This is undoubtedly the most famous part of the frescoes, the section that most people have in their mind’s eye when they think of the Sistine ceiling. In the original commission given to Michelangelo by the pope and his advisers, he was supposed to have simply painted an imitation of a geometric pattern found on the ceilings of the remains of many pagan Roman palaces. The standard practice would have been for the artist to “crown” the center of the ceiling with the symbols of the pope’s sovereignty—the crossed skeleton keys and the triple tiara—along with his family crest and perhaps his name inscribed there as well. This della Rovere oak-tree crest can be seen all over the original decorations of the chapel, by order of Julius’s uncle, Pope Sixtus IV. Not only is there a large three-dimensional one directly over the papal entranceway, but hundreds of them are worked into the “fabric” of the trompe l’oeuil draperies painted over the lower walls. This was the accepted norm for almost all papal ceilings down through the centuries, not only throughout the Apostolic Palace, but also in Castel Sant’Angelo (the best known of the several papal castles) and in other palaces, villas, and churches around Italy.Michelangelo was neither an imitator nor a sycophant.
