A tour of the Sistine Chapel
December 11, 2011, 4:07 pm
Posted by Joseph A. Komonchak
Here’s a very fine link that permits you to make a virtual tour of the Sistine Chapel. It can be vertiginous, but after a bit, you’ll get used to it. Zooming buttons are in the lower left corner.
I had the pleasure of seeing this chapel pre- and post-restoration of the ceiling. The change was absolutely amazing.
ok, so let me ask a stupid question. Is Mass said in the Sistine Chapel? I don’t see any pews there. Plus, how can people focus with all the art work?
Gorgeous. Thanks. If you have a mouse with a wheel, it can be fun zooming in and out.
Mark Twain speculated that the Creator may have made Italy from a design by Michelangelo.
Mark Proska, yes I believe the pope celebrates there on ocassion (baptisms I believe, notably) and uses the altar against the wall below the Last Judgement. He faces the wall, perforce, which always ocassions much comment of course about what it signals.
Am I right in thinking that he has never celebrated a Mass in the Extraordinary Form – anywhere? So, if he is facing the wall it is an Ordinary Form Mass celebrated ad orientem?
Before the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council, popes celebrated Mass in the Sistine Chapel with some frequency. For example, Pius XII (and his predecessors) did not celebrate Christmas Midnight Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica. Rather, the papal Midnight Mass was celebrated by the pope in the Sistine Chapel for the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See.
The opening Mass for the Synod of Bishops of 1984 was celebrated in the Sistine Chapel by Pope John Paul II. I was in Rome for meetings, and my then boss, the great Archbishop Denis Hurley of Durban, brought me, a layman, along as his “secretary.” Some raised eyebrows! The bishops were a little surprised that they had not been invited to concelebrate the Mass.
The photography of the Sistine Chapel was done by Villanova University. They have also photographed five other churches and chapels in Rome using the same system. You might like to look at these:
St Mary Major:
http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/sm_maggiore/vr_tour/index-en.html
St John Lateran:
http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_giovanni/vr_tour/index-en.html
St Paul outside the Walls:
http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_paolo/vr_tour/index-en.html
St. Peter’s:
http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_pietro/vr_tour/index-en.html
Pauline Chapel:
http://www.vatican.va/various/cappelle/index_paolina_en.htm
Double correction: I think it was the Synod on the Family of 1982 rather than the Extraordinary Synod of 1985 (not 1984). Memory fades!
The photography of the Sistine Chapel was done by Villanova University. They have photographed several churches in Rome using the same system. You might like to look at these:
St Mary Major:
http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/sm_maggiore/vr_tour/index-en.html
St John Lateran:
http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_giovanni/vr_tour/index-en.html
St Paul outside th Walls:
http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_paolo/vr_tour/index-en.html
St. Peter’s:
http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_pietro/vr_tour/index-en.html
After years of looking only at reproductions of the Sistine Chapel’s frescoes, also in art books and magazines, when I actually stood beneath the central panel, the “Creation of Adam,” it was as if I had been struck by a bolt of lightening at what is hidden there in plain sight.
If this is just a revelation for me, please forgive my naivete.
There for all to see, the Divine is portrayed as emerging from celestial realms that when taken as a whole or single gestalt, especially from the perspective of the floor of the Sistine Chapel, form the perfect anatomical outline of the human brain.
Right out of my neural anatomy textbooks: frontal lobe, parietal lobe, temporal lobe, occipital lobe, pons, medulla oblongata, stem!
It’s all there sketched out in perfect outline detail. Michelangelo certainly had to have studied human anatomy from actual observations. It was only afterwards I have learned that many researchers examining the entirety of the frescoes have come upon other examples of Michangelo’s anatomical expertise.
It seemed obvious to me that Michelangelo was [is] suggesting that the God that has given life to humans is him/her/itself a creation of the human mind. [Sorry, I don't know how to ascribe gender to God!]
If the pope and cardinals of his time had understood what he had painted in plain sight in the pope’s very own chapel, Michelangelo would have probably been persecuted for heresy. And arguably the greatest achievement of human culture and civilization would have been defaced and destroyed.
Replicating the prehistoric paintings in the caves at Lascaux and Chauvet, the frescoes of the Sistine Chapel represent the Renaissance cave of forgotten dreams of humanity’s origin in the divine imagination.
Sorry for the double posting. The first one didn’t appear when I clicked the Submit button. Checking the posting rules, I saw a warning that posts wih more than 4 links might be deleted. So I reposted with just 4 links.
David, thanks for the info.
