Callaway Arts & Entertainment is proud to present this extraordinary three-volume collectors' set edition on the Sistine Chapel, the result of a five-year collaboration with the Vatican Museums and the Italian art publisher Scripta Maneant of Bologna, Italy.

Employing ultra-high-resolution digital photography capture of the entire chapel, along with the finest Italian bookmaking craftsmanship, it is also the culmination of Callaway's 35 years publishing the world's finest art books.

This giant, three-volume, 24 x 17 inch, 822-page magnum opus features state-of-the-art colour and printing fidelity, colour matched against the actual frescoes, to produce a 1:1 life scale rendition of masterworks by Michelangelo, Botticelli, Perugino, and other Renaissance artists as the world has never seen them.
The Vatican Museums has limited the worldwide publication to 1,999 copies with only 600 available in the English language for the world. The work will never be reprinted.

To create the ultimate book of this masterpiece, a team of photographers made more than 270,000 images over the course of consecutive 65 nights, while the Sistine Chapel was closed. Using a 33-foot-tall scaffold and rig to capture every inch of the chapel with advanced optics and digital photography, the team was able to utilize three-dimensional reconstruction software to stitch together seamlessly all 270,000 individual frames to reproduce the Chapel to an unprecedented level of color and detail. The result is the first opportunity in history for viewers to see the frescoes as Michelangelo and the other artists painted them, with images so detailed and sharp and immersive that you feel that you are there next to the artist, seeing in extreme close-up the precise colours, textures, even the artists' individual brush strokes.

The words of Antonio Paolucci, former director of the Vatican Museums, accompany the reader on the journey through the Sistine Chapel as he unveils each scene depicted in the magnificent art: the commissions and stories behind the masterpieces, the hidden details, the colors, the vigorous brushstrokes in a race against time in fresco painting techniques, the expression in the eyes and gestures of the characters portrayed.

'Now more than ever, when travel is limited and the immense amount of digital immagery fatigues the eye, these magnificient volumes can serve as a tonic for the soul. Whether seen as a triump of photography, a monument of scholarship, or a luxurious asset, this is a work to covert and, for the fortunate, to own.' — Robert B. Simon, Art Historian and Art Dealer

'More than 500 years after Michelangelo applied his paintbrush to the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Callaway Arts and Entertainment will publish The Sistine Chapel, an ambitious three-volume set that essentially places the reader alongside the Renaissance genius to view his masterwork. The oversize 24"× 17" volumes' 822 pages are encased in silk covers in silver, gold, and platinum, and each weighs a healthy 20 lbs. The images in the books were captured with state-of-the-art gigapixel photography and color-matched against the originals with 99.4% accuracy, reproducing 1:1 scale renditions of Michelangelo's frescoes as well as those of Botticelli, Perugino, Ghirlandaio, and other Renaissance artists in the Vatican City chapel...."It's safe to say, without exaggeration, that it is both the definitive and ultimate book on the Sistine Chapel.' — Publishers Weekly