The Reluctant Painter

In 1508, Pope Julius II ordered Michelangelo to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Michelangelo protested. He thought of himself as a sculptor, and he suspected that rivals — possibly the architect Bramante — had pushed for the commission hoping he would fail at a giant fresco he had never attempted.

A Slow, Painful Method

Michelangelo painted in buon fresco, applying color onto wet plaster so the pigment fused with the wall as it dried. Each day a fresh patch of plaster was laid, and only that patch could be finished before it set. These daily sections are called giornate, Italian for "a day's work," and experts have counted roughly four hundred of them across the ceiling. One mistake meant chipping out the plaster and starting that patch again.