THE RENAISSANCEIn 1508, Pope Julius 11 summoned Michelangelo from Flo
rence to the papal city of Rome. He commissioned the artist to paint fres
coes (paintings on plaster) on the ceiling of the new Sistine Chapel, a
ceremonial chapel next to the papal residence in the Vatican. With some
reluctance (since he considered himself primarily a sculptor), Michelan
gelo agreed to undertake the project. He signed a contract that stipulated a
payment of 3,000 ducats and began work that very day in May.
During the long, difficult years of intense creativity, Michelangelo often
lay on his back, staring at the ceiling (still the best position from which to
study his masterpiece), before climbing up the scaffolding to work. His
frescoes, depicting Creation, Original Sin, the Flood, and the ancestors
of Christ, are a triumph of religious painting. However, Pope Julius II,
offended by the nude figures in the Last Judgment frescoes, ordered paint
ers to cover the nudes with fig leaves. As a result, Michelangelo left Rome
in disgust. He left behind what is arguably the most beautiful pictorial
ensemble in Western painting.
Michelangelo’s work represents the epitome of art during the Renais
sance, a time of cultural rebirth. From about 1330 to 1530, the city-states
of the Italian peninsula emerged as the intellectual and artistic centers of
Europe. It was a period during which classical texts were rediscovered,
thereby reviving the ideas, architecture, arts, and values of ancient Greece
and Rome. By celebrating the beauty of nature and the dignity of mankind,
Renaissance artists and scholars helped shape the intellectual and cultural
history of the modern world. During the fifteenth century, Michelangelo,
as well as Leonardo da Vinci and many other Renaissance sculptors and
painters, enjoyed the patronage of wealthy families and produced some
of the immortal works of the European experience. From about 1490 to
1530, Rome, too, was the center of a final period of artistic innovation, the
High Renaissance, during which time the popes, including Julius II, com
missioned paintings, sculptures, and churches.
Yet, weakened by internal political turmoil, the Italian city-states were
ravaged by foreign invaders beginning in 1494. Unable to resist French
invasion and then Spanish domination, after 1530 the city-states were no