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The Sistine Chapel : An Extension Of A Primary Religious Place Of Fellowship

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The Sistine Chapel The Sistine Chapel is a large chapel, which is a religious place of fellowship, prayer and worship that is attached to a larger, often nonreligious institution or that is considered an extension of a primary religious institution. The Chapel is located in Vatican City, Rome and is in the Apostolic Palace. It is known for its Renaissance art, especially for the ceiling art that was painted by Michelangelo, and attracts more than 5 million visitors each year (Szalay, 2013). The Sistine Chapel had got its name from its commissioner, Pope Sixtus IV della Rovere, who decided to have a large room built where the Cappella Magna, which was a mediaeval fortified hall that the Papal Court used for assemblies, once stood (Vatican City State, n.d). After the structure of the chapel was complete in 1481, Pope Sixtus IV had commissioned celebrated Florentine painters to work in the chapel, that of which included Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Cosimo, Rosselli, Signorell and Umbrian artists such as Perugino and Pinturicchio, who executed painting the Northern wall, which housed the Stories of Jesus, the Southern wall, which was decorated with the Stories of Moses, and the Eastern wall, which included the Resurrection of Christ and the Disputation over Moses’ Body (Vatican City State, n.d). It was not till 1508 when Pope Julius II della Rovere, the nephew of Sixtus IV, insisted artist Michelangelo to paint his famous frescoed ceiling, which took four years to complete

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