St Mary’s Cathedral Forecourt, Sydney, 15 May 2026
Lord Mayor, Lords episcopal, Reverend fathers and sisters, distinguished guests, archdiocesan officials, friends all:
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 meter vault, 20 meters above the ground of the principal papal chapel, 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 get his way. In May 1508 Michelangelo signed the contract “Michelangelo, sculptor”, as if to insist fresco was not his calling![3] He struggled. 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 Salvation. But first he had to replace Bramante’s scaffolding system which set him up for failure. Then he had to learn how to paint with pigment on newly laid plaster as it dried—which meant he had to work fast and accurately. To begin with his plaster mix wasn’t right and his first works went mouldy.[4] Mortar and paint kept falling into his eyes. And it would take four years (1509-12) of torment “on the rack”: his head bent back so that the nape became a narrow groove between head and spine; his chin and beard 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 and he can get his chapel back; each time the artist responds, “When I am finished!” To both of them it must have seemed forever. But when the ceiling was finally revealed, it caused a sensation: Vasari says all of Rome rushed to see it.[5] Even Michelangelo’s arch-rivals Bramante and Raphael were speechless.[6] Years later (1533-41) he would be recalled to paint the Last Judgment above the altar…
But from start to finish it was 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, will tell you 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 would be 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.
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 and profess 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, and he sang its praises as “one of the most extraordinary creations in the entire history of art”.[8] He thought the frescoes “draw us towards the ultimate goal of human history,” with all the risk, tension and promise of human life. The greatest 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
- our producers at Jane Dillon Creative, who built this great structure and created this experience from the ground up
- our creative content partners, Catalyst VR, whose artistry and technical brilliance brought the frescoes to life with fidelity to the original
- our marketers The Many, who helped to broadcast this exhibition to the people of Sydney and beyond
- the dedicated team from the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, including Executive Director (Administration and Finance) Michael Digges, Juliette Khoury and colleagues: Juliette more than anyone has held all this together and brought this incredible project to fulfilment.
On your way in, you will have seen 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.”[10] Tonight, thanks to a calculated risk and the work of an extraordinary team, you may grasp what humanity is capable of—without having to fly to Rome! And while it may be no substitute for visiting the Sistina itself, this immersive experience will allow you to see details and to focus on the works in a way you cannot when being rushed with thousands of others through the Vatican Museums. Tonight beauty and transcendence mesmerise your senses and speak to your heart. Enter the painted stories yourself, that they might reveal themselves to you anew.
Welcome to Sistine Chapel: Revelations…
[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).
[10] Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Italian Journey: 1786–1788, trans. W. H. Auden and Elizabeth Mayer (London: Penguin, 1970), Part Three (Second Roman Visit, August 1787)
