Sistine Chapel

The Sistine Chapel doesn't have its own entrance: you get in only with a ticket for the Vatican Museums, whose entrance is on Viale Vaticano, 00165 Rome, right up against the walls of Vatican City. The useful Metro A stops are Ottaviano and Cipro, both about 10 minutes on foot from the entrance. The full-price ticket costs €20, the reduced one €10. Booking online on the Museums' official website adds €5 but avoids a line that in the warm months easily exceeds an hour. The Museums are open Monday to Saturday from 8:00 to 20:00, with last entry at 18:00. On Sundays they're closed, except the last one of the month, when entry is free from 9:00 to 14:00, with exit at 12:30 as the limit for entering. Children under seven don't pay. The reduced-ticket categories and any evening openings should be checked on the official website before you leave. Anyone who wants to see the Sistine Chapel at a calm pace should book the first time slot of the morning. It's the most useful advice, for anyone.

The Latin name is Sacellum Sixtinum, and it is dedicated to Mary Assumed into Heaven. It's the main chapel of the Apostolic Palace, the place where the pope is elected and, at the same time, the highest concentration of Renaissance painting in a single room. On the walls worked Perugino, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Rosselli, Signorelli and their workshops. Michelangelo worked on the vault and the end wall, first from 1508 to 1512 and then from 1536 to 1541. Whoever goes through it in 10 minutes, pushed along by the current of the groups, sees a famous ceiling. Whoever stays an hour sees a whole century of art history, and that's what I talk about below.

From the Cappella Magna to the Sistine Chapel: Sixtus IV and the 1477 Building Site

Before the Sistine, in the same spot in the Apostolic Palace, there was already a palatine chapel, the so-called Cappella Magna. A decoration of it is documented in 1369, with work by Giottino and Giovanni da Milano. After the popes returned from the Avignon captivity, the recovery of Rome's great Christian buildings, left neglected for decades, became the political program of the popes of the 15th century, starting with Martin V. It was Sixtus IV della Rovere, a Franciscan, formerly a professor of theology and general of the order, elected in August 1471, who brought that program to its most ambitious outcome: the complete reconstruction of the palatine chapel, which took its name from him.

The architectural project took shape around 1473 to a design by Baccio Pontelli. In 1477 the crumbling remains of the earlier building were demolished, reusing its foundations and the base of the sound walls, and the building site started under the supervision of Giovannino de' Dolci. It seems the medieval walls were kept up to the height of the first cornice, which explains the irregularities of the plan: the long sides converge slightly toward the end, and the end wall is not perfectly parallel to the altar wall. The building was covered with a brick facing and reinforced with a sloping base. From outside, whoever looked at it saw a severe block, almost a fortress, comparable in mass only to the architecture of the imperial age. By the summer of 1481 the construction must have been finished, because the start of the frescoes is documented. The consecration came with the first Mass on August 15, 1483, the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, to which the chapel was dedicated.

The functions did not change from those of the Cappella Magna and of the similar chapel in the Palace of the Popes in Avignon. Here the most solemn ceremonies of the papal court's liturgical calendar took place, before a strictly selected audience: the college of cardinals, the generals of the orders, the accredited diplomats, the leaders of the Papal State, the senator and the conservators of Rome, and visiting patriarchs, bishops and princes. Beyond the marble screen, which still divides the hall today, the crowd of those admitted to the services pressed together. One last clarification to avoid confusion: there are two other chapels called Sistine, one in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, commissioned by Sixtus V a century later, and one in the cathedral of Savona, had built by Sixtus IV as a mausoleum for his own parents. The one of the conclave and of Michelangelo is only this one.

The Architecture of the Sistine Chapel: The Measurements of Solomon's Temple

The hall has a basilica-style plan and measures 40.93 meters long by 13.41 meters wide. According to a traditional reading, these are the proportions of Solomon's Temple as the Old Testament describes them, and the choice is not decorative but programmatic, because it presents the papacy as the legitimate heir of the biblical covenant. The height reaches 20.70 meters, under a flattened barrel vault connected to the walls by sails and pendentives, which create lunettes above the side walls. Beneath each lunette, narrow arched windows light the space: six on each long wall, plus two that were originally on the west wall, walled up when Michelangelo prepared the Last Judgment. Horizontal cornices divide the wall into three bands. At the height of the windows, the wall steps back and leaves room for a narrow service walkway, the same one from which the frescoes have been observed up close for centuries. Above that level, the pillars, which in the lower zone are only painted, become real and support the corbels of the vault. Above the portal stands the large Della Rovere coat of arms, the oak tree with 12 golden acorns topped by the papal tiara. It celebrates Sixtus IV, but it was made in the time of Julius II, his nephew, the pope who would call on Michelangelo.

The Cosmatesque Floor, the Part Nobody Looks At

Everyone walks in and looks up, almost no one lowers it, and that is a mistake. The 15th-century floor is a carpet of polychrome marble inlays in the Cosmatesque style, and it is not a simple ornament. The designs mark the processional route from the entrance to the screen with a sequence of linked circles, flanked by panels with different motifs. In the innermost area, in front of the altar, the mosaics indicate the position of the papal throne, the seats of the cardinals and even the movements of the celebrants during services: a liturgical choreography written in marble. It is the oldest and least discussed level of the chapel, and for more than five centuries it has borne the feet of millions of visitors.

