Pallazo Cardinal Cesi, Rome, 22 May 2026
Your Eminence Fernando Cardinal Filoni, Grand Master of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem; Avvocato Giuseppi Pugliesi Alibrandi, General Secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State; Your Excellency Hon. Keith Pitt, Australian Ambassador to the Holy See; Your Excellency Most Rev. Richard Umbers, Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney; Dr Barbara Jatta, Director of the Vatican Museums; other distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen.
In The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors and Architects published in 1550, the father of art history, Giorgio Vasari, tells us of a great mischief hatched in Rome earlier in that century.[1] The papal architect Donato Bramante deeply resented that Michelangelo Buonarroti had been commissioned to carve the tomb of the warrior-pope, Julius II. To get his revenge he proposed Michelangelo to the pope to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling, knowing full well that his rival was no painter. Bramante’s wicked logic was this: painting sections of the 1,000 square metre vault 20 metres above the ground of the papal chapel and site of the conclaves to elect the pope, would challenge the greatest of painters; giving it to a young sculptor who had never painted a major fresco was a recipe for disaster. Michelangelo would fail spectacularly, both pope and artist would be publicly humiliated, and the Florentine would no longer be a contender for major commissions going forward.[2]
At first, it seemed Bramante would succeed in his dastardly plan. The contract was signed “Michelangelo, sculptor” (May 1508), as if to highlight he would struggle as a painter![3] And struggle he did. His commission was expanded from painting the Twelve Apostles on the triangular pendentives to filling the ceiling with 300 figures from the biblical stories of Creation, Fall and Promise of Salvation. But first he had to replace Bramante’s scaffolding system which set him up for failure. Then he had to learn how to apply pigment fast and accurately on newly laid plaster before it dried. His first attempts went mouldy as his plaster mix wasn’t right.[4] Mortar and paint kept falling into his eyes. And the whole ceiling would take four years (1509-12) of what he called torture “on the rack”: his head bent back so the nape became a narrow groove between head and spine; his chin raised while his neck muscles swelled and stretched like a rope; his shoulders aching, spine knotted, and arms exhausted from being held straight up. Yet he persevered.
Some of you will know the 1965 film, The Agony and the Ecstasy, with Rex Harrison as Julius II and Charlton Heston as Michelangelo. The pope keeps asking when the ceiling will be done so he can get his chapel back; each time the artist responds, “When I am finished!” It seemed to them both to be taking forever. But when the ceiling was finally revealed, it caused a sensation: Vasari says all of Rome rushed to see it.[5] Michelangelo’s arch-rivals Bramante and Raphael were speechless.[6] The latter would later contribute tapestries for the lower portion of the walls already decorated by Botticelli, Ghirlandaio and Perugino. And years later Michelangelo would be recalled to paint the Last Judgment above the altar…
Successful as it was, the Sistina was always a risky project. So, too, was the project of bringing the chapel to Sydney. It’s the kind of idea sensible people, not to mention the number crunchers, tell you in Yes Minister style is “courageous Minister”. No precedent, template, or safety net: even daredevil bishops would flinch, and a lot of trust be required of the Vatican authorities. Lawyers and accountants, digital artists and technologists, writers and producers, architects and builders, managers and staff, all were needed. Above all, it would require conviction that it was worth the hassle, and that Sydney would be interested in one of the greatest artistic treasures of all time. And Sydney, I am pleased to say, is loving it!
