What the Sistine chapel says to the cardinals

Seven keys to unlocking the art of the conclave

In a matter of hours, all eyes will be on the Sistine chapel as the College of Cardinals gathers to elect a new pope.

For most tourists and many novelists, the paintings in the Sistine chapel merely serve as an ornamental backdrop to the politicking and intrigues of the conclave.Yet every brushstroke is charged with meaning.

St John Paul II, who oversaw the cleaning of the frescos during his twenty-six-year pontificate, considered the space so sacred that he enshrined it as the permanent home of the conclave. In Universi Dominici Gregis he wrote:

“I decree that the election continues to take place in the Sistine Chapel, where everything contributes to fostering awareness of the presence of God, before whom each one will one day stand for judgment.”

Decorated over a span of 75 years by artists in close collaboration with three popes, the art of the Sistine chapel was always intended to preach to the preachers, especially during the critical moment when the cardinals deliberate on the choice of a new pope.

Today, films and novels portraying the chapel and its artistic wonders mostly ignore the spiritual messages that the original patrons and artists intended to convey.

So here are seven keys to the art of the Sistine chapel—seven messages that cardinal-electors were meant to ponder at this crucial moment in the life of the Church: