The Sistine Chapel was built between 1508 and 1512 and it was designed and painted by one of the most well-known artists ever, Michelangelo. It was built in Vatican City, Italy. The building was painted by Michelanglelo, and a couple other people, Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Pintruicchio and others. This chapel is in the Apostolic Palace, which is the official residence of the Pope in the Vatican City, so they had to make this place special.
They asked Michelangelo to paint the inside, at first he didn’t really want to because he preferred to sculpt, but he wasn’t going to say no the Pope. So he began one of his most famous works in 1508, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. This wasn’t any small ceiling though; it was 12,000 square feet or 1,100 square meters.
He had some complications along the way, for instance he couldn’t just paint the ceiling from the ground, this wasn’t any normal house ceiling today, so he had to attach wooden platform to the walls so that he could stand on them to be closer to the ceiling. One of the reasons it took so long was because each day he worked on it he had to lay new plaster onto the ceiling in order to be able to paint on it. It took him about 10 years to complete this huge task. Each day he had to lay new plaster on the ceiling so he could paint.
Even though Michelangelo gets credit and probably deserves it for doing the Sistine Chapel project, he wasn’t the only who did it, he had many assistants. The few things he did allow his assistants to do were very minor. He would often fire and hire new assistants because he had a bad temper and set very high standards for his assistants. This is why no one else could really take credit for helping him complete it. Michelangelo made the complete design, sketches, cartoons, and performed most of the painting himself.
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