The Final Judgement

Michelangelo started the decoration of the end wall, twenty two years after he had painted the ceiling, summoned to Rome by Pope Paul III. The Last Judgement represents seven years of work. Miche langelo was in his sixties; during those years away from Rome his life had been deeply embittered and most of the works he had started he left unifinished. He had lost his father, whom be loved immensely; he bad lost his favourite brother; he had lost his health and his faith in his fatherland. Rome had just experienced the most ferocious sacking of her history under Charles V, which people saw as a manifestation of the wrath of God; the Reformation of the Church and a movement for spiritual regeneration followed. The drama of this historical moment and of Michelangelo's life are reflected in the turmoil of the almost three hundred figures which he painted in the Last Judgement. These figures were entirely namked and this aroused violent criticism. Michelangelo was accused of Lutheranism (the Inquisition was incubating); the master of ceremonies of the Vatican, a Cardinal, declared the figures obscene; Michelangelo retorted by painting the Cardinal's portrait in Hell, with the ears of an ass and a serpent around his loins, to represent Minos. (The extreme bottom right hand corner). After the death of Pope Paul III, the figures were partly covered, Daniele da Volterra was the painter who executed the order and who was known ever after as II Braghettone (the breeches maker).

The gigantic Christ, the inexorable judge, was criticised for being represented as a beardless young man. Around Christ and the Virgin Mary, are the martyrs, showing the symbols of their martyrdom; the face on the skin of St. Bartholomew, the Saint skinned alive (below Christ, to the right when you look at the picture), is the tragic mask of Michelangelo; the distorted face shows all his bitterness and alludes to all the wrongs done to him.

We find many more portraits in this picture, and a lot of details of interest. In the center are the angels blowing the trumpets to awaken the dead, represented at the bottom (in the left hand corner).

Other angels raise the elect to Heaven. We'll note the mighty angel raising, by means of a string of rosary beads, two colored men who deserved preservation because of their attention to work as well as faith. On the section to the right are the rebellious damned, pulled down to Hell. Beyond this screen of drama, we find the conception which had been the main concern of a Renaissance humanist that a proper study of mankind, is Man; in the end it is the human figure which dominates in these frescoes (you hardly see any landscape).

The paintings on the ceiling were the culmination of what had been done before in painting; and they are in painting what St. Peter's is in architecture: the crowing achievement of the revival of learning. The Last Judgement sealed the whole epoch. Michelangelo with these paintings said the last word about the Renaissance; symbolising all the newness, the freshness, the renovation and the innovations of this age. The paintings of the Sistine Chapel, more than any other work suggest parallelisms, with current events of our age, and provide a link between Michelangelo's world and our own. In this, may be, we find the explanation for the great appeal that his art had to the men of all time.

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