After four grueling years working on scaffolding of his own design, Michelangelo unveiled the ceiling on All Saints' Day. Pope Julius II, who had impatiently pressed the artist to finish, celebrated Mass beneath the newly revealed Creation of Adam and dozens of other biblical scenes. The work redefined the possibilities of fresco painting and cemented Michelangelo's reputation as the era's supreme artist.
Michelangelo considered himself primarily a sculptor and reportedly resented the commission, believing it had been engineered by rivals who wanted him to fail at an unfamiliar medium. He fired his initial team of assistants and largely worked alone, developing a scaffold that arched from wall to wall without touching the floor, which let services continue below him.
The physical toll was severe. Michelangelo wrote a wry sonnet describing paint dripping into his beard and eyes, his neck twisted permanently upward, and his body bent 'like a Syrian bow.' He complained he could barely read a letter afterward without holding it above his head.
The unveiling stunned Rome. Raphael, then working nearby on frescoes in the papal apartments, is said to have altered his style after seeing Michelangelo's figures, incorporating a new muscularity into his own work. The ceiling's most famous panel, the Creation of Adam with its almost-touching fingers, would become one of the most reproduced images in Western art, endlessly parodied and referenced for the next five centuries.
Key people: Michelangelo Buonarroti, Pope Julius II