Art Institute of Chicago

The Eritrean Sibyl

Giorgio Ghisi (Italian, 1520-1582)

Date

c. 1570

Medium

Engraving on ivory laid paper

Culture

Italy

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Giorgio Ghisi engraved six of the twelve prophets and sibyls from the pendentives of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel ceiling fresco almost 60 years after its completion. This prophetess, a priestess of Apollo in ancient Greece, was included as part of the Sistine cycle because she was said to have prophesied the coming of the Redemption through Christ. (The presence of Michelangelo’s nude staffage figures elicited a later, censored state of the print with fig leaves.)

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