When Michelangelo returned to Rome in 1508, he was to paint the Twelve Apostles and a few ornaments on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He, who had always insisted that he was a sculptor, was to learn the art of fresco painting, and practice it on a vaulted ceiling decorated by 15th-century artists as a starry sky. However, as he began work on the project, Michelangelo conceived grander designs for the decoration of the ceiling. He spent the time between 1508 and 1512 painting more than 300 larger-than-life figures on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. In the scheme of divisions, the key elements are the thrones of the seers (prophets and sibyls) flanked by plinths and colonnades decorated with pairs of putti supporting the cornice running above the crowns of the spandrels, at about a third of the way across the curve of the vault.
Discuss Michelangelo’s development of The Libyan Sibyl pertaining to its placement on the ceiling.
