When Michelangelo unveiled his "Last Judgment" in the Sistine Chapel (site of the upcoming papal election), outrage ensued. What artist was hired to paint draperies and underwear on the nudes?

gtho4

Daniele da Volterra, The Last Judgement was an object of a heavy dispute between Cardinal Carafa and Michelangelo: the artist was accused of immorality and intolerable obscenity, having depicted naked figures, with genitals in evidence, inside the most important church of Christianity, so a censorship campaign (known as the "Fig-Leaf Campaign") was organized by Carafa and Monsignor Sernini (Mantua's ambassador) to remove the frescoes. When the Pope's own Master of Ceremonies, Biagio da Cesena, similarly denounced the work by saying that the work was more suited to a bath-house than a chapel, Michelangelo worked his semblance into the scene as Minos, judge of the underworld. It is said that when da Cesena complained to the Pope, the pontiff responded that his jurisdiction did not extend to hell, so the portrait would have to remain. In coincidence with Michelangelo's death, a law was issued to cover genitals ("Pictura in Cappella Ap.ca coopriantur"). So Daniele da Volterra, an apprentice of Michelangelo, covered the genitals with perizomas (briefs), leaving unaltered the complex of bodies. Following this work, Daniele da Volterra was nicknamed "Braghettone" (literally: "large pants"). When the work was restored in 1993, the restorers chose not to remove the perizomas of Daniele; however, a faithful, uncensored copy of the original, by Marcello Venusti, is now at the Capodimonte Museum in Naples. http://encyclopedia.lockergnome.com/s/b/Sistine_Chapel Apr 13 05, 9:37 PM

lanfranco

Quite nice, gtho4, and yay to you. I should point out that removing Daniele's additions would have been impossible without destroying the fresco. The offending sections had been scraped out and replastered by Daniele before his repainting job. This is why, after careful analysis, the restorers chose to make no attempt to do away with the discreet cover-ups. Apr 13 05, 9:51 PM