Previously, we've discussed the life of Michelangelo (1475-1564), the Italian Renaissance artist whose work was so superior that his contemporaries called him "Il Divino," or "the divine one."

    His work on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel inside Rome's Vatican is widely considered one of the greatest achievements in Western art, and is No. 2 on the list of great works we're examining.

    The chapel was built by Pope Sixtus IV; the term "Sistine" is an English adjective form of his name. But it was Pope Julius II who commissioned Michelangelo to do the work, completed between 1508 and 1512.

    Art has been called the "Bible of the poor," teaching Bible stories in pictures for those who could not read or afford to buy a book in the days in which the art was made. As such, there is probably no greater "volume" than that of the Sistine Chapel.

    Michelangelo's scheme is a masterpiece. At its center are nine scenes from the first book of the Bible, "Genesis" (a name which means "beginnings" or "origins"): God is seen separating light from darkness, creating the sun, moon, and earth, also creating Adam and Eve and so on.

    Around these central scenes are 12 prophets, five on each side and one at either end. Surprisingly, only seven of these are Biblical figures, all of them men who (the people of the Renaissance believed) predicted the coming of Christ. The other five are women from the Classical tradition, and are called Sibyls--priestesses of the Greek gods. Remember, this was the time when Classical learning was being revived in the West (hence the term Renaissance, or "rebirth"), and scholars were mining Classical texts for what they thought were proofs of their beliefs. So it was thought that these Sibyls, who knew nothing of the Bible, had also foretold Christ's coming, hundreds of years before he was born.

    Two other important elements are four Biblical scenes located in the corners, such as the battle between David and Goliath and 33 images of the supposed ancestors of Jesus.

    Vocabulary: Which word above means:

    1. literally, digging in the ground, also, searching for information

    2. relating to God

    3. the holy book of the Christians

    4. the head of the Roman Catholic Church

    5. people who tell the future

    6. from the time of the Greeks and Romans

    7. the world's smallest country, headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church

    8. another word for "book"

    9. a small church

    ANSWERS: 1. mining 2. divine 3. the Bible 4. Pope 5. prophets 6. Classical 7. Vatican 8. volume 9. chapel