Volta della Cappella Sistina - la sibilla persica

By 1511 Michelangelo had been up on the scaffolding of the Sistine Chapel for three years, and the figures he painted in this later stretch grew larger and bolder than the ones he began with. The Persian Sibyl is one of the pagan prophetesses he set among the Hebrew prophets, included to suggest that the coming of Christ had been foretold across the whole ancient world, not to one people alone. She turns her back to us, hunched over a heavy book that she holds right up against her face. Vasari, who knew Michelangelo, said the painter meant to show great age here, the blood gone cold under all those robes and the eyes so weak she has to press the page close to read it at all.