Traveling in Italy, every self-respecting tourist simply can not ignore the Vatican - a state in the state and a stronghold of Christianity. And in the Vatican it's simply impossible to pass by the most outstanding of its sights - the Sistine Chapel. That's where we will go today for a virtual tour.
Where is the Sistine Chapel?
Find the Sistine chapel in the Vatican will not be difficult, even for the most inexperienced tourist - just a few meters to the north of St. Peter's Cathedral. You can get here on the Roman metro to Ottavio station, and then walk a little.
Sistine Chapel - interesting facts
Its existence the greatest monument of architecture and art began as an ordinary house church. The construction was started by the order of Sixtus IV, in whose name the church got its name. It happened in the distant 1481.
Today, the Sistine Chapel is not only a monument, it is also a gathering place for conclaves, which determine who will become the head of the Catholic Church for the coming years.
In the Sistine Chapel, there is a world-famous Catholic choir, which only Catholics and only men are allowed to sing.
Most tourists are attracted to the Sistine Chapel bright murals that cover all of its ceiling. Few people do not know that the Sistine Chapel painted the greatest master of the Renaissance, without exaggeration the genius of Michelangelo Buonarroti. It was his hands that created majestic illustrations for biblical stories that adorn the ceiling of the building.
The task before the master was not easy, because the ceiling has a curved shape, so all the figures on it had to be depicted so that from the floor their proportions did not seem to be disturbed. To perform this work, Michelangelo needed neither much, nor little - four years, which he practically lived in the woods under the ceiling.
But, in 1512, the work on painting the chapel was over, and the eyes of the customer appeared in all its glory history of the creation of the world before the flood.
In 1534, Michelangelo returned to the Sistine Chapel to paint one of its walls with the fresco "Last Judgment".
The rest of the walls of the chapel are decorated with no less interesting frescos, created by a group of Florentine masters from 1481 to 1483. The murals on the walls are opened to the visitors of the history of Christ and of Moses, and the authorship of them belongs to the brushes of Perugino, Botticelli, Signorelli, Gatta, Roselli, and others.