Sistine Chapel ceiling

The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the papal chapel in the Vatican, was painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512.
The ceiling was painted at the commission of Pope Julius II.
Suppose Michelangelo was not the painter. Who would have painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?
 
There was an intense politicking behind the Sistine Ceiling. Michelangelo was originally brought to Rome for the purpose of sculpting a tomb for Julius II. That took 30 years to do, and lead to a much diminished project that in his memoirs he dubbed The Tragedy of the Tomb.

However, Bramante - the pope's architect - disliked Michelangelo, and wished to show him up in front of the pope, thereby precipitating his fall from favor. Thus, he suggested to the pope that he make use of Mike to paint that football pitch-sized stretch of plaster...blah-blah-blah he paints the ceiling until halfway (when Julius was campaigning in Bologna).

Then Bramante (seeing how much this plan of his had failed), suggests to the pope that his protege, Raffaello Sanzio, should take over the job and paint the other half. The pope refused, and Mike had to finish the ceiling.

The problem with the idea of getting someone else to paint the ceiling, is that you will need a complete mind-shift for Julius II. He was determined Michelangelo would paint that ceiling. When Mike ran away to Florence after the commission for the tomb was yanked and substituted for the ceiling, Julius wrote to the authorities in Florence:

"Michelangelo...that great artist, who left us in a fit of petulance and without reason, has returned to your bosom... We rely on you to persuade him to return to us."

So, of course the Florentine government panics - this is il papa guerriero after all - and they get Michelangelo to go back to Rome, however unwillingly.

Thus to get a Sistine Chapel ceiling not by Michelangelo di Ludovico di Buonarotti you either need Julius or Michelangelo (*probably both) to die before the commission is handed out. And then, Raffaello is the pope's painter, so he would probably get the commission and the Sistine would look a lot like the Stanze.

*I say both, because with The Last Judgement, a pope commissioned it a few days before he kicked, and his successor still said that Michelangelo must do it, despite the artist's protests.
 
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