Screen and Choir Loft: The Marbles of Mino da Fiesole

The marble screen that cuts across the hall is the work of Mino da Fiesole, Andrea Bregno and Giovanni Dalmata. It divides the chapel into two parts: the larger one, with the altar, reserved for ceremonies and the papal court, and the smaller one intended for the faithful. The passage barrier was originally made of gilded iron and stood in a more central position, roughly at the height of the Creation of Eve on the vault, as the floor design confirms. In the 1580s it was moved about five meters toward the entrance to enlarge the presbytery. The base is a sequence of gilded bas-relief panels, with putti holding garlands that bear the coat of arms of Sixtus IV, alternating with plant motifs. It is topped by small pilasters and by an architrave on which marble candelabra rest. The choir loft on the right wall is by the same sculptors, a space about five meters wide and two deep, reserved for the choir. Shortly after the election of August 9, 1471, Sixtus IV had created a Collegio dei Cappellani Cantori, the first core of the Cappella Musicale Pontificia Sistina, which regularly housed 12 singers here. From that balcony, half the history of European sacred polyphony has passed.

The 15th-Century Cycle of the Sistine Chapel, Wall by Wall

The clearest verdict on this place: the 15th-century walls are the most underrated part of the Sistine Chapel. Nine out of 10 visitors ignore them to look at the vault, yet those panels are an absolute peak of Italian painting, executed when Michelangelo was six years old. The decoration began with the wall behind the altar, with Perugino, who had already worked for Sixtus IV in the destroyed Chapel of the Conception in the old St. Peter's Basilica. He also painted the altarpiece with the Assumption of the Virgin, venerated by the pope kneeling before it. In that first phase, the vault was covered by a starry sky by Piermatteo d'Amelia, according to a medieval tradition.

Then politics came into play. Lorenzo de' Medici, to mend relations with the pope after the Pazzi Conspiracy of 1478, proposed sending the best painters active in Florence, ambassadors of beauty and of the city's cultural primacy. The offer was accepted: on October 27, 1480 Sandro Botticelli, Cosimo Rosselli, Domenico Ghirlandaio and their respective collaborators left for Rome, where they are documented at work from the spring of 1481. Each master, with the help of collaborators such as Pinturicchio, Piero di Cosimo and Bartolomeo della Gatta, first frescoed one of the trial panels. With a new contract of October 27, 1481 they were reconfirmed for the 10 remaining panels, to be delivered by the following March. Not everyone met the deadlines: Luca Signorelli took over from Perugino, and completed the scenes toward the entrance wall. The iconographic program was defined in detail by the pontiff and his advisers, and according to some scholars it draws on the Expositio super septem visiones libri apocalypsis, a biblical exegesis perhaps from the ninth century, or else on the thought of Joachim of Fiore about the concord between the Old and New Covenant. The result, despite such different personalities, is surprisingly homogeneous: same scale of figures, same rhythmic layout, same dominant tones, with an abundance of gold finishing meant to light up in the glow of torches and candles, an effect that today's electric lighting can only let us imagine.

The South Wall: The Stories of Moses

On the left wall as you face the altar run the Stories of Moses, datable to 1481-1482. Starting from the altar you come to: the Departure of Moses for Egypt by Pietro Perugino and assistants. The Trials of Moses by Sandro Botticelli and workshop, with the future prophet killing the Egyptian, defending the daughters of Jethro at the well and taking off his sandals before the burning bush, all in a single landscape. The Crossing of the Red Sea, attributed in turn to Cosimo Rosselli, to Domenico Ghirlandaio or to Biagio di Antonio Tucci. The Descent from Mount Sinai by Cosimo Rosselli with the probable intervention of Piero di Cosimo. The Punishment of the Rebels by Botticelli, where Korah, Dathan and Abiram are swallowed up by the earth in front of an Arch of Constantine painted with archaeological precision. Last, the Last Will and Death of Moses by Luca Signorelli and Bartolomeo della Gatta, with those male nudes in the foreground that Michelangelo, by the admission of anyone with eyes, studied closely.

The North Wall: The Stories of Christ

Opposite, on the right wall, the Stories of Christ, of the same period: the Baptism of Christ by Perugino and assistants. The Temptations of Christ by Botticelli, with in the foreground the sacrifice of the healed leper in front of the facade of the hospital of Santo Spirito, just rebuilt by Sixtus IV. The Calling of the First Apostles by Domenico Ghirlandaio, a small sampler of portraits of the Florentine colony in Rome. The Sermon on the Mount attributed to Cosimo Rosselli. The Handing Over of the Keys by Pietro Perugino, for me the single most important panel of the entire cycle, with the ideal square, the two triumphal arches and the octagonal temple defining the space of the new covenant. The Last Supper by Cosimo Rosselli. In front of the Handing Over of the Keys it's worth stopping for twice as long: that clear perspective is the premise of all sixteenth-century painting, Raphael included.

The Altar Wall and the Entrance Wall

The west wall, the altar wall, originally held three frescoes by Perugino, the Birth and Finding of Moses, the Assumption with Sixtus IV kneeling and the Nativity of Christ. They were all destroyed between 1535 and 1536 to make room for Michelangelo's Last Judgment, together with the two lunettes with the ancestors of Christ that he himself had painted 25 years earlier. The east wall, the entrance wall, closed the two cycles with Ghirlandaio's Resurrection of Christ and Signorelli's Dispute over the Body of Moses. Settling of the foundations damaged them irreparably and in the second half of the sixteenth century they were repainted by Hendrik van den Broeck (1572) and by Matteo da Lecce (1574). They are, honestly, the weakest painted interventions of the entire decoration, and you can spot them at a glance.