Celebrating the restoration of the Sistina frescoes in 1994, Pope St John Paul II described them as “a priceless, universal cultural heritage”, in which human genius presents revealed truth with unparalleled beauty.[7] Such masterpieces awaken in us a desire to see the invisible God, offer a quasi-sacramental experience of the mysteries made present, and call us to treasure the sanctuary of the human body. In 2009, Pope Benedict XVI also met artists in that chapel, singing its praises as “one of the most extraordinary creations in the entire history of art”.[8] The frescoes, he said, “draw us towards the ultimate goal of human history,” with all the risk, tension and promise of human life. Great art can ‘shock’ us out of ourselves, our humdrum, even our sufferings, unlocking human yearning and pointing a via pulchritudinis towards God. He quoted Dostoevsky to the effect that “Man can live without science, without bread, but not without beauty.”[9]
But as powerful as such convictions are, someone must still mount the scaffold, hold the brush, and do the work so to speak. To this end I must sincerely acknowledge:
- those who first imagined this experience, Cardinal Kevin Farrell and Jim Keys, Bishop Richard Umbers and Kathy Campbell, and Bishop Ed Burns of Dallas Texas
- those who gave permissions and shared the images, Sr Raffaella Petrini FSE, President of the Pontifical Commission for Vatican City State and officials of the Vatican Museums
- our resident theologian Lawrence Qummou, who was responsible for the creative writing
- Antonio Olivie’, Seàn Patrick Lovett and the entire team at Rome Reports not only for hosting us so generously this evening, but for their steadfast support and partnership throughout this project
- our partners in Dallas who will show the exhibit next; and those in such other cities and dioceses who ask for it to come to them, as I am confident many will when they see how excellent this show is
- the dedicated team from the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, including Executive Director (Administration and Finance) Michael Digges, Juliette Khoury from his team, and colleagues: Juliette more than anyone has held all this together and brought this incredible project to fulfilment.
At the entrance to our exhibition, visitors are greeted by Goethe’s comment on visiting the Sistine Chapel in 1787: “Until you’ve seen the Sistine Chapel, you can have no adequate conception of what man is capable of.” Thanks to a calculated risk and the work of an extraordinary team, audiences may now grasp something of what humanity is capable of in Sydney, without having to make the journey to Rome. Not that any virtual reality experience can substitute for visiting the Sistina itself! But this immersive exhibition allows visitors to linger over details and to contemplate the works at close range in ways that even the most devoted pilgrim to the Vatican Museums may not always manage. 12/10 was the average score amongst viewers in the first week! For in Sydney these past few days we have seen how beauty and transcendence can mesmerise the senses and speak to the heart, as the painted stories have revealed themselves anew. And we have demonstrated the enormous evangelical and catechetical potential of the Church’s artistic treasury. Thanks to the generous trust of the Holy See and the Vatican Museums, we look forward to sharing Sistine Chapel: Revelations with the world.
[1] Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (1550; 2nd ed. 1568) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 422–23.
[2] Vasari, Lives of the Artists, 422–23. Vasari reports that Bramante and Raphael hoped Michelangelo would either fail publicly or grow so frustrated that he would abandon the commission entirely.
[3] William E. Wallace, Michelangelo: The Artist, the Man, and His Times (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 89–112
[4] Ascanio Condivi, The Life of Michelangelo, trans. Alice Sedgwick Wohl, ed. Hellmut Wohl, 2nd ed. (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), chap. 20. See also Andrew Graham-Dixon, Michelangelo and the Sistine Chapel (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008), 23–25.
[5] Vasari, Lives of the Artists, 447–48.
[6] Vasari, Lives of the Artists, 414ff.
[7] St John Paul II, Homily for the Celebration of the Unveiling of the Restoration of Michelangelo’s Frescos in the Sistine Chapel (8 April 1994). See also St Paul VI, Address to Artists (8 December 1965). See also his Homily at Mass for Artists in the Sistine Chapel (7 May 1964); St John Paul II, Letter to Artists (1999) 9 & 10; Homily for the Beatification of Blessed Fra Angelico, Patron of Artists (3 October 1982) and Naming of Blessed Angelico as Patron of Artists (18 February 1984).
[8] Pope Benedict XVI, Address to a Meeting with Artists in the Sistine Chapel (21 November 2009).
[9] See also Pope Francis, Address to a Meeting with Artists in the Sistine Chapel for the 50th Anniversary of the Vatican Museum of Modern Art (23 June 2023).
