For half a millennium the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican has overwhelmed every sort of visitor; it is at the same time beautiful, intelligent and theologically profound. Goethe, that intellectual giant of the Western world, wrote that ‘until you have seen the Sistine Chapel you have no idea what human beings are capable of.
These last few days in the Chapel designed for Papal Conclaves, the cardinals have been searching for a human being “most capable of” succeeding Pope Francis. And everywhere, as the electors look at the images around them, they could only be reminded of the immensity of their task.
There is an irony here. Whether they look for a ‘progressive’ candidate or someone more concerned for the traditions of the Church, they’re certainly not looking for the sort of men who founded the Chapel. The original patrons of the Sistine were anything but virtuous. The two Popes involved, Sixtus IV and Julius II, were knowledgeable patrons but unholy priests lacking ethics or principles. They were disgraceful men.
Image: Sixtus IV Appointing Platina as Prefect of the Vatican Library; Pinacoteca, Vatican Museums. Fresco by Melozzo da Forli 1477
The outside of the Sistine Chapel shows its origins as a fortified building which had been part of an almost abandoned medieval Vatican Palace. (It’s worth noting that the chapel’s windows are deliberately high, and there are no external doors. Easier to defend.) For decades the Popes had been living in France and, as Rome had no other industry except pilgrimages, the city by mid fifteenth century was reduced to a cluster of poor villages around the Tiber. The Rome of the Caesars had disappeared into piles of rubble.
Then in 1450 Pope Nicholas V, re-established in Rome and inaugurated a Jubilee Year – just such as we have now – and pilgrims from across Europe flooded into old St Peter’s. The city’s restoration began and Rome was once again the centre of the Church now looking to renew its spirituality. On a mundane level, by the year’s end the Pope is said to have lodged 100,000 gold Florins in a single bank, enough to introduce some Renaissance ideas and buildings into the decayed city.
The idea underpinning the Renaissance was the rediscovery of the classic Graeco Roman world. Previously the Church condemned pre-Christian arts as pagan; now their beauty was celebrated as part of God’s creation and a measure of what human beings could achieve. These ideas were carried into the restoration of the Sistine.
In 1477 in the Vatican Palace, the crumbling remains of a previous chapel were dismantled, keeping only the asymmetrical plan of the old building intact. New walls and a newly vaulted ceiling followed, and by 1481 the first interior paintings were completed by stunningly good artists like Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and Perugino. Not surprisingly, since the Popes commissioned them, all these paintings referred in some way to the authority of the Pope over the whole church – a greater authority than that of a Church Council. In one painting, Christ awards St Peter two keys of the Kingdom, the gold one representing heaven, the silver/lead coloured one the earth, implying that papal power was universal. In another, Christ calls Peter before all the disciples – clearly the Pope comes first.
Image: Delivery of the Keys; fresco by Pietro Perugino created between 1481 and 1482. Located in the Sistine Chapel in Rome.
Sixtus IV who commissioned the wall paintings and after whom the chapel was named, had been a leading Franciscan monk, both learned and unworldly, which is why he was elected in 1471.
He failed to live up to his reputation.
His love of classical learning and his need for political support meant that he turned to his family and promoted them outrageously to positions of power. Six of his nephews were made cardinals in order to stack the cardinalate and ensure its support in matters of policy. His drive to enlarge the Papal landholdings involved him in brutal plots and murderous conspiracies. Little good can be said about his ethics, politics, financial management, or private life, but his patronage of the arts gave us the decoration of the chapel plus the magnificent collection in the Vatican Library. His love of music meant that he established the Vatican Choir – musicians who amazed the young Mozart, and are still among the world’s best today.
The second stage of the Chapel’s decoration was the glorious work of Michelangelo’s ceiling commissioned by Sixtus’s nephew Pope Julius II, a pope who could best be described as a force of nature. Dressed in his silver armour, he was the last Pope to literally lead his troops into battle.
Image: Portrait of Pope Julius II; by Raffaello Sanzio (source: Wikipedia.org)
A few years after its first restoration the ceiling developed serious cracks and the repairs that followed necessitated its repainting. The massive area demanded both an extraordinary conceptual plan and great painterly skill. Michelangelo, who was generally accepted as the greatest artist of the age, was asked to take the job. Julius had engaged him to create a number of figures for his tomb, now he coaxed, bribed and browbeat him into turning his sculptural skills to painting the story of creation across the ceiling. It was a clash between the iron-willed Julius and the intractable Michelangelo. The result takes your breath away. The images he created are some of the best known in Western art. For four years the artist stood on scaffolding tracing the creation of the earth and humanity, while biblical images mixed with classical ones eg. Moses and the Delphic Sybil.
Image: Sistine Chapel ceiling – Creation of Adam (source: Wikipedia.org)
The ceiling was finished by the time Pope Julius died in 1513.
Eight years later, and despite the desperate attempts of many good and holy people to achieve widespread reform in the Church, it was too late, and the Protestant Reformation divided the Christian world.
Image: The Last Judgment; by Michelangelo (source Wikipedia.org)
Finally, the ageing Michelangelo returned reluctantly, completed the end wall of the chapel behind the altar. This Last Judgment, which each cardinal must face as he lodges his vote, is dark with fear and the weight of grief. It is truly terrible. Heaven and Hell are riven by Christ’s sweeping gesture dividing the characters between left and right – each figure painted with enormous psychological intensity. But there is very little joy here. Judgment is more rigorous than merciful. Many of his figures are derived from Dante, but they lack the poet’s lightness of touch. It may have been what Michelangelo thought was necessary for his age.
More recently Pope Francis has emphasised the mercy of Christ in the gospels. “Tutti”. His mercy is for everyone.
The warmth of the packed square in front of St Peter’s at Francis’ funeral reflected a widespread love for the Pope. On the other hand, there is President Trump who thought to send an image of himself dressed as the pope as a “joke”, and that there are other Catholics in America so right wing that they agreed with him, reflects divided approaches to the new pope as of old.
Flawed politically-minded churchmen gave us the grace of the Sistine chapel and the grief of Reformation.
Please God may the new pope understand both.
As an addendum today – what do we know of the new Pope Leo XIV?
Image: Pope Leo XIV
Certainly, a man of whom Francis approved. Given his birthplace, maybe he can heal the divisions in the Church in the United States. Chicago born he has spent most of his priestly life in Peru, latterly as a bishop, and a man of practical service to people in poverty – who drove an old pick-up truck into the mountains bringing help when needed. Latterly, he was posted to the Curia, made a cardinal and was trusted by Francis to be in charge of the selection of bishops, and thus was at the very heart of the Church.
His choice of Leo associates him with Leo XIII who, just over a century ago wrote the great encyclical Rerum Novarum. This hugely important document tackled the problems thrown up by the Industrial Revolution – the exploitation of the worker and the authority of the state – hence communism or unbridled capitalism. He insisted on the dignity of the worker: “a just day’s pay for a just day’s work”. He also asserted the right of private property, and the right of the worker to form associations. Above all was his insistence that the worker has the right to be paid enough to support a family living modestly. It was a revolutionary document for its time.
However, the first image of the new Pope today was in the traditional scarlet cope and magnificently embroidered stole of past Popes. Perhaps Leo XIV will tread a line somewhere between the past and the future?
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Laura Facci says:
Thank you Sandy for a very informative and interesting article on the Sistine Chapel and the election of the new Pope.