Michelangelo's Cappella Paolina

The Capella Paolina is a chapel, I assume you are referring to the Michelangelo frescoes in the chapel? The chapel was still being restored when we last visited, not sure if its open to the public or not.

Yes it is in a chapel BUT where is this chapel and how do you get to it? Hope you can still help...Shelly

According to the Vatican web page on this chapel: http://mv.vatican.va/2_IT/pages/z-Info/Stampa/Stampa_01.html
the Cappella Paolina is rarely open to the public even the th restoration has been completed. There is a virtual tour of it out there from the wikipedia page, that may be the best you can do for now.

Shelley-

Steve from Pacific Palisades' link is NOT The Paolina Chapel with the Michelangelo frescoes, but seems rather to be something at Santa Maria Maggiore. So I don't think his link "has all the info you are asking about."

Someone (an Italian) once told me that I needed to visit the Vatican Museum main desk, talk to somebody, and they would arrange for me to see the chapel. Sounded like an excruciating exercise in Italian bureaucracy, so I never followed up on it....yet.

It's a shame that 50% of the existent Michelangelo frescoes are basically off-limits to the public. Or is it????

P.S. Yes - it is in the Vatican City, but not inside St Peters Basilica. Directly east of the Sistine Chapel, as near as I can tell. Behind and above the bathrooms it would seem....

Jason -

Thank you for great information...i have spent hours Googling and lo and behold i did find out that Michelangelo's frescoes are in the Pope's private chapel and closed to the public. But...when i get to the Vatican Museum i will give it a try....Thank you so much again...Shelly

If you want to see a remarkable virtual tour of the Cappella Paolina

click here

The Michelangelo frescoes are the two largest ones, on the walls, opposite each other.

Michelangelo was a sculptor, not a painter. He only did the frescos because the Pope more or less strong-armed him into being his personal interior decorator, so it makes sense the frescos would all be in the Vatican.

From above post: "It's a shame that 50% of the existent Michelangelo frescoes are basically off-limits to the public. Or is it????"

That got me thinking: how many frescoes did he do? Of course the Sistine Ceiling and Last Judgment always come to mind.

Can we make a list?

I can only think of four:Sistine CeilingLast Judgment (wall of Sistine Chapel)Conversion of Saul (Pauline Chapel)Crucifixion of St. Peter (Pauline Chapel)

All four in the Vatican! Practically in the same building (though technically not quite).

As another poster said, 50% of the four frescoes Michelangelo did are, basically, off-limits to the public.

"Michelangelo was a sculptor, not a painter."But what a painter. And an architect, too!

True that! Maybe I should say "Michelangelo thought of himself as a sculptor, and not a painter." He was also a Florentine who didn't like being in Rome.

It's an interesting contrast to Leonardo da Vinci who was interested in all kinds of things, primarily as a painter and inventor/engineer, and who was often moving about.

And so I don't completely derail this thread--I'd never heard of the Cappella Paolina, so thanks for mentioning it, Shelly! Very interesting, even if it isn't open to the general public.

Further to Liz's posts: Seeing the Pope's Library (Julius in early 1500's, I think), I remember thinking: well, it was good to be the Pope--when he needed some interior decorating done on his library walls he just called in Raphael.