country sistine chapel ceiling
Lorenzo de ' Medici ( 1 January 1449  9 April 1492 ) was an Italian statesman and " de facto " ruler of the Florentine Republic , who was one of the most powerful and enthusiastic patrons of the Renaissance . Also known as Lorenzo the Magnificent (" Lorenzo il Magnifico " ) by contemporary Florentines , he was a magnate , diplomat , politician and patron of scholars , artists and poets . He is well known for his contribution to the art ___MASK18___ by sponsoring artists such as Botticelli and Michelangelo . His life coincided with the mature phase of Italian Renaissance and his death coincided with the end of the Golden Age of Florence . The fragile peace that he helped maintain among the various Italian states collapsed with his death . He is buried in the Medici Chapel in Florence . The pope ( from " pappas ", a child ' s word for " father ") is the Bishop of Rome and , therefore , the leader of the ___MASK40___ Catholic Church . The primacy of the Roman bishop is largely derived from his role as the traditional successor to Saint Peter , to whom Jesus is supposed to have given the keys of Heaven and the powers of " binding and loosing ", naming him as the " rock " upon which the church would be built . The current pope is Francis , who was elected on 13 March 2013 , succeeding Benedict XVI . The Italian Renaissance was the earliest manifestation of the general European Renaissance , a period of great cultural change and achievement that began in ___MASK85___ during the 14th century and lasted until the 16th century , marking the transition between Medieval and Early Modern Europe . The term Renaissance is in essence a modern one that came into currency in the 19th century , in the work of historians such as Jules Michelet and Jacob Burckhardt . Although the origins of a movement that was confined largely to the literate culture of intellectual endeavor and patronage can be traced to the earlier part of the 14th century , many aspects of Italian culture and society remained largely Medieval ; the Renaissance did not come into full swing until the end of the century . The French word " renaissance " (" Rinascimento " in Italian ) means " Rebirth ", and the era is best known for the renewed interest in the culture of classical antiquity after the period that Renaissance humanists labeled the Dark Ages . A cultural movement is a change in the way a number of different disciplines approach their work . This embodies all art forms , the sciences , and philosophies . Historically , different nations or regions of the ___MASK18___ have gone through their own independent sequence of movements in culture , but as ___MASK18___ communications have accelerated this geographical distinction has become less distinct . When cultural movements go through revolutions from one to the next , genres tend to get attacked and mixed up , and often new genres are generated and old ones fade . These changes are often reactions against the prior cultural form , which typically has grown stale and repetitive . An obsession emerges among the mainstream with the new movement , and the old one falls into neglect - sometimes it dies out entirely , but often it chugs along favored in a few disciplines and occasionally making reappearances ( sometimes prefixed with " neo -"). ___MASK85___ , officially the ___MASK10___ , is a unitary parliamentary republic in Europe . Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea , ___MASK85___ shares open land borders with France , Switzerland , ___MASK52___ , Slovenia , San Marino and ___MASK6___ . ___MASK85___ covers an area of and has a largely temperate seasonal climate and Mediterranean climate ; due to its shape , it is often referred to in ___MASK85___ as " lo Stivale " ( the Boot ). With 61 million inhabitants , it is the fourth most populous EU member state . In art history , High Renaissance is the period denoting the apogee of the visual arts in the Italian Renaissance . The High Renaissance period is traditionally taken to begin in the 1490s , with Leonardo ' s fresco of the Last Supper in Milan and the death of Lorenzo de ' Medici in ___MASK79___ , and to have ended in 1527 with the sacking of Rome by the troops of Charles V . This term was first used in German ( Hochrenaissance ) in the early nineteenth century , and has its origins in the " High Style " of painting and sculpture described by Johann Joachim Winckelmann . Over the last twenty years , use of the term has been frequently criticized by academic art historians for oversimplifying artistic developments , ignoring historical context , and focusing only on a few iconic works . ___MASK6___ , officially ___MASK6___ State or the State of ___MASK6___ , is a walled enclave within the city of Rome . With an area of approximately 44 hectares ( 110 acres ), and a population of 842 , it is the smallest State in the world by both area and population , but formally it is not sovereign , sovereignty being held by the Holy See , the only entity of public international law that has diplomatic relations with almost every country in the world . A room is any distinguishable space within a structure . Usually , a room is separated from other spaces or passageways by interior walls ; moreover , it is separated from outdoor areas by an exterior wall , sometimes with a door . Historically the use of rooms dates at least to early Minoan cultures about 2200 BC , where excavations on Santorini , ___MASK47___ at Akrotiri reveal clearly defined rooms within certain structures . In the history of Europe , the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted from the 5th to the 15th century . It began with the fall of the ___MASK61___ and merged into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery . The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history : classical antiquity , the medieval period , and the modern period . The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early , High , and Late Middle Ages . ___MASK79___ is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the Metropolitan City of ___MASK79___ . It is the most populous city in Tuscany , with 383 , 083 inhabitants , expanding to over 1 , 520 , 000 in the metropolitan area . Johann Joachim Winckelmann ( 9 December 1717  8 June 1768 ) was a German art historian and archaeologist . He was a pioneering Hellenist who first articulated the difference between Greek , Greco - Roman and Roman art . " The prophet and founding hero of modern archaeology ", Winckelmann was one of the founders of scientific archaeology and first applied the categories of style on a large , systematic basis to the history of art . Many consider him the father of the discipline of art history . His would be the decisive influence on the rise of the neoclassical movement during the late 18th century . His writings influenced not only a new science of archaeology and art history