VATICAN MUSEUMS - SISTINE CHAPEL (second part)

SISTINE CHAPEL

Frescos on the side walls
 

Between the windows, in shell-shaped niches, “Twenty-four full-length portraits of the early popes” (originally there were thirty-two) 1481/82 by Fra' Diamante (about 1430/99), Domenico Bigordi aka Domenico Ghirlandaio (1449/94), Sandro Filipepi aka Sandro Botticelli(1445/1510) and Cosimo Rosselli (1439/1507)

Paintings on the walls 1481/82 for Sixtus IV Della Rovere (1471/84)

They were completed in eight months by a team of four young (aged 31 to 41 years) painters working in Florence:

Pietro Vannucci aka Pietro Perugino (about 1450/1523), Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Cosimo Rosselli

Later three more joined up with them: Luca Signorelli (1445/1523), Bernardino di Betto aka Pinturicchio (1454/1513) and Biagio D'Antonio Tucci (about 1445/1516)

The iconographic program was probably orchestrated by theologians such as Andrea da Trebizonda (Andreas Trapezuntius in Latin), Antonio da Pinerolo or Bartolomeo de Bollis, perhaps inspired by the book of the ninth century (although attributed to St. Ambrose) Expositio super septem visiones libri Apocalypsis

“The Church as the bride is the great theme of the iconographic decoration of the Sistine Chapel, a subject to which little importance has been given. For example, the bride wearing golden and silver robes and to whom the naked Levi looks back (in the Botticelli's fresco with the death of Moses) is pregnant: to her corresponds on the opposite wall, in the fresco by Cosimo Rosselli, the figure of Mary under the Cross, painted very small but obviously pregnant. The Last Judgement by Michelangelo, executed where you could have seen the Immaculate on the altar of the chapel, did overshadow the real iconographic theme of the decoration as a whole, but only apparently. (...) His frescoes on the ceiling and even the Judgement follow the same theme: Mary is the new Eve, wife of Adam until the Day of Judgment and, therefore, the archetype of the Church” (Heinrich W. Pfeiffer)

 

Stories of Moses - Left Side

 

1) “Angel of God is about to kill Moses, who is in Egypt with his wife Zipporah, Circumcision of their sons and in the background, Dance of the shepherds and Farewell to Jethro” by Pietro Perugino and maybe Pinturicchio

“The characters, around the beautiful figure of the dominating and isolated angel, are infinitely more varied than in Botticelli and Pinturicchio identifies them one by one with a curiosity that leads him to show off, in the landscape, a whole repertoire of exotic plants. He doesn't hesitate in going against Perugino's unity of time and place, bringing together two facts of life of Moses as Botticelli did, in a completely different scale. But even some easier rhythms of Botticelli's line are repeated, albeit playing by ear, in some figures that Pinturicchio wants to be less stiff than those of Perugino” (Giulio Carlo Argan)

2) “God speaks to Moses from the burning bush, Moses kills an Egyptian, Moses chases the Midianites from the fountain, Daughters of Jethro at the well, Escape from Egypt” by Sandro Botticelli with Moses appearing no less than seven times

The oak tree (rovere in Italian) in the middle with embossed acorns in golden wax clearly represents the Della Rovere Pope, while the orange tree on the left represents the Medici family of Florence, from which the four major painters of the scenes came from: Perugino himself had studied and lived in Florence and was virtually Florentine by adoption

“Ideally tying historically distinct episodes destroys the space-time unity and even the meaning of the story. The facts are connected remotely by sustained, rushing shots of linear rhythm after long pauses; and to this rhythm, no longer flowing and melodic but full of bursts and dissonances, the drama is entrusted, which can no longer be expressed in actions or in the gestures of the individual characters” (Giulio Carlo Argan)

3) “Passage of the Red Sea” by Cosimo Rosselli or Biagio D'Antonio Tucci

4) “Moses Receiving the Tablets of the Law on Mount Sinai, Moses descends from Sinai, Adoration of the Golden Calf, Punishment of the guilty” by Cosimo Rosselli (and Piero di Cosimo?)

