Judging the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel

Dr. Michael O’Connor, Associate Professor, St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto

In the 1530s Michelangelo added the Last Judgment to the previous work he and others had painted in the Sistine Chapel. In doing so, he completed but also disrupted the artistic program of the Chapel begun half a century earlier under the patronage of Pope Sixtus IV.

Is the result a success? This talk will consider different answers to that question.

Michael O’Connor is Associate Professor, Teaching Stream, in the Christianity and Culture program and Book and Media Studies program at St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto.

His research interests include music and liturgy, early modern intellectual history (especially Renaissance Rome), Christianity and the arts, and history of biblical exegesis. Recent courses have included “Ritual and Worship” and the First Year Foundations Seminar “The Sistine Chapel: History, Image, Use.”

Professor O’Connor is the director of the St. Michael’s Schola Cantorum and the college Singing Club. A board member of the Society for Christian Scholarship in Music and the Royal School of Music, Canada, he is also active as composer, arranger, and music editor.

He arrived at the University of St. Michael’s College in 2005. He formerly served as Warden of the Royal School of Music, UK and Lecturer in Theology, Ushaw College, UK. Professor O’Connor holds degrees from Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome (STB, STL), and Oxford, Oriel College (DPhil).