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official tour, Rome Sistine
Chapel, Sistine chapel,
Information about Sistine
Chapel, Sistine Chapel Guided
Tours, Vatican Museum, Michelangelo,
the Last Judgment, Rome
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SISTINE
CHAPEL (cappella Sistina)
Rome, the Sistine Chapel
painted by Michelangelo
in the Vatican Museum. Information
about the Vatican city in
Rome. Guided Tour Information
of the Sistine Chapel of
Michelangelo's the Last
Judgment fresco.
OFFICIAL TOUR COMPANY OF
ROME AND Vatican city
www.tourinrome.com
www.vaticanguidedtour.com
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Sistine
Chapel , Information about
Sistine Chapel Guided Tour,
Vatican Museum Sistine Chapel,
Michelangelo, the Last Judgment
Sistine
Chapel has been one
of Rome's chief tourist
attractions ever since
the day in 1512 when the
weary, paint spattered Michelangelo
finally unlocked the door.
(Of course
the one time not to come
is during a conclave, when
the cardinals are sealed
inside until they elect
a new pope.)
What
some people would claim
as the greatest achievement
in art, ever, by
a single artist, a work
of consummate vision an d
genius, may have been the
result of petty jealousy
and intrigue.
According
to Vasari's Lives of the
Artists, Bramante talked
Pope Julius into
sending his rival Michelangelo
up to the ceiling of the
ungainly barn of a chapel
built by his della Rovere
kinsman, Sixtus IV.
Some
of the finest painters of
the Renaissance had already
decorated the walls with
a beautiful series on the
Old Testament, but the vast
ceiling had only a simple
pattern of Stars.
Bramante
hoped Michelangelo
would refuse the commission
and anger the pig- headed
Pope, or else fritter
away the time he needed
to work on the tomb.
Michelangelo
hated the idea, but Julius
was adamant, and in 1508,
he reluctantly agreed to
get out his brushes.
The
Pope, like most Renaissance
patrons, required only some
virtuoso interior decoration:
until then, ceiling frescoes
had been simple small- scale
decorations.
No one
can say what drove Michelangelo
to create a masterpiece
instead: the fear of wasting
his time, the challenge
of an impossible task, or
maybe just to spite Bramante
and Julius-he exasperated
the Pope by making him
wait four long years, and
refused all demands that
he hire some assistants.
'When will You finish? railed
Julius. 'When I can,
the equally stubborn Michelangelo
invariably replied.
The
Pope was ready to hurl
him off the scaffolding
when Michelangelo
finally agreed to forego
the highlights in gold and
blue and let Julius
show Rome and the
world what he had got for
his 3000 ducats: no mere
illustration from the
Scriptures, but the
way the Old Testament looks
in the deepest recesses
of the imagination.
Centuries
of candle smoke slowly darkened
Michelangelo's masterpiece,
as well as incidents like
that which occurred at the
conclave that elected
John Paul I, when clouds
of black smoke meant to
issue from the chimney backed
up into the chapel,
nearly suffocating the
111 cardinals.
 Now
that the restorers (financed
by a Japanese television
network) have finished their
controversial cleaning of
the ceiling, it is more
startling than ever. Michelangelo's
true colors have been revealed-bright
yellows, sea· green, and
purple, with dramatic shadowscolours
no interior decorator would
ever dream of using.
He totally
eschewed stage props; one
of the tenets of his art
was that complex ideas could
be expressed by the portrayal
of the human body alone.
Perhaps
the inspiration that kept
Michelangelo suffering on
the ceiling (and the
physical hardship, in the
heat and cold, was extreme;
it is said that after painting
he could only read letters
by holding them over his
head) was the chance of
distilling from the book
of Genesis and his own genius
an entirely new vocabulary
of images, Christian
and intellectual.
His most
original innovation, the
famous nude youths,
or Ignudi, may well
represent forms he despaired
of ever having the time
to sculpt; they also serve
as a unique perspective
device, and like the rest
of the ceiling's programme,
probably have a deeper,
secret meaning that would
take years of inspired wondering
to decipher.
Michelangelo's
style became more daring
and confident as he painted;
compare The Intoxication
of Noah, where he began,
with the impressionistic
Separation of Light and
Darkness by the altar.
Most
rubberneckers (and after
looking up for a while,
you'll wish your neck really
was made of rubber) direct
their attention to the all
too famous scene of the
Creation of Man, perhaps
the only representation
of God the Father
ever painted that escapes
being merely ridiculous.
