A Virtual Tour of the Sistine Chapel

The Sis­tine Chapel in the Vat­i­can. It’s one of the tri­umphs of Renais­sance paint­ing. The chapel’s walls were fres­coed by Raphael, Berni­ni, and San­dro Bot­ti­cel­li. And then, between 1508 and 1512, Michelan­ge­lo paint­ed the chapel ceil­ing, cov­er­ing some 12,000 square feet, dec­o­rat­ing it with 300 fig­ures from nine Book of Gen­e­sis scenes. Thanks in part to Vil­lano­va Uni­ver­si­ty, you can now take a vir­tu­al, panoram­ic tour of the Chapel. Using but­tons in the low­er left screen, you can move around the room and zoom in on the paint­ings, includ­ing those on the ceil­ing. It’s been a while since I vis­it­ed the Vat­i­can. But, from what I remem­ber, this vir­tu­al tour gives you a clos­er look than the aver­age vis­i­tor gets.

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