ABSTRACT
In 1483, on the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin, Pope Sixtus celebrated the first Mass in the Sistine Chapel, dedicating the Chapel, with that Mass, to the Virgin Mary. In 1541, on the Feast of All Saints, Michelangelo’s Last Judgment was unveiled on the wall behind the altar in the Chapel (Plate 8.1).1 Étienne Dupérac’s 1578 engraving of the Chapel shows the altar, with a cloth baldachino, framed by Michelangelo’s fresco, and in its lower half, the papal court, arranged hierarchically within the choir screen, and the laity, standing without, facing the altar and the wall.2
