It is sometimes odd to consider that Michelangelo actually knew other great artists. One that he not only know, but had a huge rivalry with was Leonardo da Vinci. It all came about around 1504 after Michelangelo finished David. The city of Florence contacted Leonardo to create a mural of the Battle of Anghiari in the Council Room in the Plazzo della Signoria. A wall that was about fifty-four feet by twenty feet in size. Well, on the opposite wall was also to be placed a mural, twenty-two feet high and fifty-four feet wide, of the Battle of Cascina to be created by Michelangelo. During this event the city took some pleasure in this competition of sorts that caused each to like the other less and less. It was a battle: young against old, the champ defending against the underdog, Its more exciting than a Rocky movie. Leonardo, always the experimentalist used an untested fresco formula and had to start over before he picked up a brush. It seemed that throughout the project Leonardo couldn’t catch a break. He had unevenly dry paints, sections dried too fast and others that ran down the wall. But the young and aggressive Michelangelo sped past the older Leonardo in placing the drawing onto the wall. Just as Michelangelo was to coast into the painting of the wall and taking down the master of his time, Pope Julius II sends for Michelangelo to come to Rome to do a sculptural work, the media of his true passion, and left Leonardo to the task. In Leonardo’s mind, if he has better things to do than finishing the project, than so should he, and the project was abandoned completely and he was soon on the return to Milan. The only things that remain of the works are sketches done mostly by other artists that wanted to learn from the masters in the post Renaissance time periods.

Pope Julius II was elected pope in 1503 and was big into having the Vatican decorated by the greatest artists around. In March of 1505, just after finishing David, Michelangelo was paid a craftsman’s yearly salary in advance, as well as an annual salary and a huge bonus when it was finished, for his work on his funerary tomb. The tomb was to be carved in his Florence workshop and shipped peace by peace to Rome. Setting to work, Michelangelo went to Carrara for eight months to hand select ninety wagonloads of marble to build the massive tomb. While he was off, the pope was looking to rebuild St. Peter’s Basilica. The design selected was created by Donato Bramante. Putting all his resources behind the construction project, he placed the tomb on hold, even though this was not communicated to Michelangelo after he spent a considerable amount of money shipping 100 tons of marble to Rome. He had designed a three-layered monument with forty plus statues and reliefs in honor of Pope Julius II. He went to see the pope to get answers; "I returned on Monday, and on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, and on Thursday…Finally on Friday morning I was turned out, in other words, I was sent packing." This did not set well with that artist, known for his bad temper. He was beyond angered and left for Florence with the intention on never returning to Rome: he left on April 18, 1506. Several requests to return to Rome by the pope, but he refused to go. The pope was in Bologna, where he again asked Michelangelo to meet him. This time he went and was commissioned to create a life-sized bronze statue of the pope. Michelangelo was uneasy in Bologna; it was a known to be a dangerous town and he felt in danger much of the time. After two castings, the job was done with success and the statue was placed above the church door. Pope Julius II was known as a violent warrior who thrashed insubordinates with his walking stick. He must have known this the way to get Michelangelo back to work. While in Bologna, Pope Julius II was devastated and desperate. In an unprecedented attempt to get Michelangelo to return to Rome, the pope apologized and allowed him to work on both projects in due time. Michelangelo left Bologna for Florence on February twenty-first, 1508. The talk must have also done some good, because the official contract to begin the work on the Sistine Chapel was signed on May 10,1508, with an advance in pay equivalent to high-end craftsman’s four year salary.

