The Vatican - Sistine Chapel

  

Creating Adam

       When Angela, our guide,  got the word that it was our turn to enter the Sistine Chapel,  she and Renata gathered us and told us the rules.  We were not to talk or take any pictures. If we were caught doing so, the Vatican "police" would find out our tour group and no tours from this company would ever get to tour the Chapel again! That seemed pretty strict, but it was to make sure the photo flash did not harm the newly cleaned frescoes.  Someone asked, "What if we say we are not with a group?" Angela furrowed her eyebrows and said, "Well you have a #19 sticker and head phones. That's a dead give away. But they will probably usher you out or take your camera.  So just follow the rules! Oh and to stay together and keep moving... " So quiet as mice we entered like cattle going into the coral, all cramped together as we entered into little Chapel.
     The Sistine Chapel was named for Pope Sixtus IV who began the restoration of the crumbling Capppella Magna in 1480. After the building was rebuilt, he commissioned a group of painters to compose frescoes on the side panels depicting the life of Moses and Christ.  The church used pictures to tell the stories of the Bible because very few people could read and pictures are nice to look at!

Life of Moses by Sandro Botticelli

     Recently, we saw the importance of the Sistine Chapel when the Pope Francis was chosen pope. It is known as the pope's chapel and used as the conclave of the College of Cardinals. We watched the roof of the Sistine Chapel where the little smoke stack would emit black or white smoke when the cardinals vacillated the decision of choosing a pope.   Prior to 1059 the pope was chosen by secular authority such as the Holy Roman Emperor.  After this time the church felt that the Pope should be chosen by the church authorities only.  This was known as the Georgian Reform.  It was part of a the Investiture Controversy as the church tried to gain more control over its clergy and papal real estate. This reform created a shift in balance of power toward the church.
       The College of Cardinals operated in a democratic system perhaps influenced by the Roman Senate. The president and sub-president are elected by the cardinals and are approved by the pope. The name "cardinal" comes from the Latin "carda" meaning "hinge."   Their purpose is to "hinge" together the theological and governmental roles of church.  To this day the pope relies on the cardinals for advice on doctrine and government.  This system keeps the pope abreast as to what is happening in the church world wide.  To date there are 201 cardinals of whom 112 are under the age of 80 and are able to vote.  Within the College of Cardinals there are three categories: Cardinal Bishops, Cardinal Priests and Cardinal Deacons.
      Popes are elected for life, but this year is the first time that a pope retired.  This is not the only change in the Catholic Church. Pope John XXIII  allowed mas to be spoken in the vernacular of the people which is great, because in our era most people can read, but few know the mas in Latin.  Also lay people have been able to help with various parts of the mas which speeds things up and makes everyone happy especially preventing sore knees from kneeling for long periods of time!   

Michelangelo by Jacopino del Conte

The Last Judgement by Michelangelo

       We walked in from the alter end of the Chapel, and we had to turn around to see the Last Judgement by Michelangelo that covered the whole wall behind the altar.  It is properly placed so that if you were in church and had to see what was happening in this fresco, you would be convinced that you had to be really a  good person for the rest of your life or else! Michelangelo took four years to paint the wall twenty years after he painted the ceiling.  He was 60 years of age and his figures took a more dramatic change in their facial expressions and twisting positions.  It is more representative of the baroque style of painting that follows the renaissance in which emotion is depicted in the faces.
      The fresco shows the second coming of Christ when he judges who goes up and who goes down. No one is smiling! Included in the fresco are all the saints that he could fit in the large space.  He even includes his face as St. Bartholomew is holding his skin.

Michelangelo as St Bartholomew

The fresco is divided in two parts with the good above and the bad below a group of angels blowing their trumpets.

Angels calling the souls with their trumpets.

