Narrative and Religious Expression in Michelangelo's Pauline Chapel

Michelangelo painted the Pauline Chapel for Pope Paul III, perhaps the greatest and probably the most discerning of the artist’s numerous patrons. There appears to have been trust and a mutual respect between the two men, based not in small measure on the fact that they were contemporaries. At the time of the Pauline commission, both were over seventy years of age – venerable and profoundly Christian men.