Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling

Bol

In 1508, Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The thirty-three-year-old Michelangelo had very little experience of the physically and technically taxing art of fresco; and, at twelve thousand square feet, the ceiling represented one of the largest such projects ever attempted. Nevertheless, for the next four years he and a hand-picked team of assistants laboured over the vast ceiling, making thousands of drawings and spending back-breaking hours on a scaffold fifty feet above the floor. The result was one of the greatest masterpieces of all time. This fascinating book tells the story of those four extraordinary years and paints a magnificent picture of day-to-day life on the Sistine scaffolding - and outside, in the upheaval of early sixteenth-century Rome.

Bol Partner

The author of the acclaimed Brunellechi's Dome offers a fascinating account of Michelangelo's creation of his masterpiece, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, from his original commission from Pope Julius II, through the artist's four years of work, to the final acclaim at the painting's 1512 unveiling. Reprint.