Here,
one might suspect that the
figure is really some ageing
Florentine artist,
and that Michelangelo
only forgot to paint the
brush in his hand. Along
the sides are six-toed prophets
and powerful Russian
masseuse Sibyls (Michelangelo
never had much use for women,
even as models); in the
lunettes over the windows
are figures of the forerunners
of Christ.
The magnificent,
supremely confident spirit
of the High Renaissance
in first bloom, when man
was the measure of all things
and man was a giant, never
recovered from the shock
of the Sack of Rome.
Seven
years after that brutal
event, in 1534 (22 years
after the ceiling), Paul
III commissioned
Michelangelo to paint
the harrowing Last Judgement
on the altar wall;
its utter disenchantment
with the world is
in violent contrast
with the ceiling.
The
saints swarming around
the beardless, implacable
Christ demand vengeance
on humanity for their martyrdoms,
while angels come hurtling
over, bearing the Cross,
the crown of thorns, the
pillar from Pilate's
palace as if to remind
Christ of his own passion.
Only
the Virgin shows any sign
of pity, but she shrinks
back against her son, unable
to intervene (though curiously,
Michelangelo's preliminary
sketches show her actively
imploring mercy).
Just
below and to the right of
Christ gestures a
furious St Bartholomew.
To the
right below him, isolated
from the angels sounding
the trumpets of doom, and
from another group beating
the condemned down to hell,
is perhaps the most famous
vision of despair in art,
the damned soul, hugging
himself, one eye uncovered
and open wide in a horror
beyond words; he is made
doubly effective by being
the only figure in the whole
composition to gaze out
at the viewer.
At the
time of writing, restoration,
also financed by Nippon,
is in progress on its turgid
candle-darkened surface
and the fresco will remain
covered until 1994.
It appears,
however, that the delicate
question of whether or not
to remove the 'breeches'
from the nude figures added
by Daniele da Volterra
(on orders from Pius
IV, in 1564, the year
of Michelangelo's death)
has been decided.
It is
rumored that the restorers
discovered there was nothing
but bare plaster beneath
the breeches! Presumably
da Volterra scraped
off the painted genitalia.
Just
as well for him that the
master was dead-the prudish
Biagio da Cesena,
Paul Ill's secretary,
dared to criticize the nudity
while the artist was alive
and ended up being painted
in hell as Midas (entwined
in a serpent's coils, with
asses' ears). When he complained
to the Pope, he received
the famous reply, that had
Michelangelo placed him
in Purgatory he could have
helped, but over Hell he
had no influence.
Tour
pull your eyes away from
Michelangelo to take in
the lovely Cosmatesque like
floor, the marble screen
by Mino da Fiesole, Gjovanni
Da1mata, and Andrea Bregno,
and the frescoes of the
lives of Moses and Christ
along the walls.
Among
the finest are Botticelli's
The Burning Bush,
Moses driving the Midianites
from the well, and the Daughters
of Jethro, the maidens full
of Botticellian grace, and
the Punishment of Korah,
Dathan, and Abiram, set
in Rome, before the
Arch of Constantine and
the then-standing ruins
of the Septizonium. On the
other side is Ghirlandaio's
Calling of Peter and Andrew
and
 Perugino's
Christ donating the keys
to St Peter, set
before an ideal Renaissance
temple.
There
are two famous rooms off
the Sistine Chapel,
Bernini's and Paul Brill's
Sala Ducale and the
Sala Paolina, with two
of Michelangelo's last
frescoes, though to
see them you need special
permission from the governor
of
Vatican
City.
From
the Sistine you enter
the lower floor of Bramante's
long corridor, the Library
Gallery, lined with the
cupboards holding some of
the Vatican Library's
million books, and tens
of thousands of manuscripts
and incunabula.
The core
of the collection dates
back to the humanist
Pope Nicholas V.
The most
precious and secret were
removed in 1983 to a bunker
some 40 feet underground,
but many unique possessions
are on display, such as
the 16th-century maps in
the Gallery of Urban
VIII, and Bramante's
wooden machine for stamping
the papal seal, or bollo,
on documents and a fresco
showing the erection of
the obelisk in Piazza
S. Pietro in 1585, an
operation masterminded
by Sixtus V's favorite
architect, Domenico Fontana.
Fontana was also responsible
for the enormous, lavishly
decorated Salone Sistina,
cutting across the old Courtyard
of the Belvedere.
To book Museums Tickets
and
tours:
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ROME AND Vatican city
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