Complete Works of Michelangelo (Delphi Classics)

The Pope’s own Master of Ceremonies, Biagio da Cesena, said of the painting “it was mostly disgraceful that in so sacred a place there should have been depicted all those nude figures, exposing themselves so shamefully,” and that it was no work for a papal chapel, but rather “for the public baths and taverns”. In response, Michelangelo represented Cesena’s face as that of Minos, judge of the underworld in the far bottom-right corner of the fresco, giving the king Donkey ears to indicate his foolishness, while his nudity is covered by a coiled snake. It is said that when Cesena complained to the Pope, the pontiff joked that his jurisdiction did not extend to hell, so the portrait would have to remain.

The scenes, from the altar towards the main door, are ordered as follows:

· The Separation of Light and Darkness

· The Creation of the Sun, Moon and Earth

· The Separation of Land and Water

· The Creation of Adam

· The Creation of Eve

· The Temptation and Expulsion

· The Sacrifice of Noah

· The Great Flood

· The Drunkenness of Noah

The medallions represent:

· Abraham about to sacrifice his son Isaac

· The Destruction of the Statue of Baal

· The worshippers of Baal being brutally slaughtered.

· Uriah being beaten to death.

· Nathan the priest condemning King David for murder and adultery.

· King David’s traitorous son Absalom caught by his hair in a tree while trying to escape and beheaded by David’s troops.

· Joab sneaking up on Abner to murder him

· Joram being hurled from a chariot onto his head.

· Elijah being carried up to Heaven

· On one medallion the subject is either obliterated or incomplete.

In 1506 Pope Julius II designed a program to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, where the walls of the chapel had already been decorated twenty years earlier.

The ceiling’s various painted elements form part of a larger scheme of decoration within the Chapel, which includes Michelangelo’s later wall fresco, The Last Judgment, as well as other wall paintings by leading fifteenth century artists, including Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio and Pietro Perugino

Michelangelo’s work on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the large papal chapel built within the Vatican by Pope Sixtus IV, remains a cornerstone work of High Renaissance art.

The Battle of Cascina was fought on 28 July 1364 between the troops of Florence and Pisa, resulting in the victory of the former. A thousand Pisans were killed and two thousand more were captured.

Copy by Aristotile da Sangallo

The Battle of Cascina is a lost work, which was commissioned by Piero Soderini, a statesman of the Republic of Florence. It was intended to be a fresco painted on a wall of the Salone dei Cinquecento in Palazzo Vecchio

Copy by Aristotile da Sangallo

The Battle of Cascina is a lost work, which was commissioned by Piero Soderini, a statesman of the Republic of Florence. It was intended to be a fresco painted on a wall of the Salone dei Cinquecento in Palazzo Vecchio