The Gospel of Matthew provides the genealogy represented in the Sistine Chapel ceiling’s lunettes.
Matthew opens with a genealogy tracing Jesus’ ancestry through a line of named generations. Michelangelo used this biblical material for the figures and groups painted in the semicircular lunettes above the chapel windows.
The lunettes form one part of the ceiling’s extensive program. Above them are other figures and scenes, while the center contains the nine major episodes from Genesis, beginning with the separation of light from darkness and ending with Noah’s drunkenness.
A common mix-up is to identify Luke because Luke also contains a genealogy of Jesus. The Sistine Chapel lunettes are conventionally associated with Matthew’s genealogy, whose structure begins the Gospel and emphasizes descent through Abraham and David.