Sistine Chapel ceiling Section reference. Michelangelo wrote a poem describing the arduous conditions under which he worked The overt subject matter of the ceiling is the doctrine of humanity's need for Salvation as offered by God through Jesus. It is a visual metaphor of Humankind's need for a covenant with God. The Old Covenant of the Children of Israel through Moses and the New Covenant through Christ had already been represented around the walls of the chapel. Some experts, including Benjamin Blech and Vatican art historian Enrico Bruschini, have also noted less overt subject matter, which they describe as being "concealed" and "forbidden."
Illusionistic ceiling painting sotto in sù". This was the prototype of illusionistic ceiling painting that was to become an important element of Italian baroque. Correggio at Parma took the illusionistic ceiling a step farther in his frescoes of Christ and the Apostles for the cupola at the San Giovanni Evangelista and in the "Assumption of the Virgin" in the dome of the Cathedral of Parma, which is Correggio's most famous work (1520–24); in these frescos Correggio treats the entire surface as the vast and frameless vault of heaven in which the figures float. In a visual continuity between the architectural interior and its