Which Renaissance artist painted the Sistine Chapel ceiling?

Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. He completed the monumental fresco cycle between 1508 and 1512, during the High Renaissance, under the commission of Pope Julius II.

The ceiling contains nine central scenes from Genesis, including The Creation of Adam, and is surrounded by prophets, sibyls, ancestors of Christ, and numerous decorative figures. Michelangelo worked primarily in buon fresco, applying pigments to wet plaster so the colors became part of the surface as it dried.

A common mix-up is confusing the ceiling with the chapel’s other Renaissance decorations. Botticelli, Perugino, Ghirlandaio, and other artists painted important wall frescoes, while Raphael later designed tapestries for the lower walls. Michelangelo also returned to the chapel decades later to paint The Last Judgment on the altar wall.