The Sistine Chapel is the most well known chapel in the Apostolic Palace-the home of the Pope in the Vatican City in Rome. It's amazing Renaissance art and architecture is what makes it so famous; it was frescoed by many famous Renaissance artists such as Michelangleo, Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, Pinturicchio, and many others. Michelangelo painted about 12,000 square feet of the ceiling; it took about 4 years to complete (1508-1512). The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, especially The Last Judgement, is believed to be "Michelangelo's crowning achievement in painting".
The chapel got its name from Pope Sixtus IV. During the late 1400's,Pietro Perugino and Sandro Botticelli, along with Domencio Ghirlandaio, also worked on frescoed panels depicting the life of Moses and of Jesus Christ. They were offset by papal portraits above and trompe l'oeil drapery below them. These paintings were completed in 1482, and in August of the following year, Sixtus IV celebrated the Feast of the Assumption. At this ceremony, the chapel was concecrated and dedicated to the Virgin Mary.
The Sistine Chapel is a high, rectangular-brick building. The exterior of the building doesn't have any extraordinary decorations or special designs....it is just plain brick. It is very common for Medival or Renaissance churches in Italy to look very plain. It doesn't have any processional doorways, and the outside can only be seen from nearby windows and light-wells in the palace. The internal spaces are divided into three areas: a very robust basement at the lowest level, the main space (the chapel itself), and above that is a wardroom for guards.
The wallso of the Chapel are divided into 3 main tiers. The lower tier is decorated with wall hangings of gold and silver. The middle tier has 2 cycles of paintings that complement the other: The Life of Moses and The Life of Christ. These 2 cycles of paintings were commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV, and was completed by the many of the same members of the previous teams of painters. The upper third tier is divided into two zones: the lower level of the windows is The Gallery of Popes. The upper level of windows are areas that are known as lunettes that contain The Ancestors of Christ.
Restoration of the Sistine Chapel's ceiling began on November 7, 1984. When the restoration was completed, the chapel reopened for the public on April 8, 1994. The part of the restoration that caused the most controversy and concern was the ceiling, originally done by Michelangelo. The problem was the difference in the techniques of Michelangelo's painting and the techniques of the restorers' painting. The restorers were convinced that Michelangelo used a certain technique of painting on only fresh plaster and not dry plaster; this technique was called "buon fresco". He didn't come back later to work on dry plaster. The restorers, thinking that Michelangelo took a universal approach to creating it, took a universal approach to restoring it. The restorers decided that the shadowy layer of animal glue was the result of a sort of contamination. As a result, chemists came up with a solvent that would strip the painting down to the painted "buon fresco". (What I infer is) there was controversy on doing restoration on it at all and taking a guess on what Michelangelo's technique was and doing something that may or may not have been what "Michelangelo would have wanted".
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