Sistine Chapel ceiling the dynamic motion, the luminous colouration, the haunting expressions of the figures in the lunettes, the abundance of putti. Gabriele Bartz and Eberhard König have said of the "Ignudi", "There is no image that has had a more lasting effect on following generations than this. Henceforth similar figures disported themselves in innumerable decorative works, be they painted, formed in stucco or even sculpted." Within Michelangelo's own work, the chapel ceiling led to the later and more Mannerist painting of the Last Judgement in which the crowded compositions gave full rein to his inventiveness in painting contorted and foreshortened figures expressing
Sistine Chapel ceiling was made to rich and to poor, to mighty and to humble, to Jew and to Gentile. The Three Wise Men (the "Magi" of the Bible) who sought out the infant King with precious gifts were pagan foreigners. In the Roman Catholic Church, where there was an increasing interest in the remains of the city's pagan past, where scholars turned from reading Medieval Church Latin to Classical Latin and the philosophies of the Classical world were studied along with the writings of St Augustine, the presence, in the Sistine Chapel of five pagan prophets is not surprising. It is not