Michelangelo Hibbard

Although the Italian composer, Michelangelo Rossi, was hailed in his lifetime as a violin virtuoso, a distinguished madrigalist and composer of two operas, his reputation is founded on his astonishingly original and technically advanced keyboard music. Rossi’s Toccatas and Correnti combine Frescobaldi’s mastery of counterpoint with the chromaticism and sudden modulations of Gesualdo and Sigismondo d’India, resulting in a very personal idiom. This is most clearly heard in Toccata Settima, the best known of Rossi’s keyboard works, which has tremendous energy and drama, and concludes with an extraordinary passage of rising and falling chromatic scales.

Arguably the world's most famous work of art, millions of people visit it every year. Until now however nobody has been able to explain exactly what the Sistine Chapel's ceiling is actually trying to tell us. Though important and timely the film (airing as it does to celebrate the 500th birthday of the work) it is also the product of the detective work and obsessive scholarship by art critic Waldemar Januszczak which spans the last 30 years. During this time he has been trying to unlock the secrets of Sistine Chapel's complex pictorial codes and sumptuous iconography.

To produce one of the world's great masterpieces is impressive. To create three is truly astonishing - but this is exactly what Michelangelo did five hundred years ago.