Sistine Chapel ceiling despair or jubilation. Among the artists in whose work can be seen the direct influence of Michelangelo are Pontormo, Andrea del Sarto, Correggio, Tintoretto, Annibale Carracci, Paolo Veronese and El Greco. In January 2007, it was claimed that as many as 10,000 visitors passed through the Vatican Museums in a day and that the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is the biggest attraction. The Vatican, anxious at the possibility that the newly restored frescoes will suffer damage, announced plans to reduce visiting hours and raise the price in an attempt to discourage visitors. Five hundred years earlier Vasari had said
Sistine Chapel ceiling Julius who began the rebuilding of St. Peter's Basilica in 1506, as the most potent symbol of the source of papal power. In the same year 1506, Pope Julius conceived a program to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. The walls of the chapel had been decorated twenty years earlier. The lowest of three levels is painted to resemble draped hangings and was (and sometimes still is) hung on special occasions with the set of tapestries designed by Raphael. The middle level contains a complex scheme of frescoes illustrating the "Life of Christ" on the right side and the