Michelangelo's frescoes on the Vatican's Sistine Chapel ceiling of 1508-12 are arguably one of the greatest masterpieces of Western art. But as recognizable as such images as The Creation of Man are today, the fresco as a whole remains enormously enigmatic. Indeed, while many writers have analyzed these world-renown frescoes, few have presented the ceiling comprehensively or have done justice to its multileveled complexity.

In this volume, Professor Loren Partridge lucidly and concisely presents the fundamental concerns of this highly challenging work, revealing the intriguing associations that Michelangelo hoped his viewers would draw among the central narratives, the pendentives, the Prophets and Sibyls, the Ancestors of Christ, the medallions, and the ignudi.

Professor Partridge discusses such issues as the fresco program's subjects, the nature of its patron, its cultural, philosophical, and religious contexts, and Michelangelo's inventive fresco technique, particularly his newly revealed adventurous use of color. In the end, he illuminates the splendor of Michelangelo's endlessly inventive conception of humankind's willed ascent toward spiritual understanding.