5) “Punishment of Korah, Datan and Abiran, the two ships of Solomon and Jehoshaphat at Ezion-Geber awaiting departure to the green land of Ophir, Attempted stoning of Moses” by Sandro Botticelli

“The scene faces the Delivery of the Keys by Perugino and, like the latter, it is a metaphor of a theoretical cornerstone of the papal policy: as Moses had punished the rebels who refused his command, so the Church could not stand that the council of the bishops would prevail over the authority of the pope. The moving and dramatic style of Botticelli is opposed to the majestic gravity of Perugino's scene, almost an emblem of the Florentine rejection of the figurative tradition of Piero Della Francesca” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

6) “Moses reads the Law for the second time and division of the Promised Land among the twelve tribes of Israel, Moses delivers the rod to Joshua, Angel shows Moses the Promised Land from Mount Nebo and Death of Moses” by Luca Signorelli, Bartolomeo Della Gatta, Sandro Botticelli and an unknown Umbrian painter

VATICAN MUSEUMS - SISTINE CHAPEL (first part)

CAPPELLA SISTINA

1475/81 Giovannino de' Dolci (d. about 1486) at the behest of Pope Sixtus IV Della Rovere (1471/84) from a design by Baccio Pontelli (about 1450/92)

“Müntz thought that Dolci was the architect of the chapel, according to an act of payment of 1486 in favor of his son. The hypothesis was accepted by Steinmann, who spotted the portrait of Dolci, portrayed by Pietro Perugino in the group of onlookers to the Delivery of the Keys: the man on the far right holding the square. Then Dolci was considered the architect of the chapel by various scholars (Tolnay, Nogara, Pittaluga), although Lavagnino (1924) had noted that the documents do not qualify Dolci as 'architectus' and had indicated in Baccio Pontelli the likely author of the design of the chapel. It seems likely, as some believe (Tomei, Ettlinger, Redig De Campos, Salvini), that Dolci executed this work according to the design of another master. Redig De Campos (1965) recognized the portrait of Baccio Pontelli in the same group of bystanders of the Delivery of the Keys, the man with the compass in hand, facing Dolci, testimony of the two working together: Dolci, building the chapel, adapted Pontelli's design, taking care of the technical aspects” (Marcia Casini Wanrooij - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

The dimensions are 40.5 x 13.2 m (133 x 43 feet), height is 20.7 m (68 feet)

Same dimensions of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem that was built in 966/973 BC and destroyed in 586 BC. The measurements are written in the Book of Kings of the Bible

A preexisting building was incorporated in the project which, according to some scholars, was maybe originally the seat of the leader of the Mithraic religion. It was mentioned for the first time by the sources in 1368 and it probably had a wooden ceiling

It was consecrated August 15, 1483 as S. Maria Assunta (Assumption of the Virgin Mary)

In the years 1566/68 it was reinforced with three buttresses by Pirro Ligorio (about 1513/83) and Giovanni Lippi aka Nanni di Baccio Bigio (about 1513/68) after various stabilization work following the opening of a wide crack in the northwest corner of the roof, caused by moisture

It has hosted the conclave 25 times in total

Conclaves have always been held here from 1878 onwards, when there was the election of Leo XIII Pecci (1878/1903)

All four conclaves of the nineteenth century were held in the Pauline Chapel of the Quirinal Palace built for Paul V Borghese (1605/21) with the same measures of the Sistine Chapel

The conclave of 1800 was exceptionally held in Venice, in the Basilica of S. Giorgio Maggiore, because of the revolutionary movements that had led to the birth of the Roman Republic

The electorate is composed of 120 cardinals and octogenarians are excluded

Currently the majority of the votes for the election of the pope must be equal to 2/3 rounded to the unity above when the number of voters is not divisible by three. From the 34° ballot onwards a run off will proceed, with a majority of half plus one of voters, among the two most voted cardinals in last ballot. They both lose, however, their right to vote

Smoke from the Sistine Chapel to announce the results of voting is now made white or black with special chemical additives mixed with the ballots, while in the past damp straw was used for the white smoke

The stove currently used to burn the documents and producing the smoke is the same as 1939

During the conclave of 1978 that would eventually end with the election of Pope John Paul I, it seems that the pipeline had some cracks in the stove and filled briefly the Sistine with black smoke

The floor dates to the end of 1400s in imitation of Opus Alexandrinum similar to cosmatesque floors, a style of geometric decorative inlay stonework typical of Medieval Italy, and especially of Rome and its surroundings

Barrier separating the Chapel in two and marble balustrade of the choir by Mino da Fiesole (1429/84), Andrea Bregno (1418/1503) and Giovanni Duknovich aka Giovanni Dalmata (about 1440/1510)

The barrier was used to separate the observers from the members of the Cappella Papalis, a sort of government of the papal state

It was chaired by the pope and it comprised about 200 lay and ecclesiastical dignitaries of high rank who met at least forty-two times a year attending religious services at least twenty-seven times a year

The barrier was moved in the mid-1500s of about 5 m (16 feet) toward the entrance due to the increase in the number of members of the Cappella Papalis

The restoration lasted 20 years (1979/1999) starting from the lunettes and ending with the paintings on the walls

The television company Nippon Television Network Corporation has been providing most of the funds for the restoration of Michelangelo’s paintings in the Chapel, totaling $ 4.2 million, in exchange for film rights

“Without having seen the Sistine Chapel one cannot even have an idea of what a man is able to achieve” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)