The Sistina Chapel wanted by Pope IV della Rovere, who gave the name to the monument, was built by Giovannino de’Dolci between the  1475 and the 1481 after Christ.

The XV century decoration of the walls, created by an extraordinary group of painters like the Perugino, the Botticelli, the Signorelli and the Ghirlandaio, includes the false drapery, the “stories of Mosé and of Christ” and the Popes portraits. For the inauguration Matteo d’Amelia painted on the vault of the chapel a starry sky. The painting of the frescos ended in 1492 when there was also the creations of the other marble works you can admire there.

The Chapel Sistina frescos

Michelangelo painted nine episodes taken from the book of the Genesis organized in a fictitious architecture in thematic groups of three.

The Michelangelo masterpiece was ended in 1512 and the first of November Pope Giulio II inaugurated again the Chapel Sistina with a High Mass.

At the end of the 1533 Pope Clemente VII De’ Medici commissioned Michelangelo to further modify the decoration of the Sistina Chapel  by painting on the altar wall the famous “Crack of doom” that replaced some frescos by the Perugino.

The Michelangelo “Crack of doom”

The Michelangelo “Crack of doom”



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  • The church of San Lorenzo and the Medici’s Chapels


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