What the Sistine Chapel Teaches Us about Legacy
On a fall evening in mid-November, I sat on an acrylic-covered bench on the perimeter of the Sistine Chapel alone except for a few classmates. We spent half an hour in silence, gazing up at Michelangelo’s fresco masterpieces, marveling at the figures suspended from the ceiling. Feelings of awe overwhelmed me. Tears formed in my eyes as I grappled with the triumph of human achievement and the sobering reminder of the brevity of human lives evoked by Michelangelo’s Last Judgement. It was a privilege most people will never get to experience.
I came through the Vatican Museum, the Papal Apartments, and the Sistine Chapel earlier in the day. My first reaction to the Sistine Chapel was not wonder, but claustrophobia. “It is smaller than I thought,” I remember noting. Masses of visitors collected in the sanctuary, failing to observe the mandated silence. I did not know where to look. I even missed the iconic Creation of Adam above my head.
Returning that night, the Pope’s private chapel felt intimate, authoritative, and sacred. With hardly any people in the space, the walls began to speak, chattering about all the moments of history they have witnessed in the last five centuries. Unlike before, the figures of God, Adam, Eve, Sibyls, Prophets, and youths on the ceiling outnumbered us, reminding me of my own mortality and leading me to ponder their heaven-like existence frozen in time.
Studying the Sistine Chapel from images fails to encapsulate the frescoes’ magnitude, strength, and delicacy. I was ignorant of their magnificence before visiting. After studying one cycle of frescoes after another, they blended together in my mind. Sitting in the Sistine Chapel that evening, I humbly resigned myself to a silent, all-consuming appreciation at not only the enormity of the project, but Michelangelo’s creativity and mastery of design. He created new planes of space that seemed natural to the ceiling’s architecture. The layering of the Creation Scenes vaulted their importance and protected their sanctity.
During my time in the Chapel, I considered what it meant to leave behind a legacy. Michelangelo began to work the frescoes for Pope Julius II in 1508. Over the frescoes’ five hundred year existence, the Chapel has welcomed millions of visitors who traveled many miles to see with their own eyes one of the most sacred places in the world and Michelangelo’s masterpiece. I struggled to think of any place built today that will attract the same response. I thought of the billionaires today and how they might be remembered. I wondered what they spent their money on. How were they investing in the creation of monuments of culture representative of our time?
Then, I thought about the donor who made our class visit to the Sistine Chapel possible. She donated her money so that my classmates and I could have this experience. Were we her legacy?
One of the cornerstones of art history is legacy—the legacy of the artist, the patron, an institution, a country. How do you create something so universally revered, respected, and inspirational that it transcends time? How do individuals choose to invest their money?
