| Home Online Catalog
Search
FAQ's
How To Order
Free Puzzle Offer
Feedback
|
Temporarily Out Of Stock
TITLE: Sistine Chapel Ceiling
(Panoramic - Special Museum Series)
ARTIST: Michelangelo
SIZE: 13" x 39"
PIECES: 1000 (also available
3000 Pieces)
PRICE: $25
MADE BY: Clementoni
DESCRIPTION: This classic image is part of our special
Vatican series of puzzles. The chapel was built between 1475 and
1483, in the time of Pope Sixtus IV della Rovere. A basic feature of the
chapel itself, so obvious that it is sometimes ignored, is the papal
function, as the pope's chapel and the location of the elections of new
popes. The Chapel is rectangular in shape and measures 40,93 meters
long by 13,41 meters wide, i.e. the exact dimensions of the Temple of
Solomon, as given in the Old Testament. It is 20,70 meters high and
is surmounted by a shallow barrel vault with six tall windows cut into the
long sides, forming a series of pendentives between them. A marble
mosaic floor of exquisite workmanship describes the processional itinerary
up to and beyond the marble screen, to the innermost space, where it
offers a surround for the papal throne and the cardinals' seats. The
architectural plans were made by Baccio Pontelli and the construction was
supervised by Giovanino de'Dolci.
The walls are divided into three orders by horizontal cornices; according
to the decorative program, the lower of the three orders was to be painted
with fictive "tapestries," the central one with two facing
cycles - one relating
the life of Moses (left wall) and the other the Life of Christ (right
wall), starting from the end wall, where the altar fresco, painted by
Perugino, depicted the Virgin of the Assumption, to whom the chapel was
dedicated. The upper
order is endowed with pilasters that support the pendentives of the vault.
The wall paintings were executed by Pietro Perugino, Sandro Botticelli,
Domenico Ghirlandaio, Cosimo Rosselli, Luca Signorelli and their
respective workshops, which included Pinturicchio, Piero di Cosimo and
Bartolomeo della
Gatta. The ceiling was frescoed by Piero Matteo d'Amelia with a
star-spangled sky.
Michelangelo was commissioned by Pope Julius II della Rovere in 1508 to
repaint the ceiling; the work was completed between 1508 and 1512. He
painted the Last Judgement over the altar, between 1535 and 1541, being
commissioned by Pope Paul III Farnese.
|