The Sistine Chapel was built as a personal sanctuary for the pope, built for Sixtus IV. Work began to restore the Cappella Magna into Sistine Chapel between 1477 and 1480. The Sistine Chapel Ceiling is an 85 foot high and 133 feet by 43 feet ceiling in area (the same size as the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem). Artists were brought in to decorate the place and it had its first mass on August 15, 1483. Pope Julius II, nephew of Pope Sixtus IV, was elected pope in 1503 and one of the many items on his wish list was to have the ceiling of his uncle's chapel repainted by the greatest artists around. Bramante, who along with other jealous artists, convinced Pope Julius II to have Michelangelo paint the ceiling. Why? Because he was the greatest artist and they wanted to show off his talents? NO! It was to distract Michelangelo form his sculptural projects. The hope was that the product would be so poor in quality compared to the work of the Pope’s official painter, Raphael Sanzio, that Michelangelo would be rejected as an artist. Also, if Michelangelo was painting 12,000 square feet of ceiling, he wouldn’t have time to sculpt. This was further realized when the Pope placed the stipulation on the tomb project. If he wanted to make the tomb, he first had to paint the Sistine. Michelangelo was very angered and asked to have Raphael paint it, but Raphael was working on the School of Athens, and the pope’s mind was made up.

With St. Peter’s Basilica being rebuilt, the Sistine Chapel needed to keep open for the public. Michelangelo designed a scaffolding system, that was built by Piero "Shorty" Basso, so that the floor was open for mass and the work of demolition and reconstruction could get under way above. A scaffold that was basically a stepped archway that ran with the same profile of the ceiling that was half as large as the room and accessible by ramps. This allowed Michelangelo, and the other workers, to stand with comfort as they worked. The bottom of the scaffold was covered with canvas to prevent paint from dripping down, as well as to prevent anyone from seeing the progress of the painting. When half of a phase was done, the structure was dismantled and reassembled on the other end of the room.

Originally, Michelangelo was to paint the twelve apostles around the chapel with a simple geometric design on the actual ceiling, but Michelangelo disliked the idea. It was the practice for the patron to direct the artist to direct the artist. The artist was nothing more than a skilled laborer. In an unique move, after some debate on the topic, the pope finally allowed Michelangelo to paint whatever he wanted. There may have been some discussions with pope’s official theologian (Giovanni Rafanelli), but appears that there was no creative contribution from those officials. This may be due to Michelangelo’s studies that included extensive work in theology under numerous scholars. In the end, the painting of each Genesis panel is a painting that can stand alone as a work of art. They all have their own perspective and composition. Over a Thousand preparatory drawings were done for this project. He began with The Flood, then advanced to The Drunkenness of Noah; The Sacrifice of Noah; The Temptation and Expulsion; Creation of Eve; Creation of Adam; Creation of the Sun, Moon and Planets; and God Separating Light from Darkness. If one looks at the whole of the work, it can all pool together but looking at the first works, and the sections painted after Creation of Eve, we can see that he drasticly changes his paintings after he is able to view them from the floor. A total of twenty ignudi (all men) surround the vaulted Genesis panels. "I say that painting is at its most beautiful when it succeeds in imitating volume, and sculpture may be deemed bad when it seeks to imitate painting. And yet, it seems to me that sculpture was the lamp that illuminated painting, and that between the two arts there is the same relationship as between the sun and the moon." Prefering to paint with hog bristle brushes, the four spandrels in the corners of the sanctuary with illustrations of the Old Testament: David slaying Goliath (I Samuel 17:1-52); Judith fleeing with her maid and the head of Holofronies (Judith 13:6-10); The Crucifixion of Haman after persecuting the Hebrew people (Esther 8:7); and the serpents unleashed on the Hebrews that lost faith in Moses and God in Transjordania (Numbers 21:6). The spandrels that were proposed to contain the twelve apostles were replaced with depictions of seven Old Testament profits and five pagan sibyls. The vaulting compartments depict the ancestors of Christ, listed in the beginning verses of the New Testament. These ninety-one relatives are all painted as very humble and down-to-earth characters that reveal a wide range of emotions. Having a family with fights, drama, and issued demands; Michelangelo imagined Christ having a family as unruly as his was. Due to his inexperience and the sheer difficulty in fresco painting, many parts of the work were chiseled out and reworked multiple times.

