The Sistine Chapel is hosting its 26th conclave

The Sistine Chapel, usually part of the Vatican Museums' tourist circuit, has once again become a sacred place for a few days. This continues the tradition of conclaves held there since the election of Pope Alexander VI Borgia in 1492, in a building that was then still unfinished.

Barbara Jatta presented the site as a “living catechesis” that “bears witness to the relationship between man and the infinite.” This ambitious 15th-century construction resulted in a rectangular building over 131 feet long and nearly 43 feet high. The frescoes, commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV, were painted between 1481 and 1483 by artists from the Florentine School.

They constitute “a visual narrative celebrating salvation history, intertwining events from the Old Testament, with panels depicting the life of Moses, and those from the New Testament, with frescoes focusing on the life of Christ,” explained Jatta.

This “Bible in pictures” had a particularly impressive impact on visitors in the past, “who were not bombarded with images as we are today,” she noted.

It was several years later — after the first conclave held in this place in 1492 — that Michelangelo painted the vault, over a period of four years, from 1508 to 1512.

“For the cardinals gathered in a conclave under this frescoed vault, contemplating these images evokes the spiritual responsibility of their vote,” explained Jatta.

Commissioned during the pontificate of Julius II, this work depicts scenes from Genesis, the most famous being the Creation of Adam, representing God the Father giving life to the first man. An ambitious restoration, completed in 1994, restored the work to its former glory, its colors having been obscured over the centuries.

From 1536 to 1541, Michelangelo, now much older, devoted 456 days to the creation of The Last Judgment. This fresco is “a warning to the cardinal electors gathered in a conclave in this very special chapel, as they cast their decisive vote for the future of the Church, before The Last Judgment,” explained Jatta.

Upon seeing this fresco on the eve of All Saints' Day in 1541, Pope Paul III is said to have collapsed in tears, kneeling in prayer.

The Sistine Chapel traditionally became the site of many subsequent conclaves, with an interruption in the 19th century: it was in Venice that the cardinals elected Pope Pius VII, after the tragic death of his predecessor Pius VI, who had been deported by revolutionary France.

His successors, Leo XIII, Pius VIII, Gregory XVI, and Pius IX, were elected at the Quirinal Palace, now occupied by the Presidency of the Italian Republic.

The tradition of holding the conclave in the Sistine Chapel was restored in 1878 for the election of Pope Leo XIII, eight years after the fall of the Papal States, in a context of rupture with Italy, with the pope considering himself a “prisoner” in the Vatican.

But it wasn’t until 1996 that Pope John Paul II formally established the Sistine Chapel as the official venue for conclaves in his apostolic constitution Universi Dominici Gregis.

Describing the conclave as “one of the most secret and mysterious events in the world,” the director of the Vatican Museums presented some of the arrangements made for the election of the 267th pope.

The chapel has been furnished with cherry wood chairs, marked with the first and last names of each cardinal elector, and rough wooden tables covered with beige fabric and burgundy satin, arranged in two rows on different levels.

In front of the altar, under The Last Judgment, there is a table for the rough wooden urn where the ballots will be collected, and a lectern with the book of the Gospels on which the cardinals took their oath. The cardinals do not walk directly on the floor of the Sistine Chapel, but on a flat wooden structure covered with beige fabric, 50-60 centimeters above the floor and in line with the second step of the altar.

For the procession into the Sistine Chapel, the cardinals entered in order by rank and year of creation as cardinals, according to protocol, from the most recent cardinal-deacon (Koovakad) to the most senior cardinal-bishop (Parolin). The cardinals took their oaths in reverse order.

Only at the end of the oath — and with the final phrase “extra omnes” pronounced by the Master of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations, Monsignor Diego Ravelli — did the conclave officially begin, and thus the voting process.

Each cardinal has a number (from 1 to 133). A random drawing using numbered balls will assign a few technical functions: scrutineers, “nurses” (who collect the votes of any cardinal who is in the conclave but is sick and unable to present his ballot himself), and revisers.

Once the name has been written on the ballot paper under the words “Eligo in Summum Pontificem,” each cardinal elector will go to the altar with the folded ballot paper clearly visible, place it on a silver tray set on the urn, and slide it into the urn.

If someone obtains at least 89 votes, which is the threshold required to obtain a two-thirds majority, after the solemn acceptance of the man elected as Bishop of Rome, the ballots will be burned, so that the famous white smoke will be visible from St. Peter's Square.

At the end of the conclave, the new pontiff will retire to the “room of tears,” that is, the sacristy of the Sistine Chapel. There, he will don the pontifical vestments with which he will henceforth appear in public.

The name of the room comes from the custom whereby the pontiff is moved to tears by the weight of responsibility of the role he is called upon to play. Traditionally, the sacristy contains papal vestments in three different sizes, so that they can be adjusted to fit the new pontiff as closely as possible.

After the prayer for the new pontiff and the homage of the cardinals, the “Te Deum” will be sung, marking the end of the conclave. After the formal announcement of the election of the pope and his name by the cardinal protodeacon to the people gathered in St. Peter's Square, the new pope appears on the loggia of St. Peter's Basilica. Since the election of John Paul II in 1978, it has become tradition for the new pontiff to give an impromptu speech.

Watch the Chapel being prepared for the conclave: