Twelve side-wall fresco scenes form the main Moses and Christ cycles in the Sistine Chapel.
The fifteenth-century decoration of the chapel’s long walls originally presented parallel narratives: scenes from the life of Moses on one side and scenes from the life of Christ on the other. These cycles were painted by leading Florentine and Umbrian artists, including Sandro Botticelli, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Pietro Perugino, and Cosimo Rosselli.
The scenes were designed to show a theological relationship between the Old and New Testaments. Events in Moses’s life were paired with events in Christ’s life, visually presenting continuity between the two biblical histories.
The count refers to the principal narrative scenes of the two side-wall cycles. Some original panels were lost or removed when Michelangelo’s Last Judgment was painted on the altar wall, so descriptions may differ if they count every surviving wall image or later alteration.