Michelangelo completed the Sistine Chapel ceiling in 1512.
He painted the vast fresco cycle between 1508 and 1512 for Pope Julius II. The finished work covers the chapel’s vault with scenes from Genesis, prophets and sibyls, architectural illusionism, and hundreds of monumental figures. Although Michelangelo is usually remembered as a sculptor, the commission established him as one of the supreme painters of the High Renaissance.
The ceiling was not created in a single uninterrupted effort. Michelangelo worked in stages, moving or adapting scaffolding as he progressed across the chapel. The earlier scenes include episodes from Noah’s story, while the later eastern section contains the Creation scenes, including the famous Creation of Adam.
The completed ceiling was revealed on 31 October 1512, followed by a formal papal mass on All Saints’ Day, 1 November. It is often confused with Michelangelo’s later Sistine Chapel fresco, The Last Judgment, which occupies the altar wall and was painted decades afterward, from 1536 to 1541.