Reading the Ceiling

Scholars still debate the ceiling's layers of meaning five centuries on. The Genesis story runs from the Creation of the world toward Noah, but the panels are sequenced in reverse: visitors entering the chapel meet Noah's drunkenness first and reach the Creation of Adam last, building toward divine glory.

A major 1980s-90s cleaning stripped away centuries of candle soot and revealed startlingly vivid color, overturning the long-held belief that Michelangelo worked in muted, somber tones.