Editing Sistine Chapel (section)

=== History ===
The first stage in the decoration of the Sistine Chapel was the painting of the ceiling in blue, studded with gilt stars,<ref name="Shearman" /> and with decorative borders around the architectural details of the spandrels. This was entirely replaced when Michelangelo came to work on the ceiling in [[1508]].

Of the present scheme of frescos, the earliest part is that of the side walls. They are divided into three main tiers. The central tier of the walls has two cycles of paintings, which complement each other, ''The Life of Moses'' and ''The Life of Christ''. They were commissioned in 1480 by Pope Sixtus IV and executed by [[Domenico Ghirlandaio]], Sandro Botticelli, Pietro Perugino, [[Cosimo Rosselli]] and their workshops. They originally ran all round the walls, but have since been replaced on both end walls.

The project was perhaps supervised by Perugino, who arrived at the chapel prior to the Florentines. It is probable that the commission of Ghirlandaio, Botticelli and Roselli was part of a reconciliation project between [[Lorenzo de' Medici]], the ''de facto'' ruler of [[Republic of Florence|Florence]], and [[Pope Sixtus IV]]. The Florentines started to work in the Sistine Chapel in the spring of 1481.

Beneath the cycles of ''The Life of Moses'' and ''The Life of Christ'', the lower level of the walls is decorated with frescoed hangings in silver and gold. Above the narrative frescos, the upper tier is divided into two zones. At the lower level of the windows is a ''Gallery of Popes'' painted at the same time as the ''Lives''. Around the arched tops of the windows are areas known as the ''[[lunette]]s'' which contain the ''Ancestors of Christ'', painted by Michelangelo as part of the scheme for the ceiling.

The ceiling was commissioned by [[Pope Julius II]] and painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512. The commission was originally to paint the twelve apostles on the triangular [[pendentive|spandrel]]s which support the vault; however, Michelangelo demanded a free hand in the pictorial content of the scheme. He painted a series of nine pictures showing ''God's Creation of the World'', ''God's Relationship with Mankind'', and ''Mankind's Fall from God's Grace''. On the four large "pendentives" at each corner of the ceiling he painted twelve Biblical and Classical men and women who prophesied that God would send Jesus Christ for the salvation of mankind, and around the upper parts of the windows, the ''[[Ancestors of Christ]]''.

In 1515, [[Raphael]] was commissioned by [[Pope Leo X]] to design a series of ten tapestries to hang around the lower tier of the walls.<ref>{{Harvnb|Talvacchia|2007|p=150}}</ref> The tapestries depict events from the ''Life of St. Peter'' [four tapestries] the ''Life of St. Paul'' [six tapestries], the founders of the Christian Church in Rome. Work began in mid-1515. Due to their large size, manufacture of the hangings was carried out in Brussels, and took four years under the hands of the weavers in the shop of [[Pieter van Aelst III|Pieter van Aelst]].<ref>{{Harvnb|Talvacchia|2007|p=152}}</ref> Raphael's tapestries were looted during the [[Sack of Rome (1527)|Sack of Rome]] in 1527 and were either burnt for their precious metal content or were scattered around Europe. In the late 20th century, a set was reassembled from several further sets that had been made after the first set, and displayed again in the Sistine Chapel in 1983. The tapestries continue to be used at occasional ceremonies of particular importance. The full-size preparatory [[cartoon]]s for seven of the 10 tapestries are known as the [[Raphael Cartoons]] and are in London.<ref>Cheney, Iris. Review of "Raphael's Cartoons in the Collection of Her Majesty The Queen and the Tapestries for the Sistine Chapel" by John Shearman. ''The Art Bulletin'', Volume 56, No. 4, December 1974. 607–609.</ref>

At this point, the decorative scheme displayed a consistent iconographical pattern. The tier of Popes, which, in the scheme intended by Pope Julius, would have appeared immediately below the Twelve Apostles, would have emphasised the [[apostolic succession]]. It has been argued that the present scheme shows the two Biblical Testaments merged in order to reveal the Old predicting and framing the New, synthesizing the logic of the Christian Bible.<ref>Oliveira, Paulo Martins "[https://www.academia.edu/8579071/_Eng_The_Sistine_Chapel_and_the_two_Testaments The Sistine Chapel and the two Testaments] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160102142511/http://www.academia.edu/8579071/_Eng_The_Sistine_Chapel_and_the_two_Testaments |date=2 January 2016 }}", 2013, (online, academia.edu)</ref>

This was disrupted by a further commission to Michelangelo to decorate the wall above the altar with ''[[The Last Judgment (Michelangelo)|The Last Judgment]]'', 1537–1541. The painting of this scene necessitated the obliteration of two episodes from the ''Lives''—the ''Nativity of Jesus'' and the ''[[Moses#Biblical narrative|Finding of Moses]]''; several of the ''Popes''; and two sets of ''Ancestors''.