La Descente du mont Sinaï

When Cosimo Rosselli painted this wall in 1481, he was one of a team of Florentine and Umbrian masters that Pope Sixtus IV had called to Rome to decorate the new chapel that now carries his name. Michelangelo's ceiling was still half a century away. This is the Sistine Chapel before it became Michelangelo's. Rosselli tells the whole story of the Ten Commandments across one field. High on the mountain Moses kneels to receive the tablets from God in a burst of light. Below, his people have given up on him and dance around a golden calf, and in the centre Moses comes down and smashes the tablets in fury. Rosselli was the painter who leaned hardest on gold and bright colour here, hoping to catch the Pope's eye among sharper talents like Botticelli, working a few feet away.