Take a 3D Virtual Tour of the Sistine Chapel & Explore Michelangelo’s Masterpieces Up Close

Today, 133 car­di­nals from around the world enter the con­clave to deter­mine the next pope, dur­ing which they’ll cast their votes in the Sis­tine Chapel. Despite being one of the most famous tourist attrac­tions in Europe, the Sis­tine Chapel still serves as a venue for such impor­tant offi­cial func­tions, just as it has since its com­ple­tion in 1481. When its name­sake Pope Six­tus IV com­mis­sioned it, he also ordered its walls cov­ered in fres­coes by some of the finest artists of that peri­od of the Renais­sance, includ­ing San­dro Bot­ti­cel­li, Domeni­co Ghirlandaio, and Cosi­mo Rossel­li. He also made the unusu­al choice of hav­ing the cross-vault ceil­ing cov­ered by a blue-and-gold paint­ing of the night sky, ably exe­cut­ed by Pier­mat­teo Lau­ro de’ Man­fre­di da Amelia.

No longer do the car­di­nals vote for their next leader under the stars, nor have they for about half a mil­len­ni­um. Even if you’ve nev­er set foot in the Sis­tine Chapel, you sure­ly know it as the build­ing whose ceil­ing was paint­ed by Michelan­ge­lo, lying flat on a scaf­fold all the while (a pleas­ing but high­ly doubt­ful image in the col­lec­tive cul­tur­al mem­o­ry).

In fact, that mas­ter of Renais­sance mas­ters did­n’t touch his brush to the place until 1508. He’d been brought in by a lat­er pope, Julius II, after hav­ing first resist­ed the com­mis­sion, insist­ing that he was a sculp­tor first, not a painter. For­tu­nate­ly for Renais­sance art enthu­si­asts, not only did Julius II pre­vail upon Michelan­ge­lo, so, near­ly thir­ty years lat­er, did Paul III, who had him paint over the altar the work that turned out to be the Last Judg­ment.

In the video at the top of the post, his­to­ry-and-archi­tec­ture YouTu­ber Manuel Bra­vo (pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured here on Open Cul­ture for his expla­na­tions of his­toric places like Venice, Pom­peii, the Cathe­dral of San­ta Maria del Fiore, and St. Peter’s Basil­i­ca, which was also touched by the hand of Michelan­ge­lo) nar­rates a 3D vir­tu­al tour of the Sis­tine Chapel. That for­mat makes it pos­si­ble to see not only its numer­ous works of Bib­li­cal art, by Michelan­ge­lo and a host of oth­er painters besides, from every pos­si­ble angle, but also the build­ing itself just as it would have looked in eras past, even before Michelan­ge­lo made his con­tri­bu­tion. The more you under­stand each indi­vid­ual ele­ment, the bet­ter you can appre­ci­ate this “ver­i­ta­ble Div­ina Com­me­dia of the Renais­sance,” as Bra­vo calls it, when next you can see it in per­son. That, of course, will only be after the con­clave fin­ish­es up: in a few hours, or days, or weeks, or maybe — a phe­nom­e­non not unex­am­pled in the his­to­ry of the church — a few years.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Sis­tine Chapel: A $22,000 Art-Book Col­lec­tion Fea­tures Remark­able High-Res­o­lu­tion Views of the Murals of Michelan­ge­lo, Bot­ti­cel­li & Oth­er Renais­sance Mas­ters

Take a 3D Vir­tu­al Tour of the Sis­tine Chapel, St. Peter’s Basil­i­ca and Oth­er Art-Adorned Vat­i­can Spaces

The Vat­i­can Library Goes Online and Dig­i­tizes Tens of Thou­sands of Man­u­scripts, Books, Coins, and More

Michelangelo’s David: The Fas­ci­nat­ing Sto­ry Behind the Renais­sance Mar­ble Cre­ation

A Secret Room with Draw­ings Attrib­uted to Michelan­ge­lo Opens to Vis­i­tors in Flo­rence

Michelangelo’s Illus­trat­ed Gro­cery List

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.