The Sistine Chapel: A New Vision
The frescoes of the Sistine Chapel are often viewed as a striking study in  the contrast between the middle and High Renaissance styles. On the one  hand, the scenes painted on the chapel's walls by Botticelli, Ghirlandaio,  Perugino, Rosselli, and Signorelli (1481--82), which depict parallel events  in the lives of Moses and Jesus (and allegorically legitimize the power of  the pope), exemplify the narrative art developed in quattrocento Florence,  in which multiple incidents and numerous draped figures are depicted in a  single view. On the other hand, Michelangelo's scenes from Genesis on the  chapel's ceiling (1508--12) epitomize the art of the High Renaissance, with  its emphasis on compositional clarity and the human form, and his immense  Last Judgment on the chapel's altar wall (1536--41) even anticipates  Mannerism, which pushed the expressive power of the nude--hypertrophied and  elaborately posed--to its limit.In this boldly original book, sure to inspire lively discussion among all  students and enthusiasts of art history, noted scholar Heinrich Pfeiffer  reveals that, despite their stylistic diversity, the frescoes of the  Sistine Chapel display an iconographic unity of hitherto-unsuspected depth.  Drawing on years of research, he argues that neither the frescoes of the  quattrocento masters nor even those of Michelangelo are free artistic  embellishments on the prescribed themes; rather, their every detail has a  specific symbolic meaning that is to be discovered only in the texts  available to contemporary papal theologians. As a whole, he asserts, this  symbolism constitutes a single iconographic program that underlies (without  supplanting) the frescoes' more obvious thematic and allegorical meanings,  and that expresses metaphorically a number of key theological concepts,  such as the Trinity and the analogy of Christ and His Church to groom and  bride.With his clearly reasoned text, Pfeiffer leads us to a new understanding of  the Sistine Chapel as a collaborative creation, encompassing not only "the  agony and the ecstasy" of Michelangelo and his artistic forebears but also  the faith and erudition of the theologians who closely advised them. He  inspires us to take a fresh look at this great monument, the entirety of  which is illustrated here in stunning full- and double-page photographs  that faithfully reproduce the brilliant colors revealed by the frescoes'  recent restoration. Just as significantly, he reminds us of the importance  of iconography to the full appreciation of art, and of the close links that  so often exist between text and image.