Michelangelo's Last Judgment: The Culmination of Papal Propaganda in the Sistine Chapel

From before the fresco's unveiling on October 31, 1541 to the present day; Michelangelo's grand spectacle of Christ's Second Coming has engendered differing, and often diametrically opposed responses. Few would dispute that a papal commission manifests the desires of the pope, yet many scholars and critics have assumed that Michelangelo, given his extraordinary talents and status, could paint his own personal vision of the Last Judgment on the Sistine Chapel's altar wall without attention either to pictorial tradition or to patronal demands. Indeed, a direct and deep exploration of what specific messages the pope hoped to express about himself, his office, and his Church, as well as why he chose a Last Judgment to achieve these goals is lacking in the copious and rich writing on the fresco. This paper seeks to add another dimension to our comprehension of this complex and curious fresco by focusing on the theme of papal primacy and how Michelangelo worked to convey this message. In an image as multifaceted as Michelangelo's Last Judgment, planned and created for an audience of the highest theological sophistication, one would expect to find a host of allusions, symbols, and messages intended to inspire devotion and contemplation of the awesome event of the Second Coming. The fresco's message of papal primacy is one important, if not primary, reading that deserves further consideration.