The Sistine Chapel was built between 1475 and 1480. It was built in Rome (Italy) and was dedication to the Virgin Mary. It was Catholic denomination and the faith was Christianity. The Chapel is a rectangle brick building that doesn’t have much for aesthetic beauty. Today it is known mostly by the art Michelangelo painted on the ceilings.
The basement of the church is the first of three levels to the chapel. The basement is huge and has many small windows like a basement has and it also has a door that opens to the courtyard. The second level is the most famous and well- known part. It is the Chapel and it is 134 feet long by 44 feet wide which is the dimensions of the Temple of Solomon in the Old Testament.
The third floor is full of wardrooms for the guards of the Chapel. There were several artists that painted on the ceilings of the Chapel, but Michelangelo is the most well- known of them all. He painted around 12,000 square feet of the ceiling with magnificent art. The most famous painting that Michelangelo painted was The Creation of Adam and it is also one of the most famous paintings in the world. He also painted David and Goliath, Judith and Holofernes, the Punishment of Aman and the Bronze Serpent in the Chapel.
The Chapel has nine different scenes from Genesis on the ceiling all painted by Michelangelo. Michelangelo painted the scenes in reverse order starting on the ceiling by the entrance wall. Perugino and Botticelli are two other artists that painted on the walls of the Chapel before Michelangelo. Perugino painted “Christ Gives the Keys to Peter” and Botticelli painted “The Punishment of Korah”. The Chapels’ ceiling was originally painted by Piero Matteo d’Amelia but Pope Julius II was the one who had Michelangelo repaint the ceiling.
The Chapel ceiling paintings have been restored many times. In 1625 a man wiped the ceiling with linen cloths and cleaned it with bread. In 1710 a man and his son used sponges to get the dirt and other residues out from earlier restorations. In 1935– 1938 the Vatican Museum removed the soot and dirt from the paintings. In 1994 they finished the restoration on the ceiling and walls.
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