7 Things You Didn’t Know about the Sistine Chapel

Michelangelo wanted nothing to do with the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling

When Julius asked the artist to decorate the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling, Michelangelo balked, because he considered himself a sculptor rather than a painter, and he had no experience whatsoever with frescoes.

Contrary to popular belief, Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel in a standing position

Michelangelo and his assistants used wooden scaffolds to stand upright and reach above their heads and drew the amazing frescoes.

Working on the Sistine Chapel was so unpleasant that Michelangelo wrote a poem about his misery

Michelangelo described the physical strain of the Sistine Chapel project to his friend Giovanni da Pistoia as a terrible experience and that he shouldn’t be doing it, since he wasn’t really a painter.. Click the next ARROW to see the next page!