SISTINE CHAPEL, Last Judgment - Presentation
- Audio File length: 2.47
- Author: STEFANO ZUFFI E DAVIDE TORTORELLA
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Language: English / USA
Michelangelo's "Second Act" at the Sistine Chapel began more than twenty years later, after Rome had been plundered by German mercenary soldiers, the fearsome "Lanzichenecchi", at a time when the Protestant Reformation began to put the Pope's power in crisis.
Michelangelo designed an immense Last Judgment for the wall above the chapel's altar for Pope Clement VII Medici. After several tests, Michelangelo made the radical decision to break down the wall, and Perugino's frescoes along with it, so that he could rebuild the wall and give it a slight curvature. Meanwhile, the pope died and Paul III Farnese was elected in his place.
When he started the work on the Sistine Chapel's new back wall, Michelangelo was sixty-two years old and was a disillusioned and bitter man - far different from the rebellious and passionate young man who had painted the ceiling frescoes....