The Theology of the Sistine Chapel: How to Read the Cycle

The cycle is not a gallery of paintings but an argument. The panels face each other in pairs, and the Latin inscriptions in the frieze above, the tituli, spell out the correspondences according to typological iconography: the old prefigures the new, the new fulfills the old, as in the principle already formulated by St. Augustine: «God, the inspirer and author of the books of both Testaments, wisely arranged that the new be hidden in the old and the old become clear in the new». Moses, leader and lawgiver of the chosen people, assisted by the priest Aaron, prefigures Christ. Christ passes the new law to Peter. Peter passes it to his successors, that is, the popes. In this chain Perugino's Handing over of the Keys is the doctrinal hinge, and Botticelli's Punishment of the Rebels, on the opposite side, is the warning: whoever opposes the authority of the pontiff ends up like Korah. A solemn political reaffirmation of Petrine primacy, painted by Florentines paid by a pope who had been at war with Florence. Above the panels, in the niches between the windows, the portraits of the first pontiffs parade past, from Peter to Marcellus. The whole has been called the most complete of visual theologies, a Biblia pauperum of the highest level: a Bible in images that, read in full, tells the spiritual history of humanity from the Creation to the Fall, from the Redemption to the end of the world.

The Vault of the Sistine Chapel: Michelangelo, 1508-1512

How the Work on the Vault Began

It all began with a crack. In the spring of 1504 the unstable nature of the ground caused the south wall to give way and a long fissure ran across the ceiling, so much that all services had to be suspended. Julius II della Rovere had the vault reinforced with chains, above the extrados and in the rooms below, and the crack, which started from the northeast corner, was filled with new bricks probably in the summer of the same year. Piermatteo d'Amelia's starry sky was by now compromised. The idea of entrusting its redoing to Michelangelo came to the pope as early as April 1506, as a letter from the Florentine master builder Piero Rosselli to the sculptor attests, which reported the pontiff's words. But Michelangelo's flight from Rome, exasperated by the intrigues that had blocked the project for Julius II's tomb, froze everything until the reconciliation of 1507. In 1508 the artist returned, signed the contract and climbed onto the scaffolding. He came down, with the work finished, on October 31, 1512.

The practical problems were enormous and Michelangelo solved almost all of them on his own. Bramante had proposed a scaffold suspended from ropes lowered from the ceiling. Michelangelo refused it, objecting that when the work was over the rope holes would have riddled the frescoes with holes, and he built a stepped wooden platform of his own, resting on supports inserted into holes made in the upper walls, near the windows. The first layer of plaster, spread too damp, grew moldy: everything had to be scraped off and started again with a new mixture worked out by an assistant, Jacopo known as l'Indaco, which from then on entered the Italian building tradition. The program also grew along the way: the initial commission called for 12 figures, the Apostles. In the end, on the vault, there are more than 300 figures. Many preparatory drawings of the undertaking survive, precious documents of a job carried out standing up, with the head bent backward, for four and a half years.

The architectural frame you see up there doesn't exist: it is painted. Michelangelo invented a fake marble architecture to order the scenes and figures: five large transverse arches mark off the central band, eight triangular sails (four per side) and four corner pendentives join the vault to the walls, while the lunettes run along the bottom above the windows. Within this grid are placed the nine Stories of Genesis, the 20 ignudi with the bronze medallions, the seven Prophets and the five Sibyls, the Ancestors of Christ in the sails and lunettes, the episodes of salvation in the pendentives. Between the pairs of ignudi, faux-bronze medals with scenes from the Books of Kings and cornucopias of fruit and flowers celebrate the prosperity of Julius II's pontificate.

The Nine Stories of Genesis, from the Altar to the Door

The central spine of the vault tells nine episodes from the Book of Genesis. The reading order starts from the altar. The Separation of Light from Darkness. The Creation of the Stars, with that Creator seen from behind, which is one of the boldest gestures in the whole history of painting. The Separation of the Waters from the Earth. The Creation of Adam. The Creation of Eve, which marked the point where the original screen divided the hall. The Original Sin and the Expulsion from the Earthly Paradise, with the serpent with a woman's body wrapped around the tree. The Sacrifice of Noah. The Universal Flood, the most crowded scene and the first one painted in chronological order. The Drunkenness of Noah. One detail you can see very well in front of the original: Michelangelo started from the door side, and in the first scenes the figures are small and there are a lot of them. As he moved toward the altar, he understood that from 20 meters away you needed gigantic bodies and spare compositions, and the Creation of Adam belongs to this second phase, more concise and more powerful. The chronology of the worksite can be read with the naked eye, you just have to know it.

Prophets and Sibyls

Around the central stories, on painted marble thrones, sit 12 colossal figures of seers: seven prophets of Israel and five sibyls of the pagan world. In sequence you meet Zechariah, above the entrance door. Joel and the Delphic Sibyl, the latter in a Greek dress that declares her origin. The Erythraean Sibyl and Isaiah. Ezekiel and the Cumaean Sibyl, a mountain of muscle with the open book. The Persian Sibyl and Daniel. Jeremiah, folded in on himself in a melancholy that many read as a moral self-portrait of the artist, and the Libyan Sibyl, caught in the twisting act of closing the volume. Finally Jonah, above the altar, thrown backward with the fish beside him, the only one who really looks toward God. The presence together of Hebrew prophets and pagan sibyls is not a whim: it says that the expectation of Christ ran through all of ancient humanity, Israel through revelation and the Gentiles through the intuition of reason. In fact, the different figurations of the vault have, besides the literal meaning of the stories of the chosen people, a universal function of revealing man's states of mind after sin: the sadness of unaware waiting in the Ancestors, the blind hope before the miracle in the salvations of Israel, the virile serenity of awareness of the future in the Prophets and the Sibyls.

The Ignudi and the Medallions

At the four corners of the five smaller stories of Genesis sit the 20 ignudi, young nudes on blocks of fake marble, in poses that are always different, halfway between angelic and human creatures, holding festoons and the ribbons of the 10 faux-bronze medallions with scenes from the Books of Kings. Nobody has ever closed the discussion on what they represent: wingless angels, Neoplatonic geniuses, the beauty of the body as a reflection of the divine. Michelangelo's training in the San Marco garden, in contact with the circle of Lorenzo the Magnificent, with Marsilio Ficino and with Pico della Mirandola, makes the Neoplatonic reading plausible: the perfect human body as a step toward God, sculpture and painting as the art of freeing form from matter. Whatever they are, the ignudi are the most influential repertoire of anatomy ever painted: three centuries of academies descend from here.

Pendentives, Spandrels and Lunettes: the Ancestors of Christ

In the four corner pendentives Michelangelo painted episodes of the salvation of Israel: Judith and Holofernes, David and Goliath on the entrance side. The Punishment of Haman and the Bronze Serpent, much more convulsive, on the altar side. In the eight spandrels and in the lunettes above the windows runs instead the genealogy of Jesus according to Matthew: the Ancestors of Christ, families in waiting depicted with a tired, everyday humanity that has no equal in the rest of the vault, Eleazar and Mattan, Jacob and Joseph, Achim and Eliud, Azor and Zadok, Zerubbabel, Josiah, Hezekiah, Uzziah, Asa, Rehoboam, Jesse with David and Solomon, Salmon with Boaz and Obed, Nahshon, Amminadab. The painted lunettes were originally 16: the two on the altar wall, with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Judah and with Perez, Hezron and Aram, were destroyed by Michelangelo himself when he prepared the wall for the Judgment. 14 remain, and it's the only case in which the artist erased himself.

The Creation of Adam, the icon of the Sistine Chapel

The traditional interpretation of the most famous scene in the world is subtler than it seems: Adam is not physically created, his body is already there, stretched out and languid. He is about to receive something impalpable from God's hand, the spark that makes him the image and likeness of the Creator. The man's abandoned posture, as he wakes from his torpor, contrasts with the energy of God in flight, and the outstretched fingers that don't touch leave the viewer with the sense of a current passing between them. There is also a modern hypothesis about this scene that has to be taken for what it is, a fascinating suggestion and not a fact: the American physician Frank Meshberger observed that the cloak, the figures and the drapery surrounding God form an outline matching the sagittal section of the human brain, with details that in his view recall the Sylvian fissure and even the pituitary gland. Michelangelo studied anatomy on cadavers, Vasari tells us this in connection with his years at Santo Spirito in Florence, and the anatomists of his time placed the seat of the intellect in the brain, the divine gift par excellence. If the hypothesis hit the mark, the scene would say that God hands Adam reason, and also that every image of God is a product of the human mind. No document confirms it, and that must be said clearly. Standing before the fresco, though, I understand why this reading has kept circulating for decades.

The Last Judgment of the Sistine Chapel: 1536-1541

The genesis of the work

The last great decoration was commissioned by Clement VII, who called Michelangelo back for a monumental fresco on the end wall. The first mention of the idea is in a letter from Sebastiano del Piombo to Michelangelo dated July 17, 1533, inviting him to return to Rome. Once the initial resistance was overcome, in 1534 the artist left Florence for good, partly out of intolerance toward Duke Alessandro de' Medici. The bulk of the work took place under Paul III Farnese, between 1536 and 1541. It was the first destructive intervention in the chapel's history: to make room for the Judgment, the two windows on the west wall were walled up, and Perugino's three frescoes, the altarpiece of the Assumption and two lunettes by Michelangelo himself were demolished. On the wall, which slopes inward to prevent dust from settling, a vortex of more than 300 figures took shape around the beardless Christ the judge and the Virgin: the blessed who rise, the damned who plunge, the angels with trumpets, Charon lashing souls out of the boat and Minos with donkey ears, Saint Bartholomew holding his own flayed skin, on whose distorted face modern critics recognize a self-portrait of the artist. When the work was unveiled, on October 31, 1541, the effect was a shock: nothing like it had ever been seen on a sacred wall.

The controversy and the Braghettone

The scandal broke at once. Cardinal Carafa accused Michelangelo of immorality and of intolerable obscenity for those nude bodies, with the genitals in plain view, in the most important chapel of Christendom, and together with Monsignor Sernini, ambassador of Mantua, he organized a censorship campaign that went down in history as the fig leaf campaign, which aimed at the destruction of the fresco. Vasari recounts the most famous episode: the master of ceremonies Biagio da Cesena declared that the work was fit for a public bath more than for a chapel, and Michelangelo, out of revenge, gave the infernal Minos his features. When the master of ceremonies protested, the pope replied that his jurisdiction did not reach hell, and the portrait stayed. According to other scholars, the caricature of Minos instead depicts Pierluigi Farnese, son of Paul III, a man of very bad reputation. It's a hypothesis, and has to be reported as such. The censorship won anyway, in its own way: coinciding with Michelangelo's death, in 1564, the decree was issued ordering that the nudity be covered (Pictura in Cappella Apostolica coopriantur), and Daniele da Volterra, a pupil of the master, painted the series of drapery and loincloths called braghe, which earned him forever the nickname Braghettone. A faithful, uncensored copy of the original, painted by Marcello Venusti before the interventions, is kept in Naples, at the Museo di Capodimonte. For those who study the Judgment it's an irreplaceable document.

Raphael's Tapestries and the Organ of the Sistine Chapel

Leo X de' Medici, too, wanted to tie his name to the Della Rovere chapel, and he did it with the only space left: the lowest register of the walls, frescoed with fake drapery. At the end of 1514 he commissioned Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio) to produce the cartoons for a series of 10 tapestries with the Stories of Saints Peter and Paul, woven in Brussels in the workshop of Pieter van Aelst. Under the Stories of Christ went four tapestries with the Stories of Saint Peter, starting with the Miraculous Draught of Fishes. Under the Stories of Moses went six Stories of Saint Paul, from the Martyrdom of Saint Stephen to the Sermon at Athens. Raphael, perfectly aware of the comparison with Michelangelo's vault over his head, based the compositions on the tragic style inaugurated with the Fire in the Borgo: simplified schemes, emphasized gestures, eloquent and universal facial expressions. When the first seven tapestries were displayed, on December 26, 1519, the master of ceremonies Paris de Grassis noted that the whole chapel was stunned at the sight of them. Seven original cartoons survive at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. The tapestries belong to the Vatican Museums and can be seen in the Vatican Pinacoteca, in Room VIII, while in the chapel they appear only on exceptional occasions. Replicas made from the same drawings are found in several Italian cities, from Mantua to Loreto. The latest arrival, in chronological order, is the pipe organ in the right corner of the inner façade wall. Built by the Swiss firm Mathis Orgelbau, with two keyboards of 56 keys, a pedalboard of 30, and a fully mechanical action, it was inaugurated on December 14, 2002 by the organist Gianluca Libertucci in the presence of Cardinal Angelo Sodano and Monsignor Piero Marini.

The Restorations of the Sistine Chapel: From 1979 to 1999, and the Cleaning of the Last Judgment

The great twentieth-century restoration began on tiptoe in 1979, with tests on small portions, including the Dispute over the Body of Moses by Matteo da Lecce, to calibrate the solvents. Then they proceeded in phases: from June 1980 to October 1984 the lunettes with the Ancestors, from 1984 to 1989 the vault, from 1989 to 1994 the Last Judgment, presented restored in April 1994. The last campaign, on the fifteenth-century frescoes of the walls, was completed and shown to the public on December 11, 1999, with John Paul II celebrating its conclusion. The work site was directed on the operational side by chief restorer Gianluigi Colalucci with Maurizio Rossi, Piergiorgio Bonetti and Bruno Baratti, and was financed by the Nippon Television Network Corporation, which paid $4.2 million in exchange for exclusive rights to filming and photographs. For years the sharpest images of the restored Sistine were Japanese. The removal of centuries of candle soot, glues and dust gave back a ringing palette, acid greens, oranges, shimmering pinks, that threw the world off balance. Part of the critics, with the art historian James Beck in the front row, accused the cleaning of having been too radical and of having removed glazes that Michelangelo would have applied a secco. The dispute has never been fully closed, but the Michelangelo the colorist that we see today is the one his contemporaries described. The fate of Daniele da Volterra's breeches was also controversial: they chose to remove the later additions while keeping the sixteenth-century ones, by now historicized and part of the collective imagination. The story continues. About 30 years after that work site, the Vatican Museums began an extraordinary maintenance of the Last Judgment, a cleaning of microparticle deposits carried out by the Painting Restoration Laboratory led by chief restorer Paolo Violini, expected to last a few months and supported by the Patrons of the Arts of Florida. The work is done with the chapel open, behind a cloth that reproduces the fresco in high definition, so anyone visiting during this period might find the wall partly screened.

The Conclave in the Sistine Chapel: How It Really Works

Since the end of the nineteenth century all conclaves have been held here, and John Paul II's constitution Universi Dominici Gregis fixed the Sistine as the seat of the election. The mechanism is perfectly theatrical. The cardinal electors, those who have not turned 80 at the death or resignation of the pope, enter in procession singing the Veni Creator. Each swears absolute secrecy on the Gospel. Then the master of ceremonies pronounces the extra omnes, everybody out, and the doors close. For the occasion the chapel is transformed: a raised floor is installed that protects the Cosmatesque mosaic and hides the wiring, the electors' tables are lined up under the Stories of Moses and of Christ, and shielding is installed against any electronic device. They vote up to four times a day, and a two-thirds majority is needed. The ballots are burned after each count.

The Stove and the Smoke

The most famous detail is also the humblest: a cast-iron stove placed near the entrance, whose chimney pokes out through the chapel roof and is framed by cameras from half the world. When the ballots are burned without an election, chemical compounds are added that blacken the smoke, the black smoke. When an elected candidate accepts, the additives make the smoke white, and a roar rises from St. Peter's Square. It's the most archaic communication system still in use on the planet, and nobody even dreams of changing it.

The 2025 Conclave and the Election of Leo XIV

The last time, it happened right before our eyes. After Pope Francis died on April 21, 2025, the conclave opened on May 7 with 133 cardinal electors from 65 nations, the largest in history. Four ballots were enough. The white smoke rose from the Sistine Chapel chimney on the evening of May 8, 2025, shortly after 18, and from the loggia of the St. Peter’s Basilica, Cardinal Protodeacon Dominique Mamberti announced the election of Robert Francis Prevost, an Augustinian born in Chicago, the first American pope and the first Augustinian in history, who chose the name Leo XIV. He celebrated his first Mass as pope the next day, May 9, right in the Sistine Chapel, under the Last Judgment. When you walk through it, remember that the raised floor, the tables and the stove were there just a few months ago. This is not a museum hall. It is a vital organ of the Church that the world watches live every now and then.

A Curiosity About the Sistine Chapel

For almost two centuries the Sistine Chapel kept a musical secret alongside its painted ones: the Miserere by Gregorio Allegri, composed around 1638 for the Tenebrae service of Holy Week, which the papal choir performed only here, by candlelight. The score was reserved for the Pontifical Musical Chapel, the same institution founded by Sixtus IV, and tradition has it that transcribing it was forbidden, under threat of excommunication for copyists. In April 1770, a 14-year-old Austrian traveling with his father listened to the Miserere during the Holy Week services and, back at his lodgings, wrote it down from memory. That was Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and the episode is recounted in the family's letters. The story, handed down with some inevitable embellishment, tells something true and documented: the Sistine Chapel was not just a container for images but a total liturgical machine, where architecture, painting and polyphony worked together. Today the Miserere is performed all over the world, but it was born for this acoustic and for the half-light of this space. Anyone who listens to it again after the visit, with the vault still in their eyes, understands the effect it must have had on the pilgrims of the seventeenth century. And the choir still exists: the Cappella Musicale Pontificia Sistina still sings in papal liturgies today, the direct heir of the 12 singers of the fifteenth-century cantoria.

Something Nobody Tells You About the Sistine Chapel

The two scenes on the entrance wall are not the original ones from 1482, and almost no guide tells you that. The Resurrection of Christ that closed the Gospel cycle was by Domenico Ghirlandaio. The Dispute over the Body of Moses was by Luca Signorelli. Foundation subsidence, the same that brought down the portal's lintel at Christmas 1522, ruined them beyond repair, and in the 1570s they were redone by two honest but minor painters, Hendrik van den Broeck in 1572 and Matteo da Lecce in 1574. Stand with your back to the altar and compare them with the panels beside them. The difference in quality is visible without needing any degree at all. There is also a second thing few people mention: the Sistine Chapel you see is not the one Sixtus IV's contemporaries saw, not even in its layout, because the marble screen was moved back about five meters in the 1580s to enlarge the space for the clergy, as the floor design shows, which still marks the original position at the height of the Creation of Eve. In short, the floor is a document: it tells where the boundary ran between the papal court and the rest of the world. Looking at it takes 10 seconds and puts a story in your pocket that the crowd flowing toward the exit will never know.

The Advice I Give You for Visiting the Sistine Chapel

Enter at the first time slot of the morning, 8.00, with a ticket booked online, and accept a compromise: walk briskly through the Vatican Museums galleries, the Candelabra, Tapestries, Maps, saving contemplation for the return, and reach the Sistine Chapel by nine, when the crowd is still bearable. Once inside, use the stone benches along the side walls. Sitting is allowed, and that changes everything, because the ceiling has to be read with your neck resting back and taking your time. Otherwise, after five minutes, you'll be looking at the floor in pain. Split the visit into three stages: first the ceiling, from the altar toward the door, following the nine stories. Then the Last Judgment, alone in front of the wall. Finally, the lower band of the fifteenth-century walls, which at that hour can be enjoyed without getting elbowed. Plan on at least 40 minutes inside the chapel, plus time for the Museums. A practical warning: the route is long. Even with shortcuts, you walk a lot from the turnstiles to the Sistine Chapel, so wear comfortable shoes and skip bulky backpacks, which the mandatory cloakroom holds anyway. And dress appropriately, with shoulders and knees covered. It's a consecrated chapel, the staff enforces the rule, and they make no exceptions. If you can choose the day, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday hold up better. Saturday and the last Sunday of the month are the days I advise against for anyone who doesn't have to be there.

Another well-known fact, yet rarely cited

That Michelangelo painted the ceiling lying on a scaffold is the most repeated legend in the history of art, helped along by an old film with Charlton Heston. It's false, and the denial comes from the artist himself. Michelangelo worked standing up, on a stepped platform of his own design, with his head tipped back and his arm raised for hours: a different torture, but a torture. In a burlesque sonnet addressed to his friend Giovanni da Pistoia, he described himself deformed by the effort, with a goiter, his beard pointing at the sky and paint dripping onto his face, concluding that he was not in a suitable place and was not a painter. The document exists, it is among Michelangelo's autograph poems, and it's worth more than any anecdote. It tells of a man who considered that commission a detour from his work as a sculptor and who, out of pride, brought it to a level no professional painter would have reached. There is a second well-known fact that deserves the same clarification. Michelangelo did not work alone in the absolute sense, because a fresco site requires help with the plaster, the colors, and the cartoons. But he soon dismissed the Florentine assistants called in at the beginning and kept the painting of the figures for himself. The four and a half years between 1508 and October 31, 1512 remain, all things considered, one of the greatest individual achievements documented in the history of any art.

The Right Photo to Take at the Sistine Chapel

Photography is not allowed in the Sistine Chapel. The ban is absolute, it applies even without flash, and the guards enforce it with constant reminders. There are two reasons: protecting the frescoes from flash, and a historical constraint tied to the Japanese funding of the restoration, which reserved reproduction rights. Whatever the weight of each, the rule admits no negotiation. The right photo, then, is taken somewhere else, and here's where. The first: the spiral staircase by Giuseppe Momo from 1932, the double-ramp one you walk down on the way out of the Vatican Museums, shot from above with the spiral coming down like a shell. It's the most elegant image you'll take home. The second: the Cortile della Pigna, with the colossal Roman bronze pine cone and Arnaldo Pomodoro's Sphere. The third, my favorite: from the terrace on the Museums' route you can frame the dome of St. Peter's above the Vatican Gardens, and it's the viewpoint pilgrims never see. As for the Sistine Chapel, do something out of fashion: buy the photo book at the bookshop, where the images were taken with lighting and permissions no phone will ever have, and inside the chapel keep your eyes on the frescoes. 10 minutes of looking are worth more than 100 crooked shots of a ceiling 20 meters high.

Some Important Events That Happened Here in History

Few places in the world have a comparable record of events. On August 15, 1483, Sixtus IV consecrated the chapel with the first Mass, dedicating it to the Assumption. On October 31, 1512, Michelangelo's ceiling was shown, and the next day, the feast of All Saints, the pope celebrated Mass there: those who were present saw Western painting change in a single evening. Christmas 1522 brought tragedy: the lintel of the portal collapsed because of ground subsidence and killed a Swiss Guard beside Adrian VI, who was entering at that moment and escaped by a single step. During the 1523 conclave, new cracks forced the cardinals to urgently call Antonio da Sangallo to check the stability of the building. On October 31, 1541, the Last Judgment was unveiled, and with it began the fiercest controversy over sacred art of the century. In 1870, after the fall of the Papal States, the chapel remained the symbolic heart of a papacy shut in behind the walls. In 1931, Mahatma Gandhi visited it, and he stayed a long time not in front of Michelangelo but in front of the altar crucifix, a thin and suffering Christ, saying he was moved to tears. In 1994, the presentation of the restored Last Judgment closed the most controversial restoration project of the 20th century. And on May 8, 2025, the chimney sent up the last white smoke, the one for Leo XIV: the story here isn't over, it is simply waiting for the next chapter.

Who Has Passed Through the Sistine Chapel

The list is a history of Western civilization in miniature. Popes first of all: all the pontiffs of the modern era were elected here, from Pius X to Leo XIV, and here Sixtus IV, Julius II, Leo X, Clement VII and Paul III decided the commissions that filled these walls. The artists: Perugino, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Rosselli, Signorelli, Pinturicchio and Piero di Cosimo between 1481 and 1482, Michelangelo for nearly 10 years in total, across the ceiling and the Last Judgment, Raphael, who studied the newly unveiled ceiling and came away changed, as his Stanze a few meters from here show, Daniele da Volterra, condemned by history to a nickname. The musicians: the singers of the college founded in 1471, Palestrina, who sang in that choir, the young Mozart, who in 1770 listened to Allegri's Miserere. The travelers of the Grand Tour: Goethe, who during his Roman stay of 1786 to 1788 returned to the Sistine Chapel many times and wrote about it in Italian Journey as the measure of what a man can do, with him generations of writers, from Stendhal to Dickens, who left pages on the vertigo of this ceiling. Gandhi in 1931, struck by the crucifix more than by the frescoes. And, in work clothes, the less celebrated protagonists: Gianluigi Colalucci and his team, 14 years on the scaffolding between 1980 and 1994, with Nippon Television crews documenting it centimeter by centimeter. Today it's your turn to pass through, together with a few million people a year: it's better to be among those who enter in silence.

How to Visit the Sistine Chapel Inside the Vatican Museums

One misunderstanding to clear up right away: the Sistine Chapel can't be visited on its own. It is a stop, the last and most anticipated, on the route of the Vatican Museums, and you get there after a considerable walk through the Courtyard of the Pinecone, the Pio-Clementino Museum, the Gallery of the Candelabra, the Gallery of the Tapestries and the Gallery of Maps, with a possible detour to Raphael's Stanze, which I recommend never skipping: seeing the School of Athens half an hour before Michelangelo's ceiling is one of the most sensible sequences Italy has to offer. Inside the chapel, three strict rules apply: silence, no photographs or video, and clothing that covers shoulders and knees. Staff call out violators without embarrassment, and they're right to. You can stay as long as you like and sit on the side benches, you cannot eat, make phone calls, or raise your voice. At the exit there are two doors: the one toward the Museums, which leads to the Scala di Momo, and the one toward St. Peter's Basilica, whose use is generally reserved for groups with an authorized guide, so don't count on it if you're visiting individually, unless the rules are different at the time. For accessibility, the Vatican Museums are equipped with elevators and dedicated routes, and the chapel can be reached by wheelchair, the service should be arranged in advance through the official channels. If you want a guided tour, book it directly on the Museums' website or use licensed guides: inside the Sistine Chapel, speaking out loud to explain things is forbidden, and good guides prepare the group before entering, in the rooms that come before. Be wary of anyone who promises you otherwise.

When to Go to the Sistine Chapel

The decisive variable is not the day, it's the hour: the first slot from 8.00 and the last useful one in the afternoon, with entry between 16.00 and 18.00, make for the most livable chapel, while the 10.00-14.00 slot is the worst in any season. Among the days, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday are the most manageable. Monday collects those who find the civic museums closed, and Saturday collects everyone. The last Sunday of the month, with free entry from 9.00 to 14.00, is a noble institution that I recommend only to those who have patience to spare: the line starts at dawn. November, January and February, outside the holidays, remain the months in which the Sistine almost breathes. In summer, plan for heat and the crowds left over from the Jubilee, which still kept visitor numbers high. Any evening openings, when scheduled, are an excellent opportunity and should be checked on the official site each time. One last combination that works: on Wednesday morning, during the papal audience in St. Peter's Square, some visitors head there, and the Museums notice it in the early hours.

What to pair with your visit within a 10-minute radius

St. Peter's Basilica is the natural pairing, allowing for the wait at security. The Vatican Gardens can only be seen on a booked guided tour, and they are the green, little-known side of the world's smallest state. On foot, along Borgo Pio, you reach Castel Sant'Angelo in a little less than a quarter of an hour. Whoever wants to follow Michelangelo's trail should cross the Tiber on the days after. At San Pietro in Vincoli there is the Moses, designed precisely for the tomb of Julius II, whose collapse pushed the artist, reluctantly, toward the Sistine ceiling. And at Santa Maria del Popolo you can take in the other great Roman season, among works by Pinturicchio, Raphael and Caravaggio. For the rest of what the city offers, I refer you to the page on museums of Rome.

Quick questions about the Sistine Chapel

How much does it cost to enter the Sistine Chapel?

The cost is that of the Vatican Museums ticket: €20 full price, €10 reduced, €5 for schools, plus €5 for online booking (€2 for schools). Under 7 you don't pay.

