Sistine Chapel ceiling - Wikipedia

This is exactly what made Michelangelo succeed as the architect of St Peter’s – not being just the designer but also the builder. Learning to supervise everything was the secret behind the construction of the great basilica. Michelangelo implemented a system to have food and water brought to stone masons high up on the scaffolding. He took up the c

In trying to complete this painting and make it stick to the wall that summer of 1505, Leonardo could feel the presence of a younger man looking over his shoulder, both literally and figuratively. Preparing to paint a competing mural in the room was the rising star of Florence’s art world, Michelangelo Buonarroti.

Even the Sistine Chapel. Alone under Michelangelo’s ceiling, I was able to wallow in my disbelief. I read in my guidebook that Michelangelo was miserable while painting his masterpiece. His back and neck ached. Paint fell constantly into his hair and eyes. He couldn’t wait to be finished, he told friends. If even Michelangelo didn’t like his work,

Taking note of these criticisms, the National Gallery in London began to experiment with picture placement in the mid-1800s. Instead of forcing visitors to crane their necks or crouch down to see the art on display, director Charles Eastlake began to hang the works at eye level. “This resulted in the gallery wall suddenly being emptier and its own

We stare at Michelangelo’s ceiling and learn from the tour guide that he was a tormented perfectionist, eaten up with rage whenever he discovered that his work—or even materials on which he planned to work—had the tiniest flaws.

To build his cathedral dome—a self-supporting structure of close to four million bricks that is still the largest masonry dome in the world—Brunelleschi had to develop sophisticated mathematical modeling techniques and invent an array of hoists and other engineering tools.