The Last Judgement

Luca Signorelli's Last Judgement, masterpiece of Renaissance art, is the third large fresco cycle in the cathedral, after that of the Chapel of the Corporal and that of the Tribune, both painted by Ugolino di Prete Ilario in the course of the second half of the fourteenth century. Then in the latter half of the sixteenth century the walls and niches of side aisles were covered with frescoes depicting Prophets and Sibyls and scenes from the life of Christ and the Saints. Unfortunately this imposing fresco complex was dismantled and destroyed in the late nineteenth-century restoration.

The imposing depiction of the Last Judgement is distributed as follows:

• Upon entering the chapel, in the first bay centered on the "end of the world", the visitor finds himself with the scene of the End of the World behind him; on the left wall is the Preaching of the Antichrist and on the right the Resurrection of the Flesh;
• in the second bay, he sees simultaneously the results of Divine Judgement: Christ the Judge in front above the altar; the separation of the elect from the damned (facing wall); Paradise (on the left) and Hell (on the right). In a corner of the wall with the Deeds of the Antichrist two figures dressed in black traditionally identified as Fra Angelico and Luca Signorelli, observe the scenes.

On the walls below the large lunettes Signorelli placed an iconographic cycle dedicated to the Illustrious Men whose portraits are surrounded by small grisaille scenes illustrating their works.

The decorative program exploits the architectural features of the chapel. The vault sections are enclosed in fictive architectural members with symbols of the resurrection and afterlife (pomegranates, peonies, lotus flowers and acanthus leaves). Particularly effective is the perspective-illusionistic setup of the walls, with a fictive framework of vertical pilasters and horizontal cornices dividing them into two registers.