Can you visit the Sistine Chapel without doing all of the Vatican Museums?

No. There is no separate ticket: the chapel can only be reached through the museum route, however shortened.

How long does a visit to the Sistine Chapel take?

Inside the chapel you can stay as long as you like: the real average time is 20 minutes, the sensible minimum is 40 minutes. With the Museums, allow three hours in total as a decent minimum.

Do you need to book for the Sistine Chapel?

It's not mandatory, but booking online on the official Vatican Museums site is strongly recommended: €5 more to avoid lines that in high season exceed one hour.

What are the opening hours of the Sistine Chapel?

Those of the Vatican Museums: Monday to Saturday 8.00-20.00 with last entry at 18.00, last Sunday of the month 9.00-14.00 with entry until 12.30. Always check the official calendar for closures and special openings.

When is the Sistine Chapel free?

On the last Sunday of every month, with free entry and very long lines. Permanent free admission applies to children under 7 and to people with certified disabilities who are accompanied by a companion.

Why can't you take photos in the Sistine Chapel?

To protect the frescoes and because of reproduction rights tied to the historic funding of the restoration. The ban covers photos and video, with and without flash.

Can you talk inside the Sistine Chapel?

Silence is required, since it is a consecrated place: the staff remind visitors of this often. The guides' explanations take place before you enter.

How should you dress for the Sistine Chapel?

Shoulders and knees covered, no tank tops, short shorts or hats: the rule applies to all sacred places in the Vatican and is enforced.

Is the Sistine Chapel wheelchair accessible?

Yes, the Vatican Museums have elevators and accessible routes that reach the chapel. It's best to arrange the visit in advance through the Museums' dedicated services.

Who built the Sistine Chapel and when?

Sixtus IV della Rovere had it rebuilt from 1477 to 1481 on the site of the earlier Cappella Magna, to a design attributed to Baccio Pontelli and under the direction of Giovannino de' Dolci. It was consecrated on August 15, 1483.

Why is the Sistine Chapel called that?

After Sixtus IV, the pope who commissioned it. Two other chapels also called Sistine, in Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome and in the cathedral of Savona, depend on Sixtus V and on Sixtus IV himself.

What does it mean that the Sistine has the dimensions of the Temple of Solomon?

The hall measures 40.93 by 13.41 meters, proportions that tradition traces back to the Temple described in the Old Testament: a way of presenting the papacy as heir to the ancient covenant.

How long did it take Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling?

From 1508 to October 31, 1512, a little more than four and a half years, with a long break in the middle. The Last Judgment took another five years, from 1536 to 1541.

Did Michelangelo paint the ceiling lying down?

No: he worked standing up on a tiered scaffolding of his own design, with his head tilted back. He tells it himself in a sonnet to his friend Giovanni da Pistoia.

How many figures are there on the Sistine Chapel ceiling?

Over 300, compared to the 12 in the original plan, spread across the nine Genesis scenes, the Prophets and Sibyls, the 20 nudes, the Ancestors of Christ, and the pendentives.

Is the conclave really held in the Sistine Chapel?

Yes: it is the seat designated for the election of the pope. The last conclave, on May 7 and 8, 2025, elected Leo XIV there with 133 cardinal electors, the highest number in history.

What are the Last Judgment's breeches?

The draperies added by Daniele da Volterra after 1564 to cover the fresco's nudity, following the censorship decree. They earned him the nickname Braghettone. The 1990-1994 restoration removed some of them, keeping the sixteenth-century ones.

Are Raphael's tapestries displayed in the Sistine Chapel?

As a rule, no: they are in the Vatican Art Gallery, Room VIII, and return to the chapel only on exceptional occasions. Seven original cartoons are at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Is the Sistine Chapel air-conditioned?

Yes: a dedicated climate control and filtration system controls temperature, humidity and dust to protect the frescoes from the daily flow of visitors.

What's the difference between the ceiling and the Last Judgment?

They are two separate works by the same Michelangelo, 30 years apart: the ceiling (1508-1512) tells the story of Genesis under Julius II. The Last Judgment (1536-1541), on the altar wall, was commissioned by Clement VII and Paul III.

Who painted the walls of the Sistine Chapel before Michelangelo?

The Florentine and Umbrian workshops of 1481-1482: Perugino, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Rosselli, Signorelli with Pinturicchio, Piero di Cosimo and Bartolomeo della Gatta, with the Stories of Moses and Christ.

What's the best time to see the Sistine Chapel?

The first hour in the morning on winter weekdays, or the last hour of the afternoon: fewer crowds, calmer light, a real chance to sit on the side benches.

Where exactly is the Sistine Chapel, and where do you enter?

Inside the Apostolic Palace, to the right of St. Peter's Basilica, next to the Sala Regia. You enter only from the Vatican Museums, entrance on Viale Vaticano, metro A Ottaviano or Cipro.

What is the Sistine Chapel stove?

The cast-iron stove where the ballots are burned during the conclave: chemical additives produce black smoke after inconclusive votes and white smoke after an election.

Is the Sistine Chapel part of the itinerary for children?

Yes, and children like the ceiling more than you'd think: prepare them beforehand with the Genesis stories, like a comic strip they can recognize. Children under 7 enter free. Strollers have to be left at the deposit during the busiest times.

One last thought, before the door: the Sistine only disappoints those who just pass through it. Give it a real 40 minutes, a bench, your neck resting back, and your eyes moving from the Separation of Light to Jonah: no other room in the world gives back so much in exchange for so little silence. Even after many visits, you find a figure you've never noticed before every time, and perhaps that's the real miracle of the place.

Article written by the editorial team of TourLeaderPro, contact them for Private/Corporate/V.I.P. Tours and Experiences.

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