ceiling paintings here, and the Last Judgement on the surround behind the altar, together make up arguably the greatest masterpiece in Western art, and the largest body of painting ever planned and executed by one man - Michelangelo. They are also probably the most viewed paintings in the world: it’s estimated that on an average day about 15,000 people trudge through here to take a look; and during the summer and on special occasions the number of visitors can exceed 20,000. It’s useful to carry a pair of binoculars with you in order to see the paintings better, but bear in mind that it is strictly forbidden to take pictures of any kind in the chapel, including video, and it is also officially forbidden to speak - although this is something that is rampantly ignored.

Next to the Pinacoteca is the Museo Gregoriano Profano, a grouping of museums in a modern building that holds more classical sculpture, mounted on scaffolds for all-round viewing, including mosaics of athletes from the Baths of Caracalla and Roman funerary work, notably the Haterii tomb friezes, which show backdrops of ancient Rome and realistic portrayals of contemporary life. It’s thought the Haterii were a family of construction workers and that they grabbed the opportunity to advertise their services by including reliefs of the buildings they had worked on (including the Colosseum), along with a natty little crane, on the funeral monument of one of their female members. The adjacent Museo Pio Cristiano has intricate primeval Christian sarcophagi and, most famously, an expressive third-century AD statue of the Good Shepherd. And the Museo Missionario Etnologico displays art and artefacts from all over the world, collected by Catholic missionaries, and seems to be inspired by the Vatican’s desire to poke fun at non-Christian cults as well as pat itself on the back for its own evangelical successes.