The pope and Michelangelo did not always see eye-to-eye. On several occasions the Pope would clime the scaffold up to the ceiling and say "When will you finish?" To this Michelangelo would reply, "When I can." There are several accounts of the violent arguments between the Pope and Michelangelo, usually because of the speed of the project. On one occasion the frustrated Pope asked, "Do you want me to have you thrown down from the scaffolding?" To this Michelangelo replied, "You shall not have me thrown down." This biggest thing to Michelangelo was the frustration of the Pope interrupting the progress to show off the work and then turn around to complain that is was not finished. There are severa; accounsts of work going litherally months without progress because of the Pope was not giving payments. There was also several times the Pope was out of town overseeing battles against the French or in reballious terratories, or ill with gout, syphilis, or malaria, so the formal steps to progress were frozen. Michelangelo was anxious about the Pope unfeiling the Eastern half if the work when the scaffold was moved to work on the Western half. He had an unease about people seeing his unfinished work. He was so protective of his sketches and the thought process behind his works that he burned most of his study materials in 1564. Why? He wanted to be remembered as an artist whose ideas leaped into his mind and off his hands into the world. Michelangelo, living and working in close proximity with so many great and popular artists often also found himself conflicting with them as well. On one occasion Raphael Sanzio, who was seen as a Prince of Rome, strolled into the area where Michelangelo was also coming back to work. Lacking the ability to keep quiet, Michelangelo said, "You look like a prince in the midst of his court." Which sparked Raphael to reply "And you alone, like an executioner." At the half way point in the work, Raphael went with Bramante to ask the Pope to allow him to finish the ceiling. Michelangelo protested. The work obviously continued under Michelangelo and Raphael went on to paint other rooms in his appartments, as well as be seen by Michelangelo as a snot nosed punk.

The fourteen-phase painting was finished after four years of labor on October 31, 1512. It took a few days prior to remove the scaffold and view the whole work without obstruction. The finished product had 343 figures that were thoughtfully organized. As one looks at the ceiling now, we can see that Michelangelo chose not to place the images in a chronological order. The nine major compositions that illustrate the book of Genesis are actually organized based on their content of nudity. Nudes are placed further away from the alter. It is also a progression from common man to God, starting with the drunk Noah and ending with God creating light. One figure stood out from the rest. Many of our modern time might think that this is Adam, however, at the time of its first viewers, most were blown away by Jonah. Although it was painted on a curved surface, Jonah appeard to bend backward in space. A masters application of the most complicated foeshortened image the workd may have ever seen.

Michelangelo breaks from the tradition of depicting some of these Biblical scenes. For example, the tradition in depicting the flood was to see receding waters with a dove flying with a laurel leaf. However, it is seen on the Sistine as a terrifying scene with sixty-two figures and a donkey (representing Christ). The images in the panels show influences not only from the Bible, but also Plato, Savonarola, as well as his own personal belief. There are several Sistine figures that are androgynous. This is possibly linked to the bisexual nature from Greek mythology. There are also Christian doctrines that consider the androgynous being one who is superior. It is also a fact that Michelangelo only had one positive relationship with a woman, Vittoria Colonna.

Although this is an old work of art, it remains in great condition. The only damage to it occurred in 1797, when there was an explosion in the Castle Sant' Angelo that shook the ground and damaged a section of the fresco. To history's benifit. Pope Adrian IV did not get his way. He saw the paintings inapproprate for the chapel and wanted them destroyed. He fortunately died after only serving as pope for some twanty months.

In 1979 a multimillion dollar restoration and cleaning began on the ceiling. Parts were retouched and sealed with am acrylic resin coating. It was documented with thousands of photos, many hours of video footage and the network assumed all rights to the ceiling's work. The ceiling was finished by the end of 1989. All photography is banned in the chapel because the photo rights to the chapel are currently owned by Fuji Film.