The pictorial divisions are therefore horizontal in the main, though so combined and varied as to produce the effect of multiplied curves, balancing and antiphonally inverting their lines of sinuosity.

The pendentive upon which the prophet Jonah sits, descends and breaks the surface at the top, leaving a semicircular compartment on each side of its corbel.
Michelangelo filled these upper spaces with two groups of wrestling angels, the one bearing a huge cross, the other a column, in the air.
The cross and whipping-post are the chief emblems of Christ's Passion.
The crown of thorns is also there, the sponge, the ladder, and the nails.

It is with no merciful intent that these signs of our Lord's suffering are thus exhibited.

Demonic angels, tumbling on clouds like Leviathans, hurl them to and fro in brutal wrath above the crowd of souls, as though to demonstrate the justice of damnation.

In spite of a God's pain and shameful death, mankind has gone on sinning.