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Nicole's
Travelogues and Budget Travel Tips..
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THE SISTINE CHAPEL , ITALY
When we arrived, it was overcast and so quite dark in the chapel. There was barely room to move and in trying to keep the chapel quiet, the guards made quite a ruckus yelling "be quiet" and "no talking" in various languages. The guards would also clap and shout when they found people taking pictures or filming. Yep you were not supposed to take pics, and it was probably sacreligious but I took a few of the below pics without the flash. I don't know what got into me! I usually follow rules and always respect the 'no taking pics in church' rule while traveling. Bad!
The chapel is divided into two parts; the wider one, together with the altar, is reserved for proper religious ceremonies and other clergy uses, and the smaller one for the faithful. During important ceremonies, side walls are covered with a series of tapestries by Raphael depicting events from the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. Michelangelo Buonarroti was commissioned by Pope Julius II in 1508 to repaint the ceiling, originally representing golden stars on a blue sky;
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The Sistine Chapel was built between 1475 and 1483, in the time of Pope Sixtus IV. The name Sistine is derived from the Italian sistino meaning of or pertaining to Sixtus IV. The chapel is rectangular and measures 40.93 meters long by 13.41 meters wide (the dimensions of the Temple of Solomon, as given in the Old Testament). It is 20.70 meters high and is roofed by a flattened barrel vault, with small side vaults over the 6 centered windows. The first mass in the Sistine Chapel was celebrated on August 9, 1483, as a ceremony by which it was consecrated and dedicated to the Assumption of the virgin Mary. |
The Sistine Chapel is famed for being the place the pope is elected during conclaves and for the ceiling painted by Michelangelo. It is located to the north of St. Peter's Basilica, after the Scala Regia, and originally served as the Palatine chapel inside the old Vatican fortress.
the work was completed in 1512. To be able to reach the ceiling, Michelangelo needed a support; the first idea was by Bramante, who wanted to build for him a special scaffold, suspended in the air with ropes. But Michelangelo suspected that this would leave holes in the ceiling once the work was ended, so he built a scaffold of his own, a flat wooden platform on brackets built out from holes in the wall, high up near the top of the windows. He stood on this scaffolding while he painted. 
Michelangelo was employed to paint only 12 figures, the Apostles, but when the work was finished there were more than 300. His figures showed the Creation, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and The Great Flood. The sketches are a really precious and curious document. Michelangelo used male models, even for the females, because female models were more rare and costly than male ones. On the lowest part of the ceiling he painted the ancestors of Christ. Above this he alternated male and female prophets, with Jonah over the altar. On the highest section Michelangelo painted nine stories from the Book of Genesis.
He painted the Last Judgement over the altar, between 1535 and 1541. Michelangelo felt that he was a more developed sculptor than a painter, but he accepted the offer. The Last Judgement was an object of a heavy dispute between Cardinal Carafa and Michelangelo. He was accused of immorality and intolerable obscenity, having depicted naked figures with genitals. The genitalia in the fresco were later covered by the artist Daniele da Volterra, whom history remembers by the derogatory nickname 'the breeches-painter'.