Last Judgment; after Michelangelo's fresco in the Sistine Chapel

Art Historical Context

This engraving by Giorgio Ghisi captures Michelangelo’s monumental *Last Judgment* fresco from the Sistine Chapel, completed just a few years earlier in 1541. Created around 1545, the print translates the dramatic scene of Christ’s second coming and the resurrection of the dead into a large-scale reproductive work. Ghisi’s careful line work preserves the powerful gestures, swirling figures, and emotional intensity of Michelangelo’s original, allowing viewers far from Rome to experience one of the Renaissance’s most ambitious compositions. Printed on three separate plates and measuring over two feet across, the engraving demonstrates the technical sophistication of mid-sixteenth-century printmaking. By reproducing the fresco in such detail, Ghisi helped spread Michelangelo’s revolutionary vision across Europe at a time when few could travel to the Vatican. The irregularly shaped sheet reflects the practical challenges of printing such a vast and complex image while maintaining its awe-inspiring scale. Today housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, this print stands as both an artistic achievement and a historical document, illustrating how Renaissance masterpieces reached new audiences through the emerging medium of engraving.

About the Artist

Michelangelo Buonarroti|Giorgio Ghisi · 1475–1564

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475–1564) stands as the quintessential figure of the Italian High Renaissance, a sculptor, painter, architect, and poet whose mastery across disciplines embodied the era's humanist ideals. Born on March 6, 1475, in Caprese within the Republic of Florence to a modest family—his father, Lodovico di Buonarroti Simoni, served as a minor magistrate—Michelang...