The Sistine Chapel ceiling was inaugurated with a solemn Mass on November 1, 1512. These are photographic reproductions of surviving Renaissance frescoes, not photographs of the event. Approximate artwork dates lead the sequence; broadly dated scenes and a complete view follow. Each record distinguishes the painting from the later reproduction.
Topic: Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel ceiling
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The Delphic Sibyl
The Delphic Sibyl turns with a scroll in her hands. She belongs to the ceiling’s alternating company of prophets and sibyls, figures understood in its Christian program as anticipating a redeemer. This is a modern reproduction of a fresco dated around 1509, not a contemporary record of the inauguration.
Michelangelo / Sistine Chapel collection; reproduction via Wikimedia Commons / public domain
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A face at the edge of the story
A close detail isolates one of the ignudi, the nude youths placed beside the Genesis narratives. The head turns away from the viewer, with curls and angled light giving the painted form a sculptural weight. The source dates the fresco to 1509; this reproduction comes from the Web Gallery of Art.
Michelangelo / Sistine Chapel collection; Web Gallery of Art / public domain
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The Creation of Adam
Adam stretches an arm toward the approaching creator. Their hands almost meet, but the painting holds the interval open. The composition is one of nine Genesis scenes in the central ceiling, rather than an isolated mural. The file record dates this fresco to around 1511; its photographic reproduction is much later.
Michelangelo / Sistine Chapel collection; reproduction via Wikimedia Commons / public domain
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The Fall and Expulsion
The tree divides two episodes that the painter has brought into one field. On the left, Adam and Eve reach toward the forbidden fruit; on the right, an angel drives them out. The scan includes the surrounding painted framework, preserving some of the relationship between the story and the wider ceiling.
Photo details
Date
Artwork 1508–1512; modern scan published on Commons in 2015
Michelangelo / Sistine Chapel collection; scan from Andrew Graham-Dixon, Michelangelo and The Sistine Chapel, 2009 / public domain
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The Flood
People crowd onto rising ground as the water threatens the remaining shelter. Bodies and belongings make a scene of mass disaster out of the Genesis narrative. This reproduction includes neighboring figures and architectural borders; it is a scan of the surviving painting, with its aged surface and visible losses.
Photo details
Date
Artwork 1508–1512; modern scan published on Commons in 2015
Michelangelo / Sistine Chapel collection; scan from Andrew Graham-Dixon, Michelangelo and The Sistine Chapel, 2009 / public domain
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The complete painted vault
The full view reunites the scenes usually reproduced separately. Genesis runs through the center, while prophets, sibyls, ancestors and other figures occupy a dense painted framework around it. This digital reproduction records the surviving artwork; the source file bears a 2008 date. It does not show the chapel as photographed in 1512.
Photo details
Date
Artwork 1508–1512; digital reproduction dated 2008
