Michelangelo Matters 2 (afternoon)

The Sistine Chapel, 
from ‘Beginning’ to ‘End’

Like David in week 1, the Creation of Adam must be one of the world’s most famous images, but so many people who seek it out, knowing that Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, are surprised that other artists worked there as well. However, Michelangelo’s contribution was just part of a gradual process of decoration in the chapel, which was originally built for Pope Sixtus IV, who gives the chapel its name. Successive Popes added what they could, until eventually the frescoes and tapestries came to embody the whole history of the world  - in Christian terms - from its ‘Beginning’ to its ‘End’. So, in this one hour, we will look at the whole of world history…