The Sistine Chapel is certainly the most popular destination for visitors to the Vatican in Rome with, of course, the possible exception of the massive Basilica dedicated to the Apostle Peter. The chapel’s popularity is undoubtedly due to the spectacular and powerful paintings by Michelangelo on its ceiling and altar wall. Few visitors, however, know how this chapel came into being or why it is so important to the papacy that created it. Nor do they know that Michelangelo’s work in the chapel came very late in the chapel’s origins and history. This longer, more complex history of the chapel’s

creation is the subject of this presentation.

John Hunter will give an illustrated presentation that explains the Sistine Chapel’s origins in the history of Christianity and the papacy at Rome. It is a long, complicated story that requires time and patience to understand but it promises to be a revealing story that is pertinent to all. The presentation is subtitled “It’s not just about Michelangelo” because that justly famous artist, whose work is the main attraction of the Sistine Chapel, was simply one of many artists who, with the help of many theologians and clerics, made the chapel what it is today. Therefore, to truly understand the Sistine

Chapel, it is essential to know the contributions of the many who created this fabulous building.

Speaker Bio:

Dr. John Hunter is Professor Emeritus of art history at Cleveland State University who is living in Oaxaca and New York City with his husband, Dr. Harold Kooden. Formerly an education curator at The Detroit Institute of Arts from 1971-1979, and an associate dean, departmental chair, and professor at Cleveland State University from 1982 to 2003, John taught Italian Renaissance art history until he retired. John is now a self-published

writer of five novels about black families and race in contemporary USA, and a visual artist whose one-man art exhibition opens in May, 2024 at the Godwin-Ternbach Museum of Queens College in New York City.