Descent from Mount Sinai (Sistine Chapel)

Descent from Mount Sinai is a fresco from 1481 to 1482 painted by the Florentine artist Cosimo Rosselli and his workshop on the north wall of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, part of the chapel cycle of scenes from the lives of Moses and Christ. The composition combines several episodes from Exodus into one scene: Moses receiving the tablets of the Law from God on Mount Sinai, presenting them to the Israelites below, and breaking them on seeing the people worshipping the golden calf. Paired with the parallel scenes of the life of Christ elsewhere in the chapel, the fresco was part of a decorative program meant to show continuity between the Old and New Testaments and to reinforce the authority of the papacy through the succession from Peter.