Last Judgement Fresco in the Cupola of the Santa Maria del Fiore, Firenze

The interior of Brunelleschi's dome is covered with a fresco of the Last Judgement painted between 1568 and 1579. This enormous painting, which covers an area of over  3,600 square metres, was started by Giorgio Vasari and completed, after his death in 1574, by Federico Zuccari. Vasari painted the section closest to the lantern whcih portrays the 24 Elders from Chapter 4 of the Apocalypse, the last book of the bible. Zuccari completed the sections (in descending order) depicting the Choir of Angels, Christ  Mary and the Saints, the Virtues, the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, the Beatitudes, and Capital Sins and Hell. Although Zuccari's work is praised by art historians, the technical quality of the fresco as a whole is said to have suffered from the input of several assistants who used different techniques. Even the masters, Vasari and Zuccari, practiced different techniques. Zuccari painted on dry plaster whereas his predecessor Vasari preferred wet plaster.

© 2007 LACT Limited. All rights reserved. Image published under GNU Free Documentation License, version 1.2 or later.

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