but Western painting , sculpture , literature and even philosophy . Winckelmann ' s " History of Ancient Art " ( 1764 ) was one of the first books written in German to become a classic of European literature . His subsequent influence on Lessing , Herder , Goethe , Hölderlin , Heine , Nietzsche , George , and Spengler has been provocatively called " the Tyranny of ___MASK47___ over Germany ." The Sistine Chapel is a chapel in the Apostolic Palace , the official residence of the Pope , in ___MASK6___ . Originally known as the " Cappella Magna ", the chapel takes its name from Pope Sixtus IV , who restored it between 1477 and 1480 . Since that time , the chapel has served as a place of both religious and functionary papal activity . Today it is the site of the Papal conclave , the process by which a new pope is selected . The fame of the Sistine Chapel lies mainly in the frescos that decorate the interior , and most particularly the Sistine Chapel ceiling and " The Last Judgment " by Michelangelo . The Apostolic Palace is the official residence of the Pope , which is located in ___MASK6___ . It is also known as the Papal Palace , Palace of the Vatican and Vatican Palace . The Vatican itself refers to the building as the Palace of Sixtus V in honor of Pope Sixtus V . A ceiling is an overhead interior surface that covers the upper limits of a room . It is not generally considered a structural element , but a finished surface concealing the underside of the roof structure or the floor of a storey above . Ceilings can be decorated to taste , and there are many fine examples of frescoes and artwork on ceilings especially in religious buildings . The Sistine Chapel ceiling , painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512 , is a cornerstone work of High Renaissance art . The ceiling is that of the Sistine Chapel , the large papal chapel built within the Vatican between 1477 and 1480 by Pope Sixtus IV , for whom the chapel is named . It was painted at the commission of Pope Julius II . The chapel is the location for papal conclaves and many important services . The ceiling ' s various painted elements form part of a larger scheme of decoration within the Chapel , which includes the large fresco The Last Judgment on the sanctuary wall , also by Michelangelo , wall paintings by several leading painters of the late 15th century including Sandro Botticelli , Domenico Ghirlandaio and Pietro Perugino , and a set of large tapestries by Raphael , the whole illustrating much of the doctrine of the Catholic Church . Central to the ceiling decoration are nine scenes from the Book of Genesis of which The Creation of Adam is the best known , having an iconic standing equalled only by Leonardo da Vinci ' s Mona Lisa , the hands of God and Adam being reproduced in countless imitations . The complex design includes several sets of individual figures , both clothed and nude , which allowed Michelangelo to fully demonstrate his skill in creating a huge variety of poses for the human figure , and have provided an enormously influential pattern book of models for other artists ever since . Rome is a city and special " comune " ( named " Roma Capitale ") in ___MASK85___ . Rome is the capital of ___MASK85___ and of the ___MASK27___ region . With 2 , 870 , 336 residents in , it is also the country ' s largest and most populated " comune " and fourth - most populous city in the European Union by population within city limits . The Metropolitan City of Rome has a population of 4 . 3 million residents . The city is located in the central - western portion of the Italian Peninsula , within ___MASK27___ ( Latium ), along the shores of Tiber river . The ___MASK6___ is an independent country geographically located within the city boundaries of Rome , the only existing example of a country within a city : for this reason Rome has been often defined as capital of two states . Europe is a continent that comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia . Europe is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north , the ___MASK4___ to the west , and the Mediterranean Sea to the south . To the east and southeast , Europe is generally considered as separated from Asia by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains , the Ural River , the Caspian and Black Seas , and the waterways of the Turkish Straits . Yet the non - oceanic borders of Europe  a concept dating back to classical antiquity  are arbitrary . The primarily physiographic term " continent " as applied to Europe also incorporates cultural and political elements whose discontinuities are not always reflected by the continent ' s current overland boundaries . Classical antiquity ( also the classical era , classical period or classical age ) is a term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea , comprising the interlocking civilizations of ___MASK35___ and ancient Rome , collectively known as the Greco - Roman world . It is the period in which Greek and Roman society flourished and wielded great influence throughout Europe , North Africa and Southwestern Asia . Renaissance art is the painting , sculpture and decorative arts of that period of European history known as the Renaissance , emerging as a distinct style in ___MASK85___ in about 1400 , in parallel with developments which occurred in philosophy , literature , music and science . The Renaissance art , perceived as the noblest of ancient traditions , took as its foundation the art of Classical antiquity , but transformed that tradition by absorbing recent developments in the art of Northern Europe and by applying contemporary scientific knowledge . Renaissance art , with Renaissance Humanist philosophy , spread throughout Europe , affecting both artists and their patrons with the development of new techniques and new artistic sensibilities . Renaissance art marks the transition of Europe from the medieval period to the Early Modern age . Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni ( 6 March 1475  18 February 1564 ) was an Italian sculptor , painter , architect , and poet of the High Renaissance who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art . Considered to be the greatest living artist during his lifetime , he has since been described as one of the greatest artists of all time . Despite making few forays beyond the arts , his versatility in the disciplines he took up was of such a high order that he is often considered a contender for the title of the archetypal Renaissance man , along with his rival and fellow Florentine Medici client , Leonardo da Vinci . The Renaissance was a period in European history , from the 14th to the 17th century , regarded as the cultural bridge between the Middle Ages and modern history . It started as a cultural movement in ___MASK85___ in the Late Medieval period and later spread to the rest of Europe , marking the beginning of the Early Modern Age .