       As we turn, we look up to the magnificent ceiling painted by Michelangelo.  When Pope Julius II asked Michelangelo to paint the ceiling, he first refused because he saw himself as a sculptor not a painter and was in the middle of a project he wanted to finish.  But the Pope persisted and Michelangelo consented only if he could do it his way.  He knew it was not going to be an easy task.  First of all the ceiling was as long as a football field about 5,000 square feet and 60 feet above the ground.  He was not adept at doing frescoes, so he had to educate himself in this technique. The painter paints on wet plaster and the pigment of the color is set into the plaster when it dries.  The word fresco comes from the Italian word meaning fresh.  So the artist needs to work fast before the plaster sets. This is hard enough without doing it on a ceiling  sixty feet from the floor.
      Michelangelo had to build scaffolding which he attached to the side with wall brackets for support.  The platforms were low enough so he and his assistants could stand and reach up to the ceiling.  He used a pulley system to raise and lower materials as they were needed.  The plaster had to be mixed on the high platform and charcoal imprints of the figures had to quickly be pressed into the plaster before the artist could begin with the paints.   Candle light was used to illuminate the wall which is not very bright even in daylight at that height.  This was very difficult work for Michelangelo when was trying to be precise about perspective and facial expressions.
        Irving Stone wrote about the life of Michelangelo in his book Agony and the Ecstasy and it was made into a movie and subsequently into DVD.  I went to our local library and got it.  Charleston Heston played Michelangelo and I specially liked the part where he had to climb up the scaffolding and paint on newly applied plaster.  The films showed how difficult this was and how hard it was to paint lying on his back.  This was not the case,  however, for he had to stand and bend backward and not on his back.  Bending backward took a terrible train on his back.  No wonder it took over four years to finish his work.  In fact he wrote about his condition to his friend Giovanni da Pistoia citing his condition in a poem:

I've already grown a goiter from this torture,
hunched up here like a cat in Lombardy
(or anywhere else where the stagnant water's poison).
My stomach's squashed under my chin, my beard's
pointing at heaven, my brain's crushed in a casket,
my breast twists like a harpy's. My brush,
above me all the time, dribbles paint
so my face makes a fine floor for droppings!
My haunches are grinding into my guts,
my poor ass strains to work as a counterweight,
every gesture I make is blind and aimless.
My skin hangs loose below me, my spine's
all knotted from folding over itself.
I'm bent taut as a Syrian bow.
Because I'm stuck like this, my thoughts
are crazy, perfidious tripe:
anyone shoots badly through a crooked blowpipe.
My painting is dead.
Defend it for me, Giovanni, protect my honor.
I am not in the right place—I am not a painter.

        I put my earphones on and switched on my IPad to the Rick Steve's explanation of the paining on the ceiling while straining my neck to see it all.  I could see the nine pannels that show paintings of the Book of Genesis seen here in the light blue rectangles.

Rick recommends me to find a space on the side to sit down, but all the spaces were taken and the multitude of bodies all around me were still in a slow procession shoving me forward.  I could go no where except to do slow shuffle as I strained my neck to see the paintings high above me.

Finally, I got to the middle and stood still trying to hold my ground as people pushed and shoved around me.

I could see how beauliful the figures looked now after the restoration that had taken place from 1980 to 1999. This is what it looked like before having been smudged by candle smoke and other environmental detriments for five centuries.

Darken figures caused by smoke.

It seems that most of the paint adhered and there was little retouching. By using science and experimental solvents the curators worked very hard at preserving the original works.

 Before                                         After

         My neck was getting sore and I moved my head around when I saw John waving his hands wildly. He was near the door pointing out which meant that my group was leaving me behind. So I made an effort to shuffle toward the door as I saw the last scene of Genesis. It was the Deluge after the Ark was built. The final scene shows Noah in a drunken state while his sons are attempting to cover him. Michelangelo may have had a bit of a sense of humor and knew about the human condition. Regarding Noah, no one can blame him for having a few pints after a long voyage with a menagerie of stinky animals.
     

        I finally made it out  the door just in time to see everyone heading to St. Peter's Square.  The sunshine felt wonderful and being outside the overstuffed chapel made me feel great! So now we look forward to going to St. Peter Basilica!