By Jeannie Marshall (Bibliosis, 2023)
REVIEW Adele Weder
For much of the past millennium, Christian iconography has dominated the Western world?s art and architecture, often fusing the two fields together in one building. The fresco-packed Sistine Chapel, embedded within the Pope?s official residence in Vatican City, is one of the most renowned of such structures. In her book All Things Move: Learning to Look at the Sistine Chapel, Jeannie Marshall makes a unique case for considering the Chapel as something other than a religious enclave, scholarly artifact, or checklist tourist attraction. It?s all those, of course, but its otherworldly qualities transcend religious, academic, or tour-bus affiliations. 
Built in the late 15th century, the Chapel is mostly celebrated for being lined with masterpiece frescoes of Biblical scenes, painted by many of the best Renaissance artists. But the building itself cannot be separated from those embedded images on its walls and ceilings?neither conceptually nor literally. It is difficult to even think of the Sistine Chapel scrubbed of its art: it would transform into a different building altogether. The circulation passages, the trompe-l?oeil cornices painted onto the ceilings and corners: all of this this underpins the author?s engagement with the building?s famed frescoes. Marshall has spent the past 20 years living in Rome, periodically visited the Chapel, and has interwoven history, memoir, and journalistic observation to explore new ...