Things to do nearSistine Chapel

Built in the late fifteenth century under Pope Sixtus IV, the Sistine Chapel served from its earliest days as the pope's private chapel and the site of sacred ceremonies. Its name honors that founding pope, and its walls already bore frescoes by Botticelli, Perugino, and Ghirlandaio before Michelangelo ever set foot inside.

Pope Julius II commissioned Michelangelo to paint the ceiling between 1508 and 1512. Working largely alone on scaffolding high above the floor, Michelangelo depicted scenes from Genesis, including the iconic Creation of Adam, whose outstretched hands have become one of the most recognized images in Western art.

Decades later, Michelangelo returned to paint the Last Judgment on the altar wall, completed in 1541. The composition is dense and turbulent, a stark contrast to the ordered narratives above, and it marked a shift toward the emotional intensity of Mannerism.

Today the chapel remains an active place of worship and the setting for papal conclaves. Visitors enter through the Vatican Museums, moving through galleries of antiquities and maps before arriving at the chapel itself. The accumulated grandeur of that approach makes the moment you step inside all the more affecting, and few places on earth reward a slow, attentive visit as generously.