Vatican Museums Sistine Chapel famous ceiling of the great Michelangelo
Michelangelo amazing Sistine Chapel ceiling
The Creation of Adam, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512
Sistine Chapel Ceiling is the ultimate in the museum
The ultimate destination for visitors to the Vatican Museums, is the Sistine Chapel.
The Vatican Museums exhibit some of the world’s most renowned and famous works of art and is a a must-visit place to see when in Rome,
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The collection is enormous. Over 70,000 works are housed in the museums within the Apostolic Palace, which contains the Papal Apartments, offices of the Catholic church, private and public chapels, the Vatican Museums and the Vatican Library.
Together they represent one of the largest museum complexes and collections in the world.
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Founded in the sixteenth century, its collection of sacred art and artefacts of historical, cultural and artistic value of art is uniquely important and impressive.
Barbara Jatta, Director of the Vatican Museums explains its current mission:
“To present, preserve and share that extraordinary legacy of culture, history and beauty that the Roman Pontiffs have collected and preserved for centuries: this is the mission of the Vatican Museums today.”
The history of Christian art and architecture was fostered during the reign of Emperor Constantine. In 313 AD, he made Christianity legal with the Edict of Milan. Christians were then given the right to construct places for worship and were freed from previous constraints on their religious activities.
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Christians were then given the right to construct places for worship and were freed from previous constraints on their religious activities.
Art depict history of humankind and story of redemption
Thereafter and following on nearly two-thousand years of the papacy, successive Popes created the Vatican Museums through the building of the Apostolic Palace, and they gathered and commissioned works of art that depict the history of humankind and the story of its redemption.
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Millions of visitors roam through the museums each year, discovering and enjoying the many masterpieces, renowned works and priceless treasures that are part of many different collections of Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek, Roman and Christian art and artefacts. Ancient paintings, decorative arts and ethnological and historical works are housed alongside modern and contemporary artworks.
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The Vatican Museums’ extensive collections are presented in extraordinary and artistically significant rooms that the Popes, through the past centuries, have chosen as places of residence for private prayer and reflection. Each room, corridor, gallery and hallway has artwork themed for the space.
The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512
The flow of visitors walking through the museums is strategically organised so that everyone passes through the chapel on their way out of the museum.
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After passing through many long corridors and halls of what seems like an endless number of sculptures, tapestries and frescoes, the entry to the Sistine Chapel is narrow and very crowded with people trying to cram into the small dark space.
The Fall of Man, a panel on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512
The chapel is revered, and silence is requested and expected. Inside the enclosed and sometimes claustrophobia space, visitors whisper in awe and try to temper their delight to be standing below one of the greatest works of art of all time, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, as they marvel at the frescos painted by Michelangelo.
Ceiling stories are magnificent
In person, the ceilings are magnificent. Seeing the various pictorials of biblical stories as flat images pales in comparison to seeing them in real life and in situ.
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The colours are vivid and fresh. Innovative for its time, Michelangelo rendered the characters in perspective, vastly more three dimensional than in paintings by his contemporaries.
The Creation of Adam / Man, on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512
The characters are larger than life, fleshy, full, and muscular. They have weight and the gravitas of sculptures.
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Michelangelo’s frescos tell the story of the creation, and his depiction of the last judgment on the alter wall tells the story of salvation.
Biblical stories painted on the wall underneath the Sistine Chapel ceiling
Other biblical stories from the old and new testaments were painted on the wall underneath the ceiling by other great Renaissance painters, such as Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Cosimo Rosselli and Domenico Ghirlandaio.
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Together, these images are considered one of the most striking collections of sacred imagery and biblical tales in one location.
Text & Photos Cammy Yiu
