“Everybody Out!”
We’ve all wanted to yell it at one time or another, but only the master of papal liturgical celebrations gets to do it tomorrow in Latin. With a shout of “extra omnes!” on the afternoon of May 7, Archbishop Diego Ravelli will order all but the cardinal electors who will choose the next pope to leave the Sistine Chapel. After a brief reflection offered by Cardinal Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M.Cap, the conclave to elect the successor to Pope Francis will begin.
Perhaps no structure on earth is more conducive to conveying a sense of grandeur and mystery than that venerable chapel, a social media influencer’s dream despite being more than five centuries old. Adorned with some of the most famous frescoes in the world—much of it the work of Michelangelo, the unrivaled Renaissance sculptor turned reluctant painter—the Sistine Chapel is instantly recognizable to almost everyone.
More than five million pilgrims visit the chapel every year, but billions more see it depicted in movies about everything from the end of the world to conclave intrigues to papal friendships. Though the Vatican forbids filming in the chapel—you’re almost always looking at elaborate sets or CGI when you see it on the screen—it can now be rented out for corporate events that benefit the papal charities, including an eyebrow-raising private concert in 2014 sponsored by Porsche.
The original interior
Construction on the Sistine Chapel actually began two years before Michelangelo was born. Built during the reign of Pope Sixtus IV (hence “Sistine”), from 1473 to 1481, it replaced an earlier structure as the primary chapel of the papal court. Like most churches of its time, it doesn’t look like much from the outside, and has no real formal entrance, as it was built as an extension of the Apostolic Palace.
It is not a large structure, with the interior measuring slightly over 130 feet in length, 44 feet in width and just under 68 feet in height. Your tour guide or the internet may have told you that the Sistine Chapel has the exact same measurements as the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem as described in the Old Testament. That’s not even close to being true, but it is perhaps fair to say the chapel’s proportions and dimensions were inspired by Solomon’s temple. The floor is made of marble and inlaid stones in mosaics or Cosmati style. A screen divides the interior of the chapel into two unequal parts.
Originally known as the Cappella Maggiore (the “greater chapel,” as Pope Sixtus had another smaller chapel also for his use; that one was painted by Fra Angelico), the chapel was decorated before its dedication with wall fresco cycles of “The Life of Moses” and “The Life of Christ” by such famous artists as Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Perugino and Rosselli. Above those fresco cycles were paintings of previous popes. (If that seems a little presumptuous on the part of the artists, keep in mind that the fresco inside the U.S. Capitol Rotunda depicts George Washington ascending into heaven.) The Sistine ceiling, a flattened vault, was originally painted to resemble a starry sky.
The chapel was officially dedicated on the Feast of the Assumption in 1483. The first papal conclave to be held in the chapel took place only nine years later. Since 1878, the Sistine Chapel has hosted every papal conclave. To read up on how that process works, you can click here.
Michelangelo’s ceiling
Soon after Julius II (the nephew of Pope Sixtus IV) became pope in 1503, he embarked upon a series of ambitious architectural projects, including building the current St. Peter’s Basilica, establishing the Vatican Museums and putting his own stamp on the Sistine Chapel. He commissioned Michelangelo to redecorate the vault with frescoes depicting the 12 apostles. Michelangelo, who considered himself more of a sculptor than a painter—and had already tangled with Julius II over the construction of the latter’s tomb—didn’t want to do it. But Renaissance popes tended to get what they wanted, and in 1508, Michelangelo agreed.
One fortunate concession Michelangelo won was control over the artistic theme. Gone was the notion of 12 huge apostles, replaced instead by a central area of nine scenes depicting various passages from the Book of Genesis. Some of these have since been counted among the most famous artworks in the Western world, including the “Creation of Adam,” “Original Sin and Banishment from the Garden” (note: that’s a fig tree, not an apple tree!) and “Creation of the Sun, Moon, and Plants.” The idea of God the Father many of us had as youngsters makes it clear how ubiquitous Michelangelo’s vision became in Western art.
Elsewhere on the ceiling one finds depictions of the Old Testament prophets, the ancestors of Jesus, the sibyls of Greco-Roman mythology and countless cherubs and naked youths. Look closely and you’ll also find a lot of acorns. Why? Both Sixtus IV and Julius II were part of the Della Rovere family, a powerful noble Italian clan, and rovere is Italian for “oak.” When you’re working on commission, it’s good to throw a sop to the boss man.
Despite the legend of Michelangelo lying on his back painting all these scenes, we know from his own poems and sketches (including a sketched self-portrait of himself working on the ceiling) that Michelangelo painted while standing on a platform and craning his neck upward, a physically demanding position that took its toll. The fresco method—in which the artist applies paint pigments to layers of wet plaster as it dries so that the result becomes part of the existing structure—also required that the ceiling had to be done in small segments day by day. How did Michelangelo correctly manage the proportions, many of which are accomplished through illusionary methods like trompe l’oeil and significant foreshortening within images, without constantly descending and ascending the scaffolding? It’s a bit of a mystery.
The finished ceiling was displayed to the public on All Saints’ Day in 1512, only four years after Michelangelo had begun. It was both a critical and a popular success, with Michelangelo, only 37 years old, earning the sobriquet Il Divino, “The Divine One.” Even Gretzky and LeBron, it seems, must take a knee before Michelangelo.
‘The Last Judgment’
Julius II died a year later. Michelangelo moved on to other projects in Florence, forgetting for the moment about the pope’s tomb. In 1517, Martin Luther kicked off the Reformation with the posting of his “95 Theses” on the door in Wittenberg. In 1527, the troops of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V pillaged much of the Vatican during the Sack of Rome. Further improvements to the Sistine Chapel were not at the forefront of anyone’s mind.
But 1534 brought a new pontiff, Pope Paul III, who initiated the Counter-Reformation and convened the Council of Trent. (He also formally approved the creation of the Society of Jesus, another moment reimagined in film.) Following up on something originally proposed by his predecessor Clement III, the new pope gave Michelangelo, now in his 60s, another commission: to paint the eastern wall behind the altar of the Sistine Chapel.
Begun in 1536 and completed in 1541, this second work differs starkly in mood and presentation from Michelangelo’s earlier composition. Depicting the Second Coming of Christ, it features vastly greater movement and emotive expression than the frescoes on the ceiling of the chapel. A central image of a burly Christ—possibly inspired by the Greco-Roman statue of the Apollo Belvedere—emerges among the saved, who are rising to heaven, and the damned, who are descending (or being escorted) to hell. Christ is joined by the Virgin Mary, St. Peter holding the keys to the kingdom, the apostles and many of the martyrs, some displaying the means by which they died.
Art historians have discovered a number of visual puns in “The Last Judgment.” Near the center, St. Bartholomew, whose martyrdom included being flayed alive, is close to Christ and holding his own skin. The face on that grisly trophy? Michelangelo himself. A figure in the bottom corner, on the other hand, has the facial features of one of Michelangelo’s enemies, Biagio da Cesena. A member of the papal retinue, da Cesena had criticized the painting while Michelangelo was still at work on it because it featured “so many nude figures who so dishonestly show their shame,” calling it “not a work for a chapel of the pope but for stoves and taverns.” Michelangelo put da Cesena’s face on Minos, a donkey-eared judge of the dead in hell whose genitals are being consumed by a snake. Don’t mess with artists.
“The Last Judgment” didn’t gain the same universal acclaim as the Sistine ceiling. Some of Michelangelo’s artistic contemporaries were surprised at the lack of balance and harmony in the final composition. And for years afterward, some Vatican fussbudgets followed da Cesena’s lead and questioned whether “The Last Judgment” belonged in a church at all. One wonders if they perhaps thought Michelangelo was poking fun at them; any priest saying Mass at the main altar, after all, had no choice but to stare at Charon herding the damned to hell.
Strategically placed coverups were painted onto many of the nudes in later years. The Council of Trent even ordered that the painting be covered or destroyed.
Thankfully, that didn’t happen. At a Mass celebrating the conclusion of the 14-year restoration of both the Sistine ceiling and “The Last Judgment” in 1994, Pope John Paul II gave a homily that feels in many places like a stout defense of Michelangelo’s startling tableau:
If we are dazzled as we contemplate the Last Judgement by its splendour and its terror, admiring on the one hand the glorified bodies and on the other those condemned to eternal damnation, we understand too that the whole composition is deeply penetrated by a unique light and by a single artistic logic: the light and the logic of faith that the Church proclaims, confessing: “We believe in one God...maker of heaven and earth, of all things seen and unseen”. On the basis of this logic in the context of the light that comes from God, the human body also keeps its splendour and its dignity. If it is removed from this dimension, it becomes in some way an object, which depreciates very easily, since only before the eyes of God can the human body remain naked and unclothed, and keep its splendour and its beauty intact.
The chapel today
That restoration from 1980 to 1994 wasn’t without its controversies—some art historians thought the cleaning process would inevitably damage the frescoes—but it showed Michelangelo’s work in a new light. After centuries worth of grime and artificial varnishes were removed, the brilliant colors and striking contrasts of both the ceiling and the back altar wall became all the more clear. Minor details emerged from shadow. In the case of “The Last Judgment,” the restored colors suggested the fresco belonged more to Mannerism than a High Renaissance style.
However, it soon became clear that the restored chapel faced a new danger: the modern world. All that candle wax and grime and accumulated cigarette smoke had protected Michelangelo’s masterpieces from a Roman environment that now included millions upon millions of tourists and significant amounts of industrial and automotive pollution. In response, the chapel’s windows have been permanently sealed, and it now has a ventilation system to purify and dehumidify the air.
Cameras and cellphones are forbidden, mostly to prevent flash photographs from damaging the frescoes, and tourists are pushed through the chapel at a brisk pace. Even for the papal conclave, a wooden platform will be installed across the floor to protect the marble floor below (or, if you’re into papal intrigue, for the rumored installation of a Faraday cage to block electronic spies). Those few conclave cardinals who still smoke will have to offer it up for the duration—though the ballots after each round of voting will still be burned in a stove inside the chapel.
On the other hand, the Sistine Chapel is now air-conditioned. And it’s not clear to the rest of us whether, if they take too long to pick a new pope, we’re not allowed to turn it off...
