Tag: MICHELANGELO

This week in history: The Sistine Chapel

~ David Tollen ~ Leave a comment
Photo by Antoine Taveneaux, reproduced with permission under the Creative Commons License Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license

This week in 1512, the Vatican revealed the newly-painted ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, for the first time. Renaissance master Michelangelo had begun the work in 1508, under commission from Pope Julius II (often called the warrior pope). The master had actually resisted the project at first. The scale of the job intimidated him (with good reason). And – amazingly from the viewpoint of history – Michelangelo considered himself more a sculptor than a painter. He also thought that his enemies had arranged the commission, assuming he would fail. But Pope Julius was relentless. Continue reading “This week in history: The Sistine Chapel” →

This Week in History: David & Michelangelo

~ David Tollen ~ Leave a comment

David by Michelangelo
Michelangelo’s David, photographed by Jörg Bittner Unna, courtesy of Wikimedia

This week in 1501, Michelangelo began work on his statue of David, one of Renaissance Italy’s most famous works of art. The artist took three years to complete the piece, unveiling it in 1504. David was originally meant to stand on the roof-line of the Florence Cathedral, but it (he) was instead placed at Palazzo Vecchio in the public square. In 1873, David was moved to the Gallery of the Academy of Florence, with a replica standing in the original site.