Twenty-eight years after starting on the ceiling, Michelangelo began to work on the Last Judgement. Pope Clement VII invoked the commission «so that he could show in that story all that the art of drawing could do» but also to make a rather large statement during his pontificate that salvation was only possible through the Church. Jesus and Mary are centered, his arm raised and seemingly directing the flow of all in the painting: the souls on the bottom left rising into heaven, and those on the right falling into hell. Jesus and Mary are surrounded by the martyrs, those who have died in the name of their Christian faith, including St. Bartholomew, who was skinned alive. He is directly underneath Christ, to the right. In the face of the flayed skin, the tortured Michelangelo decided to paint his own self-portrait. A group of angels below the martyrs blow their trumpets as if signaling the end of earthly life, while the angels above the saints carry symbols referring to the Passion of the Christ.