Thanks very much for this. I appreciated my first time alone in the Sistine Chapel! Robert Hughes in his (to me, uneven) new book “Rome: A Cultural, Visual, and Personal History” talks about his first visit to the Sistine Chapel fifty years ago. There were only thirty people in the space, and it was not a special tour. He then goes on something of a rant, decrying the crowds and noise that one finds in the chapel today.
I was last there a year ago, and the jostling crowds and loud conversations (often tour guides) make the experience anything but serene. The custodians calling out “silence” in several languages every five minutes works only for about thirty seconds. The other continuing admonition is “no flash.” What to do? Longer hours?
Jim Jenkins
Actually, the central panel of the nine panels is the Creation of Eve, although the previous panel, the Creation of Adam is larger and more famous. My favorite is the second panel, showing the creation of the sun and moon.
I used to get there before the doors opened and the crowds gathered, and then I would walk very rapidly to the Sistine Chapel and have a relatively serene half-hour or so before the crowds began to fill in. Dave Tracy and I often talk about how different our experience of Rome, Italy, and Europe in general was when we were studying there (1960-1964) before there was the great flood of tourists that now never seems to abate. That was a few years after “Roman Holiday,” but you can catch something of what Rome was like in those days from the movie.
The possible brain anatomy aspect of the “Creation of Adam” was discussed last year in Scientific American:
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2010/05/27/michelangelos-secret-message-in-the-sistine-chapel-a-juxtaposition-of-god-and-the-human-brain/
One of the scientists who first noted that the panel appears to contain a depiction of human neuroanatomy speculated that, according to Scientific American, “Michelangelo surrounded God with a shroud representing the human brain to suggest that God was endowing Adam not only with life, but also with supreme human intelligence.”
That is one explanation William, maybe?
That sounds like the modest assessment one would expect from Scientific American – after all their audience would ostensibly pride themselves on how “rational” they are, and about how their “rationality” offers a superior view of reality.
However, art is never just about reason. It is always about so much, much more. That is why all art, whether on prehistoric cave walls or the Renaissance masters or a modern like Picasso, [art] exerts such a powerful hold on our imagination.
Michelangelo was delving into the depths and origins of human myth and psyche. In the Sistine Chapel frescoes, Michelangelo was attempting to navigate the dreamworld of human archetypes and discover the true relationship between humanity and the divine, between the sacred and the profane.
The Sistine Chapel’s ceiling frescoes, and “The Last Judgement,” Michelangelo’s other contribution to the chapel painted much later in the artist’s life, are Michelangelo’s attempt to situate humanity into a cosmological environment.
In other words, what is the meaning and purpose of human life? Why have humans alone on the planet come to sentient consciousness? Why has the human consciousness constructed the shared human architecture of how we imagine our spiritual reality?
While Scientific American certainly supplies a small part of the explanation of the Sistine Chapel frescoes, it just not rich enough to fully contain the experience of the art.
BTW: Why does Michelangelo not include any New Testament figures in his Sistine frescoes except for the Christ? No Virgin, no apostles, no saints.
There is a prominent feminine figure in the Last Judgement who appears to be pregnant – It doesn’t fit that it would be the BVM. Could it be Mary Magdalene – the “disciple whom Jesus loved” and is pregnant with his child?
What is Michelangelo telling us about the proper place of Christianity in human development and history?
Is he suggesting that there are alternative narratives of early Christianity?
Was Michelangelo a secret “heretic”?
[Michelangelo does depict certain curial enemies, but they are presented as gargoyles or demented citizens of hell (one cardinal has had his skin completely flayed from his body!)]
Jim Jenkins,
Aren’t there NT figures in the Last Judgment like Peter, John the Baptist, Bartholomew holding his own skin, Mary next to Christ the judge? Has there been new research showing that these figures identified in the past have not been identified correctly? Is the pregnant woman the woman clothed with the sun in Revelation 12?
I agree with Alan Mitchell. Who is the figure to the right of Christ the Judge if not his Mother?
With Alan, I would welcome seeing the new scholarship on which you rely for your conclusions. I fear, till then, that it strikes a bit as the “Dan Brown” version.
My immediate source is THE SISTINE CHAPEL: A GLORIOUS RESTORATION (Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York, 1994). In the essay on the Last Judgment fresco, written by Pierluigi de Vecchi, professor of art history, Universita’ degli Studi di Macerata, there is a caption attached to an illustration from a segment of the Last Judgment ( p.232). It reads:”LAST JUDGMENT, detail of the Judging Christ and, next to him, the Virgin, John the Baptist, and a multitude of the Elect.”
The last time I was in the Sistine Chapel, I was accompanied by a professor from the University of Rome. Most of our discussion was centered on the stark differences in the way Michelangelo presents the masculine figure as opposed to the feminine figure.
Professora di Roberto opined that she believed the manner Michelangelo rendered female figures displayed “a distinct lack of intimate knowledge of women’s bodies” (I’m not making this up!) Michelangelo’s art does reveal a certain unease with the feminine figure.
The feminine figures in Michelangelo’s art do seem to be almost masculine in musculature. The madonna in the Pieta is almost twice in size that of the reclining Christ figure. The pure physical demands of the composition demand that the feminine figure be that big just to balance the weight of the reclining male figure – I guess this disparity in size of the figures could be attributed to physics. However, Mary does seem a bit on the “strong” side.
As to the suggestion that this difficulty with the feminine figure can give us any insight into Michelangelo’s own sexual proclivities, I wouldn’t go that far. As Freud once said, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
I never considered the reference to the pregnant woman of the Apocalypse. This seems reasonable given the subject of the fresco. Christian interpreters of Revelations have traditionally ascribed this image as representing the BVM.
However, it is a leap to assume that the feminine figure in the Last Judgement has to be BVM. Rightly, Michelangelo didn’t leave us with captions for his frescoes.
But really, can anyone be sure to what the imagery of Revelations actually refers? The New Testament has been so heavily edited over time by multiple scribes it is difficult to untangle many of the twists that the text takes.
From what I recall from my freshman NT course, John the Baptist while announcing the advent of the Messiah had his feet firmly planted in the OT prophetic tradition. John the Baptist it seems to me to be more a transitional figure rather than an apostle of the Gospel.
The figure identified as “Peter” holding the keys of the kingdom is actually a portrait of Paul III who commissioned the Sistine Chapel frescoes.
St. Bartholomew holding a sheet of his own skin where the face on the skin is reputed to be a self-portrait of the artist.
There are reportedly other saints represented in the fresco (Sebastian, Blaise & Catherine). All of them seem to have a just come from a body-building competition. It is perfectly understandable that Michelangelo would borrow images familiar to his audience and personal experiences. I stand by my assertion that the NT is virtually absent from the Sistine Chapel frescoes.
You may dismiss this as a “Dan Brown” version of the frescoes. But that will not undermine the mysteries that Michelangelo has hidden in plain sight.
Jim J. –
My problem with your interpretations is that I can’t imagine Michelangelo as being so devious that most of what he was apparently saying was not what he mainly meant. I’m certainly no Michelangelo expert, but if, as I have always read, he was a deeply religious man, why wouldn’t the figures stand for the persons they are apparently meant them to stand for? Sure, some may also be portraits of individuals, but that was not an unusual practice at the time. As to his homosexuality, I think his love of young male figures is obvious, and his female bodies aren’t very feminine except for an occasional pretty face, which would confirm the homosexual hypothesis. But why assume that his interests were not primarily religious? Why not assume that he was a holy homosexual, weak in some ways perhaps? That to me is the most likely explanation of his works.
@ Ann Olivier:
I would never ascribe the epithet of “devious” to Michelangelo.
Michelangelo was just an artist, like any artist of his magnitude, strugglingly against the constraints of his time, culture and politics to give expression to Truths which illuminate and situate humanity in a cosmological reality.
I am convinced that Michelangelo was a man of deep religious Christian faith – a faith that led him to unique insights into humanities relationship with the Divine. In fact, I believe that Michelangelo was obsessed as any saint with the divine.
Not surprisingly, the Florentines who knew him first, and probably the best, called him, “Il Divino” unlike we moderns who refer to him in the more familiar tones of his first name.
From across the centuries, I don’t know if we can ever determine with precision Michelangelo’s sexuality. Does it really matter? Does it change anything?
I only know that the first time I stood in its presence I was stunned silent by the sheer virile animal magnetism of Michelangelo’s David. Michelangelo obviously poured all of his love and all of his obsessive passion into this work of art. We now distant observers of this art can only revel in our awe and astonishment.
Michelangelo produced three Pieta’s in his lifetime. Actually my favorite is the marble composition left unfinished from just before the artist died. Michelangelo places himself (in self-portrait) as assisting in removing Jesus’ body from the cross and consigning the lifeless body into the arms of his mother.
If an artists places himself as witness to, as participant in arguably the greatest symbolic act of human sacrifice, tradegy and love, there is not much doubt in my mind as to Michelangelo’s religious sentiments.
For me, this is testimony enough that Michelangelo believed that Jesus, the Christ, no matter how individuals may differently interpret the tradition, was indeed the “firstborn of the dead.”
If you would like a to have a great Christmas experience, try viewing many of Michelangelo’s images while listening to J.S. Bach’s deeply moving final chorus from the St. John Passion. Sorry, I haven’t figured out how to post the link myself. Just copy this to your browser:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiUGOvXsxBE