How many people when looking at Michelangelo's decoration of the Sistine Chapel ceiling, or his painting of the 'Last Judgement', ever give a thought to the Popes who commissioned them? Or to the problems besetting the Church at that time? Yet they span a period when the supremacy of the Papacy was under increasing threat and the Catholic Church itself faced one of the greatest challenges to its authority: the Reformation.

This lecture will look at these two works in the light of these challenges and how Michelangelo's revolutionary approach responded to, and in turn